#90: What We Will Make Happen Six Months from Now

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With all this uncertainty, there is nothing more subject to unhelpful conjecture than what the “new normal” will be. The new normal depends in part on vaccine development and other medical advances. We are all making personal calculations regarding our well-being and that of our loved ones. Depending on how safe we become, we might eventually start participating in the economic and political life of our communities the way we did last year. But, not for a while yet. In the meantime, our requirement is to craft ways to win this election without a lot of us leaving home.

While we are attending to this, many are revisiting where we stand in the world. The age of American exceptionalism is over? It never began! Where it was claimed, it was the worst kind of self-congratulatory excess. We have the worst form of government in the world, except for all others. We have been a generous nation worldwide, but insufficiently so given our resources. The Bill of Rights is splendid, but the battle to make it a living document must be fought daily. We are absolutely a land of opportunity, but our wealth is so grossly mal-distributed that opportunity is diminished.

Today’s prevalent comments that we were a failed state before the pandemic hit are an exercise in fatalism. Even at our worst, we are no failed state. We are instead a work in progress, still advancing the truths we know are self-evident. We can motivate ourselves with dismay over what we are not. Better yet we can propel ourselves by understanding and seizing upon our promise. 

We are also struck by columns that note that the rest of the world is stunned by our lack of leadership, or even by our bullying and misinformation. We are right to be disheartened by this unsurprising news, even if we were never quite the global leader we thought we were. We must remind ourselves that our place in the world is subject to further change, and the world’s democratic leaders know that as well. We will hugely modify our nation’s role in the global community on November 3.

This has been a four-year fight, and our successes have been notable. The elections held in 2018 and since have turned our way. The people who didn’t show up at the polls in November 2016 are now doing so regularly, and will be there for us in November. The possibility that we will take back the Senate as well as the Presidency is no longer pipe-dreamy. As we acquit ourselves on the campaign front, we have the comfort of seeing Nancy Pelosi skillfully gain leverage on everything Congress considers.

It seems surprising that we also have some continued protection from the Courts, or at least more than we expected when we first headed into this mud hole. Who knew? In just this last week the Supreme Court did four things worth noting:

• In an 8-1 vote, they required the federal government to honor the insurer reimbursement that has been guaranteed in the Affordable Care Act. The Court ruled that the Congress was unlawfully withholding funds. This is all about keeping Obamacare alive so that it can serve as the necessary building block for the significant health care expansion which will be forthcoming under President Biden.  
• Justices Roberts and Kavanagh sided with the four liberals to declare moot a National Rifle Association attempt to weaken gun restrictions. (Justice Kavanagh would have stayed with the conservatives were it not for a technical flaw in the case.) The court resisted their temptation to unravel some regulatory efforts that have emerged in states in response to countless mass shootings. 
• Justices Roberts and Kavanagh joined with the liberals in a 6-3 decision defending the Clean Water Act from an attack from the Trump Administration and the State of Hawaii. The Supreme Court weakened the appellate court’s standard a little bit, but they still required that industrial pollutants reaching the ocean through groundwater be subjected to Clean Water Act enforcement, thus keeping the Act from being eviscerated. 
• The ongoing efforts to examine Trump’s tax returns for violations of the law remain alive. The Supreme Court had scheduled video-conferenced oral arguments for May 12 but has now requested supplemental briefs. It is important to distinguish the separate claims of the Manhattan grand jury with those of the Congress, with the grand jury being more difficult for the court to ignore. It could turn out that the Court will sidestep at least part of the case. This might still leave the banks and accounting firms which hold the records obligated to turn them over.

No irrational exuberance here. With its current makeup the Supreme Court will continue to remove hard earned protections of the people. It will turn out that the Bill of Rights is not as encompassing as we had hoped. Nonetheless, it seems clear that in some cases Chief Justice Roberts is trying to steer the Court away from where justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas are trying to take it. We can make certain that the citizen organizations that stand ready to litigate have sufficient resources. The Clean Water Act case was relentlessly pursued by Earth Justice, a nonprofit which carries a huge docket of local, state and federal cases, and which deserves support. 

As we win and lose individual cases, we cannot help but be reminded of how momentous elections of the past have put some justices in the position of cackling wickedly while determining which previous constitutional protections to unravel. This judicial era started in 2000 with Ralph Nader insisting there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush, siphoning off the votes Gore needed in Florida. That gave us justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and the balance has been tipped ever since. Inexplicably, Ralph Nader is still out there claiming some sort of moral authority.

In addition to supporting the litigating organizations and electing Joe Biden, the way forward to strengthening the Judiciary could not be clearer--- regain the majority in the United States Senate. The outlook is good. We need to net three seats. At least eight Republican races are in play, and we have one Democratic seat at risk, Doug Jones in Alabama. We are feeling very good about beating Martha McSally in Arizona, Cory Gardner in Colorado, Susan Collins in Maine and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. There are any number of other races that have promise, such as the efforts to beat Lindsay Graham in South Carolina and the soulless Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Iowa, Kansas, Georgia and Montana are thought to be especially promising. Let’s do these three things.to make certain that we pursue that promise.

1) Beef Up the Montana Campaign for Steve Bullock
	Governor Steve Bullock was cultivated by national Democrats for a reason. He is a popular governor. However, this is no easy challenge and Bullock is running even with Republican Senator Steve Daines. We shouldn’t discount the possibility that we will pick up 6 or 8 seats, but this one could definitely put us over the top. Bullock should be on every Democrat’s investment list.
2) Understand and Support Biden’s Approach to COVID
	Joe Biden has proven that he knows everything a president should be doing in a time of a pandemic. If your friends are thinking that Biden should be winning every news cycle by battling Trump’s criminal mismanagement on a day by day basis, have them read the lucid argument for the other approach. Democratic elected officials should be criticizing Trump’s disinfectant-drinking, UV light-implanting, testing-capacity-overstating, meat supply-enhancing world. Biden should be the serious, experienced, empathetic leader above the fray over what Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx said back to Trump.
3) If You Haven’t Enlisted, Now is the Time
	Since the month that Trump was elected there have been well organized efforts to win the November 3, 2020 elections. The initial response of Indivisible was momentous, and they were followed by Swing Left, the Sister Districts project, and several other credible national organizations. Efforts in individual states have been very compelling, especially as they recruit volunteers and deploy them to generate voter registration and turnout in targeted states. If we are limiting ourselves to forwarding clever parodies about Trump but not participating in the campaign, we are a correctable step short. Figure out which organization to ally with, and it will guide you. In addition to Indivisible cells and independent working groups, look for state organizations that sponsor both campaigning at a distance and traveling to campaign. See if you can find an exemplary organization in your own state, like Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight in Georgia and David Domke’s Common Purpose in Washington State.

It is a terrible time. To be sure, there are hundreds of thousands of heroes. You want to remember and be grateful to them and try to ignore the bizarre action of a man who should be acting like a President, but who most certainly does not have it in him. Time for a new world, almost exactly six months from now.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#89: We are Going Out and Getting Ourselves a New President

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.

There’s a narrative out there that says that Donald Trump is doing the same things that other presidents would do in a pandemic. This school argues that we are blinded to his actions because we irrationally apply our dislike of him to everything he does, or because his style doesn’t meet presidential norms, or because he is talking too long at press briefings.

This narrative is untrue. Trump is not even close to doing the same things as other presidents would do. We are not blinded to his actions, we are painfully aware of them. Every step along the way has been far too slow, and has cost lives. February (the most important month for the countries that have done well) was a lost month. By then, Trump had the information upon which he needed to act. Through misrepresentation, he was trying to protect the economy from the health crisis, and by this malfeasance, he ended up worsening both. 

Of course, Donald Trump is not the only one to fall dismally short, thus costing American lives. But he is the only one who has the powers of the President of the United States. For months now, we have been lacking testing kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for our caregivers. The Defense Production Act gives the president clear authority to attend to the supply chain in a time of national emergency. This is the one thing that he could have done that would have been most telling and which was clearly within his powers. Instead he said he would not be a supply clerk and sent 50 governors into a scarcity-plagued open market, all the time sniping away at them. His son in law denied that the national stockpile was intended for the use of the states, even though that is precisely its purpose.

It is common during dark hours for everyone involved to remind that they themselves stolidly and persistently sought to warn and protect us all. Donald Trump can rail at the press all he wants. His problem is not fake news, but the news--- he is on tape in February saying it will all be gone when the warm April weather comes. It isn’t. He can counter punch reporters and Governors each day, but it’s the under-equipped medical teams and the body bags that are etched in our consciousness and will remain so. There is no better analysis of the missteps and the missed steps than that of the New York Times.

Then of course there is the astonishing representation by the president that he has absolute powers to overturn gubernatorial stay at home orders. He’s walking away from that by now, after being told of that pesky 10th amendment to the Constitution, reserving powers to the states and to the people. How sad that the richest and most powerful nation could not have been a leader when the world needed it most. In this country, we are standing together, fighting for life itself, and determining a direction, he is nowhere in our group of guides. His compass points to himself.

What to do is to honor the caregivers and essential workers who are serving us all and follow the rules that Governors have set down. We can help each other every day and we remind ourselves that this will not be over when the stay at home restrictions are reduced. As all of these things are taking place, we can go out and get ourselves a new president.

We are making excellent progress in that regard. Consider the news of the week:

• Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Joe Biden was full throated and left no doubt that he will be behind Biden from now until November. We have now officially skipped the three agonizing months of back and forth that we suffered in 2016 and which dissipated Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Now it’s time to show Bernie’s supporters what they already know--- there are monumental democracy-saving differences between Trump and Biden.
• The fact that Barack Obama has been silent until now makes his pointed, eloquent endorsement that much more powerful. It is available on You Tube. When there is a podium, Obama will be at it. His ability to focus us on what counts is a huge boost. 
• The Senate races are looking good. Susan Collins unfortunately spent the last four years trying to not upset Donald Trump, and thus sacrificed her principles weekly. She is running behind former speaker of the Maine House Sara Gideon. Amy McGrath is definitely in play in Kentucky against the soulless Mitch McConnell.
• Rather than getting our promising outlook just from polls, we can look to the latest in real time election results. In Wisconsin, after Republicans carried out their voter suppression strategy, Democratic Supreme Court nominee Jill Karofsky won. This was even though Republicans refused to turn to mail voting and the Milwaukee polling places were shrunk from 180 to 5.
• Polls show Biden ahead of Trump in several states that we lost in 2016, such as Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

It’s difficult. We have to attend to our lives, our families and our communities, and not let political matters distract us from the vigilance the virus continues to demand. Yet, we cannot ignore one of the most glaring truths that the virus has brought us. It matters who is president. A President who is a learner, who understands and can sort out evidence and recommendations from health professionals, who is aware and thus can exercise his specific, very considerable constitutional and statutory authority, who knows what government can do and how it can do it would be an extraordinarily valuable person during a pandemic. Recognizing that the world is a very, very dangerous place, let’s get a president like that and do these three things:

1) Make the Checks Stimulating
	Legally, Donald Trump cannot sign the stimulus checks. So, he has ordered his name put on the subject line of the checks! We cannot stop him, but if we have the means, we can make sure a portion of the checks he has put his name on go to help our country defend against him or recover from him. There are scores of organizations to whom donations are tax deductible and which are trying to strengthen America in the age of Trump. For a part of your stimulus check, consider Michelle Obama’s voter registration effort, When We All Vote.  Or send a part of your stimulus to the best effort right now to add to the number of states with mail-in ballots, the Brennan Center for Justice. Or, give some hungry people some food that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are trying to take away.
2) Celebrate a Nutrition Victory and Learn More
	Ever since Trump was elected, environmental, health, science and nutrition groups have been pushing back against his wholesale attack on governmental regulation. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has just secured a victory in at least temporarily restoring school nutrition standards.  Science in the Public Interest seems like such a novel concept in these times that you may wish to honor it by getting regular briefings from the Center.
3) Put Yourself on Joe Biden’s List Now
	We need to make certain that Joe Biden (and his running mate Kamala Harris/ Stacey Abrams/ Amy Klobuchar) have a list of millions of small donors. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but you wouldn’t want to go through 2020 without recognizing that this is the place to be.

You can’t help but be worried about America, and weary of the struggle. But you can decide what to do to handle those worries, and to generate all new energy from the weariness. And, you can recognize how much difference that will make.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#88: We Will Keep Our Communities Strong

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.

Our collective national calamity is robbing us of loved ones, making fear ever present and threatening to deprive us of the feeling of community that we cherish. We are not accustomed to mustering the strength that is being demanded of us. We cling to any information that we are influencing the curve, that testing will become commonplace, that the number of hospital ICU beds equipped with ventilators will continue to grow, and that we soon will reach the peak.

South Korea and the US got their first confirmed case on the same day, January 21. There will be enough time between now and November to understand what happened then. In South Korea, they ran 55,000 tests in February, identifying cases, initiating quarantines and flattening their curve from the outset. During the same time, Donald Trump was saying the virus was going to disappear, that we have it under control, and that Democratic efforts to underscore its danger were a hoax. With Fox as Trump’s science adviser, we tested less than 1,000 people in February and are only now doing testing at necessary levels. Because it has taken us much longer to act, our curve has yet to flatten and tens of thousands of people will suffer preventable death.

As time passes, there will be plenty of say about Donald Trump and this national health crisis. To this day, as body counts rise, protective gear shortages persist, and emergency hospitals are being constructed, Trump is being his own self. While America is sheltering, mourning and weeping, Donald Trump is tweeting his press conference ratings.

The most telling of all of the morally reprehensible acts Trump has committed has just been visited upon us. A month after assuring us the virus was under full control, 10 days after telling us we could well re-open by Easter, he has a new announcement, that as many as 100,000-240,000 people might well die. Unfortunately, this statement does not represent an epiphany for him, or at least it isn’t all it represents. In advance of summer or fall campaign ads, he is setting himself up with a high number so that he and Kelly Conway can seek to claim later that his hard work averted the worst. 

The end of this worldwide scourge will come, and with it will come Trump’s downfall too. You can’t counterpunch Dr. Anthony Fauci or even Governor Andrew Cuomo, even though some Trump supporters have tried. Even more compelling, there’s no workable con when it comes to the number of body bags. All spring and summer they will be a reminder of what government at its best can do and what it can fail to do when it is not at its best.

It is unlikely that the Congress will put together a fourth legislative package any time soon. If it happens, we can be sure that Nancy Pelosi will stand up strong, as she did in shifting much of the $2 trillion stimulus package from Mitch McConnell’s wishes to the needs of the people. Joe Biden has put an excellent plan forward on what we should have done and what we can do next. 

On the election side, the Fox News poll is holding up well, with Biden leading Trump 49% to 40%.  Other polls demonstrate that our margins in 300 swing counties are strong. The issue will remain whether we can get people voting, which we were able to do in record number in 2018, 2019 and in this year’s primaries.

With heavy hearts, we summon ourselves to do these three things:

1) Put Bernie on a Different Course
	A previous missive outlined the long list of things that we can say to the small but still meaningful minority of Bernie Sanders supporters who are unsure of where they are headed. There are some things we should be stressing to Bernie himself. At this point, he has two avowed motivations, to pursue a slim chance of being nominated and to make certain that his policy ideas get traction with a broader range of Democrats. The fact is, there is no path to victory. Maintaining his campaign in this period of national crisis does not strengthen his already considerable impact on our collective agenda. It weakens it. He has been friends with Joe Biden for decades. The way for him to increase his influence is to come together now. Write him on his “comments” page, pick an issue, and tell him it is time to be with us.
2) Preparing for the Possibility of an Election During a Pandemic
	We are likely to have been freed from social distancing in October and November. Since we don’t know that for certain, we need to be preparing now for how our elections will be well managed. Luckily, states manage the election process, not the Trump “led” national government. No one is doing a better job of monitoring the states and proposing improvements that can be made between now and November than the Brennan Center at New York University. Analyze the state by state guide they have just published. Decide what you need to say to your state legislators and governors, and say it today.
3) Send Mitch to a Back Bench
	There are a number of Senatorial seats in play where we can win back our majority. Maine, Colorado and Arizona are extremely promising. Things are looking better and better in North Carolina, where the Republican incumbent Thom Tillis has fully bought into Trump’s chamber of horrors. He signaled that he might object to Trump’s usurpation of Congressional powers but caught himself in time. Cal Cunningham is our candidate. He is a former State Senator and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. If you have some money to spare, it would be a very good idea to send it to his campaign.

It will be like it is now for several weeks at least, if not months. Our family, our neighbors and our communities come first. We will emerge. When we do, we will not have lost our obsession with putting our imperfect and beloved country back on the right path.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington