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.
It’s not a bad thing to be intent a nominating a Democratic presidential candidate who has an excellent chance of winning. Even better, there is no thought of nominating a sports star or tv personality to heighten our chances, and every likely nominee has something to say about herself or himself, though in some cases (Bill di Blasio, Tulsi Gabbard, Eric Swallwell, Kirsten Gillibrand) they do not have as much to say for themselves as we would like.
All 24 fall within the political range of “liberal” Joe Biden and “progressive” Elizabeth Warren. There is not nearly as much distance between all the main candidates as political commentators would like, as evidenced by their announced positions. Thus there seems a good chance that we can take this week’s 21 candidate fish fry picture from South Carolina and replicate it on the convention stage at the Democratic Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2020.
That coming together was way too slow in 2016. It was just fine that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had some policy positions to reconcile. It seemed obvious that Bernie thought that a Trump victory was unthinkable and that he could thus take as much time as he wanted to provide his full support of Hillary. Too bad he wasn’t right about that. The dance went on and on and dissipated campaign momentum.
We’re the donors and supporters for all of these people, so we can have considerable influence how they come together during this election cycle. We can be the enforcers, keeping the candidate’s eyes on the prize, making sure their criticism of each other stays within bounds. Joe Biden was fighting for civil rights when other candidates were riding tricycles, so he is due some deference. Nonetheless, talking about James Eastland and Herman Talmadge should not carry even the faintest whiff of nostalgia. It was fine for Cory Booker to call Biden on that, as long as he remembers that it is Trump with the racist bones.
A good way to guarantee our candidates will be together at the end is to make certain they daily embrace our collective agenda on the challenges our country faces. It never happens that the American voter is resolutely opposed to all of the viewpoints of an American president, except for right now! So, why not have the number one thing we do between now and November be showing how wrong Trump is in what he wants for America, and what we want instead?
This means defining our differences with Trump on health care and the coverage of pre-existing conditions so often that candidates can barely muster the strength to say it one more time. Our debate over Medicare for All and expansions of the Affordable Care Act will be highly consequential, eventually. In the shorter run, the dominant health care issue is Donald Trump’s assaults on Barack Obama’s steps forward, famously thwarted by John McCain.
The voters are with us, not him. 68% of voters want secure coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. 66% believe global warming is caused by humans. 67% want Roe v Wade kept as is. 67% say separation of children at the border is unacceptable. 77% support the NATO alliance, and only 34% support the President’s tax “reform” law.
In the face of the views of voters and the action of the House, Donald Trump says we will focus on the core of his voters, rather than upon independents. Please please please let him be telling the truth just this once! That would hand over the Senate as well as the Presidency.
Through every Trump-stained day, the Congress remains a separate branch of government. On many of those days, Mitch McConnell grudgingly calls the Senate into session. He goes through Kabuki like gestures of feigned independence, fully aware that his soul has been claimed by another. Because now again a spirited Republican makes a run for it, and could use some cover, we need to attend to what is happening in the Senate. We need to identify the cases where bi-partisan action can do some good for our country, and do what we can to make that action more robust.
First, far more important than the daily coverage of AOC’s tweets are the actual bills that Nancy Pelosi’s House has passed and which Mitch McConnell has sent to his legislative graveyard. These include bills to block dark money in campaigns, protect net neutrality, establish universal background checks for firearms, defend Dreamers, establish paycheck fairness, and protect women against violence. In some cases, we can detect and drive new action from a hint of Republican shame that they haven’t taken up these bills.
Second, there are the bills in the Senate that have offended the conscience of Republicans who don’t think the Saudis should be able to bomb civilian populations in Yemen or dismember journalists. We can tend to the idea that we can stand for something worldwide outside of love letters to dictators, and we can make certain that Senators are held accountable if they turn their heads away.
Third, there is the budget legislation that is necessary to keep the government open and the required lifting of the debt ceiling. This is the hardest one for McConnell, because it can’t be evaded and because he has to deal with the hydra that is developing budget policy for the executive branch--- Trump himself, who regularly makes agreements with Senate leadership and then pretends he hasn’t, and Sean Hannity, who is his tv advisor, and who has shown some considerable distance from the approach of Walter Cronkite. The only way McConnell will get the necessary votes from Democrats is to attend to social welfare spending, which Trump can’t abide. Look for Trump to threaten to shut down the government, and to “own” any such shutdown this time too.
We must continue to intervene, which now and again has either brought success or prevented the worst President from doing the worst thing. There are a dozen Senators who are trying to have it both ways. They don’t dare to try to resurrect bills from McConnell’s graveyard, but they want to respond to voters and get re-elected in 2020. Here’s three ways we can light their path:
| 1) Support Lindsey Graham’s Proposal! | |
 | Once Lindsay Graham forgot his best friend John McCain and started carrying water daily for Donald Trump, redemption became an impossibility. Now, happily, despite no redemptive path, he has joined Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner in introducing Senate Bill 1989, the Honest Ads Act. This measure would subject internet advertising to the same rules of disclosure as ads on television and in the newspaper. Thus it would defend against “dark money” advertising that infects social media. It has already passed the House as a part of a broader election reform bill. Mitch McConnell is predictably disinterested, but Graham will get the bill a hearing. It needs co-sponsors. Email your own two Senator and ask them both to co-sponsor this bill. Then call the DC offices of Susan Collins (202-224-2523) and Thom Tillis (202-224-6342) and ask them to join Lindsey Graham. |
2) Weigh in On Emergency Border Funding | |
 | It’s time for us all to get involved in the plan to provide emergency border funding. This too will end up being a bipartisan compromise. Democrats want funding to pay for the needs of those people housed in detention facilities, but don’t want to end up creating resources that can be transferred to ICE. At this point, the House bill is stronger than the Senate. Call Arizona Senator Martha McSally at 202-224-2235 and tell her that it is time for her to get focused on deplorable border conditions and that the world is watching. Sign up for emails from the National Immigration Law Center to monitor this situation. |
3) Create an Entirely New Legislative World | |
 | We can take back the Senate in the fall of 2020 with the same formula we used in taking back the House in 2018. 22 Republican Senate seats are up, at least a dozen Republican Senators are vulnerable, and we need a net gain of four seats. There are a lot of organizations playing a role in taking back the Senate, including Swing Left and their wonderfully reasoned Super State strategy. If you aren’t being focused enough right now, there are 59,000 resisters writing targeted postcards in targeted races through Tony the Democrat. |
We can do this. From W.H. Auden in 1939:
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and dust
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair.
Show an affirming flame.
Bainbridge Island, Washington
