The MAGA Doom Loop, The Democrats' Opportunity, Donna Deegan, AI Is Here

The Monday Newsletter/Welcome New Subscribers!

It’s Monday! Here are things we are working on, thinking about:

The Country’s Ongoing Rejection of MAGA Remains A Big Opportunity for Democrats - The central dynamic in American politics today is a growing understanding and rejection of greater MAGA. MAGA has been with us for some time now, and it is getting worse, not better. And people see this. This new Navigator poll we discussed last week is worth looking at again for the numbers for Congressional Republican are just so terrible:

• 35-59 (-24) job approval, -48 with independent voters

• 37-52 (-15) on inflation, their central 2022 issue

• -17 on jobs and the economy with independent voters.

As I wrote about in my recent memo, “Not Obeying In Advance,” we are seeing more active public resistance to MAGA - in Tennessee, in Wisconsin, in Israel, at Disney. People are saying enough. They’ve gone too far. This needs to end. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has a good new piece diving into this growing resistance. Today Politico has a story about GOP losses in recent school board races in the Midwest. Republicans have entered a political doom loop - they have in fact become far too extreme; that extremism and lawlessness is on display every day across the US; Fox News needs their wildness to keep their viewers watching; and all of this is driving normie voters further and further away from them.

In 2022 when I looked at the data available to us what I saw was a close, competitive election. When I look at the data available to us today, what I see is a political environment where Democrats can make gains, expand our coalition, grab more political real estate, Get to 55. We got to 55 in Wisconsin; Donna Deegan is at 54 in Jacksonville, a city currently held by Republicans. We just won a whole lot of school board races in Wisconsin and Illinois. We need to stay on offense now, keep grabbing more territory, and launch a national youth voter registration drive. Learn more about Getting to 55 from my original memo and this short video. And please support Donna Deegan today - flipping Florida’s largest city from red to blue will be a huge blow to DeSantis, and a powerful sign of our continued national momentum.

Upcoming Events (follow this link for our full schedule of events)

• Mon, April 17th, 1pm ET - Live Discussion with Donna Deegan, Jacksonville Mayoral Candidate - Learn more/RSVP

• Thur, April 20th, 1pm EST - Simon’s Monthly Political Briefing - Learn More/RSVP

• Thurs, April 27th, 1pm EST - The Fight for Democracy in Israel (Save The Date)

• Fri, April 28th, 12 pm EST - Hopium Chronicles Paid Subscriber Political Briefing and Hang Out With Simon - Learn more, RSVP here.

America’s Red Wavy Economic Discourse - In the Economist cover story I sent you last week, the article begins with a struggle to understand why Americans are so down on the economy when in fact over the past generation it has done so well:

Yet the anxiety obscures a stunning success story—one of enduring but underappreciated outperformance. America remains the world’s richest, most productive and most innovative big economy. By an impressive number of measures, it is leaving its peers ever further in the dust.

A central theme of our work here is that the discourse around the American economy is red wavy - that America is far better off today than is understood, and almost all of that progress has happened due to Democratic economic policies and governance. Just consider some points about Biden’s economic performance from my recent look at another strong monthly jobs report:

• GDP growth over 3%, 3 times what it was under Trump

• 6 times as many Biden jobs as the last 3 GOP Presidents combined

• best COVID recovery in G7

• lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII

• lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever

• very elevated wage gains/new business starts

• 2 job openings per unemployed person, a record

• real earnings up in 2022

• the deficit went up every year under Trump and has come down every year under Biden

• domestic oil production on track to set records in 2023

• historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)

To get more grounded in this data do watch my newly released April With Democrats Things Get Better presentation, and review my recent take on the monthly jobs report. As folks know fighting this red-wavy economic frame of American “carnage” and decline is to me our highest narrative priority this year, the central thing we need to go on offense/get loud about.

Workshopping A New Agenda for Women and Families - A few weeks ago I asked our community to join me in workshopping what I’m calling (for now) “A New Agenda for Women and Families.” We’ve gotten a lot of great comments - thanks, everyone! Check out the original concept memo and weigh in if you haven’t yet. There is something here and I want to keep exploring it. This is an area where we need to go on offense now, not let the right continue to get there first and push us around. We can and must do better here.

AI Is Here, And We Need to Learn About It Together - I was fortunate to have been able to sit through a demonstration last week by Microsoft of their new AI technology, Chat GPT. In the coming months I want us talking about AI, learning how to use it to advance our goals and to also understand the threats it brings. It is not something we can ignore, and the change it is going to bring is going to happen very rapidly now.

Note that the image at the end of this post is from a Substack AI tool which is already integrated into Substack. It is not a real image, but an AI-generated one rendered from the prompt “people walking up the Lincoln Memorial steps.”

Hopium in the News

Simon and Joy Reid Talk GOP Extremism - MSNBC’s The ReidOut

Twitter Takes Aim At Posts Which Link To Its Rival Substack - New York Times

Democrats Are Gaming Out How To Run Against An Indicted Trump - NBC News

Trump Indictment Marks New Volatile Chapter In American Politics - Time

Why Chicago’s Mayoral Runoff Has America’s Attention - NPR

Why President Biden Won’t Comment on Trump’s Indictment Anytime Soon - Scripps News

‘New Democrat’ Who Called 2022 Right Targets MAGA - Washington Examiner

Why Hopium Chronicles? If you are new here be sure to read my welcome statement and Ron Brownstein’s interview with me in the Atlantic.  Together they do a good job of explaining why I’m shuttering NDN and setting up shop here. For those who like podcasts this interview I did with How We Win is also a very good introduction to what we are trying to do here.

Note there’s s a lot of material on the H/C site itself as I have brought some of my work over the past two decades along with me. Do explore. There is a lot of good stuff here.

Happy Monday All! Keep working hard - Simon

People walking up the Lincoln Memorial Steps - This is an AI generated image