Let's Make December A Very Good Month For Democracy

I'm going live with Stuart Stevens today at 2pm EST - Join us!

Morning all. Hope you rested up over the break for we have a lot of important work to do over the next few weeks. Here’s my latest take on things, and the opportunities that lie ahead:

• Putting The Trump Regime’s Corruption, Lawlessness, And Betrayal Front And Center In Our Politics

• Trump And His Regime May Be Heading Towards A Legitimacy Crisis

To understand how much the discourse around a clearly weakened and diminished Trump has changed in recent weeks look at this headline from NBC News. No legacy news organization would have dared publish something like this even a few weeks ago:

Here’s the Monty Pythonesque clip of the clownish Trump on AF1 yesterday:

I will be going live with Stuart Stevens of Lincoln Square at 2pm EST to talk about these critical next few weeks in our politics. I will be talking about how this month there are three things we must do, together:

• Win the TN-7 and Miami elections

• Forcefully challenge his malevolent agenda - his deepening alliance with Putin, his ridiculous illegal, war in Caribbean, his escalating corruption, his ongoing cover up of the Epstein crimes, his assault on our health care, and his terrible tariffs

• Make him defend his corrupt, dangerous, lawless advisors - Hegseth, Noem, Witkoff, Bondi, Kennedy, Vought, Sacks

They are weaker now and we are stronger. And it needs to be all offense, all the time, 24/7/365 for us now. We need to make them “defend the indefensible” and keep weakening the regime.

In October the Senate rebuked Trump when it voted three times - three times - to repeal his terrible tariffs. The American people rebuked Trump a month ago in our blow out election wins all across the country. The entire Congress rebuked Trump a few weeks ago with its vote to force him to end his disgraceful cover up of the Epstein crimes. We need to put our heads down and deliver further rebukes in TN-7 and Miami, and in encouraging Congress to take firm stands against his malevolent actions abroad, the harm he is doing to us here at home, his boundless corruption, and against his rogues gallery set of advisors.

The video from the six Congressional Dems is a great example of the kind of creativity, ambition, and courage we must have now:

For as FDR told us in his historic Four Freedoms speech (h/t to Hopium community member Bonnie Biddison for this one):

“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests”

There are weeks that are about learning, debating, growing our understandings. This is not one of those weeks. This is a week to fight.

Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning December With Behn and Higgins

• Rep. Aftyn Behn For Congress (Dec 2 special election) - $52,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate | Learn More and Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Aftyn Behn | Amazing work all!!!!!!

• Eileen Higgins For Mayor Of Miami (Dec 9 run off) - $9,500 raised, $25,000 goal | Donate | Learn More and Volunteer | Enjoy my our conversation with Eileen Higgins

Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates

• Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $54k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper

• Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $99k raised, $250,000 goal, - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

• Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $26,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01) and Jo Mendoza (AZ-06) | Interviews with Paige Cognetti (PA-08) and Janelle Stelson (PA-10) coming soon

• Hopium House 7 - Our Top House Incumbents Running For Re-election (2026) - $247k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents | Keeping these newly elected Members in Congress is the first step in winning the House in 2026

Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps (2026-2032)

• Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $216,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Enjoy my conversations with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!

In a new essay I talk about how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up now, be loud now, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land. The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.

Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump - We have three recommended actions today:

1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:

1. Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his current efforts to force Ukraine to surrender

2. Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law

3. Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world

4. Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress, end the rancid cover up, and release all of the Epstein files

5. Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy

2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - Next year, on July 4th, America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his.

One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year.

3 - Make Hopium Stronger - There are several ways you can help make our community stronger:

• Take advantage of the 10% discount through 12/31, become a paid Hopium subscriber for the all important 2026 election year

• Invite your friends, bring in new subscribers, earn rewards

• Buy holiday gift or group subscriptions for colleagues, friends, and family

• Hit “like” on our posts and videos. This will encourage the algorithm to push our work to more people on the Substack app

Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Welcome back all. Let’s make this is a big month for our democracy, and the American people - Simon