Yesterday, Donald Trump committed a major blunder: he went after China too soon, and created a major diplomatic incident — before he became our President.
This is a major opening — and we don’t want to miss out on the chance.
He has handed us the ammunition we need to blow up the Electoral College - if we deploy it skillfully.
But that’s going to require a disciplined campaign, because the people we need will never read anything here - and if they knew this campaign started here, they’d reject the plan outright.
So we have to be more cunning than that - we have to reach out to people who do have influence over the Electors, and we have to talk to them in a way that will compel them to listen.
It’s an infinitesimally small chance, and if you think it won’t work or it’s undemocratic, you are free to leave now. But if you’re willing to spend a few hours to help, we might just be able to do something with this.
Here is the Opening:
Trump’s adventure in China is a big problem for Big Business.
The last thing Big Business wants is a trade war with China. These companies have invested billions upon billions in supply chains, business development opportunities and joint ventures to get them access to China’s cheap labor pool and huge domestic markets.
- They no longer have the ability to make many of the products they import - here or anywhere. They sold their factories and scattered their experienced personnel to the winds.
- Many of these companies have Chinese divisions with a lot of ex=pats living there - a nice set of potential hostages if China decided to play nasty.
- They have made investments to get their brands in front of Chinese consumers - China can cut off their access to domestic markets by slapping high fees on the products - or by banning them outright.
- They have at least three weeks’ of inventory on the Pacific Ocean at any point in time, feeding their distribution networks and in some cases, their domestic factories.
China has a much more centralized government than we do, and many more tentacles into Chinese society. It has the ability to shut all this down, and bring the U.S. economy to its knees. All they have to do is refuse to allow ships to leave Chinese ports for the US. If we go to war with China over Taiwan, that’s the kind of thing we’re looking at.
If the US-China relationship goes south, American business leaders have more immediate concerns than the health of US Treasuries or battleships in the South China Sea.
Many corporate leaders donated to Kasich, Rubio or Bush - that’s who we need to reach.
Many of them voted with their money, and did not donate to the Trump campaign. Instead, they donated to downballot races in their states. The ones who gave money to Trump are probably lost causes.
These major Republican donors probably already know their state’s electors. They may already be having conversations asking the electors what they’re going to do.
The events this weekend would have brought a new urgency to those conversations. The electors may listen to the Republican business community - when they won’t listen to us.
The goal is to give these executives the permission to act on concerns they already have
This means that we have to think like them, speak like them and appeal to the interests that are most compelling to them.
That also means that we have to keep quiet on our side. If the Republican electors think that they are doing our bidding, they’ll go against us. Remember that they think the people here are anything from stupid to the Devil Incarnate. But since they wouldn’t be caught dead here, I think it’s safe to post our plans here.
We have to give them an alternate plan they can accept.
They’re not going to urge the electors to vote for Hillary Clinton. They will feel a lot more comfortable asking their peers to vote for a reasonable, business-friendly Republican.
Mitt Romney is the best choice for a lot of reasons: he’s got legitimacy from being the last normal Republican nominee, who lost to Obama but put up a good fight (put yourself in their shoes!) He has international business experience - they will be comfortable with him as the choice. I’m certain that if he were given the chance, he would do it. If not, he would have said so already.
And unless Trump actually makes him Secretary of State this week, then Romney got screwed into making conciliatory statements, only to be left twisting in the wind. So nominating Romney instead of Trump puts the knife into a particularly sensitive part of Trump’s back.
This is the plan:
- Identify business leaders in these states that have a lot of business interests in China or Asia: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Wyoming, Indiana.
I’ve chosen these states because the companies there have a lot of ties to international business, and have the most to lose from a Trump administration that tears up America’s trade agreements.
Aim high - CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, President, Exec VPs of business units. The second tier execs may be more receptive than the CEO, who probably gets a lot of unsolicited mail and has processes for dealing with it.
- Send them the following letter. If you own a company yourself, send it on business letterhead. If not, buy good stationary at an office supplies store and type it on the computer. Please use it word-for-word because it’s honed to talk to them using language that will resonate. It’s OK if they get more than one, as long as the letters themselves have a corporate look-and-feel.
- Report back to the Hamilton Electors group here on Daily Kos. You can either send me a Kosmail, or you can bookmark this diary and write a comment here.
For me, I’m going to reach out to some former clients of mine in these states, who are all Executive VPs / CTOs / COOs of mid-sized and larger companies. I’ll send them a letter on my corporate letterhead — and it will be interesting to see what happens next. I’ve never done anything like this.
This is the message to send.
It’s crafted to use language that will resonate with them, so if you do send it, please copy it word-for-word. If they get more than one, that’s OK.
You’ll find the names of the electors here — PLEASE DON’T WRITE TO THEM DIRECTLY!
Dear Sir,
I’m writing this because [your company] has a lot of business interests in China/Asia* and I’m sure you already know that Donald Trump’s messages over the weekend have created turmoil in US-Sino relations.
You may have already tried to reach out to some of the people you know to learn more about what this would mean to [your company.]
I know that I was relieved to see that Mitt Romney was in the running to be Secretary of State, but I think if they had decided to go that way, then we would have heard by now.
Trump is already hurting international business.
Every day that Donald Trump uses his Twitter account to throw grenades at our allies and business partners, and every day that he refuses to accept the responsibility of the Presidency by refusing to listen to Security Briefs is a day that the rest of the world wonders whether or not America is still the leader of the free world, or if this is the end of our economic dominance.
Since November 8, Donald Trump has been a acting as the President-Elect, but since the Electoral College has not met, you might think of it as a probationary period for a new hire. If Trump was a new executive at your company and he messed up this badly, would he still be in his position this morning?
Trump can still be fired.
You may not know that it’s not too late to put a reasonable Republican in charge. The Electoral College was put in place for just such a situation as this one: a charismatic - but incompetent - leader who has great powers of persuasion but lacks the temperament and experience to lead the nation.
While 29 states have laws directing their electors to vote for the winners in their state, those laws have never been tested in court. And in a normal election year, there would be no need to do so. But you have already seen evidence that this year is not normal.
Please consider the impact on your company and on you.
All I ask is that you consider the impact a Trump administration will have on your company, your international business relationships, your shareholders, your employees and your communities. If you come to the conclusion that the Trump administration will damage your company, you have the moral and fiscal duty to reach out to the electors in your state to do what you can to prevent this damage.
The plan is to get enough Republican electors to switch their votes from Donald Trump to Mitt Romney to deny Trump the Presidency.
If enough of them do this, it will throw the election to the House of Representatives. Then we ask you to use your resources and connections to put pressure on Congress to put Mitt Romney into the Office of the Presidency.
Don’t miss out on this chance to avert a disaster.
You can’t miss out on this chance to show China and our other allies that Donald Trump does not speak for America.
So please think about this, watch what Trump does today, and reach out to these people to share your concerns with them:
[Names of electors in their state]
Sincerely,
XXX
*Be more specific if you can: business units, production, major suppliers, customers