Morning all. The political landscape in America is changing. After months of Trump and the Republicans being on offense and driving the daily discourse the Republican thing has started looking weak and wobbly, and Democrats are starting to look like the opposition party the country has needed them to become.
Here was Politico yesterday:
Marjorie Taylor Greene has continued to publicly rail against Trump and her Congressional leadership. Here’s a story from NBC News that is worth reading in its entirety:
Here is what a top Fox News reporter posted yesterday:
Meanwhile there are no budget negotiations happening. The Republicans don’t even have a process to create a budget - one that was supposed to be in place on September 30th - let alone a budget for Democrats to negotiate over. Since Mike Johnson lost that first vote on releasing the Epstein files back in late July the House has only been in session for two weeks and no work has been done on creating a final budget - again one that was required by law to be in place on September 30th. Sensing how they’ve lost control over the process and are losing the big arguments the White House has lost it’s shit, childishly threatening or announcing desperate and often lawless actions actions - insurrection act! Refuse back pay for government workers! Prosecute Comey! Punish blue states! Start paying bills by stealing tariff revenue! - that are making it far harder to ever get to a deal with Democrats (or even perhaps Republicans). The entire budget process, one proscribed by our Constitution, has completely broken down…….
A new poll by the Senate Dem SuperPAC, the Senate Majority PAC, confirms what all the public polling has told us - Democrats are winning the big arguments about the budget, shutdown and health care right now. Here are the 5 big takeaways from the poll:
Voters continue to blame Trump and Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown
The healthcare issues that Democrats are championing in the shutdown fight are powerful with voters and cut across party lines. The longer and more aggressively that Democrats are litigating these issues in a shutdown fight, the bigger the price Republicans will pay for being on the wrong side of them
While voters are concerned about a lengthy shutdown, addressing these healthcare priorities is even more important to them. Fighting for affordable healthcare is the high ground in this debate, even against Republican attacks about prolonging the shutdown.
In dealing with looming premium increases, voters want ac,on now from Congress rather than a vague promise of talks later on.
There is strong disapproval among voters for Trump’s pressure tactics, and Democrats can gain an advantage by calling Trump out and standing up to him. The most important message is that Trump is engaging these ugly retaliation tactics because he refuses to engage in serious negotiations with Democrats on a bipartisan compromise to end the shutdown.
This fight is also starting to turn Democrats into the fighting opposition we’ve all wanted them to become. You’ve heard it in our interviews this week with Governor Newsom, Senator Booker, Reps. Smith and Swalwell and State Rep. James Talarico. You can see it in the new video released by Senator Schumer last night, above. I can hear it in my private conversations with Senators, Members and staff on the Hill. We are winning this fight. The Republicans are in incredible disarray, and even starting to see prominent leaders break ranks. They are clearly terrified by the Trump-Epstein files. The outrageous extremism and buffoonery of Hegseth, Vought, Kennedy, Miller and Bondi is becoming harder to ignore.
We have talked here for months that part of our job was to shout that the Emperor had no clothes, to keep pulling back the curtain from the Wizard, to keep working tirelessly to have their malevolence, idiocy and sabotage become more widely understood. And we’ve also discussed how in politics you never know when the tide will turn, or the dam will break. You just keep pushing, pushing and then things begin to shift. And I think that is happening now - despite their information superiority, despite a captive legacy media, despite our own struggles to find higher gears - the ground is shifting, and it is becoming harder and harder to pretend this Trump thing isn’t an unbelievable shitshow.
The WaPo had Spanberger up 55-43 last week. Trump went to Virginia this week and didn’t even campaign with their statewide candidates there. Sherrill was up 8 in a Fox News poll late last week and the national Republican Party is not spending in New Jersey - a sign that they do not believe he can win. Punchbowl has a story this morning about Republicans TURNING OFF THEIR ADS in California, as that too appears to be a lost cause. The Economist/YouGov track this week had Trump losing 3 points and Dems opening up a 5 point lead in the generic ballot. A new Reuters-Ipsos poll out this morning also has Trump losing ground in recent days, and broad opposition to his use of the military for domestic purposes. Civiqs also shows Trump losing ground.
I think all of this is happening for what Trump has done this year - the tariffs, the big ugly bill, the ongoing assault on our rights and liberties, the use of the military on our streets for an invented war, the attack on our federal government, the savaging of our global reputation, the getting played again and again by Putin and the abandonment of our allies, the covering up for pedophiles, the outrageous corruption - has done enormous damage to the country and to the American people. We are a far weaker nation today, and a reckoning - necessary, vital, overdue - has begun. Trump has been a terrible, terrible leader, the worst in our history with no near peer. He is also in clear physical and cognitive decline, and talks daily like a madman, someone who should no longer be allowed to do important things. And the country is really unhappy about it all. Some measures of consumer sentiment are the lowest we’ve seen in 50 years. His approval rating is now frequently clocking in at levels below where Biden was after the debate and when he dropped out the Presidential race last year. As I wrote yesterday, Trump’s approval on almost every one of the issues that matter these days is in the 20s and 30s, not the 40s and 50s - a sign of his ebbing powers, and struggle to rally the country behind his rancid agenda.
Simply, Trump has failed. He is a failed leader. He is an old and crazy man who has just blown it. And we are all now waking up to the ugly reality of what he’s done, and the hard work ahead to keep mitigating the damage and repair what can be repaired.
That is what the Democrats are doing now. We are working to responsibly mitigate the damage already done to our health care system. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to join us in this effort. Perhaps other Republicans will now too.
Which is why I think the Republicans are in far greater trouble right now than is understood. Do we really believe they are going to pass a final budget this year that codifies all the terrible things they’ve done? The onerous tariffs, the dramatic expansion of ICE and the authoritarian use of the military on our streets, the gutting of the clean energy subsidies, the dismantling of our world leading bio-medical research ecosystem, the assault on our health care system, the selling out to Russia and China, the exploding of our deficit and weakening of the US financial system? Do we really believe that they can now, with a weakened, ailing, and unpopular leader and the country turning against them, get their incredibly narrow majorities to pass what will be without question the most destructive and unpopular budget in modern American history?
The big ugly bill was wildly unpopular. Trump is wildly unpopular. The tariffs are wildly unpopular. The masked men and military on the streets are wildly unpopular. The gutting of our health care system and unraveling of our vaccine regime is wildly unpopular. And they are going to put all of this - all of it - into a single year end budget bill and keep everyone in line, when they are breaking now on Epstein and the ACA subsidies? Maybe, but just hard to see how that happens.
Which is why there is no budget process right now. For I think Republicans are aware that where all of this is going is a very ugly place for them, one that almost certainly means conceding and retreating on essential parts of their current agenda, something Dear Leader will never accept; or somehow passing a horrible budget that will doom them in the midterms next year (and perhaps beyond). Mike Johnson has kept the House out for months now. Trump and Miller and Vought are throwing ketchup bottles all over the White House. Thune is keeping the Senate open, but what we keep getting there are hearings with Trump’s terrible Cabinet that are throwing all this failure and extremism in their faces, making it clearer that some kind of course correction is required now. For the country is waking up to the awful reality that this Trump thing is an outrageous, traitorous and dangerous shitshow, an historic betrayal, and we need to keep fighting with everything we got now to defeat them in every way we need to defeat them in the days ahead……
Now, Let’s Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to thank everyone who has given in recent days. We saw a big uptick in giving before the critical q3 filing deadline. Note that we’ve hit $200,000 raised now for our 7 House incumbents and Abigail Spanberger, and $100,000 for Mikie Sherrill. Thank you all!
Winning The Fall - Support Our November, 2025 Candidates and Yes On 50
Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov (2025) - $250,000 goal, $104k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my new interview with Rep. Sherrill | Read my new post about Sherrill’s sturdy polling lead | Sherrill leads by 8 in new Fox poll
Abigail Spanberger VA Gov (2025) - $250,000 goal, $208k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my interview with Abigail Spanberger
Yes on 50 (CA) - $50,000 goal - Donate | Learn more, volunteer | Sign Up For CA Dem Party Daily Phonebanks | Watch my new interview with Gov. Gavin Newsom
Hopium members in CA/NJ/PA/VA - please vote on Day 1, or as early as you can, either by mail or in-person. When you vote early your names comes off the campaign GOTV rolls allowing them to move on to lower propensity voters, which increases D turnout and makes it more likely we win. Voting early = another way to help us win.
Please vote early and encourage everyone you know to join you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $42,000 raised- Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my interview with Gov. Cooper
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $81k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my inspiring new interview with Senator Ossoff
Hopium House 7 (2026) - $250,000 goal, $214k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents
Expanding The Map - Support Our Audacious Expansion Fund (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $250,000 goal, $50,000 raised - Join our new campaign to invest in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate To All Five State Parties | Watch my interviews with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder
Our updated fundraising goals are now for the end of the year, December 31st, except for the 2025 races, which are now for Election Day, 2025.
Defending America, Winning The Big Argument With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our our emerging four part agenda. Demand that your Senators and House Member work to keep the government open and
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
Defend our democracy, rule of law and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE, restore due process to our immigration system, defend the 1st Amendment, and end the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy
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 and China
2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston, and offer advice on how to get a resolution passed in your own community.
Remarkably, members of this community have passed or are advancing 85 (!!!!) resolution projects in 23 states + DC. Can we get to all 50 states by the fall election?
Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Been impressive to see how many of you remain involved in local, in person protests of all kinds in your communities. Great to see!
Keep working hard all. We have a country to save and a future to reclaim for our kids and grandkids, together - Simon
