Keep Fighting Trump's Outrageous 3, More Notes On What Happened and What Comes Next

Find me on Bluesky at simonwdc.bsky.social - see you there!

Good morning everyone. Our most important job in the next few months is to keep highlighting the depravity and danger of Trump’s Cabinet picks to 1) prevent them from serving (Matt Gaetz) 2) help define the Trump Presidency early as something other than what people voted for. I continue to recommend two actions this week:

• For folks to call their Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s pick of Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.

• Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately.

On CNN yesterday Senator Tammy Duckworth said she believed Tulsi Gabbard was compromised, and that Russian media has called her a “Russian asset.” We need more of our electeds talking bluntly like this.

In his Substack Dr. Timothy Snyder does a powerful take-down of Pete Hegseth’s extreme, illiberal views.

Canada’s top combat officer, Jennie Carignan, had this to say about Hegseth’s questioning of whether women should be allowed in combat roles (via MeidasTouch):

In Politico, former Hungarian MP Gabor Scheiring offers advice on how to fight Trump’s coming assault on our democracy and institutions.

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz has takes an in-depth look at Trump’s wild plans to dismantle the Federal government and cut vital programs through Musk’s DOGE (gift link).

Meanwhile, in the we’ll take it department, the Trump transition cannot start transitioning due to Trump’s refusal to sign ethics and transparency agreements with the Federal government:

Advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reached out to the Health and Human Services Department multiple times after Donald Trump tapped him to lead the massive agency, hoping to jumpstart coordination before his takeover in late January. They were rebuffed.

Kennedy’s inability to communicate with the agency he may soon manage, confirmed by an administration official with knowledge of the episodes granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations, is just one consequence of the president-elect’s continued foot-dragging on signing the standard trio of ethics and transparency agreements with the federal government — something his team pledged to do shortly after the election.

The Trump transition’s unprecedented delay in signing the agreements has so far prevented the incoming administration from having any formal contact with federal agencies, including sending in groups of policy advisers known as “landing teams.” It also means they can’t access cybersecurity support or secure email servers for transition-related work, or request FBI background checks for their nominees.

Last week I joined Resolute Sqaure’s Rick Wilson, Stewart Stevens and Joe Trippi to talk about the importance of fishing these early and dangerous Trump cabinet picks:

What Happened, What Comes Next - Our approach here has been to go slow, listen and learn, and right now I have far more questions than answers. A few articles from over the weekend I found helpful, informative:

• You May Be Wrong About Harris’s Loss - David Wallce-Wells, NYT

• How An Empty Internet Gave Us Tradwives and Trump - Tressie McMillan Cottom, NYT

• A terrific new Greg Sargent/TNR podcast and article on how Trump is already overreading his mandate

New resources from Hopium:

• Notes on 2024 And What Comes Next (11/20/24) - In a new detailed post and comprehensive video released I offer my latest thinking about what happened in 2024 - the ugly and the encouraging.

• In this post and video I offer my heartfelt thanks to the members of this community who left it all out there on the playing field this cycle.

• I’ve written a series of related post-election posts on the need for us to get louder here, here, here and most recently this one on how we need to get far smarter in how we strategically contest the right’s information superiority in our campaigns. Both the Trippi and the McGowan/Pfeiffer conversations below also speak to this urgent need, and exciting opportunity.

To help us learn from others throughout the family, I’ve launched a new What Happened, What Comes Next discussion series. Here are the first four of those talks, along with 2 relevant segments from my fall Closing Strong series with Tara McGowan and COURIER Newsroom:

• Anderson Clayton - On Our Impressive Downballot Wins in North Carolina

• John Della Volpe - On Trump’s Gains With Young People

• Joe Trippi - On The Power Of Networks And The Need To Build Our Own

• Rep. Abigail Spanberger - On Winning The Virginia Governors Race in 2025. Learn more about Abigial | Volunteer | Donate To Her Campaign

From Closing Strong:

• On The Need For Pro-Democracy Media - With Tara McGowan and Dan Pfeiffer.

• Beyond MAGA Creators - Russia’s Influence On The Republican Party Runs Deep With Stewart Stevens and Jiore Craig.

I’ve also set up a thread for paid subscribers to offer their thoughts on what this wonderful and plucky community should do next. I’m grateful for the many comments we’ve received so far. Weigh in if you can in the coming days, and note that an annual Hopium paid subscription is now 10% off through the end of the year for those who may want to sign up or give a bit of Hopium as a holiday gift!

Update On The House/Curing Ballots - Derek Tran grew his lead last week in CA-45, and Adam Gray has almost caught up in CA-13! If you have time sign up to help ballot cure in these two critical races with our partners, Grassroots Democrats HQ. We have two more House seats to win!

Here’s where our 15 endorsed House candidates stand today:

• Flips (4) - Whitesides (CA-27), Gillen NY-4, Riley NY-19, Bynum OR-5

• Too Close To Call/Still Counting (2) - Gray CA-13, Tran CA-45

• Losses (9) - Shah AZ-01, Engel AZ-06, Salas CA-22, Rollins CA-41, Bohannan IA-1, Vargas NE-02, Jones NY-17, Altman NJ-07, Stelson PA-10

I remain very proud of the good we’ve done, together, this past cycle. We made deeply strategic investments and got important wins in a tough year in AZ, NC, NE, WI and in these critical House seats. Of the 6 House seats Dems flipped this cycle, our community aggressively backed 5 of them - George Whitesides CA-27, Tom Suozzi NY-3, Laura Gillen NY-4, Josh Riley NY-19 and Janelle Bynum OR-5.

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