Old Dogs And New Tricks, A Letter To America, Dems Launch "People's Town Halls" In Battleground House Districts

Consumer confidence continues to plummet, voters losing faith in Trump

Morning all. We’ve spent the last few months here talking about all the ways Democrats needed to raise their game to be able to effectively counter Trump. We’ve heard from dozens of smart people. I’ve written memo after memo with ideas and strategies our family could adopt. I’ve done many videos for you talking through these recommendations, and been out there on podcasts, TV and live events talking about them too. I’ve spent time reviewing our key recommendations privately with the main candidates for Chair for the Democratic Party, other party leaders and the teams of Leaders Jeffries and Schumer. You all have been contacting your representatives and encouraging them to adopt new strategies appropriate to the moment we are in. Many of you have been organizing events in your states, and getting others to join you. Collectively we have reached hundreds of thousands of people with our recommendations and action plans and many of the most important leaders of our party. Some of our recommendations have even adopted - amicus briefs, shadow hearings - and I know from my ongoing conversations that many more are in development or being given serious consideration.

For my latest recommendations, and my reflections on the internal discussion in he family about the best course on the CR, watch the video I released yesterday and read this post too. You can also hear me discussing our recommendations in this wonderful conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson. In recent days we heard about the urgency of raising our game from Rep. Adam Smith, Dr. Michael Mann and journalist Leon Krauze. I also have written about how the House Dems are now clearly taking meaningful steps to raise their game, get more aggressive and adapt to these new challenging circumstances.

I do not believe the same to be true of Schumer’s Senate.

The central reason I launched Hopium Chronicles two years was because I felt our politics was changing in new and profound ways, and that for me keep up, stay relevant, keep contibuting that I needed to change. Here is what I wrote in my very first Hopium post:

Basically I came to understand that our politics was changing and I had to change with it. It led me to conclude that my old organization, NDN, which I founded back in 1996, was no longer the right vehicle for me. It did a lot of good over a long period of time, and we built a remarkable community there. As I discuss in my recent interview with Ron Brownstein in the Atlantic, I feel like we are entering a new political era in America, one that requires new strategies and approaches. NDN was built for a different era, and it had a different mission. I needed to do something new, organize my work in new ways. So here I am. With all of you.

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.

The driving force behind my work here at Hopium has been a belief that our party has been slow to understand and adapt to a changing political world, and we were underestimating the true nature of the threat of Trump and MAGA. So for me Hopium has been like a lab, testing out new arguments, exploring new strategies, implementing new tactics all with a great sense of urgency that if Trump was to win that our country would be in grave danger. And here we are. In grave danger. With a party still struggling to understand how the political battlefield has changed, and build a new, successful politics around it.

Wherever you come down on what happened with the CR this week we should all be united in a single, central understanding - it is now time for our political leaders to start acting with the level of urgency, ambition and patriotism this moment requires. Conventional approaches have failed. New strategies and tactics must be tried now. New leaders should be promoted. Old dogs need to start learning new tricks. Or quickly get out of the way for the people who understand this new terrain and can comfortably operate in it.

While there are many things we must do now, there are two I want to focus on this morning. First - a complete overhaul of how we organize our communications and politics every day. Second - the desperate need for Democrats in Congress to open a Second Front and pen A Letter to America.

The Overhaul - Congressional Democrats have to come to an understanding that they are not just stewards of their respective chambers but they are now the leaders of an Opposition Party fighting an unprecedented assault on our Constitutional order and the global democracy movement itself. Congressional Democrats, working in concert with the DNC and other national Democrats, must now operate 24/7 not in “session” and in “recess.” They need to reorganize their offices to throw far more people and resources into communications, and require that every Senator and House Member become not just a legislator but a 24/7 communicator/influencer/leader of the Opposition. The people running Comms must be given higher status, and more running room to innovate and try new things for they are far more important now than they have ever been in Washington. Shadow hearings should become commonplace. 7 day a week press conferences implemented. Self-reporting videos from Principals to constituents and the Dem family routine. MeidasTouch and new pro-democracy media orgs integrated into daily comms. Serious consideration should be given to a big weekly leadership led YouTube hour like the recent DNC/House Dem livestream. Trainings should be done for Principals and staff on best practices, and a culture of experimentation, innovation and impact should be established, immediately. The old thing isn’t adequate, and together, the entire retrograde comms culture should be incentivized to innovate, experiment and go imagine and build the next and better thing for us in a time of crisis.

At a more strategic level, Leaders Schumer and Jeffries should assign high-level staff to work with Ken Martin and his able team at the DNC to come up with a joint approach to how build a true, modern Opposition Party. Here is how I’ve described elsewhere, as a sort of modern day Manhattan Project for our democracy:

…..Leaders Schumer and Jeffries should assign senior staff to work with the DNC, DSCC, DCCC and other party committees to come up with a new comms and political structure to ensure that we become the effective and ferocious opposition necessary to preserve our democracy now.

The Leaders have a powerful new team ready to go to work with and for them:

• millions of donors/volunteers/info warriors

• growing pro-democracy media ecosystem

• hundreds of capable and battle tested grassroots groups

• traditional allied groups, and the national party infrastructure

• tens of thousands of elected Democrats at all levels of government across the country

The Leaders should now empower staff to work with the new and hungry team at the DNC to imagine, design and build a new kind of political/comms super-structure integrating all of those who want and can help to respond to the needs of this extraordinary moment. We will not win with what what we have. We can and must build something new, more modern, more muscular, more effective….

…..

A good example of how this kind of new movement building can work comes from a new set of “People’s Town Halls” announced this morning by the DNC, DCCC, ASDC and Democratic State Parties:

Washington, DC – Today, Democrats are launching “People’s Town Halls” – a series of in-person public events in competitive districts across the country where vulnerable GOP House members are running scared from their constituents. Over the next several weeks, starting with the upcoming in-district work period, the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Association of State Democratic Committees, and Democratic state parties’ “People’s Town Halls” will engage voters who have been left behind by Donald Trump and Republicans’ dangerous agenda.

As Republicans threaten Social Security and Medicare, cut jobs for veterans, put health care and food assistance on the chopping block, and enable the Trump-Musk agenda as it wrecks the economy and threatens families, voters are furious. Republicans’ disastrous agenda is why the NRCC issued a directive for Republicans to avoid hosting town halls.

To ensure Americans are being heard – regardless of where they live or who they voted for last year – Democrats will hold “People’s Town Halls” in all 50 states across the country featuring local and national Democratic officials beginning with two events with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz this weekend, and uplifting the voices of Americans who have been negatively impacted by the extreme GOP agenda.

This exciting new project is very much in line with our public advocacy for Democrats to use our supporters and state/local parties to organize in the 17 most vulnerable House seats to put pressure on Republicans to walk away from Trump’s extreme agenda. Here’s a statement from the DNC press release from our good friend Jane Kleeb, the President of the ASDC:

Our Democratic state parties are stronger than ever and ready to meet the moment. In all 57 states and territories, Democrats will host town halls to engage our communities and show that we are listening to Americans across the country. Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent, people are fed up with Elon Musk running our government and Republicans voting to take away the critical programs people in our states rely on. Now, these cowards won’t even meet with their own constituents in person. As a proud Nebraskan and as the Chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, my message is simple: If you guys won’t meet with your constituents, we will. Democrats are rising up and it starts in the states.

As people have heard me say this week I am not sure that letting the Republicans shut the government down was a good idea though for reasons different than what Senator Schumer articulated in his statement last night (please read it). To me the most compelling reason to pass the CR and keep the government funded is that WE ARE NOT ADEQUATELY PREPARED for the fight that would have ensued. Simply, Senator Schumer has failed to use these last few months to start forging his team into an effective fighting force. The decision not to use the most outrageous Trump nominees to test new tactics, introduce new arguments and upgrade Senate and House comms was one of the biggest political mistakes I’ve seen since I came to Washington more than 30 years ago. 6 million people could have been put to work making the case in every state and district against these outrageous nominees. We could have leaned on Dems to lead protests in red states, putting pressure on the wobbly Rs, and start building our political muscle for future battles - as the House Dems are doing right now. Ads could have runs in red states - as House Dems are doing right now. This decision to not use these nominees to start understanding how to fight Trump was not a strategic decision - it was one based on an antiquated understanding of how the game is played these days. And it was wrong, leaving us inadequately prepared to mount a serious fight over the terrible CR and Trump’s ongoing assault on our government and our Constitutional order.

Opening A Second Front, A Letter To America - The other reason we were not prepared to go fight this battle with Trump is that we have not yet invested the time to develop a coherent and compelling argument about why what Trump-Musk are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. Democrats have come out of the box focusing on Trump’s reckless economic agenda, which has been smart, strategic and successful. As I wrote yesterday it is clear from polling that Trump has already lit on fire what is probably his most important attribute - that with him you would have more opportunity, make more money, have a better life - and is far weaker today than he was a few weeks ago. So Dems have been smart to make this our primary focus in these early days.

This morning the University of Michigan released their March Consumer Confidence Survey. It is as brutal as it gets for Trump:

Consumer sentiment slid another 11% this month, with declines seen consistently across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions. Sentiment has now fallen for three consecutive months and is currently down 22% from December 2024. While current economic conditions were little changed, expectations for the future deteriorated across multiple facets of the economy, including personal finances, labor markets, inflation, business conditions, and stock markets. Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences. Consumers from all three political affiliations are in agreement that the outlook has weakened since February. Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10% decline in their expectations index in March. For Independents and Democrats, the expectations index declined an even steeper 12 and 24%, respectively.

Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped up from 4.3% last month to 4.9% this month, the highest reading since November 2022 and marking three consecutive months of unusually large increases of 0.5 percentage points or more. This month’s rise was seen across all three political affiliations. Long-run inflation expectations surged from 3.5% in February to 3.9% in March. This is the largest month-over-month increase seen since 1993, stemming from a sizable rise among Independents, and followed an already-large increase in February.

But given that Trump and Musk are breaking things of enormous value to the country that will be very hard if not impossible to repair, and taking steps abroad that are leaving us less safe and far more isolated and reviled, we must now open up a “Second Front” that puts this part of the dangerous Trump agenda squarely in front of the American people. Senator Slotkin began this process in her powerful speech last week, listing national security and democracy as priorities along with the economy. House Democrats have started opening up a Second Front by setting up their Litigation and Rapid Response Task Force, filing their first amicus brief, holding their first shadow hearing, by doing the national grassroots organizing event last week with the DNC that reached more than 100,000 people and now launching the innovative “People’s Town Halls” in battleground House districts.

I think the House Dems should now launch a parallel “National Security Task Force” to complement their litigation/rapid response task force, and consider the renaming the first one the “Democracy and Rule of Law” Task Force. Together these two task forces will make clear House Dems focusing on the second and third of Senator Sloktin’s priorities - keeping us safe and preserving our Constitutional order - and will institutionalize the opening of the Second Front.

But the most important immediate step I believe our two Leaders need to take is the penning of A Letter to America that borrows from the Declaration of Independence and clearly, simply makes the case for why what Trump and Musk are doing is an unprecedented, illegal attack on our Constitutional order. This has to be job 1. I’ve written extensively about the need for this letter, and the need as our Founders put it to “let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” Here is how I wrote about it recently:

There needs to be a clear statement from half the Congress that they believe that what Trump is doing is unconstitutional, illegal, wrong and an extraordinary betrayal of our Constitutional order and all of us. This “letter to America” can become the rallying cry for all of our work together. It can become the amicus brief in every court challenge to Trump. It can become a clear statement to the world that American patriots are fighting this historical betrayal of our democracy but also of freedom loving people throughout the world. The people of America and the world need to hear from Democrats and other leaders of this pro-democracy movement that they understand the stakes of the fight we are in and are willing to leave it all on the line for the most important force for freedom humanity has ever seen. The absence of this clear, simple statement from our Congressional leaders is unacceptable and dangerous, and it is why I believe this “letter to America” remains our very first ask of all of Congressional representatives.

As I shared with you on Wednesday, new CNN polling shows there is broad concern and unhappiness about Musk’s attacks on the government, giving us a lot of running room to make our case on this part of a new Second Front. A new Reuters poll released yesterday (here, here) found similar concerns and disapproval about Trump’s insane foreign “policy.” Here’s the opening graph of the second story:

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - More than half of Americans, including one in four Republicans, think President Donald Trump is "too closely aligned" with Russia, as he radically realigns U.S. foreign policy, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

The two-day poll completed on Wednesday also found little appetite among Americans for Trump's expansionist agenda, as the Republican president talks of acquiring Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.

Here two charts Reuters released from the poll:

Final Thoughts - As we’ve discussed at Hopium our movement was going to make mistakes as we confronted Trump. We were going to have good days and bad days. We have been and will continue to be disappointed by our leaders. We should expect all this, and not be surprised or dwell on it. It is just part of how this has to work in these early days of forging a new and ferocious opposition to Trump. Our assignment at Hopium is not to tear our leaders down in the bad days but to build them up, help make them stronger. But critical to that process is that when we make mistakes we have to learn from them, and get better, strong, more capable. While there are things we are doing right these days, there are other things we aren’t. And coming out of this ugly week for us there is a desperate need to do the two things I outline today: 1) launch an aggressive process to overhaul, modernize and upgrade the comms and political operations of Congressional Dems to allow them to fight more effectively on a changing and challenging battlefield 2) open up a Second Front and pen A Letter to America.

Trump is making mistakes and the public is losing faith in him. It is time now for us to ensure that Trump hears the roar of We The People and together do everything we can to stop the damage he is doing to this great country here, and abroad.

Let’s Now Do More, And Perhaps, Maybe, Worry A Little Less - Due to the length of this piece - sorry - to take one of our recommended actions or support our candidates head to this Hopium page that has all the latest things you can on behalf of American democracy today.

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1) Commit to bring in one new Hopium subscriber at the your current subscriber level this month. Help us grow this community, and bring our plucky, upbeat, hardworking spirit to more people across the US.

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Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon