Dems = Better Life And More Opportunity, SCOTUS Tells Trump To Bring Garcia Back To US, Trump's Poll Numbers Continue To Fall

To counter Trump's corrosive nationalism Dems need to learn hard into a new, energetic patriotism

Morning all. Been a hard week, with lots coming at us, and we’ve had to spend far more time in Trump’s madness than is good for us. Today I’m going to send a long some notes rather than a more structured look back for I am still trying to process what happened this week. As we head into the weekend a few things you may want to consider if you haven’t gotten to them yet:

• My new video presentation on how Trump ends the week a weaker and far more diminished figure, and an essay on we need to begin to see Trump as an American saboteur rather than an American President

• My discussions on the need to end Trump’s destructive tariffs with Senator Tim Kaine and noted economist Rob Shapiro

• An uplifting interview with AZ AG Kris Mayes on how 23 Dem Attorneys General are fighting - and winning - against Trump’s unprecedented attack on our Constitutional order

• Updates on the fight to prevent the Rs from stealing a North Carolina Supreme Court seat in interviews with Justice Allison Riggs and NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Jon “Bowzer” Bauman on the GOP’s escalating attacks on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and David Leopold for a primer on Trump’s wild assault on immigrants and our civil liberties

The Terrible Tariffs - The Washington Post has a great explainer this morning of where we are now with the tariffs called See why Trump’s reversal actually increased tariff rates (gift link). As the article explains, and as we discussed with Senator Kaine on Wednesday, why some have called what Trump did this week a retreat or reversal, Trump, in all his madness, actually increased the global tariff rate this week whether he understood that or not:

As others have pointed out this 27% rate - largely because we have very elevated rates on the our three largest trading partners - Canada, China and Mexico - is higher than the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff rate that helped deepen and lengthen the Great Depression. An instructive graph from the article:

Yes, what Trump did on Wednesday was a head fake to sooth the markets. When folks woke up yesterday to the reality of what Trump has done over the last 10 days the markets tanked. And it’s why we need to rally behind the Kaine-led Senate Dem resolution to rescind these terrible tariffs for the damage they are causing our economy and our standing in the world will be difficult - if not impossible - to repair. And we have to fight.

The Big Economic Debate With Trump And The Rs Is Here, And We Need To Win It - This week we got these tariffs and now a GOP Senate-House budget outline that has passed both chambers. Democrats need to use this opening to make our case for why with Democrats Americans will have more opportunity, a better life and much more prosperity.

The facts are on our side of course. The last three Democratic Presidents brought growth, higher wages, lower deficits. The last three Republicans brought recession, struggle and higher deficits. Trump’s economic plan is not just bringing higher prices, slower growth, rising unemployment, crashing markets and higher deficits (and thus ending another Democratic economic boom), he is, in his role as a Russian-backed Grand Saboteur, undermining the very things that made the US economy the strongest in the world - our world-leading research, medical and scientific communities; our ability to attract the best, the brightest, the hardest working from all over the world; our strong American brand that buoyed our companies in their global battle for market share in a rules and freedom-based global order our country imagined and built; our “safe haven” status that brought capital in from all over the world; our immense tourist industry, that brings in tens of billions each year and supports 10m jobs; and our over 238 year history as a country governed by rule of law not mad kings, corrupt oligarchs and secret police.

Trump is working to destroy all that, on purpose, by design. His economic agenda guarantees that America will be poorer and other nations will overtake us. We are not just surrendering it appears to Russia in Ukraine and Europe, we appear now to be surrendering to China economically and geopolitically right now too.

Yes in the coming days we must focus on how Trump is raising prices not lowering them, and how the new GOP budget would take from the middle class and give to the rich while taking on tens of trillions of new debt that we will no longer be able to finance. But the debate we need to have now is about so much more than Medicaid, prices and tax cuts, and Democrats must seize this moment to make our case forcefully, powerfully, with everything we got. For with Democrats things get better in America. They have repeatedly, again and again, and will again when we stop the Trumpian wrecking ball and return to power.

Here’s the data and graph Bill Clinton referenced in his memorable Convention speech last summer. I will soon start updating it and others with new data from these terrible days of Trump as together we counter Trump’s destructive nationalism with a new and energetic form of American patriotism.

New YouGov Poll Shows Trump Dropping 10 Points In Past Week - As I wrote yesterday Trump has taken a big hit in polling since his April 2nd announcement of his global tariffs. Last night YouGov released a new poll showing Trump down 13 in his job approval. On April 1st it was minus 3.

Economist/YouGov 4/1/25 46%-49% (-3) pre-tariff announcement

Economist/YouGov 4/8/25 43%-51% (-8) post-tariff, pre-Wed shitshow

YouGov 4/10/25 41%-54% (-13) post-Wed shitshow

Note these subgroups, all critical to Trump’s win. Not sure it was only the bond market that drove Trump’s fake retreat:

• Indies 30%-61% (-31)

• 18-29 30%-65%(-35)

• Hisp 35%-61% (-26)

We Will Learn More This Morning About Whether The Trump Administration Is Going To Return Kilmar Abrego Garcia To The US - From the WaPo this am:

A U.S. district judge has ordered the government to lay out steps for the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador and given it a deadline for confirming his location.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis amended her earlier order for the government to “to facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego García, after the Supreme Court directed her to expand on the order to the extent she required the Trump administration to “effectuate” his return, saying she may have exceeded her authority by infringing on the president’s powers.

“To this end, the Court hereby amends this Order to Direct that Defendants take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible,” the judge wrote.

Xinis said the government must also outline any steps taken so far to facilitate Abrego García’s return and identify any additional steps it plans to take, and when. She ordered the administration to file a declaration confirming his location by 9:30 a.m. Friday.

Grateful that the Supreme Court drew a line here but before we celebrate let’s see how this plays out today. While this may be a win, an important win, I do not think our movement has figured out how to more forcefully challenge the Administration’s fanatical mistreatment of immigrants - even those here legally and without criminal records - and clear strategic erosion of our civil liberties. We have a lot of work to do here, and across many other fronts. So let’s get to it then:

Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - We’ve launched some new actions and campaigns, and are for now retiring a few old ones…here we go!

1 - Demand Congress Take Back Their Tariff Authority From Trump - Call/contact your Senators and House Member today and demand they override and roll back these incredibly dangerous and destructive tariffs. Insist they sign on to the new Kaine resolution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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 recent 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 and the “Hands Off” events this weekend drew extraordinary crowds. 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.

Here are the current list of People’s Town Halls folks can attend and support during the coming Easter recess:

• Arizona’s 6th Congressional District on April 13th, represented by Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani

• Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District “Good Trouble Festival” on April 22nd, represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan

• Colorado’s 8th Congressional District on April 24th, represented by Republican Rep. Gabe Evans

• North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District on April 24th represented by Republican Rep. and NRCC Chair Richard Hudson

• Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District on April 25th, represented by Republican Rep. Ann Wagner

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:

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 $76,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Help Allison Riggs, Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Stop The GOP’s From Stealing A Supreme Court Seat - A few weeks ago we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Justice Allison Riggs, 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.

If you want to go deeper into the GOP’s rancid effort to steal a Supreme Court seat watch my new interviews with Justice Riggs and Anderson Clayton, the inspiring Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

We’ve raised $38,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $50,000 - thank you everyone!

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 $58,000 towards our $250,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

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 $20,000 - thank you all. Let’s be there for Senator Booker as he been there for us at this critical time.

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon