Prices Did Not Rise Last Month, 2023 Was A Very Good Year for Dems, Young Americans Back Biden's Handling of Gaza Conflict
Trump Is Running As A Full On Fascist in 2024
Friends, got a few things for you today:
More Encouraging Inflation News This Morning - Remarkably, the main gauge of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, did not rise at all last month. It’s very good news.
Here’s a graph of CPI year over year - meaning over the last 12 months - in recent years. It all continues to head in the right direction. Food at home - groceries - has only increased 2.1% over the past 12 months - remarkably good news.
A reminder that inflation is a global phenomenon, due to COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that it is lower here in the US than any other G7 country. I will share more graphs for your potential use in tomorrow’ Hopium newsletter. In the meantime here’s a page of our most commonly used charts and graphs.
2023 Was A Very Good Year for Democrats - I’ve built a new page that puts all my analysis and commentary about what has been a very good year for Democrats in one place. Will save some space in these daily newsletter. I will keep updating it as more data comes in.
Upcoming Events
Tonight, 7pm ET - Simon speaks to NOPE’s gathering, “Looking Back at Virginia and Forward to 2024.” Register here.
Thur, 1pm ET - Hopium Chronicles paid subscribers gather for their monthly discussion with Simon. Register here. Regular members of the Hopium community can upgrade to a paid member below if you would like to join us. Big wins to celebrate! Video of our discussion will be available to paid subscribers shortly after the event.
Tues, Nov 28th 7pm - NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton Joins The Hopium Community - Come meet the dynamic new chair of our most important 2024 battleground expansion state. Register here. Excited for this one!
New Comprehensive Poll on American Attitudes On The Israel-Gaza War Has Some Good News for President Biden - YouGov just released the largest poll taken so far- 12,000 interviews - of Americans about the conflict in Gaza. I would encourage everyone here to read the summary in full, as there is a lot of data in here. But two main takeaways for me:
There is no big swing against Biden evident here, or a big swing in sympathy towards the Palestinians. These findings are consistent with many other polls taken since the conflict began. Americans are far more sympathetic to Israel than the Palestinians, and Biden gets far higher marks in managing the conflict than his over all approval rating. Democrats favor his handling of the conflict 62-21.
Remarkably, the age group most supportive of Biden’s handling of the conflict so far is 18-29 year olds. They approve of his handling of the conflict 45-30.
We have a long way to go in this tragic conflict, but as the elections last week showed, and poll after poll has shown, the Israel-Gaza conflict has not caused a major backlash against Biden or Democrats with the broader public, or with the majority of young people - only 30% of 18-29 year olds disapprove of Biden’s handling of the conflict.
Of course there has been opposition to Biden’s handling of the war, and we should welcome this debate. But it is critical those who support Palestine do not back rhetoric or arguments that excuse violence against Jews here, or anywhere. The rise of anti-Jewish activity across the world and here in the US has been alarming, and cannot be ignored.
Trump’s “Vermin” Comments - He’s Running As A Full On Fascist in 2024 - In addition to Trump’s escalation of his war on immigrants and immigration that we discussed yesterday, over the past few weeks it’s become pretty clear that Trump 2024 is going full-on fascist, even to the point of consciously echoing Hitler’s words. Here is a graphic our friends at MeidasTouch put together:
Here’s Liz Cheney’s response to the RNC Chairwoman repeatedly refusing to answer questions over the weekend about Trump’s comments. The point Cheney makes here is important - for all Republicans now, silence is complicity.
A related video dropped yesterday. Listen to former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, under oath, describe a conversation she had with Dan Scavino, a senior Trump aid (via ABC News) in late 2020. It’s chilling:
More reasons why we need to put our heads down in 2024, work hard, and get to 55 in 2024. Next year must become a clear repudiation of this politics, for our democracy, and democracies everywhere.
Chins up, be loud and proud, and let’s keep working hard all. In every way possible, as we head into 2024, I would much rather be us than them - Simon
Thank you for the data and for your clear-eyed leadership. To paraphrase Winston Zeddemore, we have the tools and we have the talent to win big next year. But despair and apathy is our biggest enemy which is why Putin and MAGA and trying to poison our discourse and create false narratives. Thank you for pushing back against all this misinformation and keeping us motivated.
My background is in data analytics, so I am thrilled to find a source of fact-based data driven information. I'm taking a breather from most of my activism until after Thanksgiving. (Althought I do have several election wrap-up Zoom calls this week). But then I will gear back up albeit at a slower pace. I will be writing "register to vote" postcards through Field Team 6 (fieldteam6.org) as well as monitoring my favotite GOTV postcard channels (www.postcardstovoters.org, www.activateamerica.vote) for new campaigns like run-offs or special elections. Postcards to Voters has taken on the daunting task of reminding all FL Democratic voters who signed up for Vote by Mail for the 2022 midterms that they need to sign up AGAIN for 2024. PTV will be cycling through various FL counties so there are always be postcards to write.