Over the next two days, my biggest priority is stopping the House from passing Fast Track Trade Authority, and the many bad trade "deals" that will inevitably be born out of it.
Tomorrow, my colleagues and I will be asking more than a million of you to to help us accomplish this. We have already called on millions of you to help us accomplish this many times over. Hundreds of thousands of you have answered those calls.
Now, here's the thing I'm not sure if I should tell you or not: I don't think we are going to succeed. I believe Fast Track will pass on Friday, and we will lose.
Why do I keep fighting, despite this belief? Why should you keep fighting, even though most people think we will lose? It's very much the old sports adage, "that's why you play the games." Consider:
Never thought Ned Lamont would beat Joe Lieberman. I was both right and wrong about that one, literally. Never thought we would pass the public option, even though I was knee deep in that fight. Sadly, I was correct. Never thought we stop SOPA. In fact, I even advised against engaging in that fight because I didn't think it would interest people. Very glad I was totally wrong. Never thought we would stop Larry Summers from becoming chair of the Federal Reserve. But we actually did stop Summers, even though I admit I don't know how much of a role we played in making that happen. Never thought we would actually convince the Senate to nuke the filibuster. Stunningly, we actually did make that happen for judicial and executive branch nominations, and it has made a huge dent in the courts and in many branches of government as a result. What's more, we were utterly crucial in pulling this off, from start to finish. Three Cheers for Kagro X! Never thought we would stop Social Security cuts, but we actually did. In fact, expanding Social Security is now supported by almost every single Democrat in Congress, and we played a not unimportant role in that reversal. Never thought we would stop food stamp cuts from passing in the Farm Bill in 2014. And so we didn't stop those cuts, although they weren't nearly as bad as expected and were stopped completely in all but a handful of states. Definitely never thought police violence would become a major issue, but it definitely has. This community has played an important role in making that happen. Now change is on the way, even if it is far too slow. Sure thought we would do better in the 2014 midterm elections than we did. That was a real disappointment, even though we threw every friggin' thing we had at it. Never thought we would stop the FCC from ending Net Neutrality, much less convince it to pass real Net Neutrality. But we actually did do that, and we were even instrumental in making it happen. That one still is a source of shock and joy to me. There cheers for Rachel Colyer and Joan McCarter! I actually kind of thought we would stop Congress from passing new sanctions on Iran and blowing up the nuclear diplomacy talks, and we basically have stopped them from doing that. Once again, I admit I don't know how much of a role we played. For the first time in modern history, global carbon emissions have actually stopped increasing without a recession taking place. We definitely didn't play much of a role in that he at Daily Kos, but did you seriously ever think something that great would happen?Here's the bottom line. Outcomes of major political fights tend to be pretty uncertain no matter what the apparent outcome looks like at any given time. As such, the only rational approach is to always fight your hardest and just play it out to the end.
My strategy is to build as big an activism engine as possible. Then, when the important fights come along, band together with a bunch of people to throw that big thing as hard as you can throw it. Do this no matter no matter the issue or the apparent outcome.
With each fight, our activism engine has kept getting bigger, and we have found more people to help us throw it. As I believe our record shows, this is starting to generate real results. We are winning more of these big fights than ever before.
So we are just going to keep fighting on this one until it's over. Please, call the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and leave the following message with your member of Congress:
As a constituent, I expect you to represent me—and am counting on you to to do the right thing. Please vote “no” on fast track as it comes to the House floor. It is wrong to ram through a secret corporate trade deal that will undermine basic worker protections. I will remember how you vote when you are up for re-election. Thank you to the over 200,000 of you who have fought against Fast Track with us so far. Let's keep fighting all the way to the end.