Learning How To Tell Our Story More Effectively, Denying Trump Credit For The Good The Biden-Harris Administration Has Done

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Good morning all. Got a few things for you today:

Learning How To Tell Our Story More Effectively - Joe Biden and Kamala Harris inherited one of the worst first days an American Presidential Administration in our history. Trump left us a dadly bungled pandemic response that caused hundreds of thousands of Americans to die unnecessarily, an economy in deep recession and a global economy teetering, a Capital City and our democracy that had just been attacked by Trump and his mobs. What Joe Biden and Kamala Harris walked into on January 20th was without doubt one of the worst first days an American Administration has ever faced.

Trump and Vance will inherit one of the best. The Biden-Harris job market has been the best since the 1960s. Wage growth, new business formation and the # of job openings per unemployed persons have been at historically elevated levels. Inflation has been beaten, gas prices are low, interest rates are coming down and our recovery from COVID has been the best of any advanced nation in the world. The dollar is strong. GDP growth has hovered around 3% for all four years of Biden’s Presidency and the stock market keeps booming. The uninsured rate is the lowest on record. Through historic levels of domestic production of renewables, oil and gas America is more energy independent today than we’ve been in decades. Crime, overdose rates, the flows to the border and the deficit have come way down. Biden’s big three investment bills are creating jobs and opportunities for American workers today and will keep doing so for decades if Trump doesn’t gut them. We’ve begun stripping away the requirement of a four year college degree for government employment and other jobs too. We’ve lowered the price of prescription drugs, capped insulin at $35 and this year all seniors will enjoy a $2,000 Rx price cap. The Iranian-Russian-Hezbollah-Hamas axis in the Middle East has been deeply degraded. The Western alliance has been rejuvenated…..

That the case for the success for Biden-Harris was never successfully made either during their Presidency or the recent campaign has left us open to for Trump to attempt to erase the Biden Presidency and take credit for much of the good it has done. We’ve already seen this with his attempt to shake down the Mexican President and take credit for slowing the flow to the border last week, and his new national campaign to combat fentanyl use which will assuredly declare victory midway through 2025 on data that already show declining overdose rates.

The stock market will be booming due to him. The economy will be strong due to him. Crime will be down due to him. Seniors will have their prescriptions capped at $2,000 due to him. Bridges will be built due to him. Record domestic gas and oil production will happen due to him. Gas prices will be low due to him. Iran and Russia will be weakened in the Middle East due to him…….

I don’t have a simple plan for how to counter this, and perhaps Trump will f-ck it all up so we don’t have to worry. But as we look forward and learn from this disappointing election, we have to have a long and deep conversation about why we were unable to tell the story of the Biden-Harris Presidency more effectively over the entirety of their four year term (including the role of the right’s information superiority and ability to shape the national narrative). We inherited an extraordinary mess, made things a lot better, and had serious plans - particularly around housing - to make them better still. This is of course the third time in a row this has happened. It happened with Bill Clinton who inherited a recession and a rising deficit and ushered in one of the strongest periods of economic growth in the modern era and got us all the way to surplus (in part by large tax increases on wealthy Americans). It happened with Barack Obama who inherited the Great Recession and Bush’s failed war on terror and also ushered in a long period of economic growth, lower deficits and a booming, booming stock market. It happened with Biden, who inherited a severe recession, COVID mismanagement, global supply chain collapse and global inflation, insurrection and then brought us the best economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world and many other indicators of true social progress.

As I tell in my presentation, With Democrats, Things Get Better, there has been one big story in American politics since 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell - Democrats have made things better for the American people, Republicans have made them worse. We’ve repeatedly brought growth, lower deficits, rising wages, American progress. Republicans have brought 3 recessions in a row, higher deficits, American decline and now unfathomable MAGA ugliness and extremism. Bill Clinton referenced this understanding of our recent history in his Convention speech this summer, talking about the 50 million jobs created under these three Democratic Presidents. That stat comes from my With Dems presentation, and from my work here at Hopium. Here is that stat in graph form:

Since 1989 there have been 52 million jobs created in America. 50m of them - essentially all of them - have been created under Democratic Presidents. We have repeatedly cleaned up the messes Republicans left us and made things better for the America people. Period. Full stop. That’s who we are, and it is a story that we must tell far more aggressively every day, 24/7/365. We have not stopped listening to working class Americans or abandoned them. We have fought for the American people - all people - and made things far, far better for them again and again. Only one of the two parties has created jobs for the American people, raised taxes on wealthy Americans and invested in the future, enacted the EITC/ACA and universal broadband, made us for more energy independent, enabled booming retirement accounts, fought to raise the minimum wage, and walked the picket line. Bush’s Great Recession saw an historic loss of wealth for working Americans and Trump’s recession brought mass unemployment. Working Americans experienced severe economic and societal shocks under the last two Republican Presidents, the kind of status-threatening shocks that can lead to more extremist politics.

Inflation under Biden was also a shock, but it was a secondary effect of the original COVID shock that happened under Trump, intensified by his gross mismanagement of the pandemic, the Ukraine War and OPEC price hikes; and Biden, the Dems and the Fed - with no help from Republicans - crafted a successful response to get the economy booming and inflation back to pre-pandemic levels in his first term. Yes, unlike the shocks and recessions we inherited, Biden successfully got us to the other side of the disruption that happened on his watch with incredible speed and left nothing for Trump to clean up.

Once again, we made things better.

As I’ve written today I still have more questions than answers about what happened and what comes next. But one thing I believe, deeply, that our path forward has to do a far better job at connecting to and telling the story of the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party over the past 100 years. We need a better and more compelling story. I try to offer one in my With Dems presentation. When I look back at the campaign, I do have questions about the decision to focus so much on reminding people that prices were too high - Trump’s main argument against us - without also telling the story of the very real progress we made together under the Biden-Harris Administration. I keep thinking about the ad the Biden campaign aired in the late summer of 2023 which talked about our progress and proclaimed “it’s the American people who are the heros of this story.” This was perhaps my favorite ad of the entire Biden-Harris campaign as it made the campaign about what we the American people did to get us to the other side of COVID - not what government, or Biden, or Harris did. It made the campaign about us and our collective success:

Finally, I also want to go on the record here with something I’ve been talking about in my recent presentations - there may be no more greater manifestation of elitist contempt for working Americans than to argue that the American people cannot handle the truth about the success of our economic policies and the country either under Biden or more broadly in this post-Cold War era. We have an obligation to our fellow citizens to tell the truth at all times, and the core truth here is that there is only one party that has effectively fought for and improved the lives of the American people over a very long period now. We need to be loud and proud about this today, and everyday, if we are to find our mojo again.

As I wrote in my very first Hopium post:

I am calling it Hopium Chronicles because I want this to be a journey guided by hope and optimism, of belief in ourselves, in 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.

Yes, we have a lot of work in front of us but am proud, very proud, to be in this fight with all of you.

What Happened, What Comes Next - Our approach to the big post-election conversation has been to go slow, listen and learn, and right now I still have far more questions than answers. Here are some resources for you to dive into the big post-election conversation in the coming days:

• 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.

• In a new post I discuss the need for us to develop a broad agenda for renewal and reform, a topic we’ve been discussing here for many months and one central to my February New Republic essay, Biden Must Reinvent What A Presidential Campaign Is.

Yes we have to keep fighting Trump’s unacceptable 4.

Adam Gray still leads in CA-13 and fingers crossed all:

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 Abigail | Volunteer | Donate To Her Campaign | We have already raised more than $10,000 towards our $100,000 goal!

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. Paid subscribers should sign up for our next get together on Wednesday, Dec 4th at 7pm ET. Lots and lots to talk about.

Keep working hard all - Simon