This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
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Nothing wrong with a little reveling and joy-jumping that there was no Republican surge. When someone is trying to drive a stake through the heart of Lady Liberty, it is a delight to help make them miss. It is an obligation too, which we have fulfilled in 2018, 2020 and now 2022. Each of those three election cycles, we have generated a historically impressive voter turnout. We are part of a huge resistance movement, and we demonstrate the necessary energy and commitment every week. And we will be right where we need to be in 2024 as well.
With pending indictments and dispiriting November 8 results, the con man known as Donald Trump is sliding downhill, but not as fast as many Republicans would like. The Republican leaders like Chris Christie and Asa Hutchison and Pat Toomey who are criticizing him now are still selected from the ranks of those he can’t execute.
By now it is obvious to most sitting Republican Senators and Governors that if Trump stays around until 2024, he will select their awful candidates, rally Democratic voters, deny election results, and display relentless, intense, voter repelling self-admiration. They know that the very approaches he deploys to win the allegiance of his declining base are the strategies that drive independent voters away. But they can’t quit him. They still fear that an open break with him would cause him to burn their houses down, perhaps only metaphorically.
A seat Republicans lost in Southwest Washington tells everything one needs to know. In the primary, Republicans threw out their member of Congress, Jamie Herrera Butler. She had not only voted to impeach Trump, but she had sinned by disclosing what Trump said to Kevin McCarthy. Pleading with Trump to send troops, McCarthy told him that the insurrectionists were “F---ing trying to kill me! Trump said “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
The Trump led forces offered up a candidate who hired one of the Proud Boys as a campaign consultant, pledged to investigate the FBI, and called for Anthony Fauci to be charged with murder. So small business owner and Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won, to the surprise of the New York Times and the Cook Report. On election night, stories like this played out across America. Republicans proved that they’d take your soul if you let them, so don’t you let them. (Carole King, You’ve Got a Friend)
Other than the astonishing round of candidates kissing at least the hem of Trump’s robe, these things happened of special note:
- The post-Roe pro-choice vote emerged. It was high in virtually all the swing states, and huge in states like Michigan where a pro-choice constitutional amendment won 57-43%. Michigan Democrats hold the Governorship and both houses of the State Legislature for the first time in 40 years. Pro-choice measures also won in every other place they were on the ballot, including Montana, Kentucky, California, and Vermont.
- Joe Biden’s last-minute reminders that democracy was on the ballot resonated, especially in light of the attack on Paul Pelosi. The pre-election worry was that Republican candidates who denied Biden’s 2020 election would win their races for Secretary of State and thus manage future elections in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and New Mexico. All four of these candidates found denial was the path to defeat.
- The media got overly fond of the narrative that inflation concerns were prevailing and presaging a Republican surge. David Brooks and Chuck Todd were flat out suckered by Republican affiliated polls that pushed the anticipated Republican advantage in the generic Congressional vote to 3%. In the average of non-partisan polls, Democrats and Republicans were tied.
The monumental legislation that Joe Biden secured in the past year included the largest climate protection, infrastructure investment and child poverty reduction efforts ever. During the lame duck session, they will get a bi-partisan coalition to codify and thus protect gay marriage and sharpen the election certification process.
After that, the bare Republican majority in the House will make everything more difficult. The good news and the bad news is that Kevin McCarthy will look for red meat for his House members by trying to close down the government over fiscal issues. As usual, their efforts will include overreaching that will play to the Democrat’s longer-term advantage.
Beyond ultimately passing budgets and raising the debt ceiling, the next two years will be about securing judicial appointments (which require only a bare Senate majority), defending Ukraine, and setting up for the 2024 election. At 82, Joe Biden will end up not being a candidate, and there will thus be a generational shift.
Let’s make some more momentum by doing these three things:
| 1) Win With Warnock | |
 | We are not out of time to help Revered Raphael Warnock. Even though we already have the majority, Rev. Warnock winning will decrease Joe Manchin’s influence and give us a head start toward 2024, when we will be defending 23 of the 34 seats up for election. Rev. Warnock winning will keep us from having to adjudicate Herschel Walker’s findings on whether a werewolf would defeat a vampire. Postcard-senders, time to redouble! There is also a way to make a donation that will fund critical campaign efforts immediately. Georgia’s population includes one million Latinos! Our extraordinary success in Arizona and Nevada has been hugely dependent on Mi Familia Vota and other Latino political organizers. Mi Familia Vota has the proven infrastructure in place in order to make a tangible difference and turn out the votes in critical elections like this because their presence in Latino communities is year-round, not just when elections happen. In Georgia, they are already knocking on 20,000 progressive Latino doors to get out the vote. Paired with a comprehensive 300,000 phone calls, 300,000 texts, TV, radio, and digital program (in English and Spanish!) – they are ready. Making certain they have all the resources they need is a gift to our country. And here is the handy link. |
2) Talk to Nicki Haley About Lowering the Temperature | |
 | During the final days before the November 8 election, former South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said Raphael Warnock “should be deported” over her differences with him on immigration issues. Raphael Warnock was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1969, the eleventh of twelve children of two Pentecostal preachers. Nikki Haley, herself the children of immigrants, knows better than this. This is a contact form for Nikki Haley’s Stand for America. Please fill it out and calmly tell her what you think about her offensive statement. |
3) Focus on One More December Runoff | |
| Activist Bill McClain emphasizes that there is a second consequential runoff going on in December. The battle to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase renewable energy has reached the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The runoff between Devante Adams and fossil fuel advocate Lambert Boissiere will be close, and even a small check now would boost Adams. The Commission has enormous power to approve energy projects. If Adams wins, renewable energy advocates will have the majority of the five-member Commission. If you are wondering what little thing you could do on climate change could turn out to be a big thing, this is it. | |
We have been at this since 2016. The unexpected results of November 8 have lifted us, and we are ready to start fighting to retain the Presidency in 2024.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
