The Dow Closes Above 40,000, Six New Things About Trump, Dems Need A Big Reform & Renewal Agenda

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Happy Saturday all. Been writing a lot about what has been a good week of polling for us so going to focus on a few other things today:

The Dow Closes Above 40,000, US Economy Is “The Envy Of The World,” Joe Biden Has Been A Successful President - As I wrote in my recent New Republic essay, I remain convinced that one of the central battlefields in this election is how our target voters come down on whether Biden has been a good and successful President and whether we are better off.

I think we have a very strong case to make that the country is far better off from the extraordinary mess Biden inherited in January, 2021.

Here are some Hopium resources to dive deeper into the strong American economy and Biden’s successful Presidency:

• America’s Start Up Boom

• The May Jobs Report

• With Democrats, Things Get Better

• NYT Poll Finds Americans With Very High Life Satisfaction

• The Economy Is Remarkably Strong. Period. Stop The Bullshit

And my argument that the success of the Biden Presidency is causing the central attacks on Biden to evaporate and lose their power, turning the election gradually from a referendum on Biden to a referendum on Trump.

Of all the charts, graphs, data and understandings the one that perhaps gives me the most confidence we can and will win this argument is this data from the recent Wall Street Journal poll of battleground states - clear majorities believe things are better in their states. This is a huge problem for Trump and the Republicans for making the connection from Biden’s Presidency to things being better is something campaigns are built for, and something we should be able to do in the coming months.

The Six Things Americans Are Going To Learn About Trump They Didn’t Know in 2020 - We don’t need Trump to be convicted of a crime to win this election. It may happen, but there is no reason to count on it, or build a strategy around it. We have enough, now, today, to win. We have to establish, above, that Joe Biden is a good and successful President (which he is, and it is true), but we also must be relentless about informing the country about who Trump is now. We can and will inform about his escalating extremism on so many issues and the unprecedented threat he is to the country and our democracy, but we also can introduce information about six things we now know about him voters did not know in 2020:

• That he raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room

• That he oversaw one of the largest financial frauds in American history, and owes hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and penalties

• That he stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI about it all and shared those secrets with others. It was without question among the most grave security breaches in our history, and the greatest betrayal of the country by a former President

• That he tried to overturn an American election, led an armed insurrection against the Congress, fought to end American democracy for all time and has promised to finish the job if he somehow gets into the Oval Office next year

• That he and his family have, corruptly, taken more money from foreign governments than any political family in our history

• That he was singularly responsible for ending Roe and stripping the rights and freedoms away from the women of America; and last week confirmed, by embracing the states’ rights position, that he supports the most extreme abortion bans in the nation - this making him without question the most dangerous abortion extremist America has ever seen.

I talked to Lawrence O’Donnell about these six things on Wednesday night:

And I loved hearing Rep. Jamie Raskin begin his remarks in the Thursday night Oversight Committee fiasco by reminding all the “Florida man” was a rapist and fraudster:

Learn these six things, and make them part of your information warrior arsenal of arguments. Waiting for Mueller was a mistake. We should not replicate it now and wait for a conviction to make our case against the Florida man who is without question the ugliest political thing we’ve ever seen.

Democrats Need A Big Reform and Renewal Agenda - In my recent essay in the New Republic, I wrote about the need for Democrats to develop and campaign on a clear agenda to strengthen our democracy and tackle the corruption and rot that has overtaken our Capital:

If the primary job of the first term was about successfully getting America to the other side of Covid, the second term should be about mobilizing unprecedented resources around tackling the next two existential challenges of our time–countering climate change and accelerating the energy transition from fossil fuels, and ensuring that freedom and democracy prevail here in the United States and everywhere.

The president should talk directly and forcefully to the American people about the existential nature of these dual challenges, particularly the rise of what is perhaps the most serious threat we’ve ever seen to the American-led, rules-based order; and he should prepare Americans for what could be years or even decades of hot and cold conflict with authoritarians at home and abroad. The president began that process this year with his compelling speech near Valley Forge in early January.

As part that mobilization, we will need to keep our economy strong and prosperous, persistently proving that democratic capitalism remains the best system for human advancement; develop a long overdue national strategy to restore integrity to our daily discourse, making it far harder for authoritarian forces to manipulate and control speech in open societies; build greater governmentwide institutional capacity to advance pro-democracy initiatives here and across the world; and be direct in asking the American people, as President Kennedy once did, to become active partners in ensuring we prevail in these deeply consequential struggles in the coming decades….

…..The president should commit to making progress in at least two other areas during his second term—cleaning up a city and a democracy that have been weakened by corruption and illiberalism of all kinds, and raising American life expectancy so it is again at the level of peer nations’.

I think Joe Biden should promise to clean up the city he has so long been a part of. Among the things we can tackle are the influence of foreign money, the need to raise ethical standards at the Supreme Court, eliminating the debt ceiling and the ability to shut down the government, and the wild abuse of Senate holds on nominations. Perhaps Biden could set up a commission to make broader recommendations on how to modernize and reform a city desperately in need of it.

Such an agenda is not just needed and necessary, but we know from polling that tackling “political corruption” is a high priority for two of our most important target groups - independents and young people. If President Biden were to lead the charge it would be a way of taking his many years here - experience, wisdom, understanding of how DC works - and turning the issue of his age into a powerful weapon against the Republicans.

I also think we need to do this to start creating a much broader and serious argument against the corruption of the Supreme Court and the judicial branch. The right’s corruption of the judiciary is the central driver of its escalating illiberalism, and we must take it head on. I don’t exactly know how to do this, but with the new revelations that Samuel Alito expressed clear, public sympathy for insurrection and the overturning of our democracy, it is time now to start swinging much bigger here.

Upcoming Events - Got a few things coming up:

• Wed, May 22nd, 7pm ET - Monthly Hopium Community Wide Get Together w/Simon - Register here.

• Thur, May 23rd, 730pm ET - Simon speaks to Northwest Bronx Indivisible via Zoom. Register here.

• Thur, June 20th Evening - Simon speaks in person at a Wisconsin Democratic Party Event (Madison) - more details soon

• Fri/Sat, June 28-29 - Simon speaks in person at Network NOVA’s 8th Annual Women’s Summit, Tyson’s Corner, VA - More info, register.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - We are still raising money for and supporting three critical projects:

• Biden-Harris 2024 - we hit $250,000 last night! Thank you all!

• Ruben Gallego For Senate - we hit $150,000 last night - thank you all!

• NC Dems and Anderson Clayton - we are at $194,000 raised. Can you help us hit $200,000 this weekend? Watch my interview with the great and inspiring NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton here. Let’s work together to turn North Carolina blue this year!

Thanks to the many thousands of you who have already contributed or volunteered. And also be sure to encourage your friends and family to subscribe to Hopium Chronicles!

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