Al Franken, Giant of the Senate

by Al Franken

  Even before President Trump took the oath of office, the clear majority of Americans who didn’t vote for him (and a growing number of Americans who were really sorry they had voted for him) were trying to figure out how to fight back against him.

  As it happened, I had had some experience with all this. I’d basically cut my teeth as a political activist in opposition—opposition to the Gingrich Revolution, opposition to the growth of the right-wing media, and opposition to the George W. Bush administration.

  Because I’d been a satirist since I was a teenager, I had had plenty of experience in identifying hypocrisies and absurdities. I knew how to drill down into an argument to find the inconsistencies that would reveal the underlying mendacity of the object of my derision. I had learned not to be afraid to speak truth to power.

  That’s what my books were about. That’s what my radio show was about. That’s why I attracted a following of progressives long before I ever ran for office.

  It’s also why, when I did run for office, the transition wasn’t always smooth. The tools I’d used to fight for the things I believed in as an author and radio host weren’t always useful as a candidate, and they aren’t always useful as a senator.

  But they still work sometimes. And I’ve had a chance to prove it in the early days of the Trump administration.

  As you will recall, committee hearings are often prime “scorn and ridicule” opportunities. And the first order of business in the 115th Congress was for Senate committees to consider President Trump’s Cabinet nominees, many of whom were, shall we say, ripe for the picking.

  I mentioned earlier how I confronted Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing for attorney general—where I busted him for claiming that he had “personally handled” four civil rights cases as a U.S. Attorney when, in fact, he hadn’t.

  I also, inadvertently, trapped him in an even more damaging lie. I had asked him what he would do as attorney general if it emerged that there had been contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Sessions answered a different question, asserting that he, himself, had not met with any Russians during the campaign. Which turned out not to be true. Pretty brilliant on my part, don’t you think? See? I’m always three steps ahead.

  Meanwhile, the HELP Committee was considering the nomination of Tom Price, the Georgia congressman and former orthopedic surgeon who had spent his career in Congress trying to slash Medicare, destroy Medicaid, and help orthopedic surgeons make as much money as possible.

  In fact, Price had enriched himself even after leaving his orthopedic surgery practice to serve in Congress, thanks to a series of extremely suspicious investments he had made in health care stocks while he was writing legislation that affected the value of those stocks. Which I delighted in bringing up at his hearing to be secretary of health and human services.

  But the moment when I was able to make the biggest impact came during Betsy DeVos’s hearing to be secretary of education. And this time, it wasn’t because I asked a tough question. In fact, it was because I asked a very, very easy question.

  Remember back in the education chapter where I talked about how judging schools by “proficiency” created all sorts of bad outcomes? The alternative is to judge schools by “growth”—instead of measuring how many students reach a certain bar of proficiency, measure how much progress every student has made over the course of the school year.

  This is a very basic and very important debate in education policy. But when DeVos had come to my office for her pre-hearing courtesy call, my staff and I were surprised to discover that she seemed to have no understanding at all about education policy in general. So I thought it might be fun to ask her about growth vs. proficiency.

  In the hearing, I made sure to give her as much context about this issue as possible before asking for her thoughts. She had none. In fact, she had no idea what I was talking about. It was a shocking moment in a hearing full of them (for example, she had no idea that disabled children’s right to a quality education is protected by a federal law, and she suggested that schools might want to keep guns around in case of grizzly bear attack).

  DeVos offered perhaps the worst performance by any Cabinet nominee in the history of nomination hearings. And for the first time in American history, the vice president of the United States had to make the trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to cast the tie-breaking vote on behalf of a Cabinet nominee.

  As one of the forty-eight Democratic senators in the unique position of serving as a constitutional check on this president, I have opportunities to fight back against this administration that I wouldn’t have had as an author and radio host.

  But my job also comes with its own set of responsibilities and constraints. I have to be strategic about how to use the considerable, but not unlimited, leverage I have. I have to coordinate with forty-seven other Democrats who may have different political realities or even different political philosophies than I do. And I have to remember that the people of Minnesota didn’t just send me to Washington to be part of the Democratic caucus—they sent me to Washington to be their Senator.

  Figuring out how to balance all these considerations is never easy. And as someone who’s been part of this fight from a number of different perspectives, I’ve learned that these judgment calls sometimes look different on the inside than they did when I was on the outside.

  I can’t tell you I’ll always get it right. But I can tell you this: I’m going to keep fighting as hard as I can in the coming months and years to protect our children, our values, and our future from Donald Trump.

  And I can tell you this, too: The work people like you are doing on the outside matters a lot on the inside.

  The Women’s March on Washington was one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever seen. But ever since the march, ordinary people with a ton of passion but limited time, money, and energy have been wrestling with the question: “What can I do now?”

  Everyone has to figure that out for themselves. But here’s a little perspective from the inside.

  First: Keep showing up and keep speaking out. The Women’s March didn’t force Trump to resign. It didn’t even stop any of his Cabinet nominees from going through. But it really, really mattered. It sent a clear message to the president (and to Republicans in Congress) that the American people won’t surrender their rights or their core values without a fight—and it sent a clear message to Democrats that, when we stand up to Trump, people will have our backs.

  Second: Keep being a pain in the butt, including to me. Phone calls make a difference. Letters make a difference. Emails make a difference. Coming up and yelling at me in the airport about how Democrats need to learn to message better makes somewhat less of a difference.

  But showing up in person makes the biggest difference of all—and we’ve seen huge crowds at town hall meetings held by Republican officeholders in very red parts of the country. Unlike the crowds that packed town hall meetings held by Democratic officeholders in the summer of 2009, these crowds haven’t been badly misinformed by right-wing talk radio and the conservative Internet. But I believe they can make just as big of a difference.

  I never really had any contentious town hall meetings back in 2009. Which is not to say I avoided my constituents. It’s just that I called these meetings “community forums” instead of “town halls,” and the Tea Partiers never seemed to crack the code. But my fellow Democrats vividly remember how jarring it was to be confronted like that—and my Republican colleagues are about to learn the same lesson.

  Third: Become an advocate. By which I mean, pick an issue that means a lot to you (immigration, mental health, clean water) and look for an organization that’s doing work on that issue. Join. Give them your email address. Go to the meetings. Become a foot soldier. You’d be surprised how quickly foot soldiers in these organizations can become leaders—and you’d be surprised how much senators like me rely on them for information, for advice, and for support.

  But maybe the most imp
ortant thing I can convey to you is that you have got to keep your head up. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my political journey, it’s that it can often be a really unpleasant journey.

  I’ve had days where being in politics has felt inspiring and gratifying, a rare opportunity to move our country forward and make a positive impact on the lives of millions of people. I’ve also had days where it’s felt like a frustrating, unjust, humiliating crapshow.USS

  Lately, things have been trending crapshow.USS And while we don’t yet know exactly how bad things are going to get under President Trump, I think we should probably be prepared for the worst.

  The fact is that he is the president, and Republicans control Congress, and that means we’re going to lose a lot of fights in the years ahead. Plus, we’re going to have to watch Donald Trump be the president. Day after day after day. Insulting speeches. Insane tweets. Policies that are both insulting and insane. This is going to suck for a while.

  But not forever. I still remember vividly how distraught I was after Bush got reelected in 2004. I also remember what came next.

  I remember how he got up there and declared that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security, and how, even in the midst of our despair, we stopped him—and how winning that fight was the start of something big.

  I remember how we recognized where our movement needed to grow and change, and how we built progressive infrastructure to make our voices stronger, and how being part of it felt vital and important and fun.

  I remember how candidates stepped up to run for office all over the country, even in places where Democrats don’t often win, and how much energy there was when I would go and campaign for them, and how we started to feel a wave building as the 2006 midterms drew near.

  And I definitely remember how it felt just two short years after that, watching President Obama and his family celebrate in that park in Chicago, and how it felt just eight short months after that, when I finally got the chance to become a senator and help him make a lot of people’s lives better.

  My story, the one you’ve just finished reading, is a small part of a bigger story—the story of how progressives picked themselves up off the mat and made an epic comeback.

  And now we have to do it again. This comeback starts with standing up for our values and making it clear that no president has a mandate to spread bigotry or roll back the clock on progress (especially not one who lost the popular vote by three million). It continues through next year, when we have a chance to punish Republicans for enabling this disaster and take back governorships and state legislatures all across the country. That’s how we can put a stop to the voter suppression that made such an impact in 2016 and redraw congressional district boundaries more fairly after the 2020 census.

  Meanwhile, we can hold President Trump accountable for everything he does—and not just that, we can hold accountable every single Republican who enables him, so that when we kick him out, we can kick them out, too.

  There’s a part for you to play in the next great progressive comeback story. But only if you can keep from losing your mind or getting so discouraged that you quit before the comeback even begins.

  Our political system isn’t always fair. And it isn’t always fun. Being part of it means making difficult compromises and painful sacrifices. For me, it’s meant leaving a career I loved so I could be savagely attacked for having had that career in the first place. It’s meant spending countless hours calling rich people to ask for money. It’s meant long days of meetings and hearings and long nights of studying my binder to prepare for the next day’s meetings and hearings.

  But even if you don’t run for office, in order to be part of determining what our shared future looks like, you have to be willing to give up things like time and energy and money. You have to be willing to tolerate a seemingly endless stream of injustices and disappointments. You have to endure an overwhelming amount of noise and nonsense. And the worst part is, you’re not guaranteed a return on your investment.

  After all, if 313 fewer Minnesotans had voted for me, you’d be reading a very different book right now, possibly entitled The Bottomless Pit: My Losing Battle to Overcome Depression.

  That’s why, even on the good days, politics is hard. And on the bad days, it can feel downright futile. I’ve had some of those bad days since I started this journey—like the day that bestiality ad made my mother-in-law cry, or the day I had to apologize to Mitch McConnell, or literally any day since November 8, 2016. But I have a feeling that the worst days of my political career are still ahead.

  I’m sure there will be moments over the next few years where I’ll wish I was back at Saturday Night Live, laughing like crazy in a room full of my best friends, or even just hanging out with my grandkids and giving my brain a break from the constant stream of noise that passes for our political discourse.

  But I’ll tell you this: I’m glad I’m here.

  And I’m glad you’re here, too.

  Chapter 47

  Being as Good as the People We Serve

  Let me close by telling you a story that helps me keep my head up.

  Something I love about my job as a U.S. senator is that I get to spend half my time back in my home state meeting with the people I represent. And as corny as it sounds, talking with Minnesotans always sends me back to Washington inspired and encouraged.

  Minnesotans are good-hearted and generous and brilliant. And when I spend time in my state, I see Minnesotans training veterans for advanced manufacturing jobs. I see them making great advances in clean energy and energy efficiency that could wind up being game-changers in the fight against climate change. I see them helping their neighbors clean up after floods and tornadoes.

  Seeing this stuff always makes me realize how lucky I am to be Minnesota’s voice in Washington. Even when being in politics feels exhausting, or dispiriting, or downright morally bankrupt, it’s still a chance to do some good work for people who really, really deserve it.

  And in that way, the people I represent don’t just inspire me, they focus me. They make it possible to notice how screwed up our political system is without letting my frustration turn me inside out. They give me something to hold on to so that I can avoid getting discouraged—because in politics it’s the people who can avoid getting discouraged who get a chance to make a difference.

  Even on my worst days, the people I represent give me a purpose that can’t be shaken by some obnoxious procedural delay or jaw-droppingly terrible Trump tweet. I represent incredible people. And my job is simply to be as good as they are.

  Two days before the 2016 election, Donald Trump landed his gaudy plane at the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport, making his first public appearance in our state just in time to spread his trademark blend of hate, fear, and ignorance—this time targeting our Somali-Minnesotan community.

  Somalis started coming to America in large numbers during a civil war in the early 1990s. Many families had spent years in refugee camps in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. About fifty thousand Somali refugees now live in Minnesota—many of them in the Twin Cities, but not all. Many smaller cities and communities around the state have significant Somali populations.

  At the time, Trump was attacking Hillary Clinton’s plan to admit sixty-five thousand refugees out of the millions of people fleeing Syria in the worst refugee crisis since World War II. “Her plan,” Trump told the crowd, “will import generations of terrorism, extremism, and radicalism into your schools and throughout your community. You already have it.”

  He wasn’t talking about Syrian refugees. So far, Minnesota has admitted twenty-eight of them. He was talking about the Somalis who have been here for years, people who are an important part of our state’s fabric.

  “Here in Minnesota you have seen firsthand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state,” Trump told the rally. He was referring to an incident two months earlier in which a young Somali man wieldin
g a knife had injured nine people at a shopping mall in St. Cloud before being killed by an off-duty cop. The assailant had come to America when he was four months old. Which makes it kind of hard to buy that the incident was a result of “faulty vetting.”

  The investigation is now in the hands of the feds, who have possession of the attacker’s electronic devices. By all accounts, the man had gone off the deep end. Not unlike the Iowa man with a Trump-Pence sign in his yard who had murdered two police officers ambush-style just four days before the airport rally. Of course, no one was accusing Trump of stoking the anger that led to the senseless police killings in Iowa. But here Trump was, blaming the Somali community for the knife attack in St. Cloud.

  “You’ve suffered enough,” he snarled, talking about the presence of Somali people in our communities.

  That’s kind of how Trump’s entire campaign went. His arguments were rarely rooted in fact, but they frequently carried a tinge of racism and paranoia. And that’s what made it so upsetting when he won. How could that be what America chose? Is that really who we are? And if so, what’s the point of trying?

  The truth, however, is that, at least in Minnesota, that’s not who we are.

  The day after the knife attack, St. Cloud’s police chief, William Blair Anderson, went on Fox and Friends, where perfectly named host Steve Doocy invited him to comment on Trump’s concerns “about who is coming to our country.”

  Chief Anderson replied, “I can tell you the vast majority of all our citizens, no matter what ethnicity, are fine, hardworking people, and now is not the time to be divisive.” Shortly after the attack, I went to St. Cloud to meet with Anderson and St. Cloud’s fine mayor, David Kleis, a former Republican state legislator whom I’ve gotten to know well over the years. They assured me that the attack would not divide their cohesive community.