Morning all. I got together with Hopium paid subscribers last night to review the progress and good trouble we made in recent days. You can watch a recording of my talk and the Q and A that followed, above. For those who would rather read than watch or listen there is a transcript too.
Note that at 11am this morning I’m hosting Dr. Rob Shapiro for an in-depth discussion of the our Russian-backed leaders decision yesterday to take a wrecking ball to the American and global economies. To receive a live link at 11am please go to settings and make sure you have turned on your “live” settings so you can receive the invite. That section of the Substack settings page looks like this and can be found by scrolling down to the “Notifications” section:
This Substack live feature is still new so be patient as we learn how to use it together. My talk with Rob will be shared later this afternoon for those who can’t make it live this morning.
Some takeaways from my talk last night…..
Democrats And Our Pro-Democracy Movement Have Had Our First Good Week In Some Time - The dynamic driving all of our politics right now has been the rapid and catastrophic failure of Trump’s economic policies. The economy Trump inherited was the strongest of any developed nation. Here is an Economist image from October calling our economy “the envy of the world.”
Here is what Donald Trump has done to that economy he inherited:
Voters have soured on all this, very quickly. Trump’s job approval has dropped by at least 10 points. His ratings on handling on the economy have dropped much further. Consumer confidence has plummeted. As I’ve been writing I think Trump has seen two core pillars of his appeal to non-MAGA voters erode badly in recent weeks - that with him you get more money, more opportunity and a better life; and that as a “successful” businessman he can run things, make the government more efficient and save taxpayers money. His willing coalition has started to unravel.
With all this as backdrop last week we flipped a Trump +15 PA State Senate seat we had not won since the 1880s; Signalgate made Trump and his team look like reckless, incompetent buffoons; Team Trump panicked and pulled the Stefanik nomination out of fear of losing a +20 House seat; we then routed Trump and Musk in Wisconsin on Tuesday, and dramatically overperformed in the two Florida races as we’ve been doing in special elections of all kinds this year.
This newfound weakness and political struggle has loosened Trump’s grip on Washington as we are seeing bolder dissent coming now from both Democrats and Republicans. Last week Susan Collins along with her Democratic colleague Patty Murray wrote a letter to the White House suggesting that the Trump-Musk impounding/stealing of Congressionally mandated spending was illegal, an incredibly aggressive assertion from a prominent Republican; Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Wicker along with his Democratic colleague Jack Reed demanded a formal Pentagon IG investigation into Signalgate. House Republican Don Bacon took to the NYT to denounce Trump’s outrageous and dangerous fealty to Putin:
On Monday Cory Booker took to the Senate floor for the most powerful and public dissent we’ve seen from any member of either chamber so far. On Tuesday Trump front man Speaker Mike Johnson had 9 Republicans break from him and vote with Democrats to block their legislative agenda for the week. It was such a dramatic and unexpected loss for the Speaker that he spitefully sent the House home for the rest of the week. And then last night, just hours after his tariff announcement, four Senate Republicans - Collins, McConnell, Murkowski, Paul - voted with the Dems to PASS a Senator Kaine-led resolution that overrides Trump’s fake declaration of a national emergency that provides him the authority to impose onerous tariffs on Canada. It is rightfully being called a “rebuke” of our mad leader in the press this morning.
So this week both Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader had members of their conferences buck them and Trump and work with Democrats to vote down core parts of their agenda. This is no small thing my friends for as we discuss here with pressure and hard work little cracks can become big cracks, and little wins can become big ones. The cracks in Washington have gotten bigger this week and its why we need to keep working hard all. For Trump has starting losing both his hold on voters and his grip on Washington. We know this for his floating of a third term is a sign of desperation, an acknowledgement that he knows his Administration is a shitshow and his “strong man” power has begun to ebb.
Finally, the tariffs. I will be going in-depth on them at 11am so either join us live or watch the recording of our discussion later today. Here is what I wrote on Bluesky last night:
Now, let’s get to work people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - Launching some new actions and campaigns, and for now retiring a few old ones…here we go!!!!!!
1 - Demand Congress Take Back Their Tariff Authority From Trump - I will be developing this new action in the coming days but simply - call your Senators and House Member today and demand they override and role back these incredibly dangerous and destructive tariffs.
2 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to follow Senator Booker’s lead and let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this several weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.
3 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.
4 - Our Work In The States, The Spring Offensive - I am going to rework this section as so much has happened since we called on our community members to organize in the 17 most vulnerable Republican House seats. Rallies and protests have exploded across the country. The DNC/House Dems/State Parties have kicked off People’s Town Halls in all 50 states. I have come to believe that we should be leaning on our state and local electeds to pursue these organized “condemnations” of the Trump regime and their betrayal of America. Let’s start talking now about what we are going to do on July 4th, a day with all of a sudden much more importance.
Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.
Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind:
Thank Senator Booker For Standing Up For America - Senator Booker is up for re-election next year and many of you asked if they could channel their support and appreciation for him through Hopium. So I’ve set up an ActBlue fundraising page for him with a goal of raising $100,000 by June 30th. We’ve already raised $9,000 - thank you all. Let’s be there for Senator Booker as he been there for us at this critical time.
Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.
We’ve raised more than $73,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!
Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Derek Tran and Janelle Bynum and give to all 7 through a single donation on our new ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.
We’ve already raised over $54,000 towards our $250,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!
Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year.
We’ve raised $29,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $50,000 - thank you everyone!
Keep working hard all. So incredibly proud to be in this fight with all of you. Here at Hopium we take and celebrate the wins when they come and this week we have a lot to celebrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- Simon
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