Morning all. Got a new video about our current moment for you. A recording and transcript are above. If you find it helpful please like it and share it with others. Like all of our discussions it can also be found under Podcast on the main Hopium site and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify too.
DNC Chair Ken Martin joins us live today at 215pm ET. Join us by clicking here at 215pm and head here to learn more about to how to get notifications for our live events. To prep for today’s discussion be sure to review the DNC’s plan for Organizing Everywhere, their new Organizing Summer initiative, subscribe to the DNC’s YouTube channel to receive their new daily show called The Blue Print, and check out their TrumpTax site that documents how Trump is making our lives more expensive. Feel free to share the link to our talk with our networks today - the more the merrier!
I also want to thank the many thousands of you who joined our campaign to get Chair Martin off to a strong start earlier this year. That campaign has raised over $118,000 for the DNC and their new ambitious programs. Thank you all!
“Trump” As Strongman Brand Is Failing - In my video I try out a new way to articulate where we are now, with two things being true at the same time 1) Trump and MAGA, enabled by a cowardly Congress and corrupt SCOTUS, grinds on, and continues to do real, meaningful damage to the country. It’s why we must act with great urgency, every day; and while some describe their extremist actions as “wins,” they are actually loses for America and the American people 2) that they are losses for all of us, and that Trump is doing real, material harm to the country has become widely understood; and “Trump” as a strongman brand is being rejected by the American people and is now clearly failing.
We’ve gotten a lot of polling in over the last two days, and this week is now officially the worst week of polling Trump has seen all year:
41% - 54% (-13) Quinnipiac
41% - 54% (-13) Ipsos/Reuters
41% - 55% (-14) Civiqs
41% - 55% (-14) Econ/YouGov
42%- 58% (-16) CNN
40% -58% (-18) AP/NORC
Trump is underwater on all major issues, and is now regularly underwater on immigration and deportation by double digits. Here’s an example:
Here’s Ipsos/Reuters this morning:
The new AP/NORC poll out this morning finds only 27% - 27%!!!!! - of voters think Trump’s policies have helped them.
Trump continues to erode with the groups that helped elect him in 2024:
CNN found Dems with a huge enthusiasm advantage heading into 2026 (something we’ve seen show up in special and local elections this year):
We see signs of that intensity and rejection of Trump’s policies in the most recent independent polls of the New Jersey and Virginia governors races;
New Jersey - Sherrill 51% - 31% Ciattarelli (+20)
Virginia - Spanberger 49% - 37% Earle-Sears
Like in New Jersey and Virginia all this is giving us an early advantage in the fight for control of Congress next year. This chart is from a leading Republican poll released this week. Dems lead in the generic by 3, and by 7 for those 100% committed to voting:
In my talk and my commentary for the last several months I’ve argued that this struggle and ongoing failure to get it up - his approval that is - is causing Trump to do reckless things to make him STRONG and POWERFUL and MANLY again. These reckless and desperate actions are then driving his approval down further and pushing him further and further away from the American people. While he may get modest “wins” from Congress in these next two days he is facing at least 2, perhaps 3 political crises right now - Epstein, the Aug 1st tariffs and his increasingly unpopular immigration escalation - that could drive his already degrading standing down even further.
Epstein - he’s melting down. From USA Today yesterday. This “fuck my most loyal supporters” language is the sign of a politician losing their shit and failing, badly:
President Donald Trump has a message for supporters upset with his handling of records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein: They are "weaklings" who have been "duped" and he doesn't need them.
Trump lashed out at conservative backers who have raised questions about his administration's handling of the Epstein case, slamming them in a July 16 social media post and again during an Oval Office event for furthering what he described as the "Jeffrey Epstein hoax."
"And my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bulls***,' hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will," Trump said on social media, before calling them "weaklings" and declaring "I don’t want their support anymore!"
Firing the lead Epstein prosecutor - more chaos, culpability, panic, desperation:
The Tariffs - over a few manic, impulsive days last week, after he was unable to negotiate a single trade deal in 90 days and world leaders repeatedly refused to bend the knee, Trump announced that he was, despite rising inflation and his plummeting approval, going to DOUBLE and TRIPLE most tariffs with our global trading partners on August 1st, two weeks from now. If these tariffs take effect it will be a huge body blow to the US and global economies and could cripple his already degraded Presidency even further. Will he TACO, chicken out? Or will he go forward? Either way it will be a loss for him, a big one; and it is why he has become so obsessed with getting rid of Jerome Powell and lowering interest rates for he needs something - anything - to save him from his destructive and unconstitutional tariffs.
Immigration Escalation - The country has already rejected these illiberal and destructive policies. It has made its judgement. Will Trump and Miller in their desperation just plow ahead any way, keep disappearing people to gulags, keep wrecking small businesses and family farms across the country, keep endangering our food supply and raising prices on groceries for everyone? As I wrote to you earlier this week the country has only just begun to feel the damage from this assault on immigrants, our businesses and our liberties. If it continues opposition to it all will grow as the damage will become impossible to ignore. What does that mean for the his newly roided up ICE? Will it have it have the legitimacy to continue to terrorize our communities? I am skeptical. As we’ve discussed reining in the new supercharged ICE will be one of our most important responsibilities in the days ahead.
My main point here is that there is no obvious place for Trump to go to get his approval rating up and restore his standing. His big economic and immigration plays have been rejected by the American people so doing more of either will keep driving his approval down. The Epstein debacle is doing enormous harm to Trump with his most loyal supporters. The coming debate over his fiscal year 2026 budget will give Dems deeply unpopular targets to shoot at for many months. If his public performances in recent days have been among the wildest and most insane of the last 10 years there is a reason for it - the dude is in trouble, with no obvious path forward. Everything they have tried to restore his standing has failed. He is underwater on every issue. He is doing real and material harm to the country. He betrayed his core campaign promise to lower costs and improve the lives of working people. His poll numbers keep dropping, and things are likely to get much worse for the country and the American people due to his recklessness in the coming months. Yes Trump and extremist MAGA see things like gutting the Department of Education as “wins” but the American people simply do not, and thus he just keeps eroding as he is, in the real world, delivering no wins for us, none at all.
Finally, putting all this together, I think Democrats and those in the broader pro-democracy movement should view these next few months as a moment of extraordinary opportunity to explain the harms Trump and MAGA have brought and explain how we plan to make things better.
The coming fiscal year 2026 budget is giving us a big opportunity to have this conversation for all of their agenda - the big ugly, the gutting of the US government and USAID/Dept Of Ed/etc, the tariffs - all now has to come together into a single set of appropriations for the Federal government next year. All of their ugliness and extremism and greed and abandonment of the American people will be there in a single budget that must open up on with all we got.
We need to use this process to get very, very loud and degrade them and “Trump” even further, and let people know through this fight who we are. We must learn from our 2024 mistakes and not only contest the traditional issue space but we must contest and attack the strongman “Trump” brand itself, and remind the American people every day:
He is weak, not strong. He is failing, not succeeding. America is losing, not winning. He is a villain, one of the greatest in American history, not a hero.
It is important to recognize that they are already - desperately - looking for escape hatches to get them out of the mess they’ve made - rolling back key parts of the big ugly bill; radical mid-decade redistricting; early notions about disrupting voting next year; the firing of Jerome Powell; Elon even endorsed the idea of replacing the big, blubbery babyman with Vance.
All of these actions are signs of their weakness and our strength; and as I said last night looking at all this data it is time for Dems to stop beating themselves up. We are not where we want to be but we are in far better shape than the current political chatter suggests. Perhaps my friends, and let us imagine this for just a moment - it is we who are strong, and it is he who is weak.
The bottom line - their ongoing failure has given an extraordinary opportunity. Let us seize it, together.
Now, Let’s Get To Work
Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - Our revised fundraising goals are for Labor Day, remarkably, only two months away, with the November elections now only four months away. Early voting in Virginia starts September 19th. We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov (2025) - $200,000 goal, $36k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview
Abigail Spanberger VA Gov (2025) - $250,000 goal, $152k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $200,000 goal, $35k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer
Hopium House 7 (2026) - $250,000 goal, $161k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews
Due to space reasons I can’t post my usual list of actions we can take today but you can find them all here. Job one - call your Senators and Rep every day. Every day!
If you have found this video and post helpful please like it and share it with others. If you are new here to Hopium please subscribe and become part of this community of proud, plucky patriots; and keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you, and a fight it surely is - Simon
Share this post