Good morning all. Yes, a big blue wave washed across the land on Tuesday, sending a clear and unequivocal message of repudiation of Trump and his rancid agenda of sabotage, plunder, and betrayal. Democrats flipped seats and won by huge margins in elections all across the country. We are a stronger party today with hundreds - perhaps thousands - of new, next generation leaders in office; new innovative and effective tactics (thanks Mamdani, Newsom); a new successful narrative against Trump has been found (affordability/tariffs, health care, No Kings or as Mikie Sherrill put it “liberty and prosperity”); we regained our margins with young people and Hispanic voters, and started putting our majority coalition back to together; and gained fresh confidence that we can indeed defeat Trumpism and renew America and its democracy in the years ahead.
Once again the new, maturing and committed Democratic grassroots lead the way, fighting with everything we had in these elections all across the country - writing postcards, knocking on doors, calling and texting, donating and buoying our candidates, info warring - just doing everything required to win in election after election across the country. And yes here at Hopium we did our part. Amazing work everyone. Thank you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I talked about all this on C-Span Thursday morning, a recording of which you can find above. In this lively discussion with call-ins from across the country I go deeper into what our wins mean for our party than I have in my early post-election commentary so far. My big message - as our party moves on from the party of Clinton/Pelosi/Biden/Obama to our next party, that our diversity is our greatest strength, and I for one am excited about building this next Democratic Party - with all of you - in the years to come.
Watch if you can, share with others you think might be interested and let me know what you think. Here’s a clip that C-Span promoted yesterday on social media:
Despite The Clear Repudiation Tuesday, Trump Decides To Keep Harming The American People - Looking back there can be little question that the shutdown played a major role in our big wins on Tuesday, something Trump himself had said this week. I think it did so in two ways: 1) these last few weeks have shown the Democrats unified and fighting for the American people 2) it has reinforced our current indictment of him - his malevolence, his desire to be a king, his “more for me, less for all you” strategy. As I’ve shown you in the data Trump and Republicans have not just weakened in recent weeks, our party has become stronger relative to them in many measures (Party ID, generic ballot, who’s best on the economy).
Faced with all this Trump and the Rs have chosen to double down - Trump defended the tariffs - and higher prices, a slower economy, enormous harm to farmers and small businesses - in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday; he fought, furiously, to deny 42 million Americans food assistance all week, even going to the Supreme Court yesterday; rather than negotiating with Democrats and taking care of the American people he celebrated Putinism and illiberalism with Victor Orban at the White House on Friday; they’ve disrupted travel and business all across the country; the House will not be in session, again, next week; Senate Republicans turned down a reasonable offer by Senator Schumer yesterday to bring the shutdown to an end, get some appropriations bills passed, and begin the process of fixing the damage Republicans have done to our health care system.
They are choosing, for now, to follow this destructive, reckless, malevolent course and this ridiculous, sundowning, unpopular and dangerous man. But what we’ve seen this week is a clear, loud, and powerful repudiation of him and his terrible politics; a profound desire for something better; and a Democratic Party, in embracing this righteous fight and winning these elections by such huge margins, beginning to step into their own power and do what is required to mitigate the damage they are doing to the country and win back power.
For all those people across the US who just sent this powerful message his doubling down on this destructive politics is an affirmation of the righteousness of this fight - for he is once confirming our central indictment of him - that it is no longer Make America Great, but “more for me, less for all of you.” In deciding to keep harming all of us rather than to work together to find a better path, he is creating, through his madness, arrogance, and decline, what I think is now a vicious political cycle for him, one of his own making. For nothing he is doing now is going to bolster his party or him with the voters that just rejected him across the country. He has chosen a destructive path for the country, and his own party.
As we go forward we must keep fighting - it is what the country needs - but we should also not dismiss the desire by Members of both chambers and parties to re-open the government and ease the pain and suffering Trump has brought. We can and must keep fighting for our four part agenda in these coming months and get the government open. For we are fighting the harms he is doing, and it should be our expectation that our leaders keep working to mitigate them, which includes re-opening the government. I am not advocating surrender or capitulation - for appeasement never works, and only encourages more aggression - but I am grateful that Senator Schumer put a reasonable deal on the table yesterday to end the shutdown. It is tragic and disappointing - but not surprising - that Republicans did not take it.
But here we are, on the right side of this incredibly important battle, and need to keep fighting with everything we got. For those cracks we’ve seen in Trump’s Congressional coalition are growing, and we need to keep working, together, to turn them into much bigger cracks and help bring about a better day for our great nation.
Now, Let’s Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this year to make these big wins possible!
Friends, I’ll be doing a lot of live and in-person events recapping in the coming days, and will be hosting many guests here as well. Check our Events page for the latest schedule and links. Recordings of these events can always be found under the Podcast tab on the main Hopium site and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify too.
Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $50k raised- Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my interview with Gov. Cooper
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $91k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my inspiring interview with Senator Ossoff
Hopium House 7 (2026) - $250,000 goal, $236k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents
Expanding The Map - Support Our Audacious Expansion Fund (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $250,000 goal, $186,000 raised - Join our new campaign to invest in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas and watch interviews with the state Party Chairs of all 5 states | Donate to all five state parties | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!
Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our emerging four part agenda.
Contact your Senators and House Member and urge them to:
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 and fully fund SNAP FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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, and ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities
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
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 and China
2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston. They offer practical advice on how to get a resolution passed in your own community.
Remarkably, members of this community have passed or are advancing 85 (!!!!) resolution projects in 23 states + DC. Can we get to all 50 states by the end of the year?
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!
Keep working hard all, and remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today.
We do the work to make it so.
- Simon
