Another Encouraging Inflation Report, Trump's Historic Venality and Woman, Life, Freedom
The Hopium Community Gathers Tomorrow Night at 7pm EST/Welcome New Subscribers!
Friends, a few things for you on this Tuesday:
Hopium Gathering Tomorrow Night at 7pm EST - Register here. We will be reviewing our strong electoral performance in both 2022 and 2023, and talk about how are going to make the 2024 election the election we all want it to be. A recording will be here for those who can’t make it live. Look forward to seeing everyone!
Top Lines: Concrete Ways To Help Us Win in 2024, Dems Keep Outperforming Expectations, Why I Am Optimistic About 2024, Getting Louder
Note a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has Biden up 4 points over Trump in the seven 2024 battleground states. Yes, polls are all over the place now, and that’s the point - there are polls showing Biden leading, others showing him down. Not all the data is pointing in the same direction, and it just means, 11 months out, that things are closer than we want but given our ongoing electoral success, the strong economy and Trump’s Olympian levels of venality that if we do the work we should win next year.
In this Reuters poll 31% of Republicans say they will note vote for Trump if he is convicted of a felony crime. It’s a reminder of what a risk Trump is for Republicans. He only got 46% of the vote last time, and has more baggage than any candidate in modern American history. Consider what Trump and the Republicans will have to defend in 2024:
convicted for trying to rape a woman in a department store
oversaw one of the largest financial frauds in American history
more responsible for ending Roe and stripping away the reproductive rights of women than any other person in America
executed what may be the most consequential security breach in American history and lied about it to the FBI
has taken more money from foreign governments than any politician in American history, and is without doubt, the single most corrupt politician our country has ever seen
praised dictators, appeased and partnered with Putin, denigrated NATO and openly undermined American power and interests around the world
oversaw a party-wide effort to overturn an American election, end American democracy for all time and is promising to finish the job in 2025
led an armed assault on the US Congress
support for more dead kids in schools, a warmer planet, the stripping of fundamental rights common throughout the world, taking health care away from tens of millions, mass deportation……
All of this will be front and center in voters’ minds next year. It is what campaigns do. And it will be brutal for Trump, and what’s left of his party. It is another reason why I remain deeply optimistic about 2024.
Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong, and winning elections across the US. And they have Trump.
Another Encouraging Inflation Report - Last month inflation was zero, prices did not rise in America. This month they rose by 0.1%, well within with the Fed’s target range of 2% annually. The chart below comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly CPI report released this morning. Note that inflation has been at 0.2 or less for 5 of the last 7 months, and groceries - food at home - have only risen 1.7% over the past year, well below wage gains of 4% to 5% over the past twelve months. Disruptive food inflation is now clearly a thing of the past. All of this is very good news, and more signs that we are getting to the other side of those shocks of 2020-2022 - COVID, supply chain shortages, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, global inflation…..congratulations all, we are getting there.
There is some early evidence voters are starting to understand that things on the inflation front are fundamentally better. Note this new CNBC article, Inflation Fears Down, Consumer Confidence Up: Economy May Start To Help Biden With Voters. Refreshing to see the mainstream media expressing positive sentiment about Biden. Long overdue, but we will take it when it comes.
Related Hopium material:
Woman, Life, Freedom - Narges Mohammadi, a leader of the social movement in Iran working to reclaim fundamental rights for women, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. She is in prison for her activism, so her twin 17 year old children, who have not seen here in more than 8 years, received the prize on her behalf yesterday. Here is a video from the event. Do watch - it’s a powerful moment. “Women, life, freedom” or “Zan. Zendagi. Azadi” is the rallying cry for this inspiring movement.
And a reminder that the repressive government that imprisoned Narges Mohammadi is the primary backer of Hamas, who made rape and sexual violence central to their attack on Israel, and who continues to hold many young women and moms as hostages today.
Woman, life, freedom.
Keep working hard all. We have a lot of work to do - Simon
“Woman. Life. Freedom.”
It should be our rallying call.
Because they are all—whether individuals like Putin, Orban, Tr*mp, or Netanyahu, or nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or groups like Hamas, the Taliban, the KKK, or The OathKeepers—oppressors.
Oppressors who share the same zeal and obsession for denying OTHERS (women, people of color, the LGBTQ, immigrants, or those who hold different religious beliefs, or none at all) every one of the freedoms, they want to reserve exclusively for themselves.
There is no hypocrisy—only a deep-rooted belief and value system where a wealthy, well-connected few distract (through endless culture wars and faux-aggrieved victim hood) and divide (by stoking fear and hatred), to ensure they don’t ever have to pay what they owe, or be held accountable, all so they can hold onto their power through minority rule (gerrymandering, barriers to voting, overturning elections, sowing distrust in elections, etc.), and the denial of basic democratic norms and everyone else’s fundamental human rights.
This is fascism, no matter its label (MAGA or Nazi), country of origin, or dear leader...and this is the enemy we must ALL stand against, each and everyone of us who is on the side of justice, equality, and freedoms...
There will many issues I'm sure in next years campaign however as far as I'm concerned one of the central ones should be Dobbs, Dobbs & more Dobbs. One of the most important components in resoundingly rejecting MAGA should forever be that one notorious"D"word. It's up to all of us to make sure the GOP spends several lifetimes paying for that ruling. I don't care whether it's Matt Gaetz or Susan Collins - they all bear responsibility. Let every person who values bodily autonomy continue to beat that drum. Let the bastards NEVER LIVE IT DOWN