Discussions, Presentations, Pep Talks and Pods for Your Viewing and Listening Pleasure
Lots of new material for you to chew on in the coming weeks....
Friends,
Been a busy few weeks here in Hopium land, and as we all kick back a bit in August wanted to send along links to some of our recent work that you may want to catch up on in the coming weeks.
A few topline themes run throughout all these discussions:
Democrats are having a good summer, the Republicans are teetering on the edge of a political abyss.
Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong.
There are two things we need to be doing this year to help us go big and get to 55 next year - be loud and proud about Joe Biden’s economic accomplishments and start campaigns to register young people across the country.
Together we should re-imagine the War Room, and not see it as twenty sweaty kids drinking Red Bulls and producing rapid response videos but as millions of proud patriots networked together, amplifying the good works of Joe Biden, the Democrats, and the American people. We have to keep working to close the loudness gap with the right and become more effective information warriors for our democracy.
I am encouraging the Hopium community to focus now on the coming elections in Ohio and Virginia, and on helping our Florida friends build on our success electing Donna Deegan Mayor of Jacksonville and get an initiative on the ballot rolling back DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban.
Here are the discussions, presentations, pep talks, and pods:
My Monthly Political Briefing and Discussion - Recorded a few days ago, I started off with a 15-minute overview of the national political landscape and then opened it up for a lively discussion. This monthly event is open to all members of the Hopium community.
With Democrats Things Get Better, July 2023 - This presentation is where much of our Hopium comes from, as it tells the story that since 1989 and the arrival of a new of globalization, Democrats have brought us growth, lower deficits and American progress, Republicans have brought us recession, higher deficits and American decline. With Democrats, things get better. With Republicans, not so much.
With Dems takes about 30 minutes, and is updated monthly. Many of the economic graphs you see here at Hopium were originally built for this presentation.
My Discussion with David Pepper About Ohio, Vote No and his new book, Saving Democracy - This was a great discussion with one of the most thoughtful strategists in the game today. We also get into detail on you can best help defeat Vote No in Ohio - hope everyone will be doing a shift of calls or texts in the coming days. This Aug 8th election in Ohio really matters.
The Politics War Room Podcast with James Carville and Al Hunt - Building a Democratic Majority With Simon Rosenberg - for those who like audio-only podcasts this was a great conversation recorded on Wednesday. Was a thrill to be with James again, 31 years (yikes!) after we worked together in the original Clinton War Room.
My youth vote conversations with Harvard’s John Della Volpe and Laura Brill of the Civics Center - These were great discussions about the youth vote with two of the smartest and most effective leaders in this space. I hope everyone will watch Laura’s presentation and see if you can help her bring aggressive voter reg campaigns to every high school in America.
My talk to Network NOVA on the importance of the Virginia elections this fall - Last Saturday I addressed Network NOVA’s amazing annual Women’s Summit, 700 people all fired up and ready to go to win in Virginia this fall. In this talk I focus on 3 things - 1) the need to get Democrats to vote on Day 1 of early voting 2) making young people the center of everything we do 3) recognizing how much better the issue environment is now, and how much stronger Biden’s case for re-election has become.
Finally, I was quoted yesterday in a WaPo story about the need for Democrats to win the big economic argument with Republicans, and our work together here was cited:
“The economy is the only major issue where Republicans are connecting with voters, and if we can take that away from them, we are going to have a very good election next year,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg said. He has been offering Democrats a separate presentation encouraging them to talk about the relative performance of the U.S. economy under Republican and Democratic governance.
Enjoy all this Hopium-filled media in the coming weeks, and keep working hard everybody. I feel good about where things are now, but of course, we have a lot of work ahead of us - Simon
The reason folks think the economy is bad + how to hit Trump
I’m having a hard time being heard on these two points and hope you might amplify them:
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Why so many think the Economy is bad
Past inflation has driven up the prices of groceries and other items we purchase everyday.
We went for years with very little inflation and the average person internalized a sort of “set price” for most items. When they go to the store now they see:
Food. 2020 and previous prices 2023 prices
Eggs $1.40 - 1.50/doz $2.50- $4.83
Milk $3.20 - $3.50 / gal $4.00 / gal.
Bread $1.30 — $1.50 / lb $1.90 / lb
Bacon $5.30 — $5.80 / lb $6.20 - $6.80 / lb
etc.
This is a whopping increase in percentage and actual terms and it hits the average consumer in the face every day. We do sound like idiots and/or liars when we try to tell them inflation is no longer a problem. It doesn’t match what they see at the store with their own eyes every day, and the R’s are very successful at blaming this on the Dems with their tired old tropes about massive D spending. "Of course prices are up and it’s the result of too many dollars chasing too few goods — and the Dems caused this."
I believe many Dem strategists and pundits must rarely go shopping and/or when they go they just buy what they want and don’t pay much attention to the price; sometimes never even checking the total bill at checkout. It just isn’t important to them -- they have plenty of money and this is just an incidental expense. I think this must be how most of our analysts and political consultants still operate.
But when they start paying attention they would be shocked at the price of everyday goods from the perspective of someone that has to make his or her dollars stretch. AND THAT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF MOST OF OUR COUNTRY — PRICES ARE HIGH AND MY DOLLAR DOESN’T GO AS FAR. — I AM WORSE OFF AND I SEE IT EVERY DAY.
Abstract concepts like the "rate of inflation” coming down have no impact on the day to day prices the average consumer confronts again and again. Moving from 6% or 9% down to 3% doesn’t change the prices at the store. In fact they continue to rise, just not as fast.
We Dems have to confront and recognize this experience. We have to acknowledge it. And then start a full on blitz of all media that inflation was a GLOBAL phenomenon brought on by the pandemic, Ukraine, supply chain disruption etc. it is easy to demonstrate this by showing the inflation rates of the industrialized countries around the globe. It’s a simple and direct illustration to understand. The accompanying message is: “Inflation was everywhere and It was not the result of Democratic spending needed to bring us out of the pandemic induced recession”. Biden and the Dems have worked to bring inflation down in the US compared to other countries [show chart again]. Yes, prices are up, across the globe. But Bidonomics has worked to bring us out of the recession and set us on a road to future growth and stability.
We need to put the political and communication experts on delivering this message — I watch show after show where all the pundits throw their hands in the air and say they don’t understand why Biden’s good economic results aren’t being recognized. They don’t understand because they don’t see what the average American living paycheck to paycheck sees every day. — prices are way up ! That the RATE of inflation is down doesn’t change this everyday reality.
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How to shut Trump down
Dominion Systems showed us how.
Every time Trump is available he should be hit with something like the following:
“You continue to say the 2020 Election was stolen. Approximately 60 independent Courts looked at the evidence presented and rejected that claim every time, yet you still persist in this lie. If you are not merely a Charlatan or Con Man tell us exactly who rigged the election and how. Give us a name. Tell us when and where. Unless you give us that simple information it is clear that all you are is a Con Man. So who did it ? When and Where? Are you too afraid to give us a name? Or is it that you really are just a Con Man who has been abusing the trust of your followers for years? Which is it? Are you a con man or will you give us a name and when and where? Or have you just been abusing for years the confidence your followers have placed in you ?”
Something like this. And don’t let up until he gives a straight answer — that he can’t give a name or a when and how. Everyone has to do this. Hit him with this over and over. Stick with the line of questioning to its conclusion. Over and over.
Give him a choice: give us the goods or admit you’ve been abusing the confidence of your followers for years.
There are now 875,000,000+ reasons why he won’t and we have push hard on this leverage point again and again. Don’t argue facts with his followers use this question to show they’ve been conned.
Anyway, I hope you find this analysis useful
Ron
PS — this will work for all the other election deniers as
Ron Feinman, Esq.
Lynchburg Virginia
rfeinman@oneworld.ws
Having just done some text banking, I feel like our greatest need is better voter contact info so we're not constantly getting wrong numbers. But then again the responses from Republicans do give you a glimpse into the warped, hateful world they live in, the poor things.