More Encouraging Inflation Data, Joe Biden Is A Good President, Trump Is The Most Unfit Candidate in American History

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Key Inflation Measure, PCE, Comes In Where Fed, WH Wants It To - From CNN, There’s a lot of good news in the latest inflation report:

The last inflation snapshot of 2023 provided some further encouraging news for Americans and the Federal Reserve: This painful period of sharp price increases may be nearing its end.

Commerce Department data released Friday showed that although the Federal Reserve’s preferred price gauge didn’t budge from its 2.6% annual rate seen a month before, a closely watched measurement of underlying inflation dropped to its lowest level since March 2021.

Additionally, the American household closed out 2023 on strong footing: Incomes and wages were up considerably from the year before, and consumers continued to spend heartily to keep the economy growing and casting aside recession fears.

“The American household continues to demonstrate resilience in light of these shocks,” said Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist at RSM US. “One can’t help but be somewhat optimistic about the American economy going forward, given the fact that we are at the doorstep of price stability, and the inflation fight has essentially ended.”

Joe Biden Is A Good President, The Country Is Far Better Off Today - The months and months of encouraging economic news continued this week with q4 GDP coming in at 3.3% and the PCE index coming at 2.6%. Let’s recap what we know about the US economy right now:

• Best job market since the 1960s, stock market setting records (401Ks are happy), best recovery in the G7, consumer sentiment rising

• The inflation fueled by COVID/supply chain disruptions, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and OPEC price hikes has ended, and we are now in a place much closer to historic norms. Prices for many items are falling including groceries, rents and mortgage rates

• Historically elevated wage growth, new business formation and prime-age worker participation rates. In the last few months we’ve seen some of the most robust real wage growth we’ve seen in decades, and Americans at all income levels have seen sizeable increases in their overall net worth

• Lowest uninsured rate in history, record ACA signups this year

• Renewable and domestic oil production set records in 2023, US more energy independent than its been in decades. In 2023 the US produced more oil than any country has in any year in history

• The investments Biden has made will creating prosperity for America and opportunities for American workers for decades to come

• The annual deficit is trillions less than when Biden came to office

• For young people the job market is the best since the 1960s; more young people have health insurance today than ever before; the President has forgiven more than $130b in student debt; by some measure home ownership rates are higher for Gen Z than Gen X and Millennials at this point in their lives; and rising minimum wages in states and cities across the US have created higher floors for new and entry-level workers than in many years

• Crime and murder rates plummeted across the US in 2023, and remain a fraction of what they were 30 years ago.

Joe Biden has a very strong case for re-election. He promised us in 2020 he could get all of us to the other side of COVID, and he has, spectacularly. He delivered on his central 2020 promise, and America is far better off today due to his able stewardship of the nation in a time of enormous challenge. Need to be loud and proud about it all - loud and proud!

Actions You Can Take Today As Here At Hopium We Do More, Worry Less - In the spirit of growth and expansion, we are encouraging members of the Hopium community to consider taking four actions now. A huge thank you to all of you who have donated or volunteered in recent weeks:

• Flip NY-3 - Tom Suozzi leads in the early polls and will win if we give Tom the resources and volunteers he needs. The election is February 13th and absentee voting has already begun so please take an action to help Tom today! If you want to learn more watch my interview with Tom from Wednesday night.

  Donate - Learn More - Get Updates - Canvass - Make Calls - Write Postcards

• Elect Joe And Kamala, Beat Trump - Please donate to Biden-Harris today, join the campaign and start planning for what you will do to help them spread their message through your networks and win the core 7 battlegrounds AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI. Beating Trump is Job 1 this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Get Early Resources to North Carolina, Our Most Important 2024 Expansion State - It is critical we expand the Presidential map this year, and put more states in play. The number one expansion opportunity we have is North Carolina, and I am encouraging the Hopium community to support the Democratic Party of North Carolina and its dynamic new chair, Anderson Clayton. Watch my recent interview with Anderson and learn how to donate and volunteer here. Help us turn Carolina blue!

• Spread Hopium - Help me bring Hopium to more people this year. Our goal is to get to 50,000 total subscribers by March 31st (we are at 33,000 today). Please encourage others in your network to sign up and become part of this wonderful community of proud patriots and info warriors today!

Trump Is The Most Unfit Man To Ever Run For President, and A Far Weaker Candidate Than 2020. He is Diminished and Struggling - Been very aggressive about making this argument in recent weeks, and it bears repeating:

Trump 2024 is a much weaker candidate than Trump 2020. He’s campaigning from the court house, not the White House; he’s far more degraded, extreme, dangerous; his performance on the stump is far more erratic, unhinged and disturbing; he keeps making consequential unforced errors (like coming out against the ACA) that cause candidates to lose elections. He and MAGA lost in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023. Trumpy candidates failed to bring the non-MAGA part of the party along in the battlegrounds in 2022, and they lost. We’ve already seen in the early data from IA and NH clear signs he too is going to struggle to bring along the non-MAGA parts of his coalition, and like his Trumpy 2022 candidates is likely to lose this year. The Republican Party has splintered, and he just isn’t strong enough to put it all back together.

For more on this argument about Trump, and my optimism about 2024, check out my political overview in our January gathering this week; in a major post on Monday and another from yesterday; my recent MSNBC op-ed and Morning Joe appearance; in a new Ezra Klein NYT podcast, The Strongest Democratic Party Any Of Us Has Ever Seen; and an a long and comprehensive interview with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC Wednesday night (below). I also appeared in articles this week in The New Republic, USA Today and two in The Guardian (here, here).

Here’s an excerpt from the David Smith Guardian article on Trump’s early struggles, and general awfulness:

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, said: “The Dobbs decision basically became this before-and-after moment in American politics where there just became this sense that the Republican party had become too ugly, too extreme, too dangerous, and it has struggled mightily in election after election since the spring of 2022.”

He added: “You’re starting to see, even in the early going here, there is a lot more weakness than strength coming out of the Republican party in the last couple of weeks. It’s because Maga [Make America great again] has become unattractive even to Republican voters. Fear and opposition to Maga is the most powerful force in American politics. It’s why Republicans keep losing, and Republicans have chosen a candidate who is ultra-Maga to be their nominee in 2024.”

Proud to be in the trenches with all of you. Keep working hard all - Simon