Joe Biden Is Good President, Trump Is Weak, Fighting For Ukraine, On Michigan Tonight

Sharing video of my appearance on Lawrence O'Donnell last night

Happy Tuesday all, a few things for you today:

Many of you have asked about my thoughts about the impact of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war on the election. I offer up some thoughts, reluctantly, below. In general this a subject I’ve tried to avoid here at Hopium as we do have intense disagreements in the family on these important matters, and I have found it be counter productive to bring this debate inside here. It’s okay for us to disagree on things. That’s what a democracy is all about. I would, however, rather spend my time with you focusing on our areas of agreement, celebrating the good works for Joe Biden and the Democrats, and putting our head down and doing the work. The bottom line - I don’t think Biden’s handling of the conflict, a very challenging situation, has done meaningful harm to him, and it is unlikely to be a major issue in the fall election. But we will learn more tonight and in the coming months.

My Appearance on Lawrence O’Donnell Last Night - The great Lawrence and I spent time talking about Trump’s clear underperformance in the early primary states, and why I think it is a continuation of the struggles Republicans have had since Dobbs. He is in far more trouble than conventional wisdom is expressing right now. Enjoy.

Why I’m Optimistic About Winning This November - A round up of recent postings, essays and appearances. Lots of Hopium in here.

Hopium Analysis/Us - Why I Am Optimistic About Winning This November, Biden’s Successful Presidency Is Leaving Rs With Nothing To Run On, Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic)

Hopium Analysis/Them - More Performance Problems For Trump and MAGA in South Carolina, Trump Is Not Strong, Or Winning - No Red Waving 2024 Please, Coming To Terms With Russia’s Penetration of Trump and The GOP, MAGA Descends Into Madness

Hopium Events/Appearances - Our Monthly Hopium Gathering With Special Guest Tom Suozzi, With Democrats, Things Get Better, Appearances on PoliticsGirl and The Ezra Klein Show

The Most Powerful Democratic Political Machine We’ve Ever Seen - Read my recent post on the powerful political machine we building together, and let’s just keep staring at this jaw-dropping data from the Suozzi campaign:

In the space of five weeks people knocked on over 150,000 doors, made over 2 million phone calls, and wrote hundreds of thousands of postcards. Our campaign estimates that every Democrat household in the NY-03 received, on average, five handwritten postcards.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - Here at Hopium we strive to channel all this worry and anxiety we have about our current moment into concrete action - do more, worry less - as we say here. I try to give you a bit of direction about where to channel your work by endorsing campaigns and projects, and providing you information to help you become a more effective information warrior for your democracy. Together we just made a big difference in NY-3, and if you are looking for ways to help right now here are three things you can do today:

Donate and join the Biden-Harris campaign - This is very important. The campaign comms and field operations are gearing up and it’s critical you receive info from the campaign every day, and start thinking about how you are going to be part of this effort as it expands. Please donate whatever amount you can - $5, $10 - just to get started.

We’ve already raised over $73,000 everyone for Biden Harris - thank you!

Make an early investment in North Carolina - North Carolina is our most important 2024 expansion state. Please consider donating today. For more on why I think North Carolina is so important watch my interview with Anderson Clayton, the dynamic new NC Democratic Party Chair.

We’ve already raised $58,000 for this critical battleground - thank you all!

Spread Hopium - Encourage people in your networks to become a Hopium subscriber. Our goal is to get to 50,000 subscribers by March 31st (we are at 44,000 today). With your help we can hit our goal, grow our community and bring the upbeat, data-filled analysis here to more and more people.

Here’s Governor Newsom talking about the need to “worry less, do more” on Meet The Press this weekend:

March Event Dates - Three events on the books so far in March:

• Fri, March 1, 1pm EST - Hopium Founding Members Get Together W/Simon

• Wed, March 6, 7pm EST - Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering - Register

• Thur, March 7th - State Of The Union Address - Be Sure to Watch!!!!!

• Wed March 13, 7pm EST - Hopium Community-Wide Monthly Gathering - Register

Free subscribers can upgrade their membership to join these additional gatherings by clicking here.

Biden’s Foreign Policy and The Democratic Family - We know there is an intense disagreement in our family about the President’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. We’ve discussed these matters at length here over the past year, and in general I prefer to spend our time on the areas where we agree and the do more/worry less campaigns we support together. As the issue has come up in our paid subscriber chat in recent days and we have lots of new subscribers, I offer a few observations about this very challenging topic:

Opposition to Biden’s foreign policy in the Democratic Party is very limited: The chart below comes last week’s Economist/YouGov poll. Note that Biden gets his highest marks on foreign policy from 18-29 year olds, and Democrats approve of his handling of foreign policy 71-21. Remember you can be both for a “cease fire” and approve of what Biden is doing. Being for a cease fire does not imply disapproval of Biden’s handling of the conflict. Who isn’t for a cease fire under the right conditions?

As we discussed last week, Trump is not leading in the election, and I just don’t think there is clear, unequivocal data showing Biden has taken a hit due to his management of the war. I am open to seeing that data, and considering it.

The impact in Michigan in the general election is likely to be limited - There are lots of numbers being thrown around about Michigan but here is what I came up with….140,000 Arab-Americans voted in Michigan in 2020 out of 5.2m total votes. That vote likely split about 90,000 Biden, 50,000 Trump given the national vote of Arab-Americans. Assuming Biden loses half his vote this November, and Trump loses 10,000 due to his escalating attacks on immigrants and Muslims, the net vote loss for Biden is 35,000. Not 250,000, 150,000, but 35,000. Could it be more? Sure. Will others also be hesitant to vote for Biden because of his handling of Israel-Hamas? Sure. But here we traffic in data, and while this is a concern, current polling suggests it is a narrow and limited concern; and given all that is at stake this year, and the usual dominance of economic and health care issues (and reproductive freedom, loss of democracy, climate change, gun safety, etc) it is in my view highly unlikely that the President’s handling of Israel-Hamas will be a major issue in the general election in Michigan or anywhere else.

As for tonight, unless uncommitted gets into the 30s and 40s it just should not be considered a meaningful event. Uncommitted got to 10% against Obama in the 2012 Michigan primary and he won the state in the general, against Michigan native Mitt Romney, 54%-45%. The media called Trump’s 60%-40% SC win against Haley a romp. If we end up 75%-15% tonight, or 70%-20%, it too will be a romp for Biden. If you somehow argue that this 15%-20% uncommitted means Biden is in trouble in Michigan in the general wait till you find out that Trump’s primary opposition has gotten to 40%-50% in all three Republican Primary states which have voted so far.

Bibi must go - As Hopium readers know I think it is long past time for Bibi to go. Prior to October 7th we celebrated the pro-democracy movement in Israel, even hosting Haaretz journalist Amir Tabon for a live discussion from Israel. There are many reasons that Bibi must go, but his embrace of Putin prior to October 7th remains at the top of my list:

Hamas must go too - There has been a lot of talk about the “context” to the Israel-Hamas war. Part of the context that is often been left out is in its desire to wipe Israel off the face of the map Hamas aligned itself with Iran, Hizbollah and the Houthis, who are in turn aligned with Russia and North Korea in Putin’s genocidal attack on Ukraine and one of the most serious efforts to weaken the American-led global order since WWII. What is happening right now in Gaza is anything but simple, and has to be seen in this larger context of MAGA’s alignment with illiberal, autocratic powers in their escalating assault against Western democracy. Hamas is an open ally of Iran which seeks the end of Jews and Israel, and Russia, which seeks the end of Ukraine and the West. This was a choice Hamas made, and it is a central reason why Hamas cannot be allowed to exist as a legitimate political actor in the region. One can be pro-Palestinian without being allied with Putin and Iran. One can be pro-Palestinian without attacking Jews - me and my family - here in the US. One can be pro-Palestinian without building a military infrastructure underneath civilian populations and then slaughtering and raping and abducting innocent Israelis and Americans knowing it would cause tens of thousands of innocent Gazans to die. What’s happening now in the Middle East is about far more than Israel-Palestine, something the critics of Biden often fail to acknowledge, to our collective detriment.

The battle for democracy - The liberal, rules-based global order is under extraordinary threat right now, here and abroad. As I wrote in my recent New Republic essay, I think Biden got us through one existential challenge in his first term - COVID - and in his second term needs to focus on getting us through two more - climate change and the battle for democracy here and everywhere. The work we do here at Hopium to help our candidates win places us on the front lines of this global struggle; we are winning here in the US; and I am deeply proud to be in this fight with all of you. But let’s keep our heads up, our eyes open, and not get blown around by the many distractions out there, the many bad faith attacks on Biden. We have a country to save, an election to win and lots of work we need to do, together.

I end with this remarkable clip of the Polish Ambassador to the UN Radek Sikorski reminding us what’s at stake in our fight for Ukrainian freedom and independence. Please watch. It’s extraordinarily powerful.

Keep working hard all. So proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon