Sunday Hopium - Trump Had A Bad Week And We Need To Keep Working Hard Everyone
Last Days For Our 10% Off March Anniversary Sale/Welcome New Subscribers!
Morning all. Here at Hopium Sunday is a light day, a day to rest, recharge and get ready for the week ahead. I’m excited to be heading to Nats Park in a few minutes to an enjoy an early spring baseball game. Hope you get to do something fun with friends and family today too……
We did some testing with Substack’s new “Live” feature this week and I was pleased with how it went. In addition to our paid subscriber gatherings each month we are likely now to have 2-3 conversations each week, with at least one live in the afternoon Eastern Time. We are still learning how to use the “Live” feature and will be sending out some information this week that helps you better understand how to catch these events as they happen. We’ve also begun to more aggressively market our conversations outside of the Substack platform, on Instagram, YouTube and Spotify and soon Apple Podcasts too. Our hope is that be expanding more aggressively outside of Substack it will bring our the insights and sensibility of Hopium to more people.
Looking back at the week I do think as his madness, recklessness, idiocy and lawlessness becomes harder to ignore and the economy continues to worsen Trump’s standing with the public has continued to erode, and his grip on our politics has weakened - as we saw with the panicky pulling of the Stefanik nomination. Our team had a big win in PA Tuesday night and I felt like Congressional Dems found a higher gear this week. For more on my current take on things review my Friday post and my Thursday video which provides a comprehensive overview of the moment and tests out a new way of articulating the dangers of Trump I’m calling “Saying No To Trump.”
Enjoy one of my favorite Senators, Michael Bennett of Colorado, talking this morning about the incredible lies told under oath by Trump Administration officials this week (h/t Aaron Rupar):
As I look back at the week the Atlanta Fed GDPNow estimate captures current Trumpism more powerfully perhaps than any words can. 7 points off GDP in two months!!!!!! Trump inherited the strongest economy in the Western world and through this madness immediately wrecked it. It is literally unbelievable.
This data is a reminder for why we need to be acting with such urgency now. Trump’s agenda is making America poorer, less safe and less free - on purpose, by design - and we need to be keep summoning all we got to counter him as aggressively as we can
If you are looking for a good podcast-type interview to watch or listen to in the coming days we have a growing library of timely and informative conversations available now:
Congressional Leaders - Our recent talks with Reps. Adam Smith, Eric Swalwell, Derek Tran and Janelle Bynum offer powerful insights from inside of Congress
How The Democratic Party Is Meeting The Moment - Watch important new leaders Jane Kleeb, Anderson Clayton and David Hogg talk about what the Dem Party needs to do now to successfully counter Trump
Our Courageous 2025 Candidates - Meet our great candidates Susan Crawford in Wisconsin and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia
Understanding The New Trump Era - Learn from David Rothkopf on how Trump’s approach to the world is making America far weaker; David Leopold on yes, people are disappearing in America; Casey Michel about “governments of thieves;” Dr. Michael Mann on the Right’s War on Science/Public Health; Dr. Rob Shapiro on the dangers of tariffs; and Leon Krauze on lessons to be learned from Mexico’s battle against a Trump-like leader.
You can find all of our interviews under the Podcast tab on the main Hopium site’s navigation bar.
Many of you are participating in Tesla Takedown protests, town halls and other public events. It has been great to see that as people get more comfortable with in person events and the weather warms crowds at these events are getting bigger and bigger. Thank you to our paid subscribers who self-report each day. Your many self-reports have become a powerful daily window into how our movement is growing across the country, and how many of you are leading it. I also want to welcome our new subscribers here, both paid and free. We’ve seen a lot of new people join us in recent weeks and it is great to have you all here. For our new paid subscribers please join us in our daily chat. It has become a very important part of the Hopium experience.
Looking ahead we need to build on what was a good week for us and a very bad one of him by having another good week. We have the all important Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday and the Monday filing deadline for all candidates and party committees. Even though we are not working on the Florida House specials (we can’t do everything here!!!) I know many in our community are, and send good luck your way. I also know many of you are supporting the April 5th “Hands Off” events this Saturday. Best wishes for strong turnouts and good weather to all of you!
We are also in the final days of our March Anniversary sale that’s offering a 10% discount on an annual Hopium paid subscription. If you are thinking about our supporting our work grab this offer while you still can - yes your financial support is what powers this work, every day. Our paid subscribers will gather this week on Wednesday night at 7pm ET and Founding Members get together this Friday at 1pm. Look for a registration link to come later today and remember you can also find info about upcoming events in our new Events page.
Now let’s get to work, and remember - while we are doing more outside, in public, we cannot stop contacting our Senators and House Members. We can and must do both as Congressional offices will note the fall off in contacts and read it as our movement easing up, slowing down. And we just cannot have that, can we??????
Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - While we have made many recommendations to Democrats in recent months for how to raise our game and fight harder and smarter, let’s focus on our current four recommended sets of actions for how we can best channel our love of country and our frustrations into concrete action today:
1 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this several weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.
2 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.
Part II - do all this and demand that Hegseth and Gabbard resign. Hegseth is obvious. He sent war plans on an insecure chat and simply can no longer be trusted. Gabbard for she is in charge of intelligence for the US, and must take responsibility for participating in and not stopping one of the most significant security breaches in US history.
3 - Our Work In The States, The Spring Offensive - I am going to rework this section in the next few days as so much has happened since we called on our community members to organize in the 17 most vulnerable Republican House seats. Rallies and protests have exploded across the country. The DNC/House Dems/State Parties have kicked off People’s Town Halls in all 50 states. I have come to believe that we should be leaning on our state and local electeds to pursue these organized “condemnations” of the Trump regime and their betrayal of America. Let’s start talking now about what we are going to do on July 4th, a day with all of a sudden much more importance.
Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.
Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind in addition to our new House Hopium 7:
Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.
Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben. Thanks to a huge surge of support in recent days we have already raised $224,000 from over 2,500 of you, blowing past our original $50,000 goal and now our stretch goals of $100,000, $125,000 and $150,000. We are now upping this to a new superduper-stretch goal of $225,000 by March 31st. Almost there. Amazing work everyone!
Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Derek Tran and Janelle Bynum and give to all 7 through a single donation on our new ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.
We’ve already raised over $44,000 towards our $50,000 March 31st goal - thank you all!
Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.
We’ve raised more than $70,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!
Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year.
We’ve raised $28,000 so far - thank you all!
Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,400 of you have donated over $104,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you and enjoy your Sunday! - Simon
Hi all. I went to a Tesla Takedown yesterday -- my first one. There were about 200 people in attendance. About 8 in 10 of the cars that drove by honked their horns in support of our message.
The protest was at the Tesla dealership in Northbrook, IL -- one of the predominantly white, upscale suburbs north of Chicago (collectively known as the "North Shore"). Northbrook leans Democratic. Some of the nearby suburbs lean Republican.
The young man who organized the event was passing out photocopied flyers that included the story of how this particular Tesla Takedown got organized. I'm sharing his story below, so that you can see how important one person's actions can be. Here is an excerpt from the flyer:
"Who I am and how the Northbrook protests began: I'm a person just like you. I've read books and watched or scrolled the news and heard podcasts all about how bad the state of the world is right now. Like you, I got tired of sitting around at home. I wanted to do something besides worry all the time that even the work I was doing at my day job wasn't making enough of a change. So, I thought I'd check out the Tesla Takedown protests I was hearing about toward the end of February."
"On the official site, I didn't see anything happening in Northbrook. There were reports from the Gold Coast (near north side of Chicago) that events had happened there, but it was a little far for me and I figured there might be some energy building in the northern suburbs. I texted a few friends about it and said it might be worth seeing what's happening at the Northbrook Tesla location around noon on Saturday the 8th. Only one friend was able to make it and it was just the two of us there that day. One car slowed down to take a video of us and two people stopped to grab flyers from us, one driving a Tesla. He told us, 'I hate this f---ing thing,' which was surprising and encouraging! I figured it would be a good idea to keep the momentum going by creating an event through the proper channels."
"If you're reading this 'zine, it's because I pressed it into your hand at the Global Day of Action on March 29, 2025. (Or someone who was there gave it to you, which is great!) Needless to say, the turnout of at least 10 protesters on the 15th and 22nd demonstrates that there IS an appetite for this kind of action, even on the North Shore. It is inspiring how we have fed off of each others' energy."
As I stated above, there were about 200 people in attendance yesterday. In just four weeks, this protest grew from 2 protesters to 10 to 200! Take inspiration!
A POTENT REMINDER! John Lithgow reads "20 Lessons on Tyranny from the 20th Century". This is the core of Timothy Snyder’s message – a timely reminder of the precarious times in which we live. And which Simon reminds us in every single update of Hopium!
https://snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-lessons-read-by-john-lithgow
To phrase it another way: "If you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany in 1933, you’re doing it now. Or not."