Biden's Successful Presidency Is Leaving Rs With Nothing To Run On, More On Trump's 2024 Performance Problems, Do More/Worry Less

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Good Monday all, a few things for you today:

Biden’s Successful Presidency Is Leaving Trump With Nothing To Run On Other Than His Madness - Over the past few months, I’ve been arguing that the clear success of the Biden Presidency was causing Trump’s core attacks to evaporate. Let’s review:

The economy is terrible - it’s among the best in the modern era.

Inflation is ravaging American workers - inflation is way down, prices are falling, real wages are increasing more rapidly now than in decades; and the big spike we saw in inflation and gas prices in 2022 was caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and OPEC, not Joe Biden.

Crime is spiraling out of control - violent crime and murder rates have plummeted across the US and are a fraction of what they were 30 years ago. Other than mass shootings America is far safer today.

The President’s “war on energy” caused inflation to spike, and loss of American energy independence (this is so laughable) - we saw record domestic production of oil, gas and renewables in 2023, making the US more energy independent than it’s been in decades. If Biden waged a war on energy it was a huge failure.

Biden is corrupt - that one went up in flames, spectacularly, last week, and pushed the deeply damaging “GOP is a Russian fifth column narrative” back into the news.

Open Borders!!!! - With Trump blocking a sensible border deal, it is now he who is seeking chaos and immigrants flowing into our cites and it is Biden working diligently, across party lines, to bring order to the border and a more orderly flow of immigrants to America. We are now the party of order, and Republicans the party of chaos, something that will be reinforced this week if the government shuts down, and they keep denying Ukraine the aid we must provide. This emerging frame of order/normalcy/patriotism vs chaos/extremism/betrayal of the country is something we need to keep exploring.

Biden’s successful Presidency has left Republicans with nothing other than Trump’s madness. Look at these excerpts from Trump’s CPAC speech this week, via Axios:

• "Four years ago," Trump says in prepared remarks, "I told you that if Crooked Joe Biden got to the White House, our borders would be abolished, our middle class would be decimated, and our communities would be plagued by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime. As the saying goes: Trump was right about everything."

• "Crooked Joe and his henchmen have you trapped on an express train barreling toward ruin and servitude," Trump continues. "A vote for Trump is your ticket back to freedom. It's your passport out of tyranny. And it's your only escape from Joe Biden's fast track to hell."

If all of this sounds ridiculous, it is. They are having to invent a fictional President to run against because they can’t beat the one that’s in the Oval Office. Joe Biden’s successful Presidency is leaving them with nothing to run on, and further exposing how historically awful and dangerous they’ve become. Extremism is all they have now, and it’s a big big problem for them.

Trump’s and MAGA’s Performance Problems - In my post yesterday I talked about how the GOP’s performance problems we’ve seen since Dobbs have been showing up in early 2024. While there has been broad across the board struggle for the GOP the data that has to have the GOP most worried is his repeated underperforming of public polls in the early primary states.

Others have picked up on these warning signs for the GOP:

Axios - “Trump’s demographic problem”

The Bulwark - Haley Is Exposing Trump’s Electoral Weakness”

Politico - “Warning signs in Trump’s South Carolina romp”

NYT - “Three theories for why Trump’s primary results are not matching expectations. He has underperformed polls in each of the first three contests.” An excerpt:

There is one reason the anti-Trump turnout might have relevance for general election polling: It’s consistent with other data showing Mr. Biden with the edge among the most highly engaged voters. This could yield a slight turnout advantage, even in a general election. It may also mean that the current polls of all registered voters slightly underestimate Mr. Biden compared with the narrower group of actual voters.

This wouldn’t mean the polls today are vastly underestimating Mr. Biden, but it could make the difference in a close election.

As I wrote in these two recent posts (here, here), Trump is weak, not strong. He and MAGA are struggling, not winning. We cannot and should not red wave 2024 - Trump is a historically weak, dangerous and terrible candidate, and we cannot for a moment pretend otherwise. Joe Biden’s successful Presidency, on the other hand, is leaving nothing for Rs to run on, further exposing their extremism to an electorate which has already rejected it in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and now early 2024. We many reasons to be optimistic about what we can do together this year.

Why The IVF Ruling Matters - The true impact of this new assault on women’s reproductive health and freedom is that any attempt by the Rs to paint this as something other than what it really is - “leave it to the states,” 16 week abortion ban compromise - is not a political option available to them any longer. The right has launched a full on assault on women. Period. Dobbs was only the beginning. The Alabama Supreme Court tipped their hand, revealed their true intent, and there is no denying any longer what electing Trump, a rapist, would mean to the women of America.

March Event Dates - Three events on the books so far in March:

• Fri, March 1, 1pm EST - Hopium Founding Members Get Together W/Simon

• Wed, March 6, 7pm EST - Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering - Register

• Thur, March 7th - State Of The Union Address - Be Sure to Watch!!!!!

• Wed March 13, 7pm EST - Hopium Community-Wide Monthly Gathering - Register

Free subscribers can upgrade their membership to join these additional gatherings by clicking here.

Why I’m Optimistic About Winning This November - A round up of recent postings, essays and appearances. Enjoy.

Hopium Analysis/Us - Why I Am Optimistic About Winning This November, America The Prosperous/Biden The Successful, Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic)

Hopium Analysis/Them - More Performance Problems For Trump and MAGA in South Carolina, Trump Is Not Strong, Or Winning - No Red Waving 2024 Please, Coming To Terms With Russia’s Penetration of Trump and The GOP, MAGA Descends Into Madness

Hopium Events/Appearances - Our Monthly Hopium Gathering With Special Guest Tom Suozzi, With Democrats, Things Get Better, Appearances on PoliticsGirl, The Ezra Klein Show, Lawrence O’Donnell

The Most Powerful Democratic Political Machine We’ve Ever Seen - Read my recent post on the powerful political machine we building together, and let’s just keep staring at this jaw-dropping data from the Suozzi campaign:

In the space of five weeks people knocked on over 150,000 doors, made over 2 million phone calls, and wrote hundreds of thousands of postcards. Our campaign estimates that every Democrat household in the NY-03 received, on average, five handwritten postcards.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - Here at Hopium we strive to channel all this worry and anxiety we have about our current moment into concrete action - do more, worry less - as we say here. I try to give you a bit of direction about where to channel your work by endorsing campaigns and projects, and providing you information to help you become a more effective information warrior for your democracy. Together we just made a big difference in NY-3, and if you are looking for ways to help right now herre are three things you can do today:

Donate and join the Biden-Harris campaign - This is very important. The campaign comms and field operations are gearing up and it’s critical you receive info from the campaign every day, and start thinking about how you are going to be part of this effort as it expands. Please donate whatever amount you can - $5, $10 - just to get started.

We’ve already raised over $73,000 everyone for Biden Harris - thank you!

Make an early investment in North Carolina - North Carolina is our most important 2024 expansion state. Please consider donating today. For more on why I think North Carolina is so important watch my interview with Anderson Clayton, the dynamic new NC Democratic Party Chair.

We’ve already raised $58,000 for this critical battleground - thank you all!

Spread Hopium - Encourage people in your networks to become a Hopium subscriber. Our goal is to get to 50,000 subscribers by March 31st (we are at 44,000 today). With your help we can hit our goal, grow our community and bring the upbeat, data-filled analysis here to more and more people.

Here’s Governor Newsom talking about the need to “worry less, do more” on Meet The Press this weekend:

I will be offering some new recommendations in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Keep working hard all. We are winning, and they got nothing but the Orange Guy - Simon