National Politics

TrumpRussia and the Weakening of American Democracy

As the gravity of Trump's historic betrayal of our nation weighs further upon us this week, NDN firmly plants itself in the camp that believes those of us in the center-left should be making the issues around Trump and the GOP’s degradation of our democracy front and center in American politics. Whether it is Trump Russia, the attacks on a free press, unprecedented official corruption and malicious lying, restricting people’s ability to vote, illegal gerrymandering and racial discrimination, the stealing of a Supreme Court seat or Congress’s unwillingness to hold hearings, use CBO scores, conduct de minimus oversight or other abuses of their power the issue of the modern GOP’s abandonment of its commitment to democratic norms is a grave threat to our understanding of what a democracy is and should be.

Proud patriots here in the US will be working to renew and repair our democracy for years if not decades to come. This will become one of the central responsibilities of those who will serve in elected office, and we should begin this conversation with the American people today. It borders on recklessness to leave these tasks to Robert Mueller and the courts, as history has shown that even in strong democracies like ours there is no guarantee these institutions can withstand a sustained assault from an autocrat and his enablers in the legislature.

Still have doubts that Trump colluded, coordinated, conspired, partnered with Russia in 2016? Read this thread. It is no longer in doubt. 

For more on NDN’s views on these matters be sure to check out our vertical, Renewing Our Democracy.

- Simon Rosenberg, Nov 2017

Invite: Thur, Nov 9th - Protecting Our Elections and Politics from Interference

The very openness of American society is being exploited by foreign actors to further their own political ends. To offer up some ideas on what can be done we will hold an event next Thursday, November 9th in the Rayburn House Office Building. Headlining the conversation will be Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, and primary author of a bill designed to counter Russia’s rising global ambitions, the “Fostering Unity Against Russian Aggression Act of 2017.”

In addition, we have assembled a trio of thought leaders in this emerging space for what will be a spirited discussion. Joining us are:

Amb. Karen Kornbluh, Clinton/Obama Administrations – Karen will talk about the new information landscape facing modern democracies (bio).

Tim Chambers, Dewey Digital – Tim will also talk about the new information landscape but with a particular focus on tackling the challenge of malicious social media bots (bio).

Greg Miller, OSET Institute – Greg will discuss ways we can fortify and modernize our elections infrastructure (bio).

Simon Rosenberg, NDN – Simon will moderate and offer closing remarks (bio).

This important conversation will take place on Thursday, November 9th in Rayburn House Office Building Room 2456 and run from 10:30 to noon. You can RSVP here.

This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome. Feel free to send this invitation on to others you think might be interested. Seating is limited and first come, first served.

Further Readings

As background reading for the event, be sure to check out the following:

Bringing Transparency and Accountability to Online Political Ads, Karen Kornbluh, Council on Foreign Affairs, 10/30/17. The internet makes it easy for political ad buyers to obfuscate their donors and handlers. Despite the challenges, there are significant steps that Congress and social media platforms can take to improve transparency.

A Primer on Social Media Bots And Their Malicious Use In U.S. Politics, Tim Chambers, 9/13/17. This new, compelling paper by long time NDN collaborator Tim Chambers explains what bots are, looks at their malicious use in US politics and offers some ideas on what to do about it in the days ahead. 

Critical Democracy Infrastructure, OSET Institute, September 2017. OSET addresses the criticality of the technology infrastructure of election administration and operation.

Simon on the Great Battlefield Podcast on the Bright Future of the Democratic Party

Simon recently joined Nathaniel Pearlman, host of The Great Battlefield podcast, for an interview about his time in Democratic politics and his thoughts on the future of the party. Simon recounts his time working on the Dukakis and Clinton campaigns, establishing NDN and details the organization's history, and reflects on the state of the Democratic Party – Simon is bullish on the party's future.

Be sure to listen to this fun, inspiring account of Simon's experience in politics. This interview is Episode 57 of The Great Battlefield Podcast, "The state of the Democratic Party – it's not all bleak – with NDN's Simon Rosenberg."

Column: Make ACA Sign-Ups an Annual Civic Ritual

Today, US News published Simon's latest column, “Make ACA Sign-Ups an Annual Civic Ritual.”  An excerpt –

.....Somewhere around 1 in 12 Americans of any age – about 25 million people – get their health insurance and health care through provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The annual period to sign up for insurance starts on Nov. 1, and it is critical that responsible members of both political parties – but particularly Democrats – commit time and resources to help people sign up this year.

Why is this so important? Because, remarkably, President Donald Trump's administration has taken a series of dramatic steps to make it harder for his fellow citizens to sign up under the health care law this year. It has cut the enrollment window to sign up from 12 to just six weeks, and is spending far less money marketing the enrollment period to the public (TV ad spending is dropping from $100 million to $10 million). Regional directors in the Department of Health and Human Services were told not to participate in outreach events and administrators will take down healthcare.gov on most Sunday mornings during the already shortened enrollment period. It is likely that without a significant push by office holders, community leaders, health care providers and regular citizens, millions of Americans could miss the deadline this year and end up without insurance. It is hard to believe that our government is taking such aggressive steps to make it harder for American citizens to get affordable care – but it is so. And those of us who believe in the ACA, as the law is known for short, should do something about it.

To continue reading, please refer to the US News link. You can Simon's previous US News columns here.

NDN in the News: Stories About Present/Future of the Democratic Party

NDN President Simon Rosenberg has recently been quoted in several pieces about the current state and future of the Democratic Party.  While they cover a lot of ground, Simon's argument throughout is the same - we are in the early stages of a new post-Clinton/Obama Democratic Party that will be different from the one we've known for the last generation of American politics.  

Simon has also weighed in quite a bit on this topic in his own writings.  You can a collection of those articles here

Interviews

The state of the Democratic party - it's not all bleak - with NDN's Simon Rosenberg, Nathaniel Pearlman, October 20th, 2017, The Great Battlefield podcast.

The Articles

In 2020, Julián Castro could be one of 30 or more Democratic presidential candidates, Bill Lamrecht, November 11th, 2017, San Antonio Express-News.

Democrats rising? Early statehouse wins test new faces, Letitia Stein, October 12th, 2017, Reuters.

The Democrats' Pipeline Problem, Ronald Brownstein, October 12th, 2017, The Atlantic.

Democrats Tiptoe Around Universal Basic Income, Haley Byrd, October 2nd, 2017, Independent Journal Review.

What Do Centrist Democrats Even Stand For? Graham Vyse, September 18th, 2017, The New Republic.

With anti-'Dreamer' base outraged, Trump keeps adding to the confusion, Joe Garofoli and Hamed Aleaziz, September 14th, 2017, San Francisco Chronicle.

Democrats Must Take a Shot at Texas, Francis Wilkinson, September 12th, 2017, Bloomberg.

Democratic infighting between establishment, progressives sweeping the country, John Wildermuth, September 2nd, 2017, San Francisco Chronicle.

Could Arizona Be An Important Presidential Battleground in 2020, Mark Brodie, August 25th, 2017, KJZZ 91.5.

Veterans lining up for the Democrats in congressional races, Bill Lambrecht, July 17th, 2017, San Antonio Express-News.

If you would like to read additional articles on the topic, be sure to check out our backgrounder, "Future of the Democratic Party."

A Department of Jobs, Skills and Economic Development

This essay was originally published on Medium.

Much of the structure of the government of the United States was designed and built in the middle part of the last century. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of 9/11 was the last big structural change. In a time of rising global competition and technological change, it is time to fashion a new government department focused solely on creating good jobs for Americans, and helping American succeed in a new world of work that requires very different skills. Let’s call it the Department of Jobs, Skills and Economic Development.

It is remarkable to consider that the executive branch of our government has no one person or department truly responsible for creating good jobs for the American people, and ensuring our workers have the skills to succeed in a changing world. These responsibilities are scattered throughout the federal government, residing in the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Education and Agriculture, the United States Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Small Business Administration and throughout the White House itself. A new Department of Jobs, Skills and Economic Development would consolidate these many disparate activities and programs in a single place, allowing for greater efficiency but also far greater strategic focus and coordination. The process of building the Department would force a debate about all the programs it would inherit, and whether they are working or can be improved. Redundant or under-performing programs could be eliminated, freeing up resources for higher priority projects. It would be a powerful department, but also should by design be a modern and skinny one — lean and mean.

 

Congress and the White House would ultimately decide what would end up in this new department and what would remain in other places, but certainly one could imagine some of these other departments and agencies getting subsumed entirely into this new mission. This new department (DJSED) would work closely with the economic development agencies and other agencies of the states, and learn from their best practices. Policymakers can also study how other nations tackle these challenges, and draw from their experience. The balkanization of these responsibilities in Congress would also end, and allow far greater strategic focus from our elected representatives.

One of the things this new Department can focus on is what I call a “safety net of skills and knowledge.” In the industrial age we created a safety net for our people, one that included health care and income support. It is also now time we committed to create a true system of lifetime learning, one that anticipates our citizens will need the acquisition of new skills to become routine and persistent throughout their lives. There are many ways this new 21st century safety net can get constructed and built, many pieces of it already exist, and it will evolve and mature over time. But it is something that our emerging Millennial politicians should put their minds to and help build over the coming decades. Like the Department itself, this new digital age safety net would be about taking things that are already getting done and organizing them in a way that makes them far more focused and effective.

The Department could also expand the small Economic Development Administration currently in the Commerce Department, and give it a more expansive mission that could even include national infrastructure and transportation planning and travel, tourism and trade promotion. It would work closely with the fifty states, supporting their ongoing locally driven initiatives. All fifty states have an economic development agency focused on creating growth and good jobs for their communities for a reason. It works. It is long past time the federal government and the nation had one too.

Perhaps the most important reason to create this new Department is that in my mind the only way we can respond to both the enormity of the task in front of us, and its urgency. We simply have to do more than we are doing today to help the American people succeed. And whatever we do needs to be dramatic, something real and tangible, not something that is nibbling around the edges of what is perhaps the most important challenge America faces today. We need to let the American people know we hear them, and are changing the way we do business here in Washington to make their lives better. There may be other ways of attacking this problem but creating a super-sized but lean and mean Department would be an important first step that will give us a chance of coming up with approaches commensurate to the size of the problem itself.

And the problem is real. With billions of people today contributing to the advancement of knowledge every day, our already fast world will continue to speed up. Skills and knowledge acquired in high and school and college will be far more likely to become obsolete in one’s lifetime in the 21st century, and we need ways to make continuous learning more than a slogan. Additionally, with nations across the world rising and growing modern companies, global competition for our businesses and workers is likely to get more far more intense. The time when America stood like a conquering giant above the economies of the world is long in the past, and a new age of competition and progress is with us. Our government must help its own institutions become as fast and innovative as the global economy itself, and to do far more to effectively support good, deserving Americans who work hard and play by the rules and expect more from all of us.

Perhaps this project is the Kennedy Moonshot of our time, something we know we have to do but are not quite sure how to get there. Creating a new Department with a new mission and lots of capacity and focus is a good way to start. Perhaps it is old Washington think — a reorganization! — but am open to better ideas on how we can get this done in the years ahead. Whatever you think let the debate begin. The good people of the United States deserve more from all of us in Washington as they look to compete and prosper in a far more challenging 21st century global economy.

Patriotism and Optimism - Thoughts About The Future of America's Center-Left

This summer I began giving a presentation that has evolved into a new 30 minute deck called "On Patriotism and Optimism, Not Pessimism - Thoughts On The Future of America's Center-Left." The presentation, a lively talk with filled with nerdy charts and graphs, will attempt to make the case that America is not in decline and is in fact doing as well as it has in any point in our history. It is meant to be an implicit rebuttal to the core argument Trump is making about America and its decline, an argument which is malevolently selling America and its people short every day.

This deck, and the arguments within it, are my effort to help fashion a comprehensive response to the rise of Trump’s new politics. It has evolved over dozens of showings over the web and live in person to policy makers here in Washington and around the country.

There are several ways to tap into the thinking in this deck:

Watch – We show the deck live on the Internet a few times each month and do an in-person presentation once a month. Use this registration page to sign up for an upcoming webinar and this registration page for our July 11th luncheon. For additional showings, be sure to review the full schedule here.  All are welcome.

Read – We’ve put together some background reading for those who want to join us by diving into this space. It starts with the article I wrote on Medium this summer which got the ball behind “Patriotism and Optimism” going.

Review Core Slides – Below you can find some of the core slides in the deck, in PDF form. Take a look. Will give you a sense of where we are going with this, and of course leave you wanting more.

We have been pleased with the response the big arguments in this deck have received. Check it all out, and if you are interested in having me do a private showing for groups of 20 or more, please contact Chris Murphy here at NDN at cmurphy@ndn.org.

Best,
Simon

 

Our Most Important Battle - Please Support the Good Work of NDN Today

Dear Friends,

For more than a decade now NDN has helped our elected leaders and policy makers better understand the big changes sweeping America and the world. We’ve helped lead ongoing conversations about demography, technology and media, globalization and its related geopolitics for over a decade now. Along the way we’ve had some inspiring victories and accomplished some important things. But no time in our history feels as important as today and these early days of the new era of Trump.

These past few months we’ve been heads down, helping create early understandings about what exactly we and the world are dealing with. We wrote early on about Trump’s worrisome and potentially treasonous relationship with Russia; his unprecedented corruption and willingness to ignore long held Democratic norms; his dramatic reluctance to align himself with the West and its values; his reckless economic policies and betrayal of the voters who elected him; and his inhumane immigration crackdown. In each of these areas NDN has made early and sustained contributions to creating a better understanding of what was indeed happening.

But it has not all been about Trump. We’ve offered a series of pieces about the future of the Democratic Party; about the need for Democrats to embrace their sound economic stewardship over the past generation as the critical first piece of the development of a new and compelling agenda; about the need to let the Democrat’s generational wheel turn and a new wave of promising leaders to step forward; about the need to be patriots now not partisans; and about the urgency of Democrats to assume responsibility for the global order built by previous generations of Americans and work to both modernize and preserve it for our kids and theirs. We can’t beat something with nothing as has been said, and we are also trying to do our part to help ensure what comes next for the center-left is even better than what we’ve had.

So, yes, we’ve been busy. But that’s what we are here for, and why we need your support today. There is a lot of work to be done. And your support is what makes it all possible. I hope you will step up with a contribution of whatever amount makes sense – $25, $50, $100, more. As you know well it is the generosity of our community that makes all this cutting edge and impactful work possible.

So please do give today. We don’t have a grassroots army or compelling television ads. But we do have years of experience, resilient keyboards and powerful insights – and those too have their place in our current and extraordinary struggle. Your support will ensure the good work just keeps on coming at this critical time.

Best,
Simon

On Trump's Meeting w/Lavrov Today: Time To End The Appeasement of Russia

This morning we released the following statement to the media and our community: 

When President Trump meets with Vladimir Putin’s most senior aide at the White House today, it is essential that the President use this time to raise concerns about Russia’s rising ambitions on the global stage. Among the issues that should be on the agenda:

• Russian interference in the elections and internal politics of the United States and Europe
• Russia’s violation of the INF nuclear treaty (link)
• The imperative of returning Crimea to Ukraine, and cessation of its adventurous military operations in the region
• Rising Russian support of the Taliban in Afghanistan (link), and escalation in Libya (link)
• Russia’s establishment of a military installation in Nicaragua (link)
• And of course, the need for Russia to stop propping up Syria’s murderous dictator, and prolonging the Syrian Civil War

“While Americans should be very concerned about Russia’s intervention in our election last year on behalf of Donald Trump, what is far more worrisome is President Trump’s unwillingness to challenge Russia’s rising ambitions on the global stage since becoming President” said NDN President Simon Rosenberg.

“In another age we would call President Trump’s early approach to Russia “appeasement.” Today, President Trump has an opportunity to demonstrate to the American people that he is capable of standing firm against this rising global threat from a newly ambitious Russia. His failure to raise these matters with FM Lavrov and demand a change in Russia’s course would send a signal to the world that America supports Russia’s newly aggressive stance. Such an approach is of course unacceptable, and would give additional fodder to those who have been argued that Trump can be friends with Putin or be President of the United States - but he cannot be both.”

Update: So the meeting happened.  Lavrov brought along Ambassador Kislyak, thought to be the chief Russian spymaster in the US.  These two men helped lead the Russian campaign to elect Trump.  And Our President met with them without any other American in the room - no translator, no press, no national security council staff.  Just Putin's top aide, and the Russian spymaster in the US.  How Kislyak was allowed into the Oval Office is beyond comprehension.  And of course the White House's read out of the meeting was milquetoast, and neglected to mention Kislyak's presence.  And of course did not mention anything about the ongoing Russian interference campaign in the US or in Europe.  Pure, clear, mighty appeasement it is. 

Update: So I took to Twitter and elaborated on this piece a bit.  Well worth your time.  Biggest issue in American politics today. 

"No Normal Time" - A Special Note from Simon

Dear Friends,

Some days it is important to note just how unusual, and pernicious, American politics has become. Sally Yates’ testimony today reminds us that our President and his allies are under an unprecedented investigation for treason and active collusion with a hostile foreign power. The House passed ACHA and its emerging budget strategy is an extraordinary betrayal of everything Donald Trump campaigned on; would do clear, measurable harm to tens of millions of Americans in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest among us; and as Paul Krugman argues today in the New York Times represents a degree of direct lying about policy that is also unprecedented in modern American history. More stories of rank and unprecedented corruption by the Trump family once again dominate our headlines this morning. And just this morning our President took to Twitter to discuss golf and once again give clumsy cover to the Russian attack on the American homeland (and French, German and many others) last year. These things are not normal, or okay.

While there is good news out of France this morning, we cannot forget just how extraordinary this moment in American politics is. There is no “business as usual” option here, a sense that things will somehow settle down to something resembling “normal politics.” This is why we’ve so aggressively advocated that Democrats start to make these matters – the appeasement of Russia, the corruption, the epic malevolent lying, the denigration of democratic norms – front and center in their negotiations with Trump and the GOP. We cannot segregate off traditional policy considerations from these broader areas of concern as doing so will be in its own way a form of appeasement and acceptance.

We also have recently advocated that the RNC be challenged to take far more aggressive steps in combating the reoccurrence of foreign attempts to influence our elections that FBI Director Comey predicted will come. The RNC and thus the entire Republican Party and all of its members played a significant role in mainstreaming the Russian operation in the US last year, and were thus critical to its success. This shameful legacy needs to be confronted by the current leadership of the RNC, and steps taken to work with willing Democrats to create a united political front against foreign interference in our elections.

These are no ordinary times. History tells us that in times like these many well-intentioned people will fail to understand how extraordinary the moment is, and to allow wishful thinking to overwhelm good sense. We in America don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of politics, so perhaps it is understandable. But let me be as clear as day – this organization will not stop challenging those in power to meet this worrisome moment head on and with force equal to what is coming at us. Creativity, strategic thinking and good old fashioned courage are required now. And we are going to do our part in making sure that America comes out of this time stronger, wiser and more just than before. We hope you will continue to partner with us in these consequential days ahead to assure that it is so.

Best,

Simon

Monday, May 8th 2017 From Washington, DC

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