Is It Time For Trump To Go?

Republicans are starting to come to terms with what a disaster Trump is and what a liability he has become

Good morning everyone. You never know in politics. You never know when a long stalled bill will finally pass, a meme will break through, a scandal will burst open or a politician falls. You just never know.

Something has changed in our politics in recent weeks. The strong man isn’t so strong any more. He’s now a loser not a winner. A failure not a success. A weak man, an old ailing and addled man, not superman. And part of our job in the coming months is to make him into the historic villain he is not the hero he pretends to be.

A few things got us here but the most important is that his government is doing clear material harm to the country and the American people. He has failed us, profoundly and utterly. He turned a booming economy into a mess. Inflation has risen not fallen. He’s put the US government into a perilous fiscal state. He’s attacking the engines of our prosperity and ceding the future to China. He’s alienated our allies and left America alone in the world, less safe than we’ve been in decades, perhaps even centuries. He’s attempting to give Europe and Ukraine to Putin. He’s wrecking our health care system. He’s throwing innocent people into foreign gulags.

And the American people have had enough. They are pissed, and Trump’s regime clearly no longer has the consent of the governed.

Trump now sits at extraordinary levels of unpopularity, at or even lower than where Biden was when he was forced from the Presidential race last summer. His failed agenda is even more unpopular than he is. His party just got blown out - by enormous margins - all across the country in the 2025 elections. His Senate just voted to repeal his terrible tariffs. His big gambit to steal Congressional seats has backfired. His imperial and destructive management of the shutdown did enormous damage to him and the party brand. One of his most loyal and well known supporters, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has publicly and very aggressively broken from him. House Republicans just joined with the Democrats to pass a discharge petition to release the Epstein files, overcoming furious lobbying from him and his government. His government wide coverup of the Epstein trafficking ring has become an historical scandal. Next week the House will vote overwhelmingly to release the full Epstein files in what will be an extraordinary and in your face rebuke of Trump not just as President but as a man. This vote is not just defying the President of the United States, it is defying Trump himself, his brand, everything about him.

I think there are three emerging dynamics now that are making it possible he may just have to go:

1 - His government’s suppression of the Epstein files - the cover up - has become a virulent and unsustainable “cancer on his Presidency.” We are talking about the White House and Department of Justice covering and lying for people who raped and trafficked children; for Trump’s own role in it all; and for the increasing likelihood that Epstein shared/sold kompromat on Trump to the Kremlin, which used it to get Trump to betray the country, do Russia’s bidding, and do clear material harm to the national security of the United States.

This Epstein-Trump scandal is the most consequential in American history, and the more we learn the more his legitimacy erodes.

2 - Republicans across the country are now being forced to confront what a liability Trump has become for their own political fortunes. In the coming months every Republican elected official in the country, including those in Congress, are going to be forced to govern and legislate against the incredible damage Trump has done to our economy, our health care system, the fiscal conditions of all governments across the US, the social safety net, farmers and small businesses, our energy systems, our rights and freedoms. For as governments in the states come back in early January they will be forced to reckon and govern against all these harms. Their will be no denying them - for Democrats across the country will be shoving this stuff down their throats every day. For as bad as things feel for Republicans now, it is about to get much, much worse.

The disastrous election and Trump’s clear political decline/collapse is no longer being red waved away by GOP friendly polls that provided false comfort that everything was “fine” with Trump. It turns out all “those left wing” polls were right and things are not “fine” with Trump and the GOP brand. The bullshitting is ending. Here are the shifts Trump friendly pollsters have clocked in recent days:

• 11 points - TIPP - from 45-46 Trump approve/disapprove this August to 40-51

• 10 points - Quantus - from 48.2-49.7 to 43-55

• 9 points - RMG - from 51-47 to 46-51

• 5 points - Rasmussen - from 48-50 to 46-53

• 5 points - HarrisX/Harvard - from 47-49 in Agust to 44-51

• 5 points - Morning Consult - from 46-51 to 44-54 in the last two weeks

• 5 points - Emerson - from 45-48 to 41-49

Yesterday, the Republican House campaign committee’s pollster, Cygnal, sent what was in DC speak a very, very loud warning:

Warning Signs: For the first time in two years, voters whose top priority is inflation and the economy now prefer a generic Democrat for Congress (D+13) over a Republican. Democrats also now lead by six points (D+6) on the generic congressional ballot, marking the largest single-month shift toward Democrats since after Biden dropped out of the presidential race. This poll is a warning sign for Republicans heading into 2026 and demands a recalibration of messaging.

That the battlefield has shifted by 7 to 12 points towards the Democrats in the past year - making it likely the House flips and puts the Senate in play - is now also being confirmed in state polling showing our candidates competitive in 2026 battleground states like Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Texas and ahead in Maine and North Carolina. Read this new writeup of a just-released right-leaning poll in North Carolina documenting recent and significant movement towards Democrats and a top Trump ally and former RNC Chair Michael Whatley getting blown out (thanks to Elizabeth T for sending this to us):

Democrat Roy Cooper has widened his lead over Republican Michael Whatley in the race for North Carolina’s open US Senate seat next year, according to the latest Carolina Journal poll of likely voters.

The survey puts Cooper’s support at 47% compared to Whatley’s 39%. That result doubles the 4% margin Cooper had in CJ’s September poll — which had 46% for Cooper, the state’s two-term former governor; and 42% for Whatley, a former national and state Republican Party chairman. The numbers return Whatley to the wider 8% margin seen in August when Cooper’s support sat at 47% and Whatley’s at 39%.

The CJ poll also queried voter perspectives on Don Brown, another Republican candidate who has thrown his hat into the ring in the GOP primary for the US Senate seat. Brown performs slightly worse than Whatley against Cooper, at 38% support.

“Cooper’s lead continues to benefit from strong name recognition among voters,” said Carolina Journal publisher and John Locke Foundation CEO Donald Bryson. “If Whatley or Brown want to have a chance in this race, they will need to get in front of voters and raise their own public profile.”

Momentum for Democrats is also showing up in races for the state legislature. In a generic ballot test, Democrats went from a 1.6-point deficit in September to a 4.1-point lead this month. The poll shows 47.3% of respondents saying they would vote for a Democratic legislative candidate, while 43.2% said they would support a Republican.

NC voters also appear to be souring on the direction of the country and North Carolina as well. Only 38% say the country is going in the right direction — down 4 percentage points from September and down 9 percentage points from August — while 55% say it’s on the wrong track. That is the largest net “wrong track” margin recorded by the CJ poll this year.

Every single Republican candidate in competitive races across the country is going to be seeing data like this in the coming weeks. Every single one of them. And they are not going to be happy, not happy at all.

3 - Trump is clearly in ill health and unwell, and it is not clear that he can continue to do the job. He feel asleep for twenty minutes last week at an event AT HIS OWN DESK - he wasn’t sitting in a crowd watching others. He is now inventing, confabulating, lying at just Olympian levels of untruth and delusion, signaling that his cognitive decline is accelerating. His walk has become increasingly labored. And now this MRI thing. Trump was asked about it again yesterday. Just listen to his response, tell me, just tell me, that you think man is still capable of doing the job:

Or tell me, just tell me, after reading this you think he can continue to do the job:

I think we have to start visualizing, and socializing, the idea that it just might be time for him to go. I’ve put together this initial working list for why it just might be time:

• Cover up of his involvement in notorious sex trafficking ring

• Unprecedented corruption, self enrichment

• Tariffs are historic, unprecedented abuse of power

• Illegal desecration of most important global symbol of American democracy

• abandonment of Ukraine and our European allies, appeasement of Putin

• extraordinary assault on our health care system and the public’s health

• lighting the engines of our prosperity on fire, ceding the future to China

• starving Americans to gain leverage in Hill negotiations

• killing of 15 million of poorest people in the world through vaporizing of USAID

• weaponozing DOJ to pursue his political opponents

• use of Marines against Americans, trampling of due process, disappearing innocent people to foreign gulags

• illegal killings of dudes in boats on the high seas

• profound physical and cognitive decline, often appears confused and frequently confabulates

• high likelihood he is compromised by a hostile foreign power, or hostile foreign powers

Over the next few months as thousands of ambitious Republicans running in competitive races across the country next November come to terms with how unpopular he is, how indefensible his agenda has become, how in your face corrupt and venal he has been, how old and crazy he has gotten, how hard it is going to be to run and win under these conditions, the talk will get louder….

It just may be time everyone. Time for him to go.

Now, Let’s Keep Working It Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates

• Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $51k raised- Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my interviews with Gov. Cooper

• Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $93k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my inspiring interview with Senator Ossoff

• Hopium House 7 (2026) - $250,000 goal, $237k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents

Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps (2026-2032)

• Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $250,000 goal, $191,000 raised - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Watch my interviews with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!

• North Carolina and Ohio - Learn more about our 2026 opportunities in Ohio in this conversation with David Pepper, and in North Carolina in this new interview Anderson Clayton

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 and for releasing the Epstein files:

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Release the Epstein files

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