America The Prosperous/Biden The Successful, Gallego Leads in 2 New Polls, MAGA Descends Deeper Into Madness

Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong and winning elections all across the country.

Happy Friday all. A few things today:

The Orange Emperor Is Coming for America’s Government and Economy Next - In his madness, Trump took out Kevin McCarthy for working with Democrats to keep the government funded. He forced the House to walk away from Ukraine, our allies and the entire security architecture which has kept America safe and prosperous for decades. He forced the House to walked away from a serious bi-partisan border security package, choosing instead border chaos and more flow of migrants into the country. For his next trick Trump appears to be forcing the House to not agree to a budget, already 5 months late, and the government will likely shut down as early as next week. Shutting down the government, like these other Trumpian plays, will do direct and material harm to the country. This appears to be his central campaign strategy in 2024 - to do as much harm to America as he can. It is pure, unadulterated madness.

Consider it all Letting Putin win makes us far less safe. Leaving the border chaotic and immigrants flowing into the country makes us far less safe. Shutting the government down and sabotaging the US economy is reckless beyond imagination. This Mad King appears to have decided that THE ONLY WAY HE CAN WIN is by attempting to cause as much harm and chaos as possible. It’s a sign of extraordinary desperation, of weakness, of a Hail Mary strategy of someone who knows he’s losing. And as we saw in NY-3 last week, it already isn’t working politically, as voters rejected his border chaos plan opting instead for a Democrat Tom Suozzi who is committed to actually solve our problems. And yet, despite this huge political failure in NY-3, MAGA is continuing down this wrecking ball path.

I’ve written twice this week (here, here) about our need to develop a more clear-eyed understanding of what Trump has become, and how hard it has been for the media to capture it all. The country is facing an unprecedented threat right now from Trump and his allies. A central reason I started Hopium a year ago was that I felt we were all underestimating the threat we were facing, not really understanding the nature of this new domestic and global conflict we were in. I wanted to fight harder, and more effectively. What we are witnessing now - full alignment of MAGA with Putin, flagrant use of Russian disinfo against the Democratic leader (again), unprecedented domestic sabotage/the insurrection never ended - is why we are here. We are proud patriots. We love our country. We are willing to fight for it. And we are winning. But let us not for a moment take part in the normalization or diminution of the very real threat we face. For if Trump can do all this damage while a candidate, imagine what he can do as President.

The Rancid, Unforgivable, Russian-Aided Invention of The Biden Scandal - Republicans just got caught in one of the most consequential scandals in American history. Listen to this whole interview Republican Rep. Ken Buck to understand what’s happened in recent days. It’s yet another extraordinary Republican betrayal of the country and our democracy.

“We Need More Kids” - Just watch this interview with Tommy Tuberville. Watch and listen to his idiocy, extremism and utter contempt for all of us in just a few short seconds. Pure, unfiltered MAGA madness.

More Stock Market Records, More Happy 401(k)s - Meanwhile, back in the real world, the stock market keeps breaking records, America grows more prosperous, our companies keep leading the world and the success of the Biden Presidency becomes more undeniable.

Ruben Gallego Leads In 2 New AZ Polls - We got some good news in Arizona in the last few days as Ruben Gallego leads in 2 new independent polls:

Emerson (link)

• 3 Way - Gallego 36, Lake 30, Sinema 21

• 2 Way - Gallego 46, Lake 39

Noble Predictive

• 3 Way - Gallego 34, Lake 31, Sinema 23

• 2 Way - Gallego 47, Lake 37

The Noble Predictive analysis of their poll is entitled “Arizona’s Electorate Is Allergic to MAGA Brand in US Senate Race.” It’s yet another reminder that MAGA is a losing politics for the GOP, and that the terrible MAGA candidates the GOP ran in 2022 in the battlegrounds may make it much harder for them to win in these states in 2024. These states know MAGA, have litigated MAGA, and they choose Democrats bigly in 2022. We gained ground over 2020 in AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH and PA in 2022. It’s another reason why I am so optimistic about 2024.

Why I Remain So Optimistic About The Election This Year - Lots of stuff to chew on this weekend:

• Hopium Analysis - No Red Waving 2024 Please, Why I Am Optimistic About 2024, Coming To Terms With Russia’s Penetration of Trump and The GOP

• Hopium Events/Appearances - Our Monthly Hopium Gathering With Special Guest Tom Suozzi, The Strategy Session With Rick Wilson and Joe Trippi, PoliticsGirl, My Appearance On The Ezra Klein Show

• Op-eds/Essays - Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic)

• The Most Powerful Democratic Political Machine We’ve Ever Seen - Read my recent post on what we are building together, and let’s just keep staring at this jaw-dropping data from the Suozzi campaign:

In the space of five weeks people knocked on over 150,000 doors, made over 2 million phone calls, and wrote hundreds of thousands of postcards. Our campaign estimates that every Democrat household in the NY-03 received, on average, five handwritten postcards.

March Event Dates - Three events on the books so far. Mark your calendars!

• Friday, March 1, 1pm EST - Hopium Founding Members Get Together W/ Simon

• Wednesday, March 6, 7pm EST - Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering

• Wednesday, March 13, 7pm EST - Hopium Community-Wide Gathering

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - Here at Hopium we strive to channel all this worry and anxiety we have about our current moment into concrete action - do more, worry less - as we say here. I try to give you a bit of direction about where to channel your work by endorsing campaigns and projects, and providing you information to help you become a more effective information warrior for your democracy. Together we just made a big difference in NY-3, and if you looking at ways to help I am encouraging people to take two important steps today (donate/learn more here for both):

• Donate and join the Biden-Harris campaign. This is very important. The campaign comms and field operations are gearing up and it’s critical you receive info from the campaign every day, and start thinking about how you are going to be part of this effort as it expands. Please donate whatever amount you can - $5, $10 - just to get started.

• Make an early investment into North Carolina, our most important 2024 expansion state, and watch an interview I did here at Hopium with Anderson Clayton, the dynamic new NC Dem Party chair.

• Encourage people in your networks to become a Hopium subscriber. Our goal is to get to 50,000 subscribers by March 31st (we are at 42,000 today). With your help we can hit our goal, grow our community and bring the upbeat, data-filled analysis here to more and more people.

I will be offering some new recommendations in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon