Phase 4 ends when Biden signs 1st relief bill. There will be more.
This is just relief, stimulus is an entirely different story.
Before we get started and talk about the events of the last week and how it has affected our strategy moving forward, I cannot stress enough the importance of relabeling everything we are doing in these phases as…
“Relief.”
The proposed solutions are simply not large enough to qualify as “stimulus” as America has dug quite the economic hole that we still have to get out of.
Republicans will try to say that the Relief was enough Stimulus… and the time it takes to overcome that hurdle will only slow our recovery.
I’ll come back and to this but it would be impossible to move forward with a long-term strategy after the events the last week without adjusting.
In many ways, this horrible situation makes Progressives footing MUCH stronger as we dig in and push for the change we want to see.
Because it’s no longer just the change we want, but now more than ever America NEEDS it if we are going to recover.
We have all talked about achieving the Progressive Agenda because we thought it would create a more equitable future for everyone but now because of how the Pandemic has pushed America to the edge of collapse, the situation is no longer just a “want.”
Now the crisis demands it.
I had some words about how what we do as Progressives when we put pressure on our electeds, a time-honored tradition, is vastly different than what we saw in DC. If you are reading this, I’m confident you agree. You can read those remarks here → https://bit.ly/3nBX0bR
I also explain the situation with the recent Florida Dem Chair race and the many levels of corruption present in it… but I barely dented the surface.
But right now let's discuss the Riot in DC because that’s what it was…
A coordinated riot, with what appears to be people on the inside moving barriers and generally assisting them… which also makes it a coordinated coup attempt, so by no means am I excusing or sympathizing with them.
But the outcome was no greater than a riot even if it is still treason.
They terrorized not just the folks in the building but the whole country and they must be held accountable. So, it is critical we support Jamal Bowmans Bill, the COUP Act, to investigate the DC Police and Capitol Police to hold accountable those responsible for the failures in security.
This is only ONE step toward accountability.
Another step?
Donald Trump must be held accountable as well.
Even though his term is almost up the reasoning is simple…
Precedent.
That’s a direct quote from Bernie Sanders. We cannot let Donald Trump attempt to lead a rebellion against the country as he sits in our highest office after he failed at being President even worse than he normally fails at his businesses.
Ilhan Omar has drafted articles of Impeachment and Pelosi has given Pence a timetable to invoke the 25th https://bit.ly/35zksR5 or on Wednesday, the House of Representatives will introduce these Articles or a version of them and Impeach Trump for the 2nd time.
*Edit* Pence has said he will not invoke the 25th, Impeachment on Wed.
Then the plan is to put the whole thing on hold for Biden’s first 100 days and switch focus to Biden’s first Relief Bill…
I’m sorry, what?
I’m sure when you read that, assuming you hadn’t already, that makes you say to yourself “what the ever-living f*$% are these people thinking?”
There is actually some pretty solid logic to this and I’ll do my best to explain it.
Plus, as an added bonus we can use it like loaded dice to catch all the ‘quasi-progressive fascist enablers’ who are showing their faces after hiding out in and trying to direct the movement for actual years or should I say… misdirect.
I find it especially ironic that they are calling it the “Great unmasking” because that’s precisely what we are going to do, but with Nazis.
Okay, back to putting it on hold… and even if they can get the Senate to move forward quickly then we can still do an “abridged” version of the strategy.
Let me start by saying… we simply do not have the 2/3’s votes to convict.
McConnell seems ready, but that doesn’t mean we have the votes yet.
And I know you’re thinking, “Then how can we do Impeachment at all?”
Well, Biden’s first relief bill is actually the key to it, so putting everything on hold to build power there a good place to start…
You don’t need to fear putting things like this on hold as long as you have a clear path of action to move from one line item to the next, precisely as we have done in the other phases of this process.
In order to move the Bill through its Senate phases, there will be a 60 vote requirement at some point … and Democrats only have 50. There’s talk about using reconciliation to skip that but future ones will still require it.
Now that Bernie Sanders has been officially confirmed as Senate Budget Committee Chairman, this gives us even more reason to push harder than ever and opens more than a few doors, this is a big hurdle.
He says he’s prepared to push the envelope on Budget Reconciliation, but assume we’re still going to need to whip 10 or more republican Votes to make sure we are consistently crossing that finish line while at the same time keeping the Manchin Democrats from falling out of position.
When it comes to Impeachment, it is based on a 2/3s vote of those present so the number can be lower, so as long as they maintain quorum it’s enough.
But this means we need to kick some Seditious Republicans out… This is why we need to support Cori Bush’s bill to not seat the seditious members of Congress which there is legal precedent for on many levels.
There is also a push to remove a few Senators.
With support from the Speaker, it could move with enough pushing.
This takes us back to Phase 1 & 2 which was about different methods of protesting your Senators and building protests at their various in-state offices while trying to build media engagement for your events.
Again, I want to be very specific… this is ‘bird-dogging’ at most, not ‘terrorizing’. Avoid that language altogether or you will get clumped together with Right-Wing Radicals and Terrorists.
We already need to make sure that this doesn’t lead to increases in public security around the Capitol or a new version of the Patriot Act, which BTW obviously doesn’t work, making it easier for Corporate Politicians to hide from the People they represent… They have to at least make sure the folks they represent feel heard, this doesn’t require violence, just consistency.
Senators have multiple offices throughout the state, so in theory, if you organize a protest at each physical office and use them each as a local recruitment tool for each area… you could hypothetically organize that into a statewide progressive coordinated committee for your future candidate to challenge that seat and hopefully put someone into office.
The Senate is the ‘nut’ that progressives need to crack in 2022.
You can read Phase 1 & 2 surmised here → https://bit.ly/35z5Dh9
You can follow the links in that article to the original FB posts where I explain more of these theories in greater depth.
Don’t forget… 34 Senators … 20 Republican and 14 Democrat are up for reelection and the only thing they are actually afraid of is a well organized, well funded, and well-liked challenger.
That means there was never a more opportune moment to put real pressure on the Senate and many of those Republicans are in vulnerable seats.
So… to tighten it up… and organize.
We are going to build the power to convict Trump by building power to influence the Senate when we put pressure on both Democrats and Republicans for relief bills.
McConnell has signaled that he is ready to convict Trump but that doesn’t mean that we can trust he has the votes…
And why would we start trusting him now?
I believe we only get one more shot to do this correctly.
If you care about Medicare For All, or Cancelling Student Debt, or literally any part of the Progressive Agenda then it goes straight through Impeaching Trump, building power while negotiating Biden’s first relief bill, and then convicting Trump once he is out of office and out of power.
Today is Tuesday, January 12th, 2021.
1 day until we impeach Trump, again.
8 days until Biden is sworn in.
63 Days until Biden’s relief bill is due and it is now being drafted.
101 Days until proposed Senate trial for Trump.
Which makes that date… April 22, 2021.
Now there is a certain Sublime song that feels awfully specific for this moment that we are holding him accountable for a riot on the East Coast on the 29th anniversary of a very famous riot on the West Coast.
Someone is going to point out that technically the LA riots occurred from April 27th-May 4th, 1992… which if anything to me is a goal date to have this thing wrapped up by. But one could also argue that the ‘100 days’ starts when Biden is sworn in which would be April 30th but I think that’s pushing the date too far and we need to make it closer not further away.
Always round down not up when it comes to dates for these events.
Because if we continue to build power in the same way we have the last month then we could easily have the process wrapped up very fast and then promptly move on to the NEXT inevitable relief bill. I’m sure someone with more experience with the process can explain the projected impeachment timeline far better than I can and we will adjust as necessary.
As of this moment, Trump’s Impeachment will represent Phase 5 and the 2nd relief bill will represent Phase 6… Hopefully, we can get this freight train really moving over these next few weeks and we are capable enough to manage phase 5 and 6 at the same time.
If we can, then it will make all of this much faster.
I have said many times, ALL change is incremental when you work on it every day, but we can control the speed of the increments. With a solid strategy and a plan of action that compliments it then anything is possible.
And before you say “still sounds impossible”, we have never been here before, quite like this… let’s make the most of this opportunity.
Now, we’re going to get back to what actually should be in Biden’s 1st and 2nd relief bill in a moment but I want to take a minor step to the side to discuss what’s happening here.
To the untrained eye, it may appear that I am simply making this up as I go along, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that is partially true. But what is actually happening is I’m adjusting a larger strategy that focused on four main ideas… Relief, Restructure, Rebuild, and Restart…
The first half focusing on relief and the last two to focus on stimulus, with many stages… but I wrote this plan early on in the Pandemic… before the protests… and before the almost civil war… it would be irresponsible of me not to reach out to those I have worked with thus far and adjust the strategy to fit the changing present that we experience together.
We’re calling this process “Reactive Change” which is what you do when you don’t necessarily have control of the direction of the process… when you are in power or can somehow steer, you can create “Proactive Change” which is how progressives would prefer it. It’s just not that way right now.
But we have to use a balance of both actions to drive this through at any point possible, I relate it to the child’s book “Give a Mouse a Cookie.” If they give us ANYTHING which they absolutely have to because of the crisis then we can drive it all the way through to completing the progressive agenda.
If you would prefer a different metaphor, we have to be like water which finds any hole in the barrier and shapes a larger hole until the barrier falls.
At this point, if you are still reading, then you are asking yourself...
“I’m not elected, no one hired me, I don’t even have a title. How can I change any of this?” … or something to that effect.
It’s all about something I call the ‘direct-action triangle.’
Direct action is a process that involves organizing within,
Community
Activism
& Government
Together to create change and there are many roles to play.
Each of them is different and can be uniquely tuned to your preferences.
The community works together to support each other and itself. The Activists step up to create answers and make demands for whatever problems the community runs into… and politicians legislate those demands into laws.
And help the Community… it’s a big circle, or a triangle…whatever.
Point is, this is why there is a TON of pushback against the squad and other progressive members of Congress, even Bernie, as being a “sell-out.”
But elected like Bernie and AOC are awesome because they do all three…
That’s what it means to be a progressive politician, not these purity tests.
And that means they are always watching the grassroots.
Over the years, I have told many outlandish sounding stories about getting Bernie or other electeds to pick up new ideas and run with them… I know that folks don’t necessarily believe me until they see this…
This is from today… Regardless of if they use the name, this is the REAL EPIC strategy in motion. Biden will ultimately decide the name… IF we get it.
Any way you spin it, this is Bernie saying “Yes” to Phase 3.
Right now more than a few major for-profit groups are struggling and we cannot have our relief payments goto Healthcare that the government is already paying for… the time is now, more than ever, to push through a program that can help Americans immediately using existing infrastructure without involving the insurance industry who will only slow it down.
We can worry about that infrastructure AFTER we are getting folks help.
But I also want to point out that I only officially released the strategy nine days ago. Which really speaks to the power of the grassroots.
I am one person with a stack of ideas that a lot of folks worked on.
And though I wrote the strategy months ago and have been lightly promoting the basics of it on Facebook the whole time, it was only viable in the last few days… and in that time, I alone have promoted it broadly.
Now, imagine what we could do if we all worked together?
But, the reason it works is that just like how Neoliberals chase the Money around… electeds like Bernie and the Squad get their power from the people in the same way and that means they chase the grassroots around…
Basically, they get their power from you.
You knocking on doors, making phone calls, texting but in the right places.
The words that always got Bernie to pick it up an idea, where every other group has failed are a few simple words …
“This is what the grassroots are doing…”
But it's not something you say, it’s something you do.
If we create power on the ground for an idea that is also a method to help them build power inside on top of what we have already created in our push to ‘fight for someone we don’t know’ or ‘improve the quality of life of someone you will never meet’ then they will always take it up.
If those sound familiar the first one is Bernie’s 2020 slogan and the second one was my 2018 slogan…
Since folks have asked, I am not going to use this piece to discuss the merit of other plans that have been going around, but I will… in great detail … and have in posts on Twitter, but that’s not what this moment is for.
But I will say this… our most valuable resource is a volunteer’s time.
It is sacred.
And wasting it is sacrilege for an organizer, so when I see folks turning each other against their own self-interests, it is very upsetting.
I do not doubt that if you believe that we had the power to come together and ‘force the vote’ as it was proposed, then we definitely had the power to get the full $2000 relief … all that stood in our way was the turtle.
So, while I won’t speak to the merit of it, I will mention the consequences.
That miscalculation, that moment of not recognizing your power to really help folks… cost the American people $252 Billion in aid.
Roughly 180 Million eligible times $1400 each… $252,000,000,000.
Our actions, how we use our time, are worth more right now than ever and we cannot squander this opportunity fighting with each other.
Not when we need to be fighting with literal Nazis.
This is why this plan is built to help us in another entirely different way…
We have fascist sympathizers in our midst, and folks are starting to notice that there is a problem.
Many of these fascist simps who have been coming up in conversations are the same who have taken part in smear campaigns against me and are verbatim using the same smears against Progressives on Twitter right now.
What they are doing is using the perception of left-leaning politics to pull you further Right but the majority of their social media are RW fascists.
That’s why they have to say all these “moderate” talking points about fascists, but if we already don’t like moderates for Corporations then I really, really don’t like moderates for Nazis… we had a war to settle this.
But by integrating Impeaching Trump into our strategy and dragging out the process then there is no way that they can stay hidden the entire time. All of their social media is split between the right-wingers who support them and the left-wingers they manipulate.
It will not survive the 100 days of either silence or tearing down the vast majority of their social media and losing followers along the way.
They have been doing a great deal more damage than folks realize for a lot longer than folks realize, so think about what I’m saying because it's a perfect trap we can organize publicly to hold them to who they really are.
I’ll explain in further detail their network, how it started, who started it, and why they are a major voice for DemExit, I’m sure it’s making sense.
But right now the fight has gotten more complicated, so let’s stay focused.
We have action to take and it starts Wednesday with Impeaching Trump.
Bills to Support:
Ilhan Omar’s Articles of Impeachment -> https://bit.ly/2LtdK87
Jamal Bowan’s Investigation of Capital Police -> https://bit.ly/39w0Cr7
Cori Bush’s Bill not seat seditious members -> https://bit.ly/3oJGOXu
I believe the last two still need cosponsors in the Senate as well.
In addition to that, we need to PUSH on Biden right now for greater relief.
That means a one time $2K relief payment while we push for retroactive in the 2nd relief bill… if we can create enough pressure to convict Trump in 100 days then we can certainly create enough pressure to get the retroactive $2k and for the rest of the pandemic, which is showing no signs of abating.
Also, the most recent Relief bill was still based on 2019 income and many who needed help could not access it, this needs to be fixed.
In addition to that, we have to release citizens getting UI from the tax liability associated with the current setup. Folks who are already struggling cannot afford the tax payment coming in a few months. It doesn’t make any sense to me for the Government to grant us assistance just to ask for some of it back when we need it the most and they should be giving us more.
I go into great detail on the retroactive $2000 bill in all three active stages.
The retroactive payment is the cornerstone of our recovery and the nexus point between Relief and Stimulus… The economy will never recover until we undo the damage done by the last year and the next coming months. That means not just giving folks some money, but actually refilling their saving that they lost or we will never develop consumer confidence again and we could be faced with a long depression.
That would drag our recovery from one year to five or more…
The system needs to be artificially lifted and that includes emergency pandemic medical access, and discussing how we transfer and combine the enhanced UI system distributed by states and the federal stimulus into a semi-permanent UBI that is distributed federally.
At the end of the day, this is just altering the form of ‘currency distribution’ that America uses for its Currency, going through the Corporations in a ‘trickle-down’ manner will only stall the process to a state beyond repair.
You can read up on phase 3 here → https://bit.ly/38BWwhD
I dive into the REAL EPIC strategy and how we can use that to both, fight for more retroactive action, and emergency single-payer.
Though these are more likely to end up in the 2nd or 3rd relief package, if we can build up enough strength to get Trump convicted then we can certainly get these accomplished before this summer.
Since I wrote my first draft, it is now looking possible for EPIC, whether by name or not, because it is more than just a name it is a strategic theory to pass Single-Payer, to actually make it into the 1st relief package.
So now is the moment.
The timetable for the 2nd relief package will be determined by the length of the UI extension that is being granted in the 1st. The third will be the same.
So, Biden’s relief bill checklist, just some, not all… will add to
$2k single payment + continue pushing for retroactive, expect it in 2nd
Extend UI +full $600, we should be talking about that increasing
Money for C19 Testing
Money for States
Investment in Vaccine distribution
$10k in student loan debt forgiveness
Assistance for low-income families with computers for online schooling
Things that we aren’t talking about that we should.
Rent and Mortgage Freeze
Emergency Single-Payer
Making UI benefits non-taxable
A lot more student loan forgiveness
Helping folks with COVID burial costs
General Debt Assistance
Stop Utility shutoffs
Make Broadband a utility
Permanent UBI without losing social services
And that is before we talk about how each and every one of these programs or systems need an overhaul or possibly a complete reboot.
We have a ton of work to do but now at least we know precisely what timetable we have to do it in.
Up to this point, I avoided talking about party politics because this strategy is for anyone who stands against Fascists and wants our country to recover.
And I mean anyone…
Phase 4 will have a few articles for each stage as events shift the layout of the field… in addition to discussing a method to transition the UI system into a permanent UBI system, I’m also going to prepare a lengthy history on the DemExit vs DemEnter fight, how it started, who started, who promotes it, and what they did, which honestly… if you all knew what happened through each step then I guarantee you’d feel a lot differently about it all.
The leader of one of these groups was a long time member of my National Strategy Chat and was aware of the intended final outcome of my planning… takeover the Democrats and trick the Republicans into ripping themselves in half, watering down their vote.
The goal has always been “to turn the ‘thermostat’ of the earth down.”
Now, no one anticipated the Republicans doing it this quickly but now you might have a better understanding of why these folks who are being discovered to now be fascist sympathizers attacked me…
I’ll explain it all in even greater detail in future articles as it becomes relevant, but let’s not forget, right now, we still need to create enough pressure that Biden will be forced to choose a more progressive cabinet and DNC picks.
We still have Neera Tanden to stop from being confirmed and several other unprofessional neoliberals who need not be in the Whitehouse.
I do want to leave you with this small bit of inner-party information though…
They say that when a Democrat wins the Whitehouse that the rule is that the President chooses the DNC Chairperson… however… technically…
There is no rule stating that this is a fact, it is simply a courtesy.
So, hypothetically, we could create major reform simply by demanding that Biden allow an open Chair’s race, and guess what? We’ve won more DNC seats than we lost the first round in ’17 and at least we could find out who is who.
We wouldn’t even have to change the rules, just change folks' mindsets.
And that is after all, what we are here to do…
Plus if we pull all of this off and we change the makeup of the Senate in ‘22… let Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie do his road trip with Biden to show him how the working class lives… let him earn some trust…
Then, some folks might not be happy about it, but Berniecrats might get this…
What issues from the last few years would you like to hear about in my next strategy piece?
What did I miss that should be in Biden’s relief bill?
Now is the time to collaborate.
Phase 4 is going to be kinda long, so we have some time to get to each other.
You can follow Don on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TheWordofDon
Here are the phases so far…
Phase 1 & 2 → https://bit.ly/35z5Dh9
Phase 3 → https://bit.ly/38BWwhD
Phase 3.5 → https://bit.ly/3nBX0bR
Phase 4 → https://bit.ly/38NStz1
