Morning all. In yesterday’s post I wrote to you that we need to start thinking of and talking about Trump as a failure, a loser, a pathetic bullshit artist, a fool, a buffoon, a madman, a weak man - anything but a strong man.
Trump 2.0 is failing, and under Trump America IS NOT WINNING. Let’s review:
He’s Crashing The US Economy - Trump took one of the strongest American economies in history and crashed it in a few weeks. The economy is slowing, our stock markets are have lost tens of trillions in value, the Fed is not lowering interest rates, he is vaporizing our scientific/research ecosystem central to our prosperity, his tariffs have caused higher prices here at home and angered our trading partners and allies throughout the world. Consumer confidence is at the lowest point in 45 years, his standing in the polls is falling fast and voters have come to believe, rightly, that Trump = tariffs = higher prices = more struggle for their families. We appear to be in the midst of the one of the greatest economic policy failures in American history. America IS NOT WINNING UNDER TRUMP.
Trump’s “Peace Plans” In The Mideast and Ukraine Have Completely Unraveled, And Putin Is Now Repeatedly, Publicly, Humiliating Trump And America Itself - Here’s a graphic from a new Financial Times article (paywall, sorry):
We are going to go into more detail about this in the coming days but I am now declaring Trump’s Ukraine strategy to be the single greatest foreign policy failure in our history, a geopolitical catastrophe for America and the free world. In recent weeks Trump has torched our alliances and for all intents and purposes left NATO, acts that leave America far more exposed and vulnerable to a hostile attack than we’ve been in generations; he’s made extraordinary concessions to Putin only to have Putin show up an hour late for their call yesterday and then to basically throw Trump into the corner like a ragdoll. Due to Trump’s idiocy and/or fealty to Putin, America has gotten nothing in return for all these unilateral concessions we are making to Russia including the incredibly unconstitutional and illegal elimination of our global pro-democracy communications channels and the ending of USAID. As a result Putin is far stronger today, Trump/America/The West is far weaker and a global war on the European continent far more likely. To repeat - Trump’s Ukraine strategy has been a world-altering catastrophe for the United States of America. America IS NOT WINNING under Trump.
Trump’s Attempt To Destroy The US Government And End Rule of Law In America Is Running Into Extraordinary Opposition - It is too early to declare this part of Trump 2.0 a failure but let’s review all the Trumpian not winning in recent weeks - persistent, daily losses in courts of all kinds even with Republican judges; a loss in the Supreme Court and a new rebuke from John Roberts; the forced reinstatement of tens of thousands of government workers illegally fired; the forced re-opening of USAID, an agency that was illegally and unconstitutionally shuttered; growing loud public opposition in states and districts across the country to the carnage this wild assault on the US government has brought to communities in all 50 states; growing, organized opposition in the scientific and higher ed/research communities; and in general a growing awareness of the “you have to be fucking kidding me” nature of what Trump and Musk are doing to the country.
Watch these focus group excerpts with younger Trump voters that ran on Maddow Monday night (via Christopher Webb). Huge, profound buyer’s remorse, even shock at what Trump is doing now, and how different it is from what the con man and serial criminal promised everyone:
Let’s review those polling swings we’ve seen in the critical groups that swung to Trump from Economist/YouGov from Trump’s first week to last week:
Trump Job Approval
Overall - 49%-43% to 47%-47% (6 pt swing against Trump)
Hispanics - 42%-47% to 34%-56% (17 pt swing against Trump)
18-29 year olds - 48%-43% to 43%-45% (7 pt swing against Trump)
Independents - 41%-45% to 41%-46% (1 pt swing against Trump)
Trump Job Approval For Jobs and The Economy
Overall - 49%-37% to 43%-47% (16 pt swing against Trump)
Hispanics - 41%-36% to 32%-58% (31 pt swing against Trump)
18-29 year olds - 51%-33% to 40%-45% - (23 pt swing against Trump)
Independents - 43%-35% to 38%-49% - (17 pt swing against Trump)
The public has also really turned on Musk. He has become a villain to a majority of the country and to the people of he world. His brand has become completely, and irrevocably, torched. Tesla declined by 6% on Monday, 5% yesterday and has now gone from 478 to 225 in the last three months, a decline of 53%. All sorts of not winning here with Musk.
Here’s how a new poll by the insidery site Puck and a leading Republican pollster got played on social media yesterday:
While we don’t know what the future will hold, the media narrative around early Trump is changing, becoming more negative, as it should. He is already, without question, the worst leader America has ever had. His government has failed America economically, geopolitically and he has betrayed/failed our Constitutional order as no other leader has in all of our history. He is, already, a failed leader. We are a far weaker nation today due to Trump, far weaker than we’ve been in many, many generations. And all of this was done by Trump on purpose, by design. It is what he wanted, what he fought for. There is no scenario where his economic plans make us more prosperous, or his foreign policy makes us safer. He has no one else to blame, no scapegoat he can conjure up. Trump is, without question, the greatest fuck-up in American history, a world altering buffoon and idiot, already a colossal failure. In just two months it has become clear that under his madman leadership he and America ARE NOT WINNING. We are losing, badly, and it is why we must fight. For in his madness he is breaking things that will be very hard if not impossible to repair. We need to keep fighting, organizing, info warring, protesting and just working our asses off for our freedoms, our families and our future.
Enjoy My Interview With Jane Kleeb - Speaking of fighting, yesterday afternoon I sat down with our good friend Jane Kleeb. A recording of our discussion is above.
Jane is the highly accomplished Chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and newly-elected President of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC, the Democratic state parties). Supporting Jane and the Nebraska Dems was one of our big 2024 projects here at Hopium. As the head of the ASDC Jane is also a Vice Chair of the DNC, and part of the Ken Martin’s new leadership team at the DNC. Jane hosted one of the “People’s Town Halls” on Saturday with Governor Walz, and I asked her to come by and talk about her town hall, the town hall project and what she and others in the new DNC leadership team planning for now. We cover a lot of ground in this fun and spirited discussion so grab a chair and enjoy one of our very best party leaders offering her thoughts on where we are and the path forward.
To learn more about the People’s Town Halls and hopefully sign up to attend one visit here. Here are some photos Jane shared on her Bluesky account from the Town Hall with Governor Walz:
Things We Can Do This Week - While we have made many recommendations to Democrats in recent months for how to raise our game and fight harder and smarter, let’s focus on our current four recommended sets of actions for how we can best channel our love of country and our frustrations into concrete action today:
1 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this two weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.
2 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.
3 - Organize Against The 17 Most Vulnerable Republican House Members - For those of you who live in AZ, CA, CO, IA, MI, NE, NJ, NY, PA, VA, WI please start talking to your local orgs - state and local Democratic parties, grassroots groups, traditional Dem allies - about mounting a campaign targeting the most vulnerable 17 Republican House Members to urge them to vote against whatever joint House-Senate reconciliation bill emerges in the coming weeks. We launched this new effort a few weeks ago and while we should be urging all our Senators and Reps to vote against these emerging plans, those of you can work these 17 House Rs have a special role to play in this next phase of the battle over the budget. As we’ve discussed there is a lot of concern in the Republican House about the size of the Medicaid cuts required in the House outline passed last month and we need to keep working it people! (will be updating this in coming days now that the DNC, the House Dems and the state parties have become active in all these districts - as we hoped!!!!! Sign up to attend a new “People’s Town Hall” today)
4 - Keep Calling Attorneys General In The States - Ask them to protect you and your data, tax returns and privacy, and to keep federally mandated monies flowing to your states and communities. For those in the 19 states that brought the successful Treasury suit thank them and encourage them to keep going. I still believe these 19 states should make criminal referrals of Musk/his posse to DOJ/FBI and raise the stakes.
Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.
Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind in addition to our new House Hopium 7:
Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.
Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben. Thanks to a huge surge of support in recent days we have already raised $161,000 from over 2,000 of you, blowing past our original $50,000 goal and now our stretch goals of $100,000, $125,000 and $150,000. We are now upping this to a new superduper-stretch goal of $175,000 by March 31st. Amazing work everyone!
Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. You can give to all 7 through a single donation to our new ActBlue page and learn more about this important effort here. We’ve already raised almost $20,000 towards our $50,000 March 31st goal - thank you all!
Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government. We’ve raised more than $65,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!
Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year. We’ve raised $25,000 so far - thank you all!
Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,400 of you have donated over $101,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start!
Help Hopium Celebrate Our 2nd Anniversary - In a post from last weekend I reflected back on our work together over these past two years, and made two asks:
1) Commit to bring in one new Hopium subscriber at the your current subscriber level this month. Help us grow this community, and bring our plucky, upbeat, hardworking spirit to more people across the US.
2) Upgrade your subscription to paid or paid to Founding (10% off annual paid subscriptions through March). The resources you provide allows me to work full time at Hopium and keeps our community vibrant, growing and making all sorts of good trouble every day. Gift and group subscriptions are also a great way to grow our community!
Paid subscribers can get the registration info for our event tonight on our new Events page. Looking forward to seeing folks tonight!
Keep working hard all. Our work is making a difference, and we need to keep fighting for our freedoms, our families and our future - Simon
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