Morning all. Back at it. You can find a recording of my talk with Hopium paid subscribers last night above, and note there is a transcript too for those who’d rather read than watch or listen. We had over 1,000 people last night and you could feel the intensity and passion in our chat and Q and A. I kicked it off with some thoughts on where we are now and where I think our time is best spent. We then had a robust discussion. Think you will enjoyed it and feel free to share it with others you think might interested. A big thank you to our paid subscribers whose financial support makes Hopium go everyday and to all of you who are doing the work that needs to be done in this time of extraordinary challenge.
I really enjoy these gatherings not only because it allows us to get together, be in community but because they force me to try to make sense of everything that is happening and be able to communicate that to all of you. My big message last night - the fight we are now in is going to last years and we need to proceed strategically, prudently and not rush into battle. We need to focus our limited capacity on getting wins, celebrate them when they come and keep learning, keep getting stronger. We need to practice self-care, take care of ourselves and one another. But above all else we need to stay in the fight, and when we do we must fight both hard and smart.
I also reviewed what I’m calling our daily mantra:
Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America, and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight. As dark as all this is, we cannot for one moment forget that what Trump is doing is wrong; he and his project remain deeply unstable and his coalition fractious; he is doing deeply unpopular things, going far beyond his narrow “mandate;” he is old, impulsive, reckless and clearly in decline; and extremists and ideologues are often far better at bread and circuses than governing.
I still believe in the short term Job One is stopping Musk’s seizing and dismantling of the government of the United States (more here). Keep making your calls. Demand our leaders stop Musk’s dangerous crime spree across the nation’s capitol. Insist they make criminal referrals to DOJ/FBI for Musk and his posse. It is heartening to see Dems in the Senate starting to use far more aggressive tactics. But we need to keep the pressure on, and as we discussed last night, help and coach our leaders about what is expected of them now. Keep helping them understand how they are no longer just legislators but also communicators, influencers and leaders of a new, effective and ferocious opposition. They are hearing us in the Senate:
This just broke as I was finishing up this morning’s post. Encouraging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last night I also reviewed my recommendation that Leaders Schumer and Jeffries should assign senior staff to work with the DNC, DSCC, DCCC and other party committees to come up with a new comms and political structure to ensure that we become the effective and ferocious opposition necessary to preserve our democracy now.
The Leaders have a powerful new team ready to go to work with and for them:
millions of donors/volunteers/info warriors
growing pro-democracy media ecosystem
hundreds of capable and battle tested grassroots groups
traditional allied groups, and the national party infrastructure
tens of thousands of elected Democrats at all levels of government across the country
The Leaders should now empower staff to work with the new and hungry team at the DNC to imagine, design and build a new kind of political/comms super-structure integrating all of those who want and can help to respond to the needs of this extraordinary moment. We will not win with what what we have. We can and must build something new, more modern, more muscular, more effective.
Another thing we discussed last night was Trump’s awful, early job approval. For the last two and a half years we were told that President job approval was the coin of the realm, the key to understanding the power of the Presidency and his influence over Congress and the city. Biden’s low approval = bad, weakness, struggle, age. Applying this same construct to Trump what do we see so far? In the leading tracking polls right now Trump’s job approval is the lowest of any President in polling history at this time, and is declining. He is 15-20 points lower than Biden at this point, and 30-50 points lower than other recent Presidents. In the past week he has seen significant decline in two of the most prominent weekly tracking polls among registered voters:
Morning Consult - a week ago 52%-44% (+8) to 49%-47% (+2) now - 6 pt decline
Economist/YouGov - a week ago 50%-46% (+4) to 48%-47% (+1) now - 3 pt decline
These are big drops for a person as well known as Trump in a single week. 538’s G. Elliott Morris published this chart below last week. Trump’s net approval in the 538 average two weeks in is already down to +4 and in the more reliable, serious polls is +1, +2 or even in negative territory. To repeat:
Donald Trump has the highest disapproval rating of a President at this point their Presidency in the history of polling.
He is weak, not strong. A big, blubbery, batshit crazy baby man not a strong man.
For those who want to do more traditional electoral work in the coming days now I offer these three Hopium-backed opportunities:
Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. On Saturday night we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly over 800 of you have donated over $85,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start.
Note that two other good friends of Hopium - David Hogg and Jane Kleeb - were elected Vice Chairs of the DNC this weekend (Jane was elected head of the ASDC which also makes her a DNC Vice Chair). You can watch my inspiring interviews with David here, and with Jane here and learn more about where they want to take the party in the days ahead.
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 $22,000 so far towards our March 31st goal - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!
Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I am asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all. More on this critical election in the coming days. Our goal is to raise $50,000 by April 1st. We’ve raised $8,500 so far - thank you all!
The Washington Post has an interesting story this morning about how the frontlines of the fight against Trump is now in the Courts:
As President Donald Trump opens his presidency with a barrage of actions that critics say defy or ignore existing laws, his opponents, after a brief period of shocked paralysis, have ramped up dozens of lawsuits that now form the leading edge of the liberal pushback against his second-term agenda.
This time, the resistance is unfolding in the courts rather than the streets.
FBI agents are suing over Trump’s plans to target agents who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol rioters. Unions have asked a judge to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Americans’ personal information. A coalition of educators has challenged the president’s move to kill diversity programs.
And it’s working, at least in some cases: Courts have blocked Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship and to impose a freeze on federal grants. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth halted an administration plan to transfer three transgender women to a men’s prison, part of Trump’s attack on what he calls the “woke” transgender movement.
“There is a very sophisticated litigation strategy to go after these unlawful actions,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said in an interview, adding that Trump is essentially challenging the courts to stop him. “That is what is happening. ‘We will do whatever we want regardless of a legal rationale, and then folks can sue us.’ I think the Trump administration believes it will generally prevail in the court system the country now has. He may be wrong about that.”
Kaine acknowledged that some federal courts, including a U.S. Supreme Court reshaped by Trump in his first term, may favor the president on some issues. “We can’t go into it feeling like, ‘I know we are going to win all these cases,’” the senator said. “But we are going to win some of them. And the more extreme the actions of the Trump administration, the more we will win.”
For the annals of ongoing, historic Trumpian fuckery and illiberalism we have this jawdropping story from The Guardian today:
News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.
But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story.
That four-day operation in Colorado? It happened in November 2010. The 123 people targeted in New Orleans? That was February of last year. Wisconsin? September 2018. There are thousands of examples of this throughout all 50 states – Ice press releases that have reached the first page of Google search results, making it seem like enforcement actions just happened, when in actuality they occurred months or years ago. Some, such as the arrest of “44 absconders” in Nebraska, go back as far as 2008.
All the archived Ice press releases soaring to the top of Google search results were marked with the same timestamp and read: “Updated: 01/24/2025”.
The mystery first caught the attention of an immigration lawyer who began tracking Ice raids and enforcement actions when Donald Trump took office. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the administration. At first, she was baffled when she clicked on these seemingly new press releases and they detailed Ice raids from more than a decade ago.
So she set to work doing some digital sleuthing and enlisted a friend who’s a tech expert to help. What they found leads them to believe that Ice is gaming Google search.
Ice didn’t return a request for comment. A Google spokesperson said: “When people do these searches on Google, they’ll find a range of sources and information, including recent news articles.” She said Google aims to “reflect the last time a page was updated” and that its “systems are not designed to boost a page’s ranking simply because they update their timestamp” (LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL)
Keep working hard all. Let’s end with a powerful admonition from Thomas Jefferson that seems to speak to the terrible moment we are in - Simon
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