On This Labor Day Reasons For Optimism

Two Hopium Events This Week - Let's Keep Working Hard Everybody!

Happy Monday all, Happy Labor Day. I try to “walk The Mall” at least once a year. I usually start around the Vietnam Memorial and then walk my way around all the Memorials and Monuments, taking my time to read the inscriptions, connect with our remarkable history, and recharge a bit. I strongly recommend it for those who have here in DC or the next time you visit. Here are some photos from my walk in May:

My favorite part of The Mall is the FDR Memorial. Every time I visit I feel like I learn something new about his momentous Presidency. During my May visit I was really struck by two of the inscriptions from the Memorial:

"No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order."
September 30, 1934

"I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work...More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work."
March 21, 1933

The moral and spiritual value of work. Unemployment as a threat to social order. The unemployment rate in FDR’s early Presidency was 25%. Under Joe Biden it has been the lowest in 60 years, and the lowest in a peacetime American economy since WWII. One of the reasons Americans are so focused on inflation in polling now even when inflation has returned to pre-pandemic levels is that under Joe Biden the concern of having a job has not been a concern at all. Jobs are plentiful. There are worker shortages across the US. The economy is booming. Wages are rising. Retirement accounts expanding. We have the lowest uninsured rate ever. More new business are being formed than any in any time in our history. The three big investment bills Joe Biden passed will be creating jobs and opportunities for American workers, particularly for those without a four year college degree, for decades to come.

America is working. Our people are busting their asses, working hard, getting smarter and more capable, making money. The can do American spirit, so essential to our success as a nation, is alive and well in the America of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Having so many people working creates a virtuous cycle of labor and prosperity, for the more people work, the better they get at their work, the more they can do and contribute, and the more they do. Our wealth comes from our labor, our success as a nation comes from all of us working, building new businesses, putting points on the board every day. These periods of low unemployment like the one we are in right now are an incredible boon to the nation, and we will see benefits from these years for decades to come.

FDR talked about the moral and spiritual value of work, and today you can see that in data for Americans are remarkably content right now. In recent years measures of life satisfaction, job satisfaction and income satisfaction have been at or near all time highs. If there was broad economic discontent in America, Democrats would have not have performed so well in elections across the country these last two years. Measures of how people feel about the the economy where they live, not where others live, remain remarkably robust. Here’s my favorite econ graph in 2024, from the Wall Street Journal:

On this Labor Day I think it is fair to say the American worker is doing pretty well, and we as a nation are doing pretty well. We have work to do, of course, but here at Hopium we take the wins when they come and America has had a lot of wins in recent years. What is exciting to me is that the Biden era, and what will be with our help the Harris Presidency, has ushered in a new language and understanding about the centrality of the health and well-being of our people in our political discourse. The Vice President wants us to not just get by, but get ahead. She wants to lower costs to make our lives better. She wants to restore reproductive freedom for all women in America to make our lives better. She wants to keep creating opportunities for workers in America, all kind of workers in America, to make our lives better. She wants to make more affordable housing in America to make our lives better. She wants labor unions to be able to organize to make our lives better. She wants to fight climate change and accelerate the energy transition to make our lives better. She wants to raise the minimum wage to make our lives better. She wants to make prescription drugs cheaper to make our lives better. As I show in my “With Democrats, Things Get Better” presentation, making things better for the American people is what we Democrats do, again and again.

With inflation behind us, the Biden-Harris investment agenda ahead of us and the grit, resilience and ass-kicking American people driving us so much is possible for us now. On this Labor Day, despite it all, I am deeply optimistic about the future of this great country, and ready to go win this election with all of you. As Barack Obama often reminded us, “yes, we can” everyone.

Yes, we can. Together.

More from Hopium:

• Closing Strong With Tara McGowan - Anderson Clayton And Innovating on Social Media

• Optimism, Love of Country, Going On Offense - My big new presentation on the 2024 election

• Reflections on another week of encouraging econonic news

Tom Bonier Joins The Hopium Community Wednesday Night at 7pm ET- My good friend and super smart data guy Tom Bonier will be joining us live this Wednesday night at 7pm. Tom will be discussing two new tools his team at TargetSmart are releasing in the coming days - one that tracks changes in voter registration across the country and another, TargetEarly, which will track the early vote.

We are going to use this event to review the analytical process Tom and I used to get the 2022 election right, and apply that same approach to this election. Tom will be coming with fresh and encouraging voter reg data from across the country, and we will also be spending time discussing why Voting on Day 1 is so important, and why we should all be working to win this election in October and not on Election Day.

Register for our event here. It’s going to be a good one! For those who cannot make it live a recording will be shared here on Hopium.

Thursday, 730pm ET - Postcard and Phonebank for George Whitesides (CA-27) - So we are back at it Thursday for an evening of work for George Whitesides, our terrific candidate in CA-27. You can register for our event here, and note when doing so you can now select which breakout room you want to join. We have trainings for both activities live each evening, and for those who are more experienced you can a select a breakout room without training and just get to work. Visit here to learn more about ordering postcards for these events. Each week we will be reaching our to core Democratic voters and encouraging them to Vote on Day 1 and letting them know when early in person and mail/drop box voting begins in their states.

Most weeks we will hear directly from the candidate at the beginning of our session, just a few minutes after 730pm, so plan on joining us on time each week. At the end of each session, after we’ve done our work, I will be providing a 10 minute overview of the current national political landscape. I will also be joining each breakout room and saying hello and thank you to everyone. So in addition to helping out on Thursdays you will be getting live political updates from the ground and from Washington, DC.

To prep for Thursday watch my interview with George. You can learn more about him, donate or volunteer too. If you want to make a single donation to all 11 of our courageous candidates working to flip the House this November you can do that here. I’m excited to announce that we have now raised more than $1 million for our House candidates since we began this campaign to help take back the House a few months ago. Thank you all. Time and again when the Hopium community is called, you have answered, powerfully.

Postcard Writers - You can use any colorful, upbeat postcard you want. If you would like to purchase postcards, we have special VOTE DAY 1 cards available through the Markers for Democracy Postcard ProShop, click here. You will need to set up an account in order to use this store. Please note that it could take a week for your order to arrive.

These Thursday night events have become really fun, a great way to hangout each week, and we get a lot of work done. Hope you will join us this week and take one more action to ensure Hakeem Jeffries is the one standing behind President Kamala Harris when she gives her first State of the Union Address next year.

Supporting Hopium-backed Candidates and State Parties, Working From Joy - In the spirit of not letting up, “doing something” as Michelle Obama said and leaving it all on the playing field as Gov Walz has encouraged, I again make my pitch for the candidates and state parties we’ve been working for this year. A week ago Saturday I offered an in-depth post on the strategy behind our candidate and state party endorsements, including our Presidential battleground “check” and “checkmate” strategy. 18 days to go before early in voting begins everybody - time to get to work!

• Harris-Walz!!!!!! - $931,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel - Let’s get to $1m people!

• Winning The House - $975,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. Watch our recent discussion with Leader Hakeem Jeffries. To go deeper watch one of our interviews with our great candidates - Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Will Rollins (CA-41), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Rudy Salas (CA-22), Josh Riley (NY-19), Tony Vargas (NE-02), Adam Gray (CA-13) and Sue Altman (NJ-07).

• North Carolina - $429,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $341,000 raised, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $155,000 raised, $175,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here are ways you can do even more:

• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in three states on September 20th - just 19 days away!

• Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party and this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election.

• Help grow the Hopium community. Use this link to encourage others sign others up. You can gift a subscription to a friend or student here and get group rates too. If you have changed credit cards or moved you can you update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep our community growing the Hopium flowing!

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