It is Not Going to Be Easy

Campaign 2024's Greatest Challenge is Deeply Personal

This week the election campaign regained its focus.

We saw J.D. Vance’s commitment to the Big Lie and knew that he had replaced Mike Pence specifically because he would do what Pence refused to. He would, when asked, help Trump steal power from the voters, from the American people.

We read Jack Smith’s brief detailing Trump’s criminal conspiracy to obliterate our democracy and steal the presidency.

And then, late on Thursday, we got to witness Republican-to-the-bone Liz Cheney taking to the campaign trail in Wisconsin with Kamala Harris.

All of it was a reminder of the depravity of Trump, the stakes in this election and our moral duty to our country, our families and posterity to defeat Trump and Vance and ensure they never come near the Oval Office. Each of these events reminded us, this is not an ordinary election. The task before us is a great one. We each have a responsibility to step up and defend the country.

History will not judge us kindly if we fail.

Of these events, the first two stirred anger in me. Anger at Trump and at Vance and at those who would defend them. Anger that four years after January 6th Trump and those who conspired with him to stage a coup, to effectively end democracy in America, they had still not been held to account. Anger that I know people, reasonable, intelligent people who will say to me, “Oh that stuff about Trump wanting to end democracy is overblown. He was president for four years. He didn’t end it then.”

But you see, that’s just the problem. He did. He tried for months to end democracy. He knew he lost and he said, “I don’t care about the will of the people. I don’t care about how tens of millions of Americans voted. I don’t care about the law or the Constitution I was sworn to uphold. I will use the power of the office of the presidency and any assistance I can beg, borrow or steal from my supporters across the country and I will break whatever laws I need to in order to remain in charge.”

Wake up, friends. He didn’t just say he would suspend the Constitution and be a dictator from Day One as he has on the campaign trail this time around. He did it. And he did it with a recklessness and a contempt for the law and a callousness regarding the safety of his own vice president, of his supporters, of the law enforcement officers seeking to defend the Capitol.

And now he and Vance are promising to do it again. Laying the ground work for more false challenges. Seeking to suppress the vote. Working, spending tens of millions, hundreds of millions to ensure that this time around a stake is driven through the heart of our democracy and, as he also told supporters on the campaign trail this year, that after this election they would never have to worry about voting again.

Freaking alarms should be going off in the heads of all Americans regardless of party. Trump, convicted felon, asset and defender of our sworn enemies in the Kremlin, is on the march again, marching to Washington, marching to the White House to seize it and with it our government from the American people once and for all. What he will do with it…what the Russians who are working to elect him want him to do with it…we can only imagine. It will not be good.

That brings us to Liz Cheney taking the stage with Kamala Harris. These two women have for most of their political careers would have defined their relationship in terms of their differences. On issue after issue they disagree.

But on one set of issues above all others they agree. They believe in the United States and our democracy and the rule of law in America and the threat posed by Donald Trump. And moreover they agree they threat posed by Trump is so great that it supersedes and dwarfs whatever differences they may have. They agree that right now, as Cheney said in in Ripon, Wisconsin, birthplace of the Republican Party tonight, it is time to put patriotism, duty and country before party.

It is not easy for Liz Cheney to do what she is doing. As she noted, she was the third ranking Republican on Capitol Hill. As we all know, her father was not only Vice President of the United States but a leader of the GOP for over three decades. At age 36, he was Gerald Ford’s chief of staff. He was a leader in the Congress. He was George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense. He was George W. Bush’s VP. And he, like his daughter, because of his patriotism, because of his sense of duty, because of his clear understanding of the threat posed by Trump, is endorsing Kamala Harris.

Cheney has been threatened. Cheney lost her seat in Congress for doing what she believes is right. Cheney is, in other words, a true leader. She follows her principles and not the dictates or moods or fashions within her party’s leadership.

Liz Cheney’s story is a profile in courage. John F. Kennedy, who wrote the book “Profiles in Courage” surely would have seen that. He would have understood what she is doing. He fought in WWII. When he and the crew of PT 109 attacked the Japanese or when he was called upon to rescue his men after his torpedo boat was sunk, he did not think about their party allegiance or their different backgrounds. They had an overarching purpose that dwarfed such things. No man hit Omaha Beach and asked the guy next to him in the sand, “Are you a Democrat or a Republican.” They directed their fire in the same direction, at the fascists who were threatening freedom, America and our allies. They had each other’s backs. There would be time to argue about politics when the urgent mission of the moment was successfully fulfilled.

Liz Cheney realizes that is where we are at. So too are an increasing number of her fellow Republicans. We know of people like Adam Kinzinger or former Trump White House official Olivia Troye. This morning Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, endorsed Harris and explained why she was doing it. (And also, pointedly I thought, noted that for the most part it was the women of the GOP who had the courage to stand up to Trump, the men were falling in line or silent, complicit in covering up past crimes and laying the groundwork for new ones.)

Kamala Harris, noted Cheney, is a strong leader, a woman of principle and character who is the antithesis of Trump and who will be a stalward defender of the Constitution. Harris, of course, welcomed the support, but has also run a campaign that is actively reaching out to those who recognize the danger posed by Trump and who are considering voting for a Democrat, perhaps, like Cheney for the first time.

These women are like those soldiers on Omaha Beach. They have a higher purpose. They are setting aside the issues of politics…some which are consequential and about which they feel strongly. And they are acitvely doing what they can together to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The very least we can each do is understand, appreciate and emulate them.

There is a month to go in this election campaign. We should all focus on the critical task of electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and a Democratic Majority in the Senate and a Democratic Majority in the House. We should commit to translating our feelings into actions.

But we should also recognize that this is not the moment to let other issues distract us from the task at hand. This not easy. I am a progressive Democrat on most issues and I have serious disagreements on policy with even some in my own party. I suspect everyone reading this does.

Now is the time to set those disagreements aside. Any disagreements or divisions within the growing Harris-Walz-Democratic-Republican-Independent coalition weaken us. Again even disagreements on issues we feel passionately about. There are no such dividing line issues between us within the Democratic Party or between our parties that are more important than defeating Trump and preserving our system of government. Indeed, if we do not achieve that goal, our differences will hardly matter. After all, if Trump does not care about the will of the people in an election, do you think he will care about their views the rest of the time. Further, Trump has demonstrated, there is no issue on which he is not a much much worse choice from a policy or execution perspective than Harris and the Democrats. Not if you are progressive or centrist. Not if you are Republican or Independent.

So…make a pledge. Eschew differences. Find common ground. Win converts to the cause. I’m not naive. You’re not going to be bussing MAGAs to the polls to vote for Harris. But there are plenty of decent, patriotic Republicans and Independents who will make a big difference if they vote blue—especially in battleground states.

For a month, keep your eyes on the prize. Focus on delivering the votes that Kamala Harris and the Democrats need to win and that are essential if we are to defeat the criminal, would-be usurper, betrayer of America, Donald Trump.

Commit yourselves to this goal. Set aside what divides us. The stakes are too high. Every issue is secondary to saving democracy by defeating Trump.