We Are Still Here! -- What Will We Do Now?
An assessment of what we did, and what we learned during the campaign to defeat Mc Carthy
On December 5, 2022, I wrote to a group of about 30 friends and acquaintances:
" Most of my fellow progressives, liberals and Democrats seem to have resigned themselves to the likelihood of a new Congress dominated by Kevin McCarthy and the fringiest of right-wing extremists. "
Unfortunately, that again seems to be the case today. After 15 ballots, Mr. McCarthy is now the Speaker of the House. And the fringiest of right wing extremists have been given seats on the most powerful committes. At the moment, they do appear poised to dominate.
But, as I continued on December 5:
"However, we don't have to accept that outcome as inevitable. There is another alternative." That also continues to be true
McCarthy can be unseated. And we can help make it happen.
Keep in mind that, while our immediate focus is on this one opportunistic politician, the real target here is the MAGA extremist faction he has empowered.
The MAGA extremists, who constitute a distinct minority (less than 10%) of House members, unapologetically support those who violently attacked our capitol on January 6, 2020. Now having been appointed by Kevin McCarthy to powerful committees, their only agenda is to further their fellow insurrectionists' aims from within. That is, they intend to disrupt, obstruct and ultimately destroy the legislative body that is the heart of our democracy.
This is without doubt the greatest internal threat the United States has confronted since the Civil War. The most immediately effective way to counter this threat is by unseating and replacing the current Speaker, rescind the concessions he made to the extremists in exchange for their votes, and strip them of their committee assignments. They need to be isolated, marginalized and at the very least, relegated to a position within the House commensurate with their numbers.
That is why our campaign against Kevin McCarthy will continue. What follows is the next step in this campaign. It is a summary and assessment of what we did and what we learned, so we can plan what to do next.
Feathers of Hope, unlike most other Substack publications, is not intended to be a showplace for one writer's work. Nor is it meant to be a newsletter, or a forum for debating issues. Posts here are not intended to stoke outrage or elicit sympathy.
This site is "a meeting place for activists and their supporters". It's purpose is to facilitate doing something about an issue rather than just talking about it. Currently that issue is the Speakership of Kevin McCarthy.
During the last weeks of 2022 and the first week of 2023, a five-week direct action campaign was conducted by our small group, which grew through word-of-mouth into an extended amorphous network.
Together we lobbied media personalities and members of Congress to promote the idea of a cross-party alliance to elect a moderate Republican as Speaker of the House in the 118th Congress. Our aim was to prevent Kevin McCarthy from taking the gavel because of commitments he was making to the MAGA extremist faction.
While we did not succeed at preventing Mr. McCarthy from becoming Speaker, most of us remain committed to the idea of promoting a cross-party alliance within the House as a way of isolating and out-numbering the MAGA minority.
(Feathers of Hope was launched following that effort. Some of our emails from that time have been archived on this site, dated on the date they were sent, December 5 to January 7.)
In other words, we still want to defeat McCarthy, end his Speakership and rescind the concessions he made to win it.
To that end, our task now is to
Review what we did,
Examine what we learned,
Plan what to do next, and then
Start doing it.
What we did
1) From the start, we used only our words in the form of letters, emails, and phone calls as the means for attaining goals. There was never any consideration of using money, ads, street demonstrations, boycotts, online intimidation, violence or similar methods. Rational communication is our only tool, and it remains so.
2) Our first goal was to introduce the idea of a cross-party alliance into the national narrative -- to get people talking about it. Building public support would encourage reluctant House members to risk reaching across the aisle, in defiance of the tradition of party loyalty. Our efforts were directed at three specific news media personalities: Jennifer Rubin, Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore.
3) Next we started writing and making phone calls to both current and former Democratic leadership: Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, Pete Aguilar, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and James Clybourn. Our argument was that following tradition, and voting as a bloc for Mr. Jeffries, would be a pointless gesture. It would forfeit the value of 212 votes which could be leveraged to elect a moderate Republican Speaker, one not indebted to the minority MAGA faction.
4) Finally, we aimed our mail and phone calls at moderate Republicans themselves. Starting with a list of about thirty who had voted for the Marriage Equality Act, we eventually narrowed the list down to less than a dozen.
5) When the first ballot on January 3 had McCarthy 20 votes short, we intensified our effort. Many of us were making multiple calls to both the Democratic leadership and to our list of Republican moderates, every day until the final vote.
What we learned
1) Letters, emails and phone calls are the best tools for for us to use, given the nature of our network and the resources available to us. That is, we have no money, no way to raise money, and no desire to do so. Direct communication is easy and efficient, as well as providing maximum flexibility in a quickly changing environment.
2) Introducing an idea into the national narrative is more difficult than we had expected. Being a good idea is not nearly enough reason for a media personality to devote a column or a TV segment to it.
Like the cliche "If it bleeds it leads", there must be some urgency to a topic for it to attract attention. We saw the cross-party alliance proposal seriously discussed in the media only after there had been about ten ballots for the Speakership, though by then we already had been pitching it for five weeks.
Also, we need to broaden our outreach far beyond just a few liberal allies at MSNBC or the Washington Post. If the goal is a cross-party alliance, we need to present it for discussion to journalists with a conservative outlook as well. That doesn't mean we should waste time with Fox News. But it does mean that some among us will have to search for and evaluate true conservative outlets as potential allies.
3) While lobbying the Democratic leadership team was the right move a month ago, today we need to contact more rank-and-file members.
I was disappointed that the leadership valued party unity more than the opportunity to marginalize MAGA extremists during multiple ballots. But looking at the larger picture, there was a wisdom to that decision. Leadership had just been passed on to a new generation, and demonstrating loyalty to this new team was crucial to its success. Now that their loyalty has been clearly established, members are more free to explore bipartisan compromises.
4) When we compiled a list of Republican members who could be considered "moderate", we didn't really know where to start. Even after some seat-of-the-pants guessing, most of those chosen were just names and voting records. Since there was an intense time pressure because of the imminence of the Speakership vote, there was little else we could do. That will not be good enough going forward.
What We Will Do Next
Continue to use the tools we have been using to communicate with media personalities and members of the House of Representatives.
Spend more time contacting more media personalities, with a broader range of political philosophies so our proposal has a chance to be taken seriously. And we must present it as the solution to an imminent threat. At the moment, that threat would seem to be failure to raise the debt limit before June.
Spend more time doing research on individual Democratic members, aside from the leadership team. Choose those most likely to be receptive, and contact them. Appeal to their individual priorities, and urge them to consider working with Republicans to replace McCarthy as Speaker.
Spend more time doing research on individual Republican members. The point is to identify those who would be most open to a cross-party challenge to the current Speaker, whatever their votes or positions may be on other issues. Most importantly, we need to identify and persuade a potential candidate to replace McCarthy. As the saying goes: "You can't beat somebody with nobody."
Last month, many of you relayed to me summaries of your calls and emails. Some of you reported having forwarded my emails to your contacts, or posted them to social media. Some also told me about how your calls were received by congressional aides who answered. I also received notes of encouragement from some who applauded our effort, in spite of their belief that it would ultimately be for naught.
I thank all of you, including those who only cheered us on. And I thank you for not un-subscribing to Feathers of Hope, even as I invited you to do so in my welcome letter. Presumably, at the very least you continue to support our effort. And ideally, you will again take an active part in this ongoing campaign to replace McCarthy as Speaker.
As a start, please post your reaction to the above assessment, and offer any suggestions you may have, in the comments section. Or you can email me directly here: JerryWeiss@substack.com. And please continue to share these posts with your contacts via email or social media.
If we begin here and now, we can build a bigger and far more effective network over the next few months.
Of course the devil is in the details, Jerry, and I think it is important to specify more clearly the pathway to power for the sensible center. Both Democrats and Republicans possess core constituencies that appreciate the sheer complexity of today’s world. It’s a long game. These leaders and voters need new political resources: 1) pragmatically oriented think tanks housed at great universities (like Stanford’s Hoover Institute but for progressive pragmatists ) and in the nonprofit sector (like the Cato Institute etc); 2) financial power derived from the billionaire 1% to fund goal-driven messages the public respects. Actually most people want a government that works. That is the key to breaking the back of gerrymandered districts so intelligent persons can run for office based on what their constituents need and want economically and socially.
Thirdly, those of us who desire a secular government require a strategy to remove religious values such as those used cynically by Republicans to attract voters (abortion, gender fluidity, misogyny, racism, Judaic culture, Muslim culture, fundamentalist Christian culture).
We have a bright and shiny vision of what secular government offers the American people. Let’s sell it by communicating in plain English and powerful graphics to moderates in both parties. And firstly to billionaires many many many times over who want a smart government that works to provide business with great stability so it can plan for success without exploitation of our beloved people and without destruction of our beloved planet.
To the “Feathers”
From Jay Joiner
I just subscribed to your group.
I am a retired broadcast journalist with 35 years of experience in small markets and large, and I have been fortunate enough to have worked with great staffs and thus had the opportunity to win some awards, ie. recognition from the journalistic, business and academic communities. OK. So what.
I continue to write what one might consider a blog to a VERY limited group of people I consider thinkers. There are about a dozen of them. Many are working journalists, friends who probably tolerate me. There are at least as many “conservatives” as “liberals” on my email list. The pieces I write run the gamut, usually subjects that enrage me and about which I think I have something to say, due to my experiences as a “gum shoe” reporter, ie. somebody who was the “fly on the wall.” Sometimes I get a response from those on my email list. Most times I do not because journalists, I mean REAL journalists, will not bias themselves, especially in print to me or anybody else. I have urged all of them to simply tell me if they want me to stop sending them these pieces, but nobody has asked me to stop. Several have said they actually read what I have written, and some agree, and some disagree, without elaborating. GOOD. Thinking is GOOD. I even get a question or two from non-journalists on my list, proving what I have found to be true: that the “general public” knows almost NOTHING. I can tell you that good journalists know a LOT more than they can ever tell you. Proof is necessary for publishing. I spent my life faithfully reporting to the general public the facts, what one side says about the facts, what the other side says about the facts and often what qualified experts say about the facts … fairly easy job, though “wordsmithing” is a brain burn. My opinion did not matter. I was the conduit for information, the scribe, as it were. Now, that I am retired, I am able to write my opinions, and I do, being careful, at times, not to intimate things that could get me killed. So, that’s me. Again … so what.
You requested comments about what you have done and plan to do. Preface all of my comments with IMHO, and I guess you know what that means.
If you email a Congressman, there is the DELETE key. If you write a Congressman, what you have written stands a very poor chance of being read by the member of Congress. It most likely goes in the “round file,” or it may get a form letter from a staff member. If, on the other hand, you are a major campaign contributor, you may get some attention.
The idea of a “cross-party alliance” is a good one. Don’t expect it to go anywhere with members of Congress, unless, of course, you are a major campaign contributor. HOWEVER, some Americans are really tired of our system. Trump ought to be some proof of that. So, you have to go to the American people, voters, in order to become a force that will gain the attention of a member of Congress. If you can enlist some major campaign contributors among your allies, that will make a lot of difference very quickly. As to “news personalities,” you list Rubin, Maddow and (cough!) Moore. So far, you look to me, thinking like a reporter, like simply a LIBERAL group. You need to focus less on liberal firebrands and more on those not already labeled “the evil, liberal, socialistic, anti-business” media. I tell my people to depend more on the long-term successful media outlets. They are still around for a reason, having survived many challenges. They also have the staffs to research and report. WSJ is a good conservative source. No, don’t bother with Fox. We know who that is. Allow me to interject a couple of old sayings from old newsrooms:
News value is directly related to the NUMBER of people the story affects and the INTENSITY with which it affects them. New chair for the Democratic Party? Who cares! Interruption in garbage pick up? “Now, you’ve taken to meddlin!”
If you want to know who is doing what to whom, why and how, FOLLOW THE DOLLAR. Big newsrooms do a lot of stock tracing.
You have to explain things to the “general public.” You have to write in “red crayon,” and make them understand how an issue affects their daily lives directly. When those people shot out several power substations, area residents, both liberal and conservative, got really angry. They could not watch TV! The beer in the fridge got warm! (sarcasm intended) Believe me. Some of those rural residents know who did that, and the FBI probably does too, after getting a bunch of anonymous tips. There are some militia groups in the cross hairs now. Of course, they were probably known to the FBI anyway. That is a big untold story. So, the points about the debt ceiling need to be explained to people in terms to which they relate, personally. Reich does a good job, but MAGA forces have labeled Reich an academic, “left-wing,” liberal. Rather than spend the brain power to actually think, people tend to accept the MAGA explanation.
Since the “Feathers” has no money and, as far as I can tell, has not shown any support from major campaign contributors who do have money, you/we have to go directly to the people … grass roots organization. That starts with a conversation with your neighbor, again … emphasizing how an issue affects them directly. If you don’t have the words, ask. You have to understand in layman’s terms in order to help others understand. That progresses to a meeting of a bunch of neighbors, maybe in an area community center. That progresses to a local organization of people who are tired of our current Congress (a lot are) and are sold on the idea of a “cross-party alliance.” When that has been established, then you go to the local TV assignment editor to get coverage of your next neighborhood meeting, which now might be spread to a number of neighborhoods. Pick ONE station. If you go to all of them, you are not giving anyone that all-important scoop. Hopefully, the effort becomes a pebble tossed into the pond. Ripples spread. If that becomes a wave, Congress may take notice. Otherwise … again … it is all in the campaign contributions. Follow the dollar.
Jay Joiner, Raleigh NC