Hopium Turns Three - Thank You All!

This community of proud, plucky patriots launched on March 7th, 2023

Morning all. First, sharing our discussions and commentary on another extraordinary week in our politics for you to dive into this weekend:

• We had informative and timely discussions about Trump’s new war with Rep. Adam Smith and Stuart Stevens

• We reviewed our encouraging election night with North Carolina’s Anderson Clayton, Texas’s Kendall Scudder, and Jen Rubin & Norm Eisen

• I weighed in with my weekly talk, The Idiocy Is Strong With Trump, and a new comprehensive look at the week, A Disastrous Jobs Report, Russia Is Helping Iran Attack The US, The War Is Spinning Out Of Control - America Needs A Course Correction, Now.

We’ve also got some great events and discussions coming up this week. We will be hearing from three of our endorsed candidates - Peg Cognetti, Jo Mendoza and Mary Peltola; Indivisible’s Ezra Levin is coming to preview the next big No Kings day coming up on Saturday, March 28th; and I am sure we will have some other folks dropping by to talk about our f*ck-up-in-chief and his ruinous new war.

A gallon of gas costs 50 cents more today than a week ago

Hopium Turns Three!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next, it’s a big day in Hopium land - this remarkable community of proud, plucky patriots turns three today!

There are a few ways I thought we could celebrate today:

• Join me at the Stand Up For Science Rally on the Mall here in DC this afternoon. The rally starts at 1pm. I will be speaking a little after 130pm, and I will be arriving at 1215pm EST to hang out with anyone who wants to come a bit early. Learn more here. Excited to see people in person!

• Let’s revisit my very first Hopium post from March 7th, 2023, together. You can find it here, or I’ve posted it below. For newbies helps provide a bit of context to why Hopium was launched three years ago…….

• For those who want to support our work I’m offering a 10% 3rd Anniversary discount on an annual paid subscription through Sunday night. Dive in my friends, the water is warm here at Hopium. A paid subscription helps us grow and keeps Hopium free for others!

• The Hopium New Member Challenge - as a way of helping celebrate our three years together, I am asking every member of this community to bring in one new person at your level - free, paid, Founding - by Memorial Day. Learn more about gift and groups subscriptions here, and our referral awards program here. Let’s grow this wonderful community, together, this month!

In my Wednesday night talk I reflected on our three years together - our accomplishments, our disappointments, our good days and our bad days, our commitment to doing, our grit, our love of country, our willingness to fight in a time of enormous challenge, and our clear sense that our most important work together lies ahead of us, not behind. For that is what makes Hopium different from many of the other new, independent media projects our there - here we come to work, learn from one other, and get things done, together.

Here’s that key graph from that first post I often share:

I am calling it Hopium Chronicles because I want this to be a journey guided by hope and optimism, of belief in ourselves, of love of country and a clear understanding of the nature of the conflict we are in. I have become convinced that part of Greater MAGA’s strategy is to intentionally poison our discourse with negative sentiment every day. They want us to feel bad about America, our democracy, our leaders, our institutions, our success, each other, ourselves. We cannot let them do that any more. While they talk American down every day, we need to talk it up. While they spread lies, we respond with truth and data. Hopium is a rejection of the darkness they are trying to spread. It is a way of standing up for our great country and its remarkable people. It is the key to how we win.

For yes, my friends, Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope that tomorrow will be better than today. We do the work to make it so - together.

That’s us. That’s who we are. Proud plucky patriots all!

I am so incredibly proud of what we’ve built together. I am grateful that your support makes it possible for me to do this work full time. When I started this thing three years ago I really had no idea what to expect. I hoped we could build it into something like we have, a community of over 150,000 hard-working people today.

What I didn’t know was that we would become such a political force - for today we are among the top fundraisers for our most important candidates and state parties in the whole country. And what I didn’t know was how much I would come to rely on all of you - your insights, your leadership, your patriotism - and how important being in this community with all of you would mean to me each day. For while I work from home each day, I am not alone - I am with all of you; and there is no place I would rather be in this fight, the fight of our lifetimes, than here with all of you, every day, doing our thing.

So a big hearty Hopium thank you on this day, Hopium’s third anniversary, and here’s to making the 2026 election everything we all want and need it to be.

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Simon

Here I am at my favorite place, The FDR Memorial, on the Mall

Welcome everyone. I am excited you are here, and excited to get going. Let me explain how I got here, and what I hope we are going to do here, together, in the years ahead. And do subscribe right away - it is how this new powerful new platform Substack has built works.

Though I’ve been in politics for a long time, my journey fighting the “red wave” over the past year changed my understanding of the work that needs to get done to defeat MAGA, tell our inspiring story more effectively, and ensure that freedom and democracy prevail.

Basically I came to understand that our politics was changing and I had to change with it. It led me to conclude that my old organization, NDN, which I founded back in 1996, was no longer the right vehicle for me. It did a lot of good over a long period of time, and we built a remarkable community there. As I discuss in my recent interview with Ron Brownstein in the Atlantic, I feel like we are entering a new political era in America, one that requires new strategies and approaches. NDN was built for a different era, and it had a different mission. I needed to do something new, organize my work in new ways. So here I am. With all of you.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I am calling it Hopium Chronicles because I want this to be a journey guided by hope and optimism, of belief in ourselves, of love of country and a clear understanding of the nature of the conflict we are in. I have become convinced that part of Greater MAGA’s strategy is to intentionally poison our discourse with negative sentiment every day. They want us to feel bad about America, our democracy, our leaders, our institutions, our success, each other, ourselves. We cannot let them do that any more. While they talk American down every day, we need to talk it up. While they spread lies, we respond with truth and data. Hopium is a rejection of the darkness they are trying to spread. It is a way of standing up for our great country and its remarkable people. It is the key to how we win.

By subscribing to Hopium Chronicles you will be able to participate in all this work. Paid subscribers will get more time with me and my merry friends, provide funding for this critical work, and be able to connect with other members of the community to compare notes, devise strategies and plot victories. You will get at least one discussion with me every week and paid subscriber only content. Founding Members will become early major investors in ensuring this new project can become what we all want it to be. If it all goes right we can become a powerful learning community, of people wanting to become more effective defenders of democracy and everything that has made America great.

There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about our politics now. Democrats had a very good election in 2022, our third good election in a row. President Biden has been a good President, and America is far better off today. The Democratic Party is strong, our rising generation of leaders is ready and our grassroots is bigger and more effective then its ever been. Putin has stumbled in Ukraine, and the climate package passed by Congress last year has dramatically accelerated the global pace of decarbonization.

But we also know that MAGA remains too much of a threat, and we have a lot of work to do. This place and our community of proud patriots and info warriors is going to be about doing that work, bravely, passionately, successfully. A few of the things we will be working on in the coming months:

• working to make sure the economy stays strong, President Biden’s big 3 bills survive GOP sabotage, and the war in Ukraine is successful

• more effectively telling our story, and winning the big economic argument with the right

• finding new ways to get louder and counter the right’s information superiority

• exploring strategies for expanding our coalition, get to 55% in national elections

We will also be spending time with important leaders of our party and the broader pro-democracy community. I will be showcasing some of the remarkable groups and people I’ve met during my journey over the past year. And we will be picking a few really important candidates to raise money for and hang out with.

So let’s get going. I have some idea how this is all going to go but I hope all of you will not be shy and help me turn this into a place where you love hanging out, do some good, share some Hopium, and together defeat MAGA and ensure that freedom and democracy prevail, here and everywhere.

Excitingly yours, Simon

Washington, DC March 7, 2023

Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $292,000 raised, $400,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all twelve of our endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10) and learn more about the eight candidates we just added to our campaign here.

We will be meeting the rest of our newly expanded slate of intrepid House candidates in the coming weeks. It’s a great crew! This fundraising total includes funds already raised with our friends at FridayAction for a joint event we’re doing later this month.

James Talarico For Texas - $25,000 raised, $100,000 March 31st goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More | Watch my recent interview with Rep. Talarico

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $42,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More. Amazing start everyone!

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $83,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper

Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $137,200 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

Winning Ohio - $67,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue! | Watch my conversation with David Pepper, who provides a great overview of the opportunities we have in Ohio this year. Note a generous donor has sent $21,000 worth of Hopium-infused contributions directly to the candidates which are not included in our on-line goal tracker.

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $394,700 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas. Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties.

Advocate For The Hopium Agenda/Pass Resolutions Of Condemnation In Your Community/Study The Spangerberger And Padilla Speeches

Two more ways you can go to work in the coming days - call your leaders and advocate for elements of our working, ever evolving Hopium Agenda; and bring resolutions that condemn our Mad King and lets facts be spoken to a candid world to your state or local government.

This week our calls should clearly focus on reining in both the illegal war in the Middle East and ICE here at home.