Sharing Your Work With Others in the Hopium Community
Reminder we have our monthly Hopium political briefing and discussion tonight at 7pm ET
Friends,
One of the great joys of building this new community with you has been learning of all the remarkable work that’s going on across the country to promote Democrats and ensure freedom and democracy prevail in a time of enormous challenge.
In our chat available to paid Hopium subscribers, we talk about what folks are doing, and people learn from one another. It’s been great to see. Today, I want to try to open that process up to the entire nearly 20,000-strong Hopium community by:
asking those of you working on projects or with organizations to briefly share what you are doing, and provide links for folks to get involved
leaving the comments section on this post open to everyone here so all of us can learn from one another
While I recognize this is a slightly crude process, let’s give it a go. If there are folks who decide they want regular access to our community discussions, you can buy an annual subscription here for 10% off through Labor Day.
One of the principal reasons I started Hopium was to support the incredible explosion of citizen activism that has sprung up in the MAGA era. Your work, your love of country, your passion, grit, and determination inspires me every day, challenges me to do my best here. Together, all of you have created something deeply powerful that is giving Democratic candidates more resources than they’ve ever had, allowing us to build unprecedentedly large campaigns which in turn are pushing our performance to the upper end of what’s possible in election after election. The power of our community helped fuel our big wins across the country in 2022, and are fueling big wins again this year in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado Springs, Jacksonville and Ohio. The far more muscular, citizen-led Democratic grassroots has become our Party’s superpower, and it is so exciting to see.
In this interview I talk about the concept of Hopium as we use it here - it’s hope with a plan. In 2022 millions of people just didn’t hope we would have a good election, we went to work to make it so. We have already shown that together through hard work we can alter history. In 2022 we just decided we weren’t going to let the red wave come, our democracy slip away and MAGA prevail - and none of it happened. We shocked the world with our historic performance, and are doing it again this year. Here we do more than hope - we imagine a better future and together go make it so, powered/fueled by Hopium.
Anxious to hear from all of you. I know of great work being done in VA and OH, in Florida, with young voters, and in getting loud/becoming info warriors. But I will let you all share your work with others here, so that we can become ever more powerful, together.
A reminder that we have our monthly Hopium political briefing and discussion tonight at 7pm ET. RSVP here. Looking forward to seeing everyone and talking more about the work we do together.
To share your stories please use the comments section below, thanks for being part of this wonderful community, and keep working hard all - Simon
Many assume Texas is a deep,y red state. However, the truth is we are a 53 / 47, soon to be swing state where Republicans barely retain power through aggressive gerrymandering and voter suppression. As Texas becomes more diverse and younger the balance is shifting. When Texas goes Blue, the power of Democrats in the Electoral College will be overwhelming. We can make it happen. The secret to turning Texas Blue is voter turnout. When voter turnout is high, Democrats do well.
Some believe Democrats have a “message” problem. No, what Democrats lack is not a great message, we lack messengers. This is particularly true in rural areas. Where there are no messengers there is no message. Texas has 254 counties. In the 2022 election, 135 of those counties had no Democratic candidate running for a county wide office. Building local Democratic infrastructure across the rural areas of Texas is the key to shifting the balance of power in Texas and turning Texas Blue. We need Democratic mayors, city council members, county commissioners, judges, and school board members everywhere including our rural areas.
Blue Horizon Texas (https://www.bluehorizontexas.org) and our partner organizations are doing the on the ground work to recruit, train, and help build support networks for Democrats and progressive non-partisan candidate across the rural areas of Texas. Our mission is not just a single election cycle effort. We are in this for the long haul to turn Texas deep Blue for the benefit of all Texans.
If you want to help, p,ease support and join with us in our efforts. You can learn more about our work, follow our progress, donate or volunteer to help on our website (https://www.bluehorizontexas.org). We can make a difference together.
Thanks for opening up the conversation, Simon! Our group, Markers For Democracy, https://markersfordemocracy.org/, started in 2018 by a group of friends who wanted to write Postcards To Voters together. Now, almost 5 years later, we still write postcards together both on Zoom with friends and fellow activists from around the country, and in person in NYC. We write for a bunch of different organizations. https://markersfordemocracy.org/postcarding-orgs We've hosted over 600 candidates, authors, organizations on our Zooms to support them and learn more about critical issues facing democracy (and Democrats) around the country. https://markersfordemocracy.org/speakers We also started a giving circle with The States Project in 2029 to raise funds for Democrats running for state legislatures around the country. Even years we raise for Arizona and Pennsylvania. Odd years, including this year, we raise for Virginia. https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/m5Wf6zb/Markers-For-Democracy While we are focused on Virginia this fall, we are also focused on local elections in NY to try to lay the ground for taking back House seats that we lost in 2022 and because #LocalElectionsMatter. To that end, we are supporting several Democratic candidates running for Suffolk County Legislature (which flipped from blue to red in 2021) where the Republican majority refused to put a clean water referendum on the ballot in 2023. https://riverheadlocal.com/2023/06/30/clean-water-is-not-a-partisan-issue-but-republican-legislators-made-it-political-by-tabling-a-measure-to-put-water-quality-initiative-on-the-ballot/ We are writing postcards for 5 of these Democratic candidates (as well as 2 Virginia School Board candidates) as part of our fall postcard program. https://postcards.markersfordemocracy.org/