Sunday Hopium - Grateful To Be In This Community With All Of You

Rest up peeps. We have a lot of work ahead of us......

Happy Sunday all. Here at Hopium Sundays are rest days, reboot and recharge days. Take long walks, read that book that has been sitting on your bed side table for months, hang with old friends somewhere cool days. Took this photo of my great summer project, my street garden, this morning. It is coming along!

Think I am going to start calling it my Victory Garden from now on.

A few additional notes on this warm summer Sunday from DC…..

First, gratitude. I am grateful to be in this community of proud, plucky patriots in this challenging time for our country. Your actions, your grit, your can do spirit, your insights that flow all day and night long in our Hopium chat keeps me buoyed, inspired and motivated to keep fighting. Hard to put into words how important all of you have become to my own journey and work and I am just profoundly grateful to be in this fight with all of you. We have done a lot of good here, together, over the past two years but yes it does feel like our most important work lies ahead of us, not behind.

Second, some Hopium homework. If you haven’t yet please read The Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and a third one for this July Fourth holiday - FDR’s extraordinary Four Freedoms Speech. They are powerful reminders of who we are, and will be, again.

Next, the info wars. I have been thinking a lot about a meme that has been running through our communities - that Trump is acting as if there will not be an election in 2026 or 2028. I have come to believe that this is not quite right, that it is something else. I think he has confidence - overconfidence, arrogance, authoritarian delusional fantasy - of his ability to control the information space and make it bend the knee to him (and thus win in 2026). Some of this confidence/arrogance comes from his overcoming his convictions and his attack on the Congress to win last year; some comes from the enormous sums of money he has raised and will deploy in our elections; some from our own weakness and tepid response so far to him, and his belief in the superiority of his political team; some from the way the mainstream media has in fact distressingly bent the knee to him, even making direct protection racket type payments to him personally.

He has come to believe that he and his team now have the power to determine what is true, and that we/the media/reality are no match for his POWER and STRENGTH. That basically it doesn’t matter what he does or whether his Administration is succeeding for he will proclaim that he is SUCCEEDING, WINNING AND ALL IS GREAT and thus it will be so.

And with the support of the right wing media machine, the power of the American Presidency, and the antiquated bothsiderism of what’s left of legacy media many times it will in fact be so.

Think about what we have heard in recent weeks. The big ugly bill doesn’t cut Medicaid. Won’t increase the deficit. That it is the most popular legislation in history. That it will create 3-4% growth, and the tax cuts will pay for themselves. Or that the tariffs are not raising prices on Americans. Or that the Iranian nuclear program was OBLITERATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or that the 10-15m undocumented immigrants in the US are all criminals and gang members. Or that it’s Joe Biden’s fault all those young girls died in Texas this weekend. Or that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 elections, and Biden and his team stole the 2020 elections. That the economy was bad under Biden. That DEI is crippling America. Or that Putin wants peace. Or that everything that’s bad is Joe Biden’s fault, expect of course for those things that are Obama’s fault. Or that Dear Leader is popular, virile, successful, thin, tall and handsome.

It’s all a show. A world of Orwellian fabrication, illusion and lies, completely disconnected from and unconcerned with truth. Or perhaps more accurately at war with truth. In our discussion last week Anne Applebaum refereed to it as a “spectacle of power.” And its why the Administration is attacking all sources of independent truth like our universities, our research institutions, legacy media and perhaps even starting to game government statistics - for they must maintain The Fiction and fanatical understandings of their extremist politics at all costs.

Something I have come to believe is that one of the central ways that Trump and his team are keeping Congressional Rs on board is by the flood of fake polling that I’ve been talking about for the last several years. In our polling, the polling in the real world, Trump is unpopular, failing and his 2024 coalition unraveling. In his polling world he is popular, successful and even growing his vote.

G. Elliott Morris wrote about the presence of these right-aligned pollsters this week. Using data from his site, Strength in Numbers, Trump’s job approval right now stands at 43%-53% (-10).

Here are some polls from the right-aligned Dear Leader/red wave pollsters of late:

• Insider Ad. 54%-44%

• Trafalgar 54%-45%

• RMG 51%-47%

• Am. Pulse 50%-49%

• Emerson 45%-46%

• TIPP 44%-45%

• Quantus 47%-49%

The average of these polls is Trump +3. The average of all recent polls is Trump -10.

If you are in the right wing media universe what you see is Trump popular and succeeding, and thus why in the world would you challenge it? This ongoing flood of pro-Trump polls has become a very important way the Trump regime is keeping Congressional Rs in line; and its why he goes bananas when Fox News polling doesn’t look like all this other fake polling. For it’s crazy to challenge something that is working and popular and successful. That polling showing the big, ugly bill is unpopular? It’s all communist BS. Look at this other polling we got over here and while you are at get in line motherf-ckers…..

What do we do about all this? Will be central to our discussions in the coming weeks…..

OK, I went on too long. It’s Sunday. Back to my garden and my struggling Nats, and for those who want to get something political done today here we go…..

Now, Let’s Get To Work

Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - Friends, you all rallied these last few days. We hit our $25,000 goal for our newly endorsed Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Senator Jon Ossoff - thank you! Our revised fundraising goals are for Labor Day, remarkably, only two months away, with the November elections now only four months away. We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov - $200,000 goal, $32k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview

• Abigail Spanberger VA Gov - $250,000 goal, $148k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview

• Jon Ossoff GA Senate - $200,000 goal, $30k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer

• Hopium House 7 - $250,000 goal, $156k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews

We also have ongoing campaigns to support the new DNC, the Anderson Clayton and the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge. Lots of choices - do something to support these great candidates and parties today!

I am grateful to all of you who fought so hard against the Trump’s terrible bill. We worked hard peeps. It was righteous and good work. As I said to you in this week’s video we need to learn from these last few months and continue to get better, stronger, more powerful. For while we are making progress we are clearly not where we need to be.

In the coming days as I reflect on what just happened, and listen to all of you, we will be reworking and updating our collective summer and fall actions. Here is what we have now, with more to come, soon:

1 - Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us. See my recent interviews with Joe Garcia, Leon Krauze and Senator Chris Van Hollen for more.

In the coming days I want to work with all of you to do something more explicit about demanding the end of masked, plain clothes “police” snatching people here in America without warrants.

2 - Join Our Resolutions Project - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders, learn about how Hopium members are advancing “resolutions of condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Our resolutions passed in two New Mexico counties last week, and we now have 40 resolutions moving in 14 states. Amazing stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3 -Volunteer To Help Your State and/or Local Democratic Parties Stand Up Voter Registration Efforts - In the presentation he made to our community recently Tom Bonier made a persuasive case that Democrats must once again make partisan voter registration a national priority. State and local Democratic Parties are in the planning stages to take this on. Members of our community should consider contacting their state and local parties and offer to help stand up these vital efforts in the coming months.

For more on the need to make partisan voter registration great again see my recent interview with Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, DNC Vice Chair and President of the Association of Democratic State Committees.

On Monday the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DGA and the ASDC announced a major new “Organizing Summer” project. Learn more about it here. I hope to have someone join us in the coming days to help us understand how we can support this exciting new initiative. Organizing to win these 29 Republican held House districts will be one of most important collective priorities for the next 16 months:

4 - Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today. Another is to back over 700 employees of the EPA who have taken a courageous stand challenging EPA Administration Lee Zeldin this week. You can learn more and sign your name in support of this remarkable effort here.

Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Been impressive to see how many of you remain involved in local, in person protests of all kinds in your communities. Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grow Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 152,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. If each current paid subscriber brings in just one new subscriber this summer we will hit our goal.

To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day. Use that link to buy gift or group subscriptions, and join our new referral rewards program too.

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you, and a fight it surely is - Simon