Love To Joe Biden And Family, Another Win in Europe, The Rancid Reconciliation Bill Advances - To The Phones Everyone!

I'll be talking to Brian Tyler Cohen on Thursday, Anderson Clayton joins us Friday

Morning all. First, sending all the love I can to Joe Biden and his family this morning. Let us hope that they caught the cancer early enough, and the President makes a swift recovery.

As a way of honoring his Presidency, which achieved so much for all of us, I send along a link to my last With Democrats, Things Get Better presentation of the 2024 election cycle. I produced this one right before the Democratic Convention, in what was a more optimistic moment. The presentation is a comprehensive case for the Biden-Harris Presidency, marshaling a great deal of data over many slides.

Many of you have asked whether I could update the presentation for the new Trump era, and I will. If you take the time to watch you will see that it needs a thorough reworking but there is much in there that needs to be resurfaced in a new form. In order to get your feedback on what I should do with it I will be setting up a stand alone With Dems page for dedicated discussion.

For newer Hopium folks here is the most famous slide from the deck, one that President Clinton referenced a few days later in his memorable Convention speech. To me it tells the story of American politics over the past generation as few other bits of data can…..

Fear And Opposition To MAGA Has Once Again Become The Most Powerful Force in US And Global Politics - So, we had another important election win yesterday, this one in Romania:

The main thrust of my presentation and accompanying post last week was to make the case that as it was for much of the last few years fear and opposition to MAGA has once again become the driving force of US and global politics. Consider:

• Far right parties lost in the European, French, and UK elections in 2024, and have lost this year in Australia, Canada, Germany, Romania and even the Vatican.

• Here in the US MAGA lost and/or underperformed in 2018, 2020, 2022, throughout 2023 and into early 2024. While Trump did win the election and the national popular vote in 2024, we did pick up a House seat and we did win important downballot throughout the battlegrounds, with North Carolina being the biggest success of all.

• In the US this year we’ve seen repeated Democratic electoral overperformances that feels a lot like the overperformances we saw in special and local elections post-Dobbs. We won big in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, overperformed in those FL House specials, and just blew it out in Omaha. In 19 state legislative and those 2 FL House special elections this year we are running ahead of our 2024 performance by 12 points.

• Trump had the highest disapproval rating for a President in his first 100 days in American history, and we know from data that the coalition that helped get him elected is in the process of unraveling, already.

In my post yesterday I shared my working takeways from the 2024 election. But increasingly I think the question we have to ask ourselves is if MAGA and far right extremism has been repeatedly rejected here in the US and across the world, why did Trump win in 2024, particularly when we won downballot races in many of the same battleground states he won? For Trump’s win in 2024, when you look at what has happened this year here and across the world, and in the elections proceeding our Presidential election last year, looks far more like an outlier than a harbinger of a new day to come.

I think this question becomes particularly important not only due to our recent domestic and international election wins, but also due to the speed and size of Trump’s polling collapse in recent months; a collapse that suggests his November, 2024 popularity wasn’t organic and durable, but momentary and temporal, deriving from the relative effectiveness of the two Presidential campaigns themselves.

OK, Simon, what does all this mean? It means that Trump and MAGA are far weaker than conventional wisdom here in the US has held; that while far right extremists have grown more popular across the world they keep getting rejected in election after election; and that perhaps, despite it all, liberalism is proving to be more resilient than we dared hope.

Events This Week - got a few good ones on tap this week:

Wed, 8pm ET - Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together. Note this week’s time. Register here.

Thur, 455pm ET - I sit down with the great Brian Tyler Cohen for a livestreamed discussion for Field Team 6’s “Register Democrats Summit.” Learn more, register here.

Fri, 1215pm ET - North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton joins us for a live discussion. Our good friend will be reviewing the big wins NC Dems have had at the ballot box and in the courts in recent months, and offer an early look at 2026 in one of our most important battleground states. Excited to welcome Anderson back this Friday! (will send link tomorrow)

A reminder to check our Events page for our latest schedule of events and links to register. You can find recordings of our Live events and other recorded conversations on the Podcast link on the Hopium site and now on YouTube and Spotify too.

Fighting Trump’s Ruinous Economic Agenda - For the first time in over 100 years the US no longer has the top credit rating in any of the three credit rating agencies. It’s an incredible vote of no confidence in the Trump economic agenda, and underscores the urgency we have in working to defeat his rancid reconciliation bill, roll back his terrible tariffs and find a better way forward for the American people.

Watch our imbecilic Treasury Secretary say “who cares” when asked about this unprecedented and dangerous downgrade to the credit worthiness of the United States of America yesterday. It’s shocking stuff:

Job One today and all week is to contact your Senators and House Members to express your dismay at Trump’s ongoing sabotaging of our economy. Given the market signals, proceeding with the budget-busting reconciliation bill is among the most reckless things Congress has ever done. If somehow Trump and Johnson keep their factious Conference together this monstrosity may come up for a vote later this week. Simply, Congress must hear a roar of disapproval from the American people this week. Loud and proud people!

In Saturday’s post I put together a comprehensive overview of why Trump’s agenda economic agenda is so ruinous for the United States. Be sure to review before contacting your electeds today!

Our goal this week and throughout the summer is to keep making the case that what we are seeing now looks more like national sabotage than a “strategy;” that Trump is waging a war on every day Americans, giving him and his wealthy friends more while we all get far, far less; that he is illegally lining his pockets, grabbing $400m planes, throwing himself a $100m parade on our dime while the rest of us get 2 dolls and 5 pencils; that his economic agenda if fully enacted will be ruinous for the country and working people, and is yet another Trumpian betrayal of all of us; and that we must, with all of our might, keep working to defeat the rancid reconciliation bill, roll back the terrible tariffs and do what Democrats do - makes things better for the great people of these United States of America.

A proposed script. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.

But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.

Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

Please self-report on your actions today. I know folks have been working hard and these reports of our gritty fight helps lift all of us up every day.

In addition to making our calls and contacting these offices, we have two more projects I hope you will consider supporting:

1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……

To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, released yesterday. We have now raised over $104,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all. If you want to volunteer for her race head over to her campaign website today. We can do this people!

2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $82,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

Friends, this is a big week and we need to leave it all out there on the playing field, together - Simon