Lawrence O'Donnell Makes The Case for President Biden, With Democrats Things Get Better, Do More/Worry Less
Save The Date - Paid Subscribers Gather on March 6th, Entire Hopium Community on the 13th
Happy Saturday all. A few things today:
Lawrence O’Donnell Makes The Case For Joe Biden - On Wednesday night MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell made a powerful and comprehensive case for Joe Biden’s re-election that I hope everyone will watch. It rebuts, forcefully, the argument some have made that Joe Biden should step aside.
One of the things Lawrence’s powerful remarks reminds us that the disarray at the 1968 Democratic Convention contributed to our loss to Richard Nixon that year, the beginning of the crack up of FDR’s New Deal coalition and the onset of a generation of Southern Strategy-driven Republican dominance at the Presidential level. From 1968 to 1988 Republicans won 5 of 6 Presidential elections, some by enormous margins. Our only win came in 1976, after Watergate, and we only won that election 50% to 48%. 50.1%, after Watergate.
From 1948 to 2004 Democrats only received more than 50.1% of the vote in a Presidential election once, in 1964, after Kennedy’s assassination. In our last 4 Presidential elections Democrats have averaged 51% of the vote to the Republican Party’s 46%. Barack Obama received 53% and 51%, Hillary Clinton 48%, Joe Biden 51%. Barack Obama’s two elections were our two best performances as a national party since FDR. Our last 4 elections, again, we’ve averaged 51% after only breaking 50.1% a single time from 1948 to 2004. It is our best run as a national party since FDR’s 4 elections in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. Over almost 60 years we struggled to gain a majority in Presidential elections. We’ve been doing it repeatedly since Barack’s historic campaign in 2008. It’s really remarkable.
The Republicans, however, as we discussed the other day, are on the worst popular vote run at the Presidential level by a political party in American history, getting fewer votes in 7 of the past 8 elections. They are also happen to be on one of the worst runs for party out of power in mid-term and off-year elections in generations. We keep winning, they keep struggling.
I write all this in part because my first two campaigns were Dukakis 1988, the last campaign of our terrible post-1968 run, and Clinton 1992, the first campaign of our current extraordinary run of national popular vote performance. It is perhaps easy to forget how bad things were for us as a national party in those post-1968 years. But here, at Hopium, we cannot forget. For our party today is strong, not weak. We are winning elections all across the country, not losing. Joe Biden is the third successful Democratic President in a row, while all three of their post-Cold War Presidents have brought recession and American struggle. In my With Democrats, Things Get Better presentation I go deeper into this fundamental contrast that I think is so essential for us to work to establish, together - that since 1989, and the Cold War ended, Democrats have made things better in America, repeatedly. We’ve won elections and are now the majority party. They, on the other hand, have been a wrecking ball, bringing recession, repeatedly, and now insurrection and extremism. And they just keep losing.
There isn’t a left and right in America, but a good party, and a terrible party. A party that believes in America and our democracy, has made things better on our watch, and another party that has repeatedly failed to do its part and now wants to burn America as we know it to the ground. We need to have the courage to say all this, again and again, and not let our media and public discourse stuff all this back into the simplistic Democrat vs Republican, left-right, frame. For:
Joe Biden is a good President. The county is better off. The Democratic Party is strong and winning elections all across the US. And they have Trump.
Watch Lawrence when you can. It’s powerful stuff. It’s a reminder that while we were once weak and divided, today we are strong and united and ready to go put MAGA into the dustbin of history where it belongs.
Why I Am So Optimistic About Winning This November - Lots of stuff to chew on this weekend:
Hopium Analysis - America The Prosperous/Biden The Successful, No Red Waving 2024 Please, Why I Am Optimistic About 2024, Coming To Terms With Russia’s Penetration of Trump and The GOP
Hopium Events/Appearances - Our Monthly Hopium Gathering With Special Guest Tom Suozzi, The Strategy Session With Rick Wilson and Joe Trippi, PoliticsGirl, My Appearance On The Ezra Klein Show
Op-eds/Essays - Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic)
The Most Powerful Democratic Political Machine We’ve Ever Seen - Read my recent post on what we are 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.
My Appearance on Lawrence O’Donnell’s Show Thursday Night - Had a great talk with Lawrence, as always. Please watch and enjoy.
March Event Dates - Three events on the books so far. Mark your calendars!
Friday, March 1, 1pm EST - Hopium Founding Members Get Together W/ Simon
Wednesday, March 6, 7pm EST - Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering
Wednesday, March 13, 7pm EST - Hopium Community-Wide Gathering
If you are a free subscriber, you can upgrade your membership to join these dedicated gatherings by clicking here.
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 are three steps I’m recommending:
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.
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.
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 43,000 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.
I will be offering some new recommendations in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
Lawrence O’Donnell is the best political commentator on television, and not just because I share a lot of similar views with him. Nobody else is as clear and about things as he is, and he’s one of the few who base his analysis on factors beyond whatever shallow feeding frenzy the rest of the media is on at any given point. I am really glad you’re becoming a staple contributor there Simon, because you’re a perfect fit with his tone and approach. I also love that he’s enormously gracious and generous with the expertise of his guests and colleagues.
Simon - if I'm reading correctly, it looks like the Hopium community has hit our NC fundraising goal - woohoo! Over $53K raised to date, and I'll bet we can continue to go even higher! We're at about 2/3 of goal for the Biden-Harris campaign and hopefully everyone will continue showing their support for our wonderful President and Vice-President!