Renewing Our Democracy

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.

A Primer on Social Media Bots And Their Malicious Use In U.S. Politics

This full paper is in PDF format, and can be found through the links in the text below or at the bottom of the page. 

Tens of millions of malicious bots – automated accounts programmed to tweet or post in a manner masquerading as humans – infest our social media platforms, and many are being used deceptively for political purposes. These “computational propaganda” accounts fake petition signatures, skew poll results, sow discord and spread falsehoods. In doing so, they pose a serious danger to democracy.

They’ve been deployed by Russia and others to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Brexit vote, the 2017 French election and more. As America approaches the 2018 and 2020 election seasons, the threat will only grow – weaponized social bots will become more convincing and harder to detect.

To help those in the political arena better understand this new phenomenon, NDN is proud to release a new paper, "A Primer on Social Media Bots and Their Malicious Use in US Politics." Written by our long time collaborator Tim Chambers, this paper lays out in plain, simple English what bots are, how they are being used, and some ways we can together combat their impact in the days ahead.

Especially as we approach the 2018 and 2020 elections, it is critical that we understand and counteract this threat now, or we will lose this new form of information war. We must develop more and better technological defenses. We must demand that our social networks build for the good of the countries they act in, not just for their own profits. And we must adopt laws and policies that protect our democracy while safeguarding social media’s enormous potential to enhance the democratic process. This compelling new paper offers some early thinking on how we may want to approach taking on the bots. Please let us know what you think of it, and feel free to share with others you think might be interested.

Update: Since publication of the paper, Simon and Tim were quoted in this Yahoo Finance piece, "Maybe Facebook and Twitter should be regulated like TV".

Protecting American Elections

The OSET Institute's new Briefing provides a thorough review of the technology infrastructure of election administration and operation. OSET addresses its criticality and what is required for it to be treated as such, and assess the challenges of official designation, as well as the immediate and longer-term challenges to protecting this vital aspect of our democracy.

The full briefing is available here and attached below.

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.

Column: Why the Return of WikiLeaks Is a Problem for Trump

In his new US News column,“Why the Return of WikiLeaks Is a Problem for Trump,” Simon argues that the new WikiLeaks release reminds us the campaign Russia is waging against the West and the US is an ongoing effort, not something that happened in the past.

An excerpt from "Why the Return of WikiLeaks Is a Problem for Trump" 

"The new Wikileaks release of sensitive CIA documents about its cyber capabilities is many things, but perhaps most importantly it is a reminder that the campaign Russia is waging against the West and the United States is an ongoing effort, not something that happened in the past.

Not only does this new release involve Wikileaks, the main outlet for Russia's stolen materials from the Clinton campaign and the DNC, but a big part of the new dump provides previously undisclosed information about the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence, the unit assigned by President Obama to respond to Russia's interference in our politics last summer.

In a normal time, Russia's re-emergence would be considered the greatest security threat to America and our traditional allies. But the Trump administration has been remarkably silent on the issue. Despite tweeting on issues ranging from the ratings of his old television show to Ivanka's businesses, the new president has not once gone to Twitter to condemn any of these Russian aggressions. Nor has he even acknowledged that Russia intervened in our politics last year (let alone condemned it) or authorized a collective response to its ongoing efforts to disrupt the politics of our most important allies in Europe.

Consider that not only has Russia taken unprecedented aggression in the homeland of the United States, but it is, right now, waging similar cyber/disinformation campaigns inside of many of our most important European allies. It has escalated its activities in Eastern Ukraine. It has broken a 30-year-old nuclear treaty with the United States, deploying new offensive nuclear capacity that threatens Europe. It has propped up the Assad regime in Syria, helping prolong the civil war there and keeping the destabilizing flow of refugees into Europe. And it is even expanding its activities in places like Afghanistan and Libya."

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

Column: A Strategy for Confronting Trump, Restoring Democratic Norms

In his new column for US News, "Drawing the Line with Trump," Simon argues that Democrats need to abandon traditional responses to the Trump Presidency, and set new rules of engagement. Trump’s early, repeated trampling of democratic norms must be confronted head on now. Friday’s decision to strip legal residents of the US of their liberties without debate or consultation is the act of an autocrat or dictator, not an American President. No further evidence of his intentions are needed now.

In his piece Simon lays out four conditions for continued Democratic cooperation:

1) Stop the Executive Orders
2) Debate Your Proposals In Congress
3) Divest or Disclose
4) Honor Decorum

Trump has historically low levels of public support; voters already have grave concerns about his secret holdings and the potential for corruption; and regular people are already taking unprecedented steps to protest his early Presidency. Democrats have a great deal of running room to take a dramatic and principled stand not against Trump but in favor of the rule of law and our democratic system itself.

Column: An Independent Audit of Trump's Companies Is Now Necessary

US News and World Report has published Simon's ninth column, "An Independent Audit of Trump's Companies Is Now Necessary," in his weekly Op-Ed series that will every Thursday or Friday.

Be sure to also read his recent column, "The Pernicious Politics of Oil - On Trump's embrace of petro-politics," in which Simon does a deep dive on why Trump 's embrace of plutocratic petro-politics should be worrisome to liberals everywhere.

An Excerpt from "An Independent Audit of Trump's Companies Is Now Necessary"

This week, President-elect Donald Trump thumbed his nose at the government agency that oversees ethics in the Executive Branch by announcing he intends to keep all of his far flung holdings as president. Whether this unprecedented and arrogant act is illegal and unconstitutional and not just unethical will be at the center of what is sure to be a vigorous debate in the coming months.

But the worry about his arrangement is far greater than the issue of propriety and legality. Let me offer a few examples:

It establishes new far weaker norms. Perhaps inspired by Trump's example, we've already seen House Republicans vote to gut their own ethics regime; the Senate GOP is holding hearings on Cabinet nominees without either their FBI background check or ethics clearance completed; challenging anti-nepotism laws, Trump is bringing his son in law, who is also not divesting from all his holdings, into the White House; and Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson refuse to recuse himself from overseeing decisions affecting his lifelong employer, Exxon Mobil. In these early days, the new GOP has made it clear it intends to weaken or ignore good government policies put into place decades ago – the very opposite of draining the swamp.

It encourages public corruption. Remarkably, Trump not only refused to adopt the many suggestions outside counsel had for how to ethically manage his holdings, he actually walked back a commitment for the Trump Organization to do no new deals while he is president. In his Wednesday press conference, Trump said the business will in fact be able to do "domestic" deals. This is a clear signal from our next president that investors/courtiers, and one would assume U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, should begin lining up at Trump Tower to begin talks on domestic U.S. projects. The benefit of these deals would go directly to the benefit of the Trump family, and since he has not divested, Trump himself. As all of his business dealings are essentially secret, the public would have no way of knowing who was entering into business with the family of the sitting president. The opportunity for public corruption here is perhaps unprecedented in all of American history.

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

Backgrounder: Countering Russia's Insurgency Against The West

This has been an area of concern for the NDN team for some time. Below is some of our most important recent work:

Democrats should put Russia, corruption, and tax returns on agenda w/Trump, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 4/20/17. In the coming negotiations with President Trump on a wide variety of issues, Democrats should add three more important issues to the agenda.

The RNC's Russia Problem, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 4/14/17. The RNC helped Russia interfere in our elections. It should now take the lead in making sure it never happens again.

Tillerson failed to make Russian interference in US elections central to his mtgs w/Lavrov, Putin, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 4/12/17. Failure by Tillerson to make this far-ranging interference campaign central to these talks and to publicly condemn Russia for their aggressive actions here and in Europe is a tacit sign of approval of these efforts by the Trump Administration.

The End of Innocence: Trump's Fantasy World Crashes Hard Into The Real One, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 4/7/17. On Russia, Syria, health care, immigration and even jobs Trump's fantasy world is crashing into the real one.  And the results haven't been pretty for him, or for the nation. 

NDN Calls on WH/DHS to Release Their Plans for Protecting US Elections from Foreign Interference, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 4/5/17. It is time for the White House to come forward with its plan to make sure the kind of attack Russia made on the US in 2016 never happens again.

GOP and House Intelligence Hearing, Simon Rosenberg, Twitter Thread, 3/20/17. GOP used the hearing to lay predicate for a purge of IC, another Russian objective, and sent clear signal they care more abt protecting Trump than understanding what Russia has done in our countries and others.

Why the Return of WikiLeaks Is a Problem for Trump, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 3/9/17. Simon argues that the new WikiLeaks release reminds us the campaign Russia is waging against the West and the US is an ongoing effort, not something that happened in the past.

Corruption of Trump by Russia (Part 2), Simon Rosenberg, Twitter Thread, 3/4/17. Simon's take on what we are learning - that the Russia scandal is ongoing, not something that happened last year.

Corruption of Trump by Russia (Part 1), Simon Rosenberg, Twitter Thread, 3/3/17. Simon's take on what we are learning - that the Russia scandal is ongoing, not something that happened last year.

On Flynn, Pence and Russia, Simon Rosenberg, Twitter Thread, 2/9/17. Simon does a deep dive on the news Mike Flynn lied about his contacts with Russia, and renewed his calls for his suspension or removal.

NDN Calls on Trump, Congress to Respond to Russian Aggression in Europe, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 2/9/17. NDN calls on the Trump Administration and Congress to respond to and counter Russia's aggression and preserve the West.

On The Difference Between The US and Russia, Simon Rosenberg, Twitter Thread, 2/5/17. In response to Donald Trump's comments in the O'Reilly Superbowl interview, Simon reminds us that Russia has done more to spread oppression and human misery than any other country in the world over the past 100 years. 

NDN Calls on President Trump to Demand Russia Honor Ukranian Ceasefire, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 2/1/17. NDN calls on the Trump Administration to forcefully defend the Minsk agreement and demand Russia and its forces in Ukraine to stand down.

NDN Calls on President to Delay Decisions on Russia Policy until Investigations, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 1/27/17. Simon calls for President Trump should refrain from making any significant changes in our policy towards Russia until these investigations are complete, and Congress and the American people have an opportunity to weigh in on their findings.

The End of Pax Americana?, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 1/26/17. Donald Trump is taking radical steps that is weakening the global order America imagined and built after World War II.  Before he does more harm to our interests, Congress must force a big debate about his vision, and challenge him if necessary.  

The Pernicious Politics of Oil – On Trump's embrace of petro-politics, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 12/16/16. In his recent column, Simon does a deep dive on why Trump's embrace of plutocratic petro-politics should be worrisome to liberals everywhere.

Trouble Ahead – 4 Scandals That Could Alter the Trump Presidency, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 12/1/16. In this recent column, Simon looks at four looming scandals that could alter the trajectory of the Trump Presidency – unprecedented levels of public corruption, collusion with Russia to alter the outcome of the election, the FBI’s late intervention and Melania’s immigration troubles.

The Russian Intervention In The US Election Matters, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 11/28/16. Our government must explain what happened with Russia's successful intervention in our election, and what steps it plans to take to prevent it from ever happening again.

Prior to 2016 Election

The West Is On The Ballot, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 11/4/16. In the column, Simon argues that Trump isn't running just against Clinton, he's also running against what America has become and the world it has built.

Calling all Patriots, Simon Rosenberg, US News & World Report, 10/13/16. While in a reflective mood about the future, their nominee and party, Simon suggests two other activities Republicans should swiftly denounce and distance themselves from.

Trump's Worrisome Embrace of Putin, Simon Rosenberg, NDN.org, 9/12/16. In this column Simon does a deep dive on Trumpland’s embrace of Russia’s Putin, and why their admiration for his “strength” is a betrayal of our values.

Voting Machines Should Be Seen As Critical Democracy Infrastructure, Greg Miller, The Hill, 8/22/16. Our friends at the Open Source Election Technology Foundation (OSET) penned this thoughtful piece to provide a plan to protect our elections systems from disruption, foreign or domestic.

Fighting to Keep the Internet Open and Free, Simon Rosenberg and Jonathan Spalter, The Hill, 10/22/14. Simon and Jonathan Spalter offer up a whole of government approach to keeping the Internet open and free in the years ahead.

Column: A Call For Rs to Find Inner Patriot, Strengthen US Democracy

Simon has signed up with US News and World Report to write a column every Thursday or Friday through the end of the year. His first column, "How America Prospers in a Global Age," ran last week. His new column, "Calling all Patriots," argues it is time for Republicans to once again find their inner patriot and work with the Democrats to keep the Russians from intervening in our election, and to make it easier for Americans to vote.   

The piece was well received yesterday when it was released. DNC Chair Donna Brazile for example tweeted it to her many followers. You can read the whole piece here, and we include an excerpt below.  Check here and at US News each week for new insights from Simon. 

Simon released a related statement on Monday, October 17th. 

Excerpt from the article:

In the past week, we've seen Republicans from across the country denounce Donald Trump for his vulgar remarks caught on tape by Access Hollywood. Some, like John McCain, have said the remarks were so disturbing that he was no longer capable of voting for the GOP presidential nominee this fall.

While in a reflective mood about the future, their nominee and party, I would like to suggest two other activities Republicans should swiftly denounce and distance themselves from – the national effort to make it harder for Americans to participate in their democracy, and the attempt by a foreign adversary to intervene in and disrupt our upcoming election.

First, the pernicious effort to make it harder for Americans to vote. In the aftermath of Barack Obama's historic win in 2008, Republicans in dozens of states took steps to make it harder for people to vote. Their efforts ran the gamut – making registration far more difficult, eliminating the use of student IDs for voting even at public universities, cutting early voting windows, radically reducing the number of polling locations in heavily Democratic areas and, of course, successfully gutting the Voting Rights Act. It has been an all-out, national, party-wide effort to make it harder for every day Americans to participate in their democracy, and it has affected tens of millions of people including in big states like North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.

In several states, courts have invalidated some of the more extreme measures. But what is perhaps most remarkable is how hard current GOP leaders are fighting court mandated changes in their laws. Election officials in Texas and Wisconsin have continued to follow practices declared illegal by courts in this current election. In North Carolina, a federal court recently invalidated their law, writing that it "targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision." Not deterred by being labeled racist, the Republicans of North Carolina, supported by Trump, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. Gratefully the Supreme Court denied to hear the appeal and this awful law was struck down.

This renewed embrace of time worn voter suppression tactics is particularly worrisome given America's already low rate of voting. As I wrote in U.S. News earlier this year, low rates of voter participation weaken our democracy by limiting the actual amount of consent Americans are giving to their leaders. For a party so powerfully inspired by the Revolutionary call of "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death," it is hard to understand how they've ended up embracing systemic efforts by politicians making it harder for the American people to exercise their liberties and keep our historic political system vibrant and strong.

To continue reading, please refer to the US News link. You can also find more of Simon's US News articles here.

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