The Fight Ahead Of Us Is Not About Reining In ICE. It's About Reining In Trump

Hopium paid subscribers gather tonight at 7pm EST

Morning all. First, congratulations. I think in Trump year one we’ve had remarkable political and electoral success. We’ve been winning elections of all kinds all across the country, some by enormous margins. Trump as a brand is deeply degraded. His economic agenda has failed. He was humiliated and humiliated himself on the global stage last week. His signature issue - immigration - has gone from asset to extraordinary liability. His Congressional coalition, and hold on the GOP, has begun to fray. The courage and bravery of the people of Minnesota has shown us the way forward, and inspired a nation.

This is all good, and important.

But we also know it’s not enough.

In DC the talk is all about what do we do now that Dems have said they will not vote for the DHS appropriations bill this week without major reforms of DHS and ICE. Where does this go? What is the fight about? What is a reasonable outcome here? What does success look like?

Greg Sargent has a new interview this morning with Senator Chris Murphy over at The New Republic. Here is how Greg summarizes what Senator Murphy told him about the fluid conversations happening inside the Senate Democratic Caucus now:

These would be serious, and meaningful reforms if somehow the White House agreed to them, and DHS were to actually follow them. And that gets to the heart of the matter in front of us - Trump-Vance-Miller have already allowed/encouraged DHS to break Federal, state, and local laws. They are lying about only targeting criminals - they are detaining and deporting legal immigrants to the US. They are ignoring court orders in Minnesota right now. They have not been enforcing laws in Minnesota they’ve been breaking them. Essentially every agent on the ground in Minnesota has participated in a criminal conspiracy against American citizens. They should be viewed as criminals and not legitimate actors of our government. Like Trump himself.

If you have not watched my recent interview with Glenn Kirschner you should. Or read the transcript. For what Glenn lays out, clearly and powerfully, is just how incredibly lawless this Minnesota campaign has been. Calling ICE or DHS a “law enforcement” organization is a joke. They made no attempt to follow the law while there. They were given permission to break the law, not follow it. That has been their training, and they have been following their training. So if we pass new law why do we think they will follow it?

Here’s the lead story on the Washington Post home page right now:

We have to remember that just a few weeks ago Trump, Vance, and Miller all told us, in public appearances, that they no longer believe that domestic or international law apply to them and the regime. That the regime was somehow OUTSIDE the law, the US Constitution, Senate ratified treaties, the UN Charter. All that stuff that came before - gone. They have renounced the very concept of law itself. Here’s Stephen Miller saying so on CNN, sentiments that were echoed by Trump in that now infamous NYT article the next day:

So, what do we do? We think Trump is repentant today? ICE is still in Minnesota. Miller is still in essence the Prime Minister. A federal judge had to order, this morning, the head of ICE to appear in court on Friday for they continue to refuse to follow the law and clear judicial orders there:

The lawlessness we’ve seen in Minnesota is a manifestation of a much bigger problem - the staggering lawlessness of Trump and his regime. They’ve illegally vaporized government agencies. Killed people on the high seas. Cut foreign aid programs - illegally - that will end up killing 15 million people. His illegal tariffs have wrecked the economy here at home and alienated our allies and trading partners throughout the world. He has thrown innocent people into foreign gulags. Made a serious attempt to rip Greenland away from Europe, while also taking nominal or perhaps real control over both Gaza and Venezuela and helping Putin grab territory from Ukraine. He and his family are engaging in unprecedented self-dealing and corruption. He is desecrating national monuments and illegally building himself a gilded ballroom on the rubble of the East Wing. They’ve continue to illegally cover up for Epstein and all the crimes associated with him.

Are we OK with all that? We gonna put up a fight about any of this in the coming months? So we are not OK with ICE acting lawlessly, but are we OK with all of this? And if not, what are we going to do about it?

There is a strong argument for how Democrats have handled the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process. Passing 11 bi-partisan approps bills is a powerful re-assertion of Congress’s Article I powers, powers that Trump has attempted to seize in the past year. It helps restore an important part of what Trump and Vought have broken. But in doing so we made a decision to pass on the opportunity to challenge Trump on all these other illegal, criminal, and unconstitutional acts. I think what our Leaders have tried to do was reasonable and defensible. But it will only be seen as reasonable and defensible if we use this process of trying to rein in DHS/ICE to mount a sustained, national, vigorous effort to make his illiberalism and contempt for democracy a defining issue in the 2026 election, while working tirelessly to rein in Trump and the regime itself.

I don’t know what such a campaign looks like. But here are a few elements of a broader campaign that we’ve discussed here at Hopium:

In an ideal world, what we would see next week is a public statement signed by all Dem Governors, AGs, Senate and House Democrats that states clearly that

• Rule of law must be re-established in America, ICE must be reined in, and Trump’s outrageous plunder and corruption must end

• That he must back off his illegal and destructive territorial ambitions, end all these ridiculous tariffs, and re-commit to the Trans-Atlantic Alliance

Stake in ground. Unified voice. Muscular defense of liberty, democracy, and the American creed. Yes, it is time now for something akin to our Letter to America, and for our leaders to make clear, before it is too late, that we are willing to come together and fight for America, freedom, and democracy; and for us to start listing, clearly, his modern day “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations.” That we elected an American President and not a dictator, and it is way past fucking time he start acting like one.

It’s why in 2026 our ambition must be to “come together” as the Europeans just did and

• organize ourselves into in a more powerful force for opposition. Our Congressional leaders, Governors, big city mayors - the free states and cities - must come together and force a unified front against Trump. Reining in ICE will be the first structural test of a new, more muscular opposition. Europe rallied behind Denmark. How can the free states and free cities, and Dems in Congress, rally for the people of Minnesota?

• start making common cause with the Europeans and other free nations to forge a “liberal internationale” to more intentionally, and forcefully, challenge the rising illiberal one. We saw early steps in this direction with Coons-led trip to Denmark and Davos, and Gavin Newsom’s turn as a pro-democracy American voice on the global stage in recent days.

And here is our working five part agenda. We need something like this to rally behind in the coming months:

1. Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia;

2. Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law, and the US must withdraw from Venezuela and cease other threats to violate the UN Charter and the sovereignty of other nations

3. Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse the cuts to the wealthy and corporations

4. Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the dangerous occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented regime corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress end the rancid cover up of the Epstein crimes.

5. Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; support and co-sponsor the Stand Up For Science/Rep. Haley Stevens effort to remove Robert Kennedy from HHS.

Our leaders now must raise their gaze; must understand the gravity of the moment, and meet it; it is a time for courage, to “abandon caution” as EU President Ursula van der Leyen encouraged in their victorious fight against Trump last week; and we must get beyond the Zombie idea that confronting Trump’s escalating authoritarianism is somehow dangerous for us with voters (something that I think has never been true, but it is certainly not true now).

For if we fight as I propose we will be responding to the two great lessons in the historic fight against authoritarianism:

• Appeasement never works, and only encourages escalation and a more rapid decline of democracy. Failure to challenge Trump forcefully on his escalating authoritarianism makes us complicit in its success.

• It keeps our opposition movement together, and prevents it from splintering. This second lesson from history is that what authoritarian movements try to do is splinter their opposition, which allows them to stay in power despite deep discontent. For if we do this as I propose our leaders will be seen as acting upon the central ambition of our No Kings grassroots and will keep our movement together for the important fights ahead. People in the broad grassroots movement here in the US call it a pro-democracy movement. Congressional Democratic leaders must in the coming days firmly plant themselves inside that movement, and not for a moment not let anyone believe that they are outside of it. We must in essence hang together or we will hang separately.

I want to say this very clearly - those who have been advocating soft forms of appeasement with Trump are 1) ignoring the lessons of history 2) making it more likely he is successful. If feels far more like sabotage than strategy.

If we do all this 2026 could be a good year not just for our electoral and political prospects, but for the country, for our democracy, and for rule of law too. In 2025 we learned how to beat Trump in elections. In 2026 we must build on that success and learn how to more effectively mitigate the damage he is doing to the US and the world.

For as our Founders told us the great American struggle is for “life,” “liberty,” and then “pursuit of happiness.”

Now….

Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paid subscribers can sign up for our discussion tonight at 7pm here, and the big job today is to call your Senators and Rep and demand no funding for DHS until it leaves Minnesota and significant reforms are passed. Let’s hit the phones people!

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3 Campaigns Where We’ve Hit Our Goals, But Are Still Active - We have three campaigns where we’ve hit our goals but that folks can still participate in - Ken Martin’s New DNC, Anderson Clayton and the North Carolina Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party of Minnesota (DFL).

We got the following note from Cynthia this week. She is one of the 3,000 Hopium subscribers in Minnesota:

I am a Minnesotan and cannot adequately express the depth of my gratitude to Simon for this conversation with Richard and organizing this fundraiser and to each person that donated. My heart is full and tears are running down my face. Thank you to everyone who has supported and spoke up for Minnesota in any way and pushed back against ICE and DHS anywhere.

This is the absolutely the most unsafe I’ve ever felt where I live. It far exceeds anything I’ve experienced, and I am white. It affects my decisions every time I go outside. I continue to call my reps and work with my friends and my partner to offer mutual aid, get training, and help others. My neighborhood has been quiet and we’re looking for more ways to help others in more affected areas. We are attending the Solidarity Mobilizations this coming Tues and next: https://www.mobilize.us/surj/event/885616/

I attended an excellent online event with Indivisible this week about the caucuses, plan to attend myself, and have gotten 2 more people to go already, with more on my call list.

I went to the annual art sled rally this weekend. It is one of my favorite events of the year! So much laughter, fun, and delight. Thankfully, there wasn’t ICE presence during the event that I’m aware of. Look for the Minnesota 2026 art sled rally on YouTube if you haven’t seen it yet!

Why We Must Invest Early, Now, And Not Wait - In three new essays (here, here, here) I discuss how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up, be loud, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land.

The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.

Keep working hard everyone, and I remain so incredibly proud to be in this righteous fight with all of you - Simon