#62: There are Millions of Us Standing in His Way

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A couple of days in the Trump presidency can tell you a lot about every other day. Ever since John McCain cast the deciding vote in keeping the Affordable Care Act alive, resisters have been pining for more principled action from Republican Senators. As these missives have emphasized, these steps have been too few and too far between. The reasons are clear too--- these Senators would like to be the ones to decide how long they are going to serve. They are afraid that if they say too much or do too much that Donald Trump will poison their essential support among their state’s Republican voters. And they are right to worry about that. Of course the flip side of Trump’s strong party control is an outcome that also has a lot to do with Trump. He may have Republican party loyalty but due to him the percentage of people identifying as Republicans is falling.

Thus, we all glory when any Republican Senator says no to any aspect of this disastrous Presidency. Richard Burr has protected the Mueller investigation, Susan Collins kept the estate tax from being abolished, and several Senators have worked to sustain our commitment to Kurdish fighters battling Isis in Iraq.

Wednesday and Thursday the 13th and 14th were especially intense on these fronts. On Wednesday, 7 Republican Senators voted with the Democrats to temporarily block aid to Saudi Arabia for their war in Yemen. These Senators are upset with the Trump administration’s failure to confront the Saudi’s murder of Adnan Khashoggi. Then on Thursday, 12 Republicans voted with the Democrats to block Trump’s emergency declaration which unconstitutionally seizes appropriated funds for the wall. Trump will veto both actions, but nonetheless it’s momentarily comforting to see these Senators remember their oath of office. The temporary renegades included several nice surprises, including Jerry Moran of Kansas and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

What happened in between those two votes shows how much further we need to go, and how essential it is to flip the Senate. On Wednesday night Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse decided to head over to the White House to hang out with the President and get him to agree to a deal that would avert the vote against the emergency declaration. Their proposal (which Trump rejected) was that the Senate would assent to this particular crisis-inventing emergency declaration if he would agree to work with them to subsequently narrow the uncommonly broad Emergency Powers Act. The moral bankruptcy of this approach is breathtaking---- “Mr. President, this specific abrogation of the powers of Congress is so repellent to us that we want you to stop doing things like this after we let you do it this time.”

This sorry story demonstrates how hard it is to move the Republican majority in the Senate even when they are profoundly distressed with this or that unknowing or wrongheaded or duplicitous thing that Trump has done. They have held Trump back in his dismantlement of global alliances, and have protected Mueller, but they have no sustained commitment to helping people in need.

Trump’s proposed budget is wantonly uninterested in the un-fed, unsheltered and uneducated. An administration which was obsessed with giving tax cuts to those with the highest incomes has walked away from the real-life circumstances of those with the lowest incomes. The federal government’s outstretched helping hand has been pulled away.

As difficult as it is to battle for global partnerships and against climate change, resisters face perhaps even greater adversity in fighting for economic opportunity and basic assistance for those with low or no incomes. This is partly because there is nothing even close to a policy consensus about what should be done over time. We need to attend to the absence of a strong, central, affirmative, poverty-battling agenda. New members of Congress tweeting all day long has yet to turn out to be meaningful contribution to this agenda. Hopefully everyone we elected last fall will get increasingly focused on specific steps. Here are three things we can help them do:

1) Fight for Food Security
	Last fall, we had a major victory when Democrats led by Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan blocked an onerous Trump administration proposal which could have thrown nearly a million people off of food stamps. This program is now called SNAP, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. The bulk of the Trump-targeted recipients have received waivers of work rules, which otherwise would limit SNAP assistance for those who have employment or are actively seeking it. The catch is that these of our brethren are the most unskilled, the most addicted, and the most unhoused of our population. The plan should be not to hide the food but to guarantee provision of food and shelter as the underpinning for any goals they have for themselves or the rest of us have for them. Defeated in the Farm Bill, the Trump forces have come forward with a proposed change in the waiver granting rules carried out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  It is unclear whether the President and HHS have the executive powers to establish this rule without Congressional action. It’s time to engage on these matters in an ongoing way. Feeding America is an ideal agent for our increased attention. They are the association of America’s food banks. They will keep you informed, but they will also help you to file a public comment on the proposed rule!
2) Sharpen and Strengthen our Tools for Income Support
	Nearly all of the Democratic presidential candidates correctly see income supports as an important way to mitigate wealth maldistribution. As these efforts grow, it’s essential to be much more grounded in the options to improve this significant step in the pathway out of poverty. The most ambitious approach is Universal Basic Income (UBI), which provides guaranteed income to all. As is the case with many a bold proposal, this approach is very expensive and there is a worry of researchers that it would be a disincentive to work. However, UBI can energize the income support question. Where does income support fit within the world of poverty-battling strategies, including those focused on homelessness, education, food support and asset building? Who would qualify and at what level? How can we use income support to reduce our egregious wealth disparities? A previous missive underscored the usefulness of expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit as a first step down this longer path. This tax credit for low income working families is the most effective income support tool, and thus the best instrument for building broader and more generous support. Sherrod Brown and two House members--- Bo Khanna and Bonnie Watson Coleman are the strong advocates for strengthening the EITC. It would be good to get Presidential candidates to do more advanced work on these matters. Why not email one or more of these Senators at their Senatorial offices and see how they are handling income support issues? Make them get more specific by asking whether they are helping to expand and improve the Earned Income Tax Credit. Cory Booker Amy Klobuchar Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Kamala Harris Kirsten Gillibrand
3) Get Started With Flipping Arizona
	Republican Martha McSally lost to Democrat Krysten Sinema in November, but then was appointed by the Governor to fill John McCain’s vacant seat. This is a prime seat for us to pick up next November, not least because Donald Trump pushed a reluctant but dependent McSally into supporting his executive order. Two strong candidates have already emerged to oppose McSally. These are former astronaut Mark Kelly and member of Congress Ruben Gallego. The way to get started is to keep up the relentless voter registration efforts that helped elect Synema, and which are emphasizing Latino Voters. There is an excellent coalition-driven organization that has taken this all on, called One Arizona. The more we can boost them financially, the more voters they will be able to register, and the better our chances in 2020.

Donald Trump knows all of us are out here. He can go to the campaign rallies of his most loyal believers all he wants and abuse the facts and soak up the cheers. But, we are working harder each and every week, there are many millions of us and we are standing in his way.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#61: Put the Resistance in Every Scene of This Drama

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

Certainly, it is difficult to avoid becoming numb. Donald Trump has escalated his affronts to the constitution and to any conceivable acceptable standard of presidential behavior. Just when you thought he could not be more of an unknowing, incurious, unprincipled con man, he finds a new thing to do or say that to this point would not have been thinkable. 

Once he takes the step of vouching for Kim Jung Un’s character and exempting him from involvement in the death of Otto Wambier, one sees that Trump has reached an all new level in the admiration of autocrats and ignorance of history. It is not an exaggeration to say that as World War II brewed in 1937 Donald Trump would have offered Benito Mussolini a golf game, praised his governmental leadership, and remarked about the warmth of their relationship.

As conservative commentator John Podhoretz reminds, on human rights issues Republicans have been divided over decades between those that want their President to carry the beacon of justice wherever they go, and those that want their President to practice “realpolitik” where he or she is clear-minded about our autocratic adversary’s ethical limitations. Now that we have seen Trump with Putin, the Saudis, Erdrogan, Duterte, and Kim Jong Un, we realize that he does neither - when he is face to face, he does not recognize human rights violations, including the Khashoggi and Wambier deaths, and neither he does he recognize the autocratic leader is anyone different than Angela Merkel, especially if he has received nice notes and generous toasts from them.

When a level of malfeasance becomes this bizarre, we must overcome our numbness and accelerate our activism. We are not sitting in a theatre watching a drama unfold on the screen. We are a part of the picture, and not just in the crowd scenes. We are putting the resistance in every scene. The level of that resistance has been epic, and it must grow. And, we must continue to attend to unthinkable behaviors not just in the world of Trump, but in the world around him.

In the broader world around Trump, craziness emerges which might once have been checked. Former Hilary Clinton aides and Bernie Sanders aides snipe at each other as if we should care about their recriminations. Say to them “Excuse me, but haven’t you noticed we’ve moved forward?” Tell them that what we have going on now is far too important for us to care about their backing and forthing. Tell them they are not nearly as important as they think they are.

Social media gets overwrought at Diane Feinstein’s condescending approach to school kids, but no one tells the teachers and parents that kids are not their pawns. Who reminded these young people that the specific provisions of the Green New Deal matter must be debated, and need the work that Democrats intend to carry out? Even in 2019, social media participation does not represent a legislative process.

There is so much happening all at once. Three grossly unacceptable approaches stand out and must be resisted. First, in the United States Senate, ten Republican Senators who remember their oath of office are desperate to find a way to adhere to that oath while still countenancing Trump’s emergency declaration. Their newest trope is to pretend that the declaration is like the declarations of the past which have gone uncontested. The opposite is the case. This is the first use of emergency powers to intervene in an appropriations dispute and thus obliterate Congress’ constitutional prerogative. To swipe $6 billion from the military construction budget, the Pentagon must certify that the wall building construction funds are necessary to provide support for troops in the field! So, the made up reason to send troops to the border now generates the made up reason to seize appropriated funds. It is one of the reasons why General Mattis walked away. As much as it pains them, we can get some more Republican Senators to walk away too. 

Second, we face a new episode in Howard Shultz’ vanity project, running for President. Even after it was reported that he had voted in just 11 of the past 30 elections (in a state that has mail-in ballots!), he skipped a Seattle schools levy vote in February. And after that, he commended voters who have “perfect” voting records. Howard, we are not dismissing you because you are not perfect. On the matter of civic commitment, which must be a prerequisite for any candidacy, we are dismissing you because of the chasm between you and perfection. Your non-participation makes us all think you feel entitled to our attention, whatever your civic record. We will continue to note that you are not.

The third affront is even more surprising, because it comes from within. The emergence of Indivisible after the November 2016 election was a splendid thing. Indivisible started forming hundreds of local activist groups immediately, and thus in the early stages defined our collective way forward. Who knew that there would come a time when we would have to resist the resisters? Indivisible has decided that the Senate should abolish the filibuster, and with it the requirement that 60 voters be garnered to close the debate. They reason that when we take back the Senate the cloture provision will be an obstacle to the necessary, monumental work on climate change.

This is not a matter of asking Indivisible’s leadership to remember times in past decades when the Democratic minority was able to keep the country from doing this or that awful thing. It is time to remind Indivisible about the value of giving some power to the minority last year and this year and today. If 50 voters in the Senate had been king these past two years, every shred of the Affordable Care Act would have been repealed by now, including the Medicaid expansion for people with little income and no health care. If 50 votes were king, last year McConnell and Paul Ryan would have given Donald Trump $25 billion for the entire wall. On this one issue, as Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and they are us.” We are going to win back the Senate in the fall of November 2020. Doesn’t it seem a certainty that we will not hold it forever, that sometime in the future we will be desperate for the minority to have standing?

In response to these affronts, let’s do these three things right away:

1) Get Even More Votes to Block the Emergency Declaration
	Very, very slowly, Republican Senators are increasing their opposition to Donald Trump’s worst excesses. The country needs them to do far more than they have done and are bound to do, but it still is not a bad thing when one or more of them stand up. The reason they don’t do it more often has been thoroughly outlined in previous missives. It’s a matter of self-preservation. It is not clear that any Republican Senator can win re-election after persistent, principled opposition to Trump, because a significant part of their Republican voters will fall away. Susan Collins has to test this proposition. If she doesn’t challenge Trump, a significant part of her Independent supporters will fall away. And what will happen to Colorado Senator Cory Gardner on this front? The House has passed the resolution temporarily blocking Trump’s emergency declaration. It looks good in the Senate, since we already have gained the votes of Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis. No complacency please. Vigilance is the price of liberty. How many other Republican Senators we can get matters because it builds strengths for future battles. This is especially the case in the area of protection of global alliances, where Republican Senators weep into their pillows each night over the damage Trump has caused. Let’s keep the pressure up, emphasizing five Senators who will not be able to stay on the fence much longer. The rules of engagement still pertain. If you have a wiggling home state Senator, always call or email her or him first, even if you have done so a hundred times already. If you are contacting a Senator who is not from your state, strive for as much human contact as you can get, but remember even being included in the “count” of their calls matters, because it is tallied in a regular report to the Senator. Emphasis on these five fence-sitters would be useful: Cory Gardner of Colorado (the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in the 2020 elections): (303) 391-5777 Ben Sasse of Nebraska (intellectually strong and not unwilling to criticize Trump, though his votes in opposition are rare): (402) 550-8040 Lamar Alexander of Tennessee (a principled man who isn’t running for re-election, but is still trying to talk himself into voting the wrong way): (901) 544-4224 Martha McSally of Arizona (already facing re-election because she is completing John McCain’s unfinished term): (602) 952-2410 Mitt Romney of Utah (who is still feeling his way): (801) 524-4380
2) Keep Up the Heat on Howard Shultz
	Howard Shultz does want you to think well of him and he wants your support, which hopefully is unavailable. It’s hard to find, but there is a way to avoid vitriolic organized campaigns and tell him your views directly - here’s his contact page  As you can see, you can fill in your personal comment or admonition in your own words. One thing to tell him is that every single day Donald Trump wakes up in the morning hoping fervently that he will enter the race.
3) Change Indivisible’s Course of Action
	The work of Indivisible has been exemplary. As expressed by co-president Ezra Levin, their ideas about doing away with the filibuster are nonsensical.   One could read recent American history for five minutes and understand why this is an awful idea. Yes, getting to sixty votes on climate change once we take back the Senate will be difficult. Yes, the globe is at risk. So, let’s get to it and get it done. Eliminating the leverage of the minority which has been so indispensable to us in these troubled times is not the answer, and Indivisible should know better. If you are in an Indivisible cell, please raise this issue. If not, make your thoughts clear by writing Indivisible at contact@indivisible.org.

All of us working together made possible the House majority and thus the subpoena power wielded by Elijah Cummings, Jerome Nadler and Adam Schiff. What we will learn on multiple fronts regarding Trump corruption and Russian collusion will rock the country. And in the face of it we will continue our relentless pursuit of the protection of the imperfect, aspiring American democracy.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington