The Fight Against Trump Is Now A National One, Dems Win Specials in IA and MN, Keep Making Calls All

LA Hopium community members - I'll be speaking at USC tomorrow and getting together with folks afterwards. Join if you can!

Update - since posting this morning the Trump Administration has rescinded its order to steal Congressionally mandated funds for states and localities across the US. Great work everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good morning all. Last night we flipped a state Senate seat in Iowa that few thought we could win, and we won a special in the MN senate that gave us the majority in that chamber once again. Both of our candidates dramatically overperformed 2024:

• In Iowa our candidate won 52%-48% in a district Trump carried by 21 points in November. It’s a 25 point overperformance.

• In Minnesota our candidate won 91%-9% in a district Harris carried 83%-14%. It’s a 14 point overperformance.

While it is still early, and these are only two mid-winter specials, we take and celebrate the wins when they come here at Hopium and these were good and encouraging wins. Coupled with that new Reuters polling showing Trump losing 9 points in job approval in just one week we are reminded that our work does matter, and that we can beat MAGA - as we did throughout 2018, 2020, 2022 and into early 2024, and as we did in critical downballot races last November. We cannot give up and need to keep fighting.

Remember:

Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America, and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight. As dark as all this is, we cannot for one moment forget that what Trump is doing is wrong; he and his project remain deeply unstable and his coalition fractious; he is doing deeply unpopular things, going far beyond his narrow “mandate;” he is old, impulsive, reckless and clearly in decline; and extremists and ideologues are often far better at bread and circuses than governing.

We need to hit the phones today. All of us. Loud and proud, people. Kennedy and Gabbard have their hearings today, Patel tomorrow. Three things you can call about today:

• Fight The Unacceptable 4 - Gabbard, Kennedy, Patel, Vought. Keep the script short - they are dangerous, unqualified extremists and should not serve in the government of the United States. You expect your reps to fight.

• Challenge Trump’s denying of funds to the states and localities (and dozens of countries) and his other illegal actions this week. Everyone has a stake in this. We must fight Trump’s mad power grab, his purposeful attempt to harm people across the US and around the world. Defend your democracy.

• Insist they fight Trump’s “catastrophic” tariffs that will raise prices for everyone on just about everything and cause destructive trade wars with our closest allies (see yesterday’s Hopium post).

As I wrote to you last night Caroline Kennedy has spoken out powerfully against her dangerous cousin. Here is a video she’s released. Incredible stuff:

On what message you convey, what script, two things: 1) keep it simple. They don’t need a long script. Get to the bottom line, quickly. The offices track calls yes and no, a scorecard. So the call itself is what matters most. 2) Your emotion should be in insisting they fight, and that you will be tracking what they do, and sharing whether at this critical moment in history the office stepped up or became complicit through their silence. Let them know that you are talking with others in the community, other constituents, and that our expectation is that they are going to fight, leave it all out there on the playing field and be reporting back to you on how they are doing so. “Are you on Bluesky? How are you going to let us know how you are fighting? I will share that with others in the community.”

I’ve been doing this a long time my friends, and I can tell you these calls matter.

Grateful for how hard many of you have been working these past few weeks, but today I want to encourage all of you to expand your calling work to include your governor, state senators and state reps, and perhaps mayors and city council members too. As Rep. Eric Swalwell and I discussed last week, this ferocious opposition we are trying to build needs to include every single Democratic elected official at every level of government using their platforms to become communicators and influencers, not just legislators. We need to help them understand their new role, encourage them, insist they take action to fight MAGA’s assault on our country. With Trump’s outrageous and reckless attempt to cut funding to state and localities this week fighting Trump became the work of every Democratic elected official in the country, no matter where they sit. Yesterday the fight against Trump became a truly national one and we should be demanding that our representatives be fighting for us 24/7/365 and become leaders of our emerging ferocious opposition. No ducking, playing it safe my friends, only fighting now. Trump raised the stakes this week and it is time everyone got into the game.

Last night our good friend Anderson Clayton, the chair of the NC Dem Party, posted on how the gains we made in North Carolina in 2024 (something that this community played a major role in) is enabling the state to be on the front lines of the fight against Trump. Here are some of the images she posted. This is now truly a national fight, not just a federal one, and we have to encourage our electeds at all levels to get into the game:

Here is what I wrote in my post about the Swalwell interview:

I wanted to make an interview with Rep. Swalwell one of our first in the new Trump era for he is, in my mind, a model for how elected Dems across the country need to understand their job now. We can no longer be just legislators or executives. We must always be communicators and influencers now too, working to close what I call the loudness gap with the right, 24/7/365. Going on offense, telling our story and contesting the right everyday has to become the responsibility of everyone in the family, not just our leaders.

As I’ve been writing to you there needs to be revolution in how we approach modern communications. There is incredible urgency for us now to collectively raise our game. And while Trump has more than he had in 2017, we cannot forget that so do we. We have twice as many donor/supporters; far more money, volunteers, and more advanced tools; we have a growing and important pro-democracy media ecosystem; and a new and maturing Dem grassroots across the US. We will also soon have a revitalized DNC and party infrastructure (no matter who wins in my opinion). It is going to take a while for us to figure out how to turn all this into an effective and ferocious opposition. But, importantly, WE ARE NOT WITHOUT POWER and must learn how to use what we have in a far more modern and effective way. Yes, we have to keep building, keep investing in new capacity but right now we also must make the most of what we already have, which is a lot more than we had 8 years ago.

Hopium community member Tim Wegener posted this on our paid subscriber chat last night:

This is one of the reasons I am fighting so hard. I posted this on Bluesky earlier and I hope you all don’t mind me sharing:

I am so angry right now. My wife is an attorney and she represents unaccompanied children in their asylum claims. The kids are texting her tonight, terrified because ICE was in their school today. Children, who have been through all sorts of unspeakable hell just to get here, and now my government is terrorizing them. My religion teaches me that God forgives all of us, but I do wonder if there should be an exception for these people who are terrorizing children. All this so that my fellow white people can feel powerful over people who have no power.

What do I tell her? More importantly, what does she tell these children? How do we ever overcome our shame as a nation for allowing this? There is always evil in the world, and right now that evil is upon us.

I am in this for as long as necessary. I know this is a long fight. But, I won’t stand back and let this evil win out. I hope you all feel the same.

Thank you Tim, and a big thank you to your wife for her incredibly important work. To learn more about how Trump is not just targeting “criminals” but has begun a mass deportation effort of non-criminals and legal immigrants too watch my new interview with immigration attorney David Leopold. The “deport criminals” line is a poll tested ruse. The goal, as Tim’s wife has come to learn in recent days, is to mass deport millions and millions of immigrants - even legal ones - to dramatically reduce the immigrant (non-white) population in the US (here’s a link the WaPo article below).

Due to time and space reasons I was not able to get to a new, outrageous attempt by Trump/Musk to deceive federal workers into quitting. More on this in the coming days, but the war the new Administration is waging on workers in the federal government is disgraceful, incredibly destructive and deeply un-American:

We have to keep fighting.

Come See Me In Los Angeles Tomorrow - Friends, I am making a quick trip to Los Angeles to speak at two events at the University of Southern California - a morning class at the Annenberg School and at a major conference on US politics with the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future in the afternoon. My afternoon panel starts at 215pm and is open to the public. You can learn more about the amazing conference and register here.

After my panel I’ll head to the patio outside of USC’s Town and Gown ballroom to for an informal gathering of Hopium community members attending the conference. From there we will walk a few steps to a nearby park to hang out and get to know each other a bit more. Excited to connect with some of you in person tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few more things:

• We’ve endorsed Abigail Spanberger for Governor of Virginia. Watch my recent interview with her, learn more, volunteer and consider donating to her campaign. Our goal is to raise $100,000 for her by March 31st. We’ve already raised $17,000 - thank you all.

• Be sure to watch my new video presentation (and companion essay) on the early days of Trump 2.0 and the need for us to keep fighting; review my current working 7 takeways and recommendations about the path forward (video and post), and my new essay on how "betrayal” is the word that I think best captures the new Trump era.

• On Saturday the DNC will vote for a new Chair and new leaders. You can catch my interviews with leading Chair candidates Ken Martin, Martin O’Malley and Ben Wikler here. We are in the home stretch my friends.

• For those coming up for renewal for your paid Hopium subscription please make sure your payment info is current. Paid subscribers keep this place going in this time of enormous challenge.

We end today with Jim Acosta’s inspiring closing words on CNN this week (yes, another pro-democracy warrior was forced from a legacy media organization):

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