how exactly did trump make progress on inflation early on? what did he actually do? help me out here....as tom nichols said to tim miller recently, all we heard about biden was inflation, despite his not being responsible for it, and despite it being rather mild compared to what he and i lived through in the 70s, and how terrible things were for everyone. trump, otoh, as nichols points out, is directly responsible for high inflation
Inflation had been going down under Biden. If Trump had just left well enough alone, it would have continued to do so. But as soon as he imposed his erratic and destructive tariffs, inflation started up again. I agree the reporting is wildly unfair and biased.
In the first few months of the Trump Presidency inflation declined and was heading to 2%. Then he his policies started kicking in and inflation was reignited. What my charts have been showing these last few weeks.
As you can find here CPI went from 3 to 2.3 in his first few months. Then his tariffs kicked in. Frankly that it was declining in his first few months and he choose to re-ignite make the indictment of his policies far more powerful. Here's the CPI data - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/ugly-inflation-data-tariffs-ruled
i see that, what i don't get is where he gets any credit for inflation going down in his first few months; seems to me that was, as catherine noted above, more an artifact of biden's work. but i think we all agree that whatever happened before the tariffs, we are here now, and that is on the orange idiot. as thom hartmann has noted, if you wanted to weaken the country, you would do all the things trump has done....
The poorly worded passage Simon cited is in the 14th paragraph of the article.
"In the first months of his second term, Trump made progress on inflation."
It would have been better to simply write: "In the first months ... inflation measures declined." But the rest of the article makes plan that Trump did nothing beneficial and his policies have been disastrous and counterproductive.
The MSM has been sane washing Trump since 2016. They literally watch him doze off and say nothing about it in real time. Why doesn't one of them ask him why he continues to doze off when he is actually dozing off? Blinking does not work in that way.
because he is up all night writing gibberish. arthritis and bathroom visits keep me up a lot of the night at my age, and i'm only 63.....and i need a nap after my morning walk. way it is.
The ultimate irony, was that if Trump did nothing at all and just rolled with Biden's economy, then things would likely be absolutely cooking right now and he would be claiming all the credit for it, with the media no doubt lapping it up and us Dems fuming.
Guy couldn't help himself though. Only he knows best after all!!
I think you hit the nail on the head... 'couldn't help himself'. He seems primarily motivated by: (1) a need for payback; (2) a need for self-glorification; (3) greed. It's unclear to me in which order, but it probably changes by the hour.
There is interesting neuroscience on revenge as an addiction.
That's essentially what Trump did in his first term. Coasted on the sound economy he inherited from Obama, and had advisers at the time that wouldn't let him do too much to screw it up. Then, of course, COVID hit and no one could prevent Trump from massive screw ups related to that. Unlike Obama, who walked into an enormous financial mess that Bush created and came up with sane policies implemented by competent people to get the country out of it, Trump had NO sane policies as to how to deal with COVID and very few competent people left by spring of 2020.
But in the second term, Trump has been freed from any real or perceived shackles, and we're left with only his id, including his unquenchable thirst for revenge.
Well, economics is "slow." There is always a time lag (laggggggggggggggggggg???) with these things because economies do not turn on and off, or do complete turnarounds in 5 minutes. These things take time, and such things can cross over to the next administration to either reap the benefits from the previous administration's correct policies, OR by completely reversing and screwing up their successes.
Desperate and failing, the maladministration and the crime family at it's head will fall and we will rise again as a nation but it won't be until we clean house of the ones who are not for us all!
simon, i have not been able to get in for a couple weeks; i never get the sign in. i've been too busy with other things to pursue it, but it's been a while now.
You can check your notification settings in your Substack profile. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/account. That's where you provide your email address to get the zoom notification for registration. After registration you will get the zoom link.
It might be your browser? Not that I know that much about this stuff. For me, when a link doesn't work, sometimes I have to use Chrome instead of Safari. But for Hopium's Zoom, I have always been able to use Safari. Good luck!
It worked for me. Sometimes, you need to refresh, check your WiFi or reboot. I was late and started listening from my iPhone using data. Then, when I got home, I switched to my lap top and was able to join. Fortunately, when we miss a Zoom session, we can watch the next day or later. Good luck next time.
Simon, thank you for your encouraging talk last night! We have to be realistic, but we can't give in to doom. There are more of us than there are of them and we're reality-based.
I called my congressman and senators to say NO money for ballrooms, arches, etc., NO money for the Defense Department until Hegseth resigns or is fired, and to say that Trump is mentally ill, out of touch with reality, demented and needs to be replaced as soon as possible. I'm writing postcards to Ohio voters today.
The voting data we are seeing in all these primaries is pretty amazing and so positive for Democrats.
I have a question today for anyone who wants to venture an opinion though. Sorry it is not very Hopium, but I definitely think it is relevant, with Dem chances of taking the Senate increasing all the time...
What are we going to do/can we do about Fetterman? He's a problem, a big problem!
It is just frustrating to see him on Fox almost everyday spewing right wing talking points, whilst breaking with Dems in votes that could weaken Trump in a meaningful way.
Totally understand. It IS frustrating. I didn't mean to sound snarky and if it came across that way, I apologize. I just don't know what we can do except help Dems get elected.
Like other PA folks, I would like to know too. He hasn't responded to constituents, nor has he responded to other Dem electeds from PA. Some people say it's the stroke. Others say that during his trip to MarMar Land, he was offered something (either $ or a threat to go after his wife or both).
It is a vexing question. But are we sure he was ever an actual patriot, rather than a performative one? A lot of people seem to think it is all about flags and songs, and when they realize it is a lot of hard work, they run away.
He used to be pro-union…, and won the primary over a centrist who has turned out to be outspoken against this administration. Hard to have a metric about actual patriot - any ideas pre-MAGA?
Fetterman does seem to enjoy the attention he is getting from people who would never vote for him. Too much ego to care or notice that those MAGAs won't vote for him?
This is the painful part of "we're in a marathon, not a sprint" in that we can't remove Fetterman until he's up for reelection.
Best thing we can do is bide our time, try to ensure he doesn't leave the party or shift to being a Republican, and primary him in 2028.
But one thing we should take remind ourselves is that we're better off with a weak Dem than a MAGA Republican. As frustrating as Fetterman is, he remains vastly superior to Dr. Oz, who was the Republican alternative. Failing to acknowledge that can lead to despair or cynicism that it's not worth fighting Republicans.
My question is how revised gerrymandering is going to help Republicans who are widely unpopular. All of these states are already heavily gerrymandered. The net result will be to spread remaining Kool-Aid drinkers more thinly, although we may lose some Black representatives due to racism.
I love the image of thinly-spread Kool-Aid drinkers. That’s great.
I believe that MAGA is a direct backlash to the prediction that by 2040 the US will be less than 50% White.
Rs aren’t gerrymandering just to keep the House. They have other ways to do that: changing the rules mid-election, voter intimidation, executive orders, declaring states of emergency, more terrible SCOTUS decisions, seizing ballots, arresting Democrats and election workers, lying about election fraud, and of course violence.
The gerrymandering is racism for its own sake, the end they have been working toward. They hate the VRA, always have, and for now fewer Black people will have a meaningful voice in their own country. I believe the Roberts court majority would have done the same even if it would lose Republican seats in the House.
Obviously they also want to do the same to women, LGBTQ+ Americans, non-Christians, etc., and ultimately reserve all power to wealthy conservative straight White Christian men.
But Rs are hardening Americans’ resolve and reminding us not to take our country for granted, all to gain a temporary advantage. This is terrible, but to quote Princess Leia, “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
This desperate gerrymandering now feels a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. MAGA is the ship going down and it is submerged and the weght of it is inexorably drawing it to Davy Jones locker.
If its 70% negative on inflation now, it will only be worse 3 months from now. The Titanic will be further under water and sinking faster. The rats will jump the ship or drown
A boxing metaphor, (Im not a boxing fan). We are in the late middle rounds of the fight. Keep working the body, wearing them out, because the knockout is coming if we do the work now all the way to the final bell.
When I've looked at voting district maps and how they lean (R+ or D+) Republicans usually have a comfortable margin, >R+10. Even with the new gerrymanders, these districts still have at least an R+7 advantage. So the question is how big the blue wave is. If it produces a D+8, then districts where the R+ advantage was reduced to +7, those districts would be considered "dummy-mandered."
But we should remember that wave elections can be reversed. In 2008 Dems won enormous victories in the House and Senate. In 2010, Republicans flipped more than 60 House seats, in no small part because Dems stayed home during the midterm. If Republicans lose the 2026 midterms because people stay home, but have higher turnout in 2028 (e.g. Dem advantage is only +6), then many of the "dummy-mandered" districts will flip back to Republicans.
Ultimately, Democrats have good reason to expect a blue wave in 2026, and it may be large enough to overcome the Republican gerrymander in many states. But in all liklihood, the new gerrymanders will likely create more safe R seats than it dummy-manders to Democrats.
Good points and information. Democratic counter to this ploy should be to move to appoint a neutral map drawing committee in any state where we get a majority immediately on being seated. No dilly dallying around.
Thanks for the information. The horrible racists gerrymander is bad enough but slavery and Jim crow language spewing from the mouths of some of these legislators is highly offensive. At least we now know that there are a lot of racist legislators especially in Tennessee which considering it is home to the KKK and the Scopes trial is perhaps understandable but boy I had hoped we had come further than that!
Better that we know. I believe white folks have told ourselves a story since Obama was elected, and are finding out now that it's not true. Black folks have known.
Simon, thank you for undertaking a project that will address antisemitism in our ranks, as you mentioned last evening. It has been very disturbing to see, and it really does worry me, and I don’t know what to do about it. Hoping to get some ideas from Hopium!
I completely agree. This is a growing problem and one we need to be discussing so that we have some talking points when we hear the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in our own networks. I teach at a large state university and a student started saying something that alarmed me a few months ago. I was unsure of how to respond, but felt compelled to do so. It wasn't clear to me that he understood what he was saying (he was parroting a podcaster), and I need to make sure he realized it but without compromising my job. I would love some guidance!
Yes. What is the date where Simon replied to the post about anti-Zionism? My Jewish friends are frightened. I worry that some really talented possible candidates for 2028 will not be able to win the nomination because they are Jewish , which is crazy. The Netanyahu government is abhorrent and AIPAC is destructive. The young people I know believe Israel is a terrorist state. I have no idea how to talk about this but have learned more by following THE DEBRIEF on Substack with Dr Debra Shushan (she is a Middle East expert, Yale phd currently at Georgetown)
A carton of Excedin to whomever can figure it out.
Israel has behaved so badly that they have earned broad opposition with many people legitimately declaring they are not antisemitic, but anti-zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu, pro-Gaza, pro-Palestinian, etc.
Sadly, actual antisemites have used those exact terms to camoflague their antisemitic positions. To make matter worse, lots of the non-antisemitic anti-Israel crowd don't realize this or are willfully blind.
One person's anti-zionist position can mean returning to pre-1967 borders, while an antisemite's anti-zionist position is the destruction of Israel and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people from the middle east.
And to be fair, lots of pro-Jewish and pro-Israel people will act in bad faith and say any opposition to Israeli actions or Netanyahu is just a cover for a desire to destroy Israel and the Jewish population.
In my fantasies, the US, EU, and other nations with a stake in seeing a the Israel Palestine conflict resolved would dust off the best of the previous two state peace plans or craft a new one, tell both sides "Accept this, you all get peace, security, freedom, and are welcomed into the international community. If one side agrees and the other side does not, the side that disagrees gets sanctions while aid and support go to the side that has agreed."
Thanks for a great post today Simon -- it's nice to wake up to encouraging news on a lot of fronts. The Ukraine news is best of all for me. Force the GOP quislings to go on the record again as to whether they support Putin, an actual, verified wartime enemy. And maybe more importantly, show Ukraine and the world that there is still strong pro-democracy support in this country.
Today is Day 3 of the 12 days of political donations my wife and I have committed to in May, front loading our 2026 political donations. Today’s donation went to Mary Peltola. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopium4peltola. I traveled to Alaska a number of times in my career, and my work specifically involved Alaska Native families, so it's great for me personally to see an Alaska Native with a real shot at becoming a Senator. Her interview with Simon is well worth the time -- just a wonderful, grounded person. As she points out, the "fish" part of her slogan "fish, family, and freedom" is no joke -- fishing is hugely important to both Alaska Natives and native Alaskans.
Worked a shift yesterday with a local group that supports our immigrant neighbors.
Interesting but long piece. It actually confirms my thought that people complaining about not releasing the autopsy are disingenuous. This kind of info is mainly significant for people who work for the party.
Thanks - this was an awesome and infuriating read. The guy - who is smart but friend with the PSA guys - is saying (correctly) that consultants are the problem and we need to invest in infrastructure, not ads and also attacking Ken Martin for saying consultants are the problem and for investing infrastructure. Ken is really the revolutionary we need. I do not, for the life of me, understand why Ken/DNC did not release the autopsy. It would help his case (ie.., consultants are the problem). Flaherty claims the DNC was just incompetent and couldn’t finish the report. I hope not. This was a big fail by Ken’s team. We need him to win this fight.
These are a laudable goals, however, what is the real plan to enact guard rails to prevent this disaster we are living through from ever happening again? Our democracy, our system of government, depends on the character and integrity of our leaders. History teaches us that our government needs more than character and integrity, we need to codify laws that to prohibit gerrymandering, ensure that everybody has the same right to vote, and to ensure those with extreme wealth pay their fair share for the privilege of conducting business and living in our country. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I do not, read do not, see a plan by our party to address, actually address, these issues with actionable legislation. We are on defense. Where is our offense? The opposition responds when they need defense WITH offense. Many of us worked hard when we were coming of age to oppose an unjust war, to fight for civil rights, to fight for women’s rights, and to fight for the right to have a clean environment. We made progress. Now all of that is disappearing. As a personal hero of mine, John Lewis, said, and I paraphrase, “See something, say something, do something, get into good trouble.” Well where are most of our of our elected leaders, representatives, and those with standing from the local level all the way up to the federal level? Folks with positions of standing and leadership responsibility need to step up to the plate. Right now there are too few of you doing do. Get it together folks. Be well, be safe and please vote. If you need help ask for it.
Information Warrior report! I posted an inspiring quote from today's Hopium and link to this morning's publication on my FB page and sent it by email too. It answered some alarmist stuff that I've seen lately.
'Despite their illicit gaming of our electoral system Democrats are still favored to win the House, perhaps by not the same margins, and the Senate is still very much in play. We knew taking power away from Trump and the Rs this year would be hard so what is happening now is nothing new. We must stay resolute and determined, and keep working as hard as we can. This remains a year of extraordinary opportunity for us, one where we can expand our maps and win in red places and red states where we have not been regularly competitive in many, many years.' "
Thank you Simon! You’re right that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for underestimating how evil the other side is. In my opinion it is a measure of how fundamentally different we are from them. We believe in equal rights for all and democracy and the goal of working to realize the promise of our country. All of that being said we do need to be more strategic than we have been so we can increase our numbers all over the country.
how exactly did trump make progress on inflation early on? what did he actually do? help me out here....as tom nichols said to tim miller recently, all we heard about biden was inflation, despite his not being responsible for it, and despite it being rather mild compared to what he and i lived through in the 70s, and how terrible things were for everyone. trump, otoh, as nichols points out, is directly responsible for high inflation
Inflation had been going down under Biden. If Trump had just left well enough alone, it would have continued to do so. But as soon as he imposed his erratic and destructive tariffs, inflation started up again. I agree the reporting is wildly unfair and biased.
In the first few months of the Trump Presidency inflation declined and was heading to 2%. Then he his policies started kicking in and inflation was reignited. What my charts have been showing these last few weeks.
As you can find here CPI went from 3 to 2.3 in his first few months. Then his tariffs kicked in. Frankly that it was declining in his first few months and he choose to re-ignite make the indictment of his policies far more powerful. Here's the CPI data - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/ugly-inflation-data-tariffs-ruled
i see that, what i don't get is where he gets any credit for inflation going down in his first few months; seems to me that was, as catherine noted above, more an artifact of biden's work. but i think we all agree that whatever happened before the tariffs, we are here now, and that is on the orange idiot. as thom hartmann has noted, if you wanted to weaken the country, you would do all the things trump has done....
Because as he himself as demonstrated, people love simple narratives. “Inflation Biden bad!”….
The poorly worded passage Simon cited is in the 14th paragraph of the article.
"In the first months of his second term, Trump made progress on inflation."
It would have been better to simply write: "In the first months ... inflation measures declined." But the rest of the article makes plan that Trump did nothing beneficial and his policies have been disastrous and counterproductive.
Really is amazing. He had an easy win, as inflation was getting better throughout 2024. He just got greedy; needed tariffs to offset the tax cuts.
The MSM has been sane washing Trump since 2016. They literally watch him doze off and say nothing about it in real time. Why doesn't one of them ask him why he continues to doze off when he is actually dozing off? Blinking does not work in that way.
because he is up all night writing gibberish. arthritis and bathroom visits keep me up a lot of the night at my age, and i'm only 63.....and i need a nap after my morning walk. way it is.
The ultimate irony, was that if Trump did nothing at all and just rolled with Biden's economy, then things would likely be absolutely cooking right now and he would be claiming all the credit for it, with the media no doubt lapping it up and us Dems fuming.
Guy couldn't help himself though. Only he knows best after all!!
I think you hit the nail on the head... 'couldn't help himself'. He seems primarily motivated by: (1) a need for payback; (2) a need for self-glorification; (3) greed. It's unclear to me in which order, but it probably changes by the hour.
There is interesting neuroscience on revenge as an addiction.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/11/can-revenge-be-addictive/
That's essentially what Trump did in his first term. Coasted on the sound economy he inherited from Obama, and had advisers at the time that wouldn't let him do too much to screw it up. Then, of course, COVID hit and no one could prevent Trump from massive screw ups related to that. Unlike Obama, who walked into an enormous financial mess that Bush created and came up with sane policies implemented by competent people to get the country out of it, Trump had NO sane policies as to how to deal with COVID and very few competent people left by spring of 2020.
But in the second term, Trump has been freed from any real or perceived shackles, and we're left with only his id, including his unquenchable thirst for revenge.
Well, economics is "slow." There is always a time lag (laggggggggggggggggggg???) with these things because economies do not turn on and off, or do complete turnarounds in 5 minutes. These things take time, and such things can cross over to the next administration to either reap the benefits from the previous administration's correct policies, OR by completely reversing and screwing up their successes.
Desperate and failing, the maladministration and the crime family at it's head will fall and we will rise again as a nation but it won't be until we clean house of the ones who are not for us all!
The zoom link did not work last night. Fyi
It worked fine for me, M.
Of course it did. we had hundreds and hundreds of people on. Not sure what happened on your end but it we had a great event last night.
simon, i have not been able to get in for a couple weeks; i never get the sign in. i've been too busy with other things to pursue it, but it's been a while now.
You can check your notification settings in your Substack profile. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/account. That's where you provide your email address to get the zoom notification for registration. After registration you will get the zoom link.
The registration link to get the zoom link is always announced under the Events tab, and that seems to be working for you. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/event-schedule
Of course I meant it did not work for me. Geez Simon
It might be your browser? Not that I know that much about this stuff. For me, when a link doesn't work, sometimes I have to use Chrome instead of Safari. But for Hopium's Zoom, I have always been able to use Safari. Good luck!
It worked for me. Sometimes, you need to refresh, check your WiFi or reboot. I was late and started listening from my iPhone using data. Then, when I got home, I switched to my lap top and was able to join. Fortunately, when we miss a Zoom session, we can watch the next day or later. Good luck next time.
Simon, thank you for your encouraging talk last night! We have to be realistic, but we can't give in to doom. There are more of us than there are of them and we're reality-based.
I called my congressman and senators to say NO money for ballrooms, arches, etc., NO money for the Defense Department until Hegseth resigns or is fired, and to say that Trump is mentally ill, out of touch with reality, demented and needs to be replaced as soon as possible. I'm writing postcards to Ohio voters today.
The voting data we are seeing in all these primaries is pretty amazing and so positive for Democrats.
I have a question today for anyone who wants to venture an opinion though. Sorry it is not very Hopium, but I definitely think it is relevant, with Dem chances of taking the Senate increasing all the time...
What are we going to do/can we do about Fetterman? He's a problem, a big problem!
Let's focus on winning as many seats as possible and then tackle that one?
I hear you.
It is just frustrating to see him on Fox almost everyday spewing right wing talking points, whilst breaking with Dems in votes that could weaken Trump in a meaningful way.
Totally understand. It IS frustrating. I didn't mean to sound snarky and if it came across that way, I apologize. I just don't know what we can do except help Dems get elected.
Like other PA folks, I would like to know too. He hasn't responded to constituents, nor has he responded to other Dem electeds from PA. Some people say it's the stroke. Others say that during his trip to MarMar Land, he was offered something (either $ or a threat to go after his wife or both).
It is a vexing question. But are we sure he was ever an actual patriot, rather than a performative one? A lot of people seem to think it is all about flags and songs, and when they realize it is a lot of hard work, they run away.
He used to be pro-union…, and won the primary over a centrist who has turned out to be outspoken against this administration. Hard to have a metric about actual patriot - any ideas pre-MAGA?
Fetterman does seem to enjoy the attention he is getting from people who would never vote for him. Too much ego to care or notice that those MAGAs won't vote for him?
Fetterman is up in 2028. Pray for a strong primary opponent. He has brain damage. Maybe his wife will convince him not to seek re-election.
Fetterman is up in 2028. Pray for a strong primary opponent. He has brain damage. Maybe his wife will convince him not to seek re-election.
This is the painful part of "we're in a marathon, not a sprint" in that we can't remove Fetterman until he's up for reelection.
Best thing we can do is bide our time, try to ensure he doesn't leave the party or shift to being a Republican, and primary him in 2028.
But one thing we should take remind ourselves is that we're better off with a weak Dem than a MAGA Republican. As frustrating as Fetterman is, he remains vastly superior to Dr. Oz, who was the Republican alternative. Failing to acknowledge that can lead to despair or cynicism that it's not worth fighting Republicans.
My question is how revised gerrymandering is going to help Republicans who are widely unpopular. All of these states are already heavily gerrymandered. The net result will be to spread remaining Kool-Aid drinkers more thinly, although we may lose some Black representatives due to racism.
I love the image of thinly-spread Kool-Aid drinkers. That’s great.
I believe that MAGA is a direct backlash to the prediction that by 2040 the US will be less than 50% White.
Rs aren’t gerrymandering just to keep the House. They have other ways to do that: changing the rules mid-election, voter intimidation, executive orders, declaring states of emergency, more terrible SCOTUS decisions, seizing ballots, arresting Democrats and election workers, lying about election fraud, and of course violence.
The gerrymandering is racism for its own sake, the end they have been working toward. They hate the VRA, always have, and for now fewer Black people will have a meaningful voice in their own country. I believe the Roberts court majority would have done the same even if it would lose Republican seats in the House.
Obviously they also want to do the same to women, LGBTQ+ Americans, non-Christians, etc., and ultimately reserve all power to wealthy conservative straight White Christian men.
But Rs are hardening Americans’ resolve and reminding us not to take our country for granted, all to gain a temporary advantage. This is terrible, but to quote Princess Leia, “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
This desperate gerrymandering now feels a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. MAGA is the ship going down and it is submerged and the weght of it is inexorably drawing it to Davy Jones locker.
If its 70% negative on inflation now, it will only be worse 3 months from now. The Titanic will be further under water and sinking faster. The rats will jump the ship or drown
A boxing metaphor, (Im not a boxing fan). We are in the late middle rounds of the fight. Keep working the body, wearing them out, because the knockout is coming if we do the work now all the way to the final bell.
When I've looked at voting district maps and how they lean (R+ or D+) Republicans usually have a comfortable margin, >R+10. Even with the new gerrymanders, these districts still have at least an R+7 advantage. So the question is how big the blue wave is. If it produces a D+8, then districts where the R+ advantage was reduced to +7, those districts would be considered "dummy-mandered."
But we should remember that wave elections can be reversed. In 2008 Dems won enormous victories in the House and Senate. In 2010, Republicans flipped more than 60 House seats, in no small part because Dems stayed home during the midterm. If Republicans lose the 2026 midterms because people stay home, but have higher turnout in 2028 (e.g. Dem advantage is only +6), then many of the "dummy-mandered" districts will flip back to Republicans.
Ultimately, Democrats have good reason to expect a blue wave in 2026, and it may be large enough to overcome the Republican gerrymander in many states. But in all liklihood, the new gerrymanders will likely create more safe R seats than it dummy-manders to Democrats.
Good points and information. Democratic counter to this ploy should be to move to appoint a neutral map drawing committee in any state where we get a majority immediately on being seated. No dilly dallying around.
Also at least a little reassuring to remember that Gerrymandering only works in the House, since the Senate elections are statewide.
Thanks for the information. The horrible racists gerrymander is bad enough but slavery and Jim crow language spewing from the mouths of some of these legislators is highly offensive. At least we now know that there are a lot of racist legislators especially in Tennessee which considering it is home to the KKK and the Scopes trial is perhaps understandable but boy I had hoped we had come further than that!
Better that we know. I believe white folks have told ourselves a story since Obama was elected, and are finding out now that it's not true. Black folks have known.
Simon, thank you for undertaking a project that will address antisemitism in our ranks, as you mentioned last evening. It has been very disturbing to see, and it really does worry me, and I don’t know what to do about it. Hoping to get some ideas from Hopium!
I completely agree. This is a growing problem and one we need to be discussing so that we have some talking points when we hear the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in our own networks. I teach at a large state university and a student started saying something that alarmed me a few months ago. I was unsure of how to respond, but felt compelled to do so. It wasn't clear to me that he understood what he was saying (he was parroting a podcaster), and I need to make sure he realized it but without compromising my job. I would love some guidance!
Yes. What is the date where Simon replied to the post about anti-Zionism? My Jewish friends are frightened. I worry that some really talented possible candidates for 2028 will not be able to win the nomination because they are Jewish , which is crazy. The Netanyahu government is abhorrent and AIPAC is destructive. The young people I know believe Israel is a terrorist state. I have no idea how to talk about this but have learned more by following THE DEBRIEF on Substack with Dr Debra Shushan (she is a Middle East expert, Yale phd currently at Georgetown)
If you watch last evening’s meeting, towards the end, Simon talks about addressing this problem.
Elizabeth, I believe the reply you are referring to was posted on May 3. If it’s this one:https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/reflections-on-the-return-of-our/comment/253112537?r=1nli6&utm_medium=ios
A carton of Excedin to whomever can figure it out.
Israel has behaved so badly that they have earned broad opposition with many people legitimately declaring they are not antisemitic, but anti-zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu, pro-Gaza, pro-Palestinian, etc.
Sadly, actual antisemites have used those exact terms to camoflague their antisemitic positions. To make matter worse, lots of the non-antisemitic anti-Israel crowd don't realize this or are willfully blind.
One person's anti-zionist position can mean returning to pre-1967 borders, while an antisemite's anti-zionist position is the destruction of Israel and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people from the middle east.
And to be fair, lots of pro-Jewish and pro-Israel people will act in bad faith and say any opposition to Israeli actions or Netanyahu is just a cover for a desire to destroy Israel and the Jewish population.
In my fantasies, the US, EU, and other nations with a stake in seeing a the Israel Palestine conflict resolved would dust off the best of the previous two state peace plans or craft a new one, tell both sides "Accept this, you all get peace, security, freedom, and are welcomed into the international community. If one side agrees and the other side does not, the side that disagrees gets sanctions while aid and support go to the side that has agreed."
The American people need to wise up. No working class man or woman should ever vote for a Republican.
Thanks for a great post today Simon -- it's nice to wake up to encouraging news on a lot of fronts. The Ukraine news is best of all for me. Force the GOP quislings to go on the record again as to whether they support Putin, an actual, verified wartime enemy. And maybe more importantly, show Ukraine and the world that there is still strong pro-democracy support in this country.
Today is Day 3 of the 12 days of political donations my wife and I have committed to in May, front loading our 2026 political donations. Today’s donation went to Mary Peltola. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopium4peltola. I traveled to Alaska a number of times in my career, and my work specifically involved Alaska Native families, so it's great for me personally to see an Alaska Native with a real shot at becoming a Senator. Her interview with Simon is well worth the time -- just a wonderful, grounded person. As she points out, the "fish" part of her slogan "fish, family, and freedom" is no joke -- fishing is hugely important to both Alaska Natives and native Alaskans.
Worked a shift yesterday with a local group that supports our immigrant neighbors.
Below is a link to a fascinating article from someone who was asked to contribute to the 'autopsy that never was'.
Be warned, it is long, but lots of good insight for anyone who is interested.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/heres-what-i-told-the-dnc-autopsy-biden-harris-2024-lessons-democrats-2028
Interesting but long piece. It actually confirms my thought that people complaining about not releasing the autopsy are disingenuous. This kind of info is mainly significant for people who work for the party.
Thanks - this was an awesome and infuriating read. The guy - who is smart but friend with the PSA guys - is saying (correctly) that consultants are the problem and we need to invest in infrastructure, not ads and also attacking Ken Martin for saying consultants are the problem and for investing infrastructure. Ken is really the revolutionary we need. I do not, for the life of me, understand why Ken/DNC did not release the autopsy. It would help his case (ie.., consultants are the problem). Flaherty claims the DNC was just incompetent and couldn’t finish the report. I hope not. This was a big fail by Ken’s team. We need him to win this fight.
Simon, Jonathan Nez is running for AZ CD-2 not CD 1. I hope we're supporting him for that race.
These are a laudable goals, however, what is the real plan to enact guard rails to prevent this disaster we are living through from ever happening again? Our democracy, our system of government, depends on the character and integrity of our leaders. History teaches us that our government needs more than character and integrity, we need to codify laws that to prohibit gerrymandering, ensure that everybody has the same right to vote, and to ensure those with extreme wealth pay their fair share for the privilege of conducting business and living in our country. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I do not, read do not, see a plan by our party to address, actually address, these issues with actionable legislation. We are on defense. Where is our offense? The opposition responds when they need defense WITH offense. Many of us worked hard when we were coming of age to oppose an unjust war, to fight for civil rights, to fight for women’s rights, and to fight for the right to have a clean environment. We made progress. Now all of that is disappearing. As a personal hero of mine, John Lewis, said, and I paraphrase, “See something, say something, do something, get into good trouble.” Well where are most of our of our elected leaders, representatives, and those with standing from the local level all the way up to the federal level? Folks with positions of standing and leadership responsibility need to step up to the plate. Right now there are too few of you doing do. Get it together folks. Be well, be safe and please vote. If you need help ask for it.
Information Warrior report! I posted an inspiring quote from today's Hopium and link to this morning's publication on my FB page and sent it by email too. It answered some alarmist stuff that I've seen lately.
"Please enjoy this quote from today's Hopium by Simon Rosenberg. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/
'Despite their illicit gaming of our electoral system Democrats are still favored to win the House, perhaps by not the same margins, and the Senate is still very much in play. We knew taking power away from Trump and the Rs this year would be hard so what is happening now is nothing new. We must stay resolute and determined, and keep working as hard as we can. This remains a year of extraordinary opportunity for us, one where we can expand our maps and win in red places and red states where we have not been regularly competitive in many, many years.' "
Thank you Simon! You’re right that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for underestimating how evil the other side is. In my opinion it is a measure of how fundamentally different we are from them. We believe in equal rights for all and democracy and the goal of working to realize the promise of our country. All of that being said we do need to be more strategic than we have been so we can increase our numbers all over the country.