The US Economy Is Strong, The Republican Party Is Broken, Flipping NY-3 Really Matters

Our Monthly Paid Subscriber Gathering Is Tomorrow Night/Welcome New Subscribers

Happy Wednesday all. A few things today:

We’ve Had Remarkable Economic News In Recent Months - Want to start our post today with a reminder of what we’ve seen in recent months:

• US has the best economic recovery from COVID in the G7, stock market is breaking records, 401(k)s are happy. GDP grew by 4.1% over the past two quarters, and has grown on average almost 3% in Biden’s Presidency, 3 times higher than Trump averaged over his 4 years.

• Lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII, jobs more plentiful today than any time since the 1960s. 8 times as many Biden jobs in 36 months as last 3 GOP Presidents combined over 16 years. Overwhelming majority of Americans have never experienced a job market this robust and strong in their lifetimes

• Inflation continues to decline, and mortgages, rents, and many food items are actually falling. All measures of consumer sentiment are improving, some sharply

• Very elevated wage gains, new business starts and prime-age worker participation rate. 1.3 job openings per unemployed person. Real wage growth we are seeing - wage growth minus inflation - is currently running at highest levels in decades. Last few months has been as good as it gets for American workers

• Median wealth up 37% from 2020-2022; median wealth for 18-34 year olds in this period more than doubled

• Lowest uninsured rate in history, ACA signups this past year highest ever, lower prescription drug costs

• The deficit is trillions less today than it was under Trump

• Domestic energy production of all kinds - oil, gas, renewables - setting records, leaving America far more energy independent than it has been in decades

• Biden’s big investment agenda will create opportunities for American workers and prosperity for the country for decades to come, and is already dramatically accelerating our energy transition from carbon-based fuels

• For young people the best job markets since the 1960s, fewest uninsured ever, as of last spring home ownership rates for Gen Z were above both Millennials and Gen X at this point in their lives, the Biden Administration has erased more than $130b in student debt, many states and cities have raised the minimum wage in recent years, creating a much higher income floor for young and low-wage workers

Proud of my President, proud of my party. For more on the remarkable strength of the US economy today:

• Holy Moly - Another Huge Jobs Report!!!!

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

• With Democrats, Things Get Better

As I like to say that the economy does so well under Dems, and so poorly under Rs, is the most important least understood story in American politics today. Learn the data and help tell this critical story. Loud and proud people!

Upcoming Events

• Thursday, February 8, 7pm EST - The monthly gathering of Hopium Paid Subscribers. Register here, and subscribe today if you want to become part of this wonderful community. A video recording of this event will be available to Hopium paid subscribers who cannot make it live.

• Thursday, February 15, 7pm EST - The Monthly Gathering of the entire Hopium community, now 37,000 strong! I will kick it off with 20 minutes of opening remarks about our current political moment and then take your questions. Register here. Hopefully we will be celebrating a big Suozzi win, together! A video recording of this event will be available to all members of the Hopium community who cannot make it live.

The 2024 Elections - Posts, Presentations, Interviews and Pods

• Hopium Posts - Another Huge Jobs Report, Notes on Recent Polling, Republicans Want The Border in Chaos, Putin to Win and American To Lose, The Democratic Party Is Strong, Voting on Day 1 and Building The Most Powerful Democratic Machine We’ve Ever Had, Not Clear Israel-Hamas War Is Hurting Biden

• Video Interviews - MSNBC’s Last Word, CNN’s Amanpour, MeidasTouch, David Pakman

• Podcasts (Audio) - The Ezra Klein Show, Deep State Radio w/David Rothkopf and Tara McGowan, Rick Wilson’s Enemies List

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - In our 2024 spirit of growth and expansion, I’m encouraging members of the Hopium community to get involved and take an action in four campaigns and projects, below. A hearty thank you to the thousands here who’ve already donated, volunteered and spread some Hopium:

• Flip NY-3 - Tom Suozzi leads in the early polls and will win if we give Tom the resources and volunteers he needs. The election is Feb. 13th and early in person voting has begun so please take an action to help Tom today! If you want to learn more watch my recent interview with Tom, and take an action here:

  Donate - Learn More - Get Updates - Canvass - Make Calls - Write Postcards

• Elect Joe And Kamala, Beat Trump - Please donate to Biden-Harris today, join the campaign and start planning for what you will do to help them spread their message through your networks and win the core 7 battlegrounds AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI. Beating Trump is Job 1 this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Get Early Resources to North Carolina, Our Most Important 2024 Expansion State - Our number one Presidential battleground expansion opportunity this year is North Carolina, and I am encouraging the Hopium community to support the Democratic Party of North Carolina and its dynamic new chair, Anderson Clayton. Watch my recent interview with Anderson and learn how to donate and volunteer here. Help us turn Carolina blue!

• Spread Hopium - Help me bring Hopium to more people this year. Our goal is to get to 50,000 total subscribers by March 31st (we are at 37,000 today). Please encourage others in your network to sign up and become part of this wonderful community of proud patriots and info warriors today!

  

The Republican Party Is Terribly Broken And Dangerous - In recent weeks I’ve come to believe that when Dobbs happened in 2022 something broke inside the GOP. At that moment it came too unattractive and awful for even many Republican voters, and the party broke, splintered, became unworkable. Trump and MAGA had through insurrection, extremism and the stripping of rights and freedoms away from more than half the population just gone too far, and the Republican Party as we knew it broke.

We often talk here about how in the elections since Dobbs Democrats keep overperforming and Republicans keep struggling, and how we are even seeing that basic dynamic play out in early 2024 voting as Trump has underperformed in both IA and NH. But let’s spend some time now going through all the other ways Republicans have struggled, and in many cases, by giving into Trumpian madness, become a serious threat to America and the global democratic project:

• The dysfunction we are seeing the House has no modern precedent. Not being able to pass rule votes, kicking out a Speaker, threatening to breach the debt ceiling, walking away from our allies, failing to pass a budget this far into a fiscal year, the coddling of Santos, the failure last night to pass two bills brought up for a full floor vote, the fewest laws passed by a Congress in generations. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s the worst Congress, with no near peer, in modern times, and perhaps in all of our history.

• The core GOP attacks on Biden - economy, inflation, crime, war on energy - are all evaporating, leaving them only with the border and immigration; and now the are losing that too and literally have made it clear they want to the border to be in chaos, immigrants to come to our cities and Putin to win. There is deep madness here, as they now own any problems at the border, with migrants, and with our troops and allies abroad. We are the party that wants to keep America safe, they want migrants to come and our allies and our troops to die. How in the world did they allow themselves to get to this ridiculous place?

• The Republican Party as in institution is an unprecedented disarray, and is nearing collapse. Trump spent more money than he raised in 2023; the RNC is completely broke, and its leadership appears to be abandoning ship; dozens of important national and state party leaders in key battleground states have been indicted for charges related to insurrection and trying to overturn an American election, more are under investigation; and several battleground state Republican parties have already collapsed under MAGA leadership.

• They are rallying behind a leader who has 91 criminal indictments and is out on bail. He is a verified rapist; has committed decades long financial fraud in New York State, and the financial monitor now overseeing his businesses in New York just reported even today these problems continue; led an insurrection against the United States and has promised to end American democracy if he wins this November; has stolen America’s secrets, lied to the FBI about it and shared these secrets with others; he and his family have taken more money from foreign hostile powers than any family in American history; he is singularly responsible for ending Roe. The President has been fined close to $100m already, his lawyer close to $150m. The fines about to come down in NY State for fraud could be greater than both of these fines combined, and may push Trump into bankruptcy.

• Their undermining of American national security again has no precedent in the modern era. They are not only emboldening our adversaries throughout the world, but they are now directly aiding the Russia-Iran-Hamas-Hizbollah axis which is waging war against our allies in Europe and the Middle East. They have undermined our national security by disrupting the operations of the Pentagon for nearly a year, and continue to prevent the Biden Administration for filling dozens of critical State Department appointments including many in the Middle East. It is literally as if they want America to lose power and influence throughout the world and autocrats to win. Could their be any greater betrayal of the American project, which from its beginning sought to create societies not controlled by autocrats and oligarchs?

Republicans are offering us: the most dysfunctional and dangerous US House in modern times; the most dysfunctional Republican Party we’ve ever seen; the most unfit and deranged person to ever run for President in our history, one who has tried and now promised to end American democracy for all time; a world where genocidal autocrats like Putin win and democracies lose; a splintered party which cannot pull its coalition together to win elections any more; and this agenda:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. The economy to crash. Women, people of color to lose more freedoms and rights. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist's baby to term, and for more women to die on an operating room table. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Big tax cuts for their donors, higher deficits and less for everyone else. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to get pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

The most important story in American politics today is the collapse we are witnessing of one of our two political parties. It has been overrun by extremism and extremists, who are now breaking the thing they seized. As we’ve learned in other nations and throughout history, the undoing of extremists often comes from their incompetence, corruption and inability to see the world as it is. They make huge mistakes. Ignore data. Run things into the ground. Lose elections and wars. But along the way they do enormous damage; and as they grow more desperate the damage can escalate - as I think we are seeing with Trumpism now. MAGA is acting crazier and crazier as things around them collapse and Biden grows stronger.

It’s why we are here at Hopium, and why we just keep our heads down and keep doing the work. Because we love our country, and are going to fight with everything we have to prevent our freedoms and our democracy from slipping away. We simply are not going to let them win on our watch.

Given all this it’s why we have to win NY-3 next week. If they come to believe they can win by acting this way we are going to have a tough year ahead. However, if we win, it may, just may, encourage them to find a different and better path. Yes, perhaps misplaced optimism but either way we just have to win next week. Make sure you sign up for a shift of calls or texts, canvass, donate. The stakes in NY-3 are high, and we just need to leave it all out there on the playing field over the next 6 days…..

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