The Hopium Agenda
This is a work-shopping project, an ever evolving effort to craft a go forward agenda for the pro-democracy movement and Democrats.
Offer comments, suggestions and improvements here, and feel free to bring this aspirational agenda into your own communities for discussion and debate.
The Core Hopium Agenda (8/19/25)
Create A Growing Economy That Works For All, Fight Trump’s Tax and Price Increases - Roll back the terrible tariffs, lift this onerous tax on working people, stop this illegal and unconstitutional abuse of power that is doing so much economic and geopolitical damage to America; fight his raising prices on food, health care and energy and just about everything else.
Rein In ICE, Protect Our Liberties - Put guardrails on ICE, no more masks or plainclothes agents, mandatory use of warrants and due process, no third country extraditions and a roll back on the additional and unnecessary funding provided in the reconciliation bill. No military in our streets.
Keep America Safe - Fully fund FEMA, NOAA, FAA, DHS Intel, our cyber defenses etc - keep Americans safe, do not let our guard down against threats foreign and domestic. The unnecessary and tragic death of dozens of young girls should inspire us to action.
Protect The Nation’s Health - fire Kennedy, restore our vaccine regime, stand up for science and our world leading universities, fully fund NIH and all ongoing medical research, rescind the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to properly fund Medicaid and our public health.
Stand With Ukraine and Europe, Not Russia - Implement the Russia sanctions, ensure the world understands that America stands with Ukraine and Europe not Putin and global autocracy.
Reform Washington, Roll Back Trump’s Corruption, Renew Our Democracy - more, soon.
The Core Agenda, Version 2 (8/19/25)
Fight For Democracy And Freedom - We will fight for democracy, for Ukraine, for Europe, for NATO, for our own national security and sovereignty, for maintaining American leadership of the global rules-based order that our party imagined and built after WWII. We will oppose Putin, the selling out of Ukraine and the West, of Trump’s tearing down of the American-led rules based “Four Freedoms” global order and his abandonment of the Constitutional order here in America.
End The Inflationary, Destructive And Illegal Tariffs - We will fight to end Trump’s terrible tariffs that are raising prices on every day Americans, slowing the US and global economies, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to all of us, harming our farmers and small businesses, angering our allies and dramatically undermining the American-led rules based global order. While doing harm these tariffs are also illegal and unconstitutional, the greatest abuse of power by an American President in our history. Together, we must roll them back.
Block The Creation Of An Unaccountable Political Police Force Loyal To Trump - We will fight to block the rancid and dangerous expansion of ICE and Trump’s illegal use of the military to forge for himself an unaccountable domestic political police force loyal to only to him and not the Constitution. Need to be all in on this one peeps.
Stand Up For Science, Higher Ed, Our Public Health - We will fight to stop the ongoing assault on science, higher education, and our public health. We will oppose the escalating attacks on our universities, the gutting of our global scientific leadership, the dangerous undermining of vaccines and preventative health, and the cutting of the ACA and Medicaid. These authoritarian attacks are making our country poorer, our companies less able to compete, are dramatically undermining the health of the American people and violate our cherished First Amendment rights.
If We Believe Statements
Also adding these we believe statements from recent Hopium posts:
If we believe their tariffs are raising prices and harming working Americans then we need to fight to roll them back.
If we believe that the tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy in the big, ugly bill threaten the fiscal integrity of the United States then we need to fight to repeal them.
If we believe that a supercharged ICE and military on our streets are a threat to our liberties then we need to fight to curtail its expansion and put clear guard rails on these dangerous activities.
If we believe that their attacks on our global scientific and academic leadership are doing irreparable harm to the country then we need to ensure that the funding for this research is restored and preserved, and our courageous scientists honored.
If we believe that the gutting of the most ambitious legislation to combat climate change in history will warm the planet faster and make the US less competitive in the tech battles of the future then we should fight to restore these far-sighted and vital provisions.
If we believe that Robert Kennedy and the cutting of the ACA and Medicaid is doing extraordinary harm to our public health then we need to fight to restore the funding and stop the sabotage.
If we believe that the cuts to our soft power and intelligence agencies threaten our security then we should fight to restore their funding and programmatic ambitions.
If we believe that Trump and his team are breaking laws then we should make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice and relevant state law enforcement agencies.
If we believe that Trump is a national emergency and a clear and present danger to our democracy then we must act with great urgency and fight 24/7/365.
Last updated 8/19/25