Morning all. Last night the proud, plucky patriots of the Hopium community gathered for our usual Wednesday night chat. It was a well attended and lively affair. A recording is above and a transcript can be found here. Here is what we talked about………
First, today is the last day you can give to Eileen Higgins in her spirited quest to become Mayor of Miami next Tuesday. Watch our interview, get to know her, and please consider donating today. We’ve raised $22,000 towards our $25,000 goal - thank you all! Let’s close out 2025 on a winning note by retaking this critical seat in the heart of Trump-DeSantis country.
Next, I talked about how Dems should be approaching this next year from a place of confidence, strength, and ambition. We have repeatedly fought Trump this year and repeatedly won. It is the big lesson of this year. When we take on this weakened, failing, sundowning, unpopular, corrupt man we win. So we must keep doing more of it, across many fronts, and keep weakening this rotten and tottering regime.
Our success against MAGA and Trumpism in 2025 echos the success we had in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and in many down ballot races in 2024. While Trump did beat us in 2024, we have been beating and overperforming against this extremist politics in election after election all across the country. The country has repeatedly - repeatedly - rejected MAGA. Trump’s margin in Congress are among the smallest in history. He only won the popular vote by 1.5 points, and Democrats have won more votes in national elections 7 of the past 9 elections. We are, as I’ve been saying all year, stronger than we understand, and they are weaker.
The various ways we measure party strength and performance, including our blowout November elections, suggest the national landscape has tilted towards us by between 7 and 13 points since November of 2024. If the election were held today the House would likely flip; the Senate would be in play; and we could win a majority of the governorships in the country. If we work hard 2026 can be a year of opportunity for us, and a deservedly terrible year for them.
Trump is failing, deeply unpopular, getting routed in elections, epically corrupt, surrounded by idiots, and dangerously sundowning/ailing/batshit crazy - and everyone in DC now knows it. Their thing is crashing, cracking, unraveling. Prominent Republicans have become opposition leaders and are attacking the regime. Congress just delivered one of the most significant legislative rebukes of a President in our history, and it was over our felon-in-chief’s disgraceful covering up the crimes of a notorious sex trafficker, a man often described as Trump’s “best friend.”
Ambitious Republicans all across the country are waking up to the disaster Trump has caused, and how hard it will be for them to win in 2026. And they are pissed. They feel betrayed. And they are beginning to act out.
From the NYT this morning, Republican Anger Erupts At Johnson As Party Frets About Its Future (gift link):
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York called Speaker Mike Johnson a habitual liar.
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has gone around Mr. Johnson in a bid to force a vote he has declined to schedule on a bill to ban members of Congress from stock trading.
Less than a year out from midterm elections in which Republicans’ vanishingly small majority is at stake, Mr. Johnson’s grasp on his gavel appears weaker than ever, as members from all corners of his conference openly complain about his leadership. Some predict that he may not last as the speaker for the rest of this term.
Republican women, in particular, have been publicly challenging Mr. Johnson and taking issue with his priorities and his style.
As bad as things are now for Republicans and Trump, they are likely to get worse. The economy is slowing, inflation is rising, our health care system is starting to buckle, food assistance has been cut, utility costs are soaring, ICE is terrorizing our cities - and in January, every legislative body at every level of government, from city council to the US Congress, will be have to start debating, legislating, and governing against all these Trump inflicted harms. They have no way, at this point, to change the trajectory of all this. They have done extraordinary harm to the country and 2026 is likely to be a year of reckoning for what they’ve done - and it is going to be very, very ugly for them.
With our enthusiastic help, of course.
As we move forward it’s clear our narrative and story must have at least three elements - affordability/tariffs/inflation, health care, and threats to democracy/corruption/trampling of our rights and freedoms. I have been using the frame of “they are for the oligarchs, and we are for the people.” Very open to others. But as we discussed last night it is time now for our leaders in DC to lean much harder into the third leg of this message stool - threats to our democracy/corruption/trampling of our rights and freedoms - and of Trump’s extraordinary and profoundly dangerous betrayal of Ukraine, our European allies and the Western alliance.
Our party is entering an exciting - and daunting - period of transition, re-imagination, experimentation. The era of the Clinton, Biden, Obama, Pelosi, Sanders is yielding to a new era. My counsel is for Hopium community members to see themselves as enablers of this transition, cheerleaders for it. Recognizing along the way that we don’t yet know the right path or where we will end up. We need to try new things, get out of our comfort zone, be humble, and open to experiments, ideas, tactics, leaders we might not initially embrace. We are in totally new terrain now as a party and it would be a mistake to apply old understandings to this new day and expect them to be successful.
For above all what we need is not progressive or centrist, young or old, outsider or insider candidates - we need good and modern candidates, who fit their state/district/city, and can win. For today, at this moment, our goal must be to mitigate the damage he is doing, advance our agenda, and win back power. Winning back power from MAGA, and staying together, not splintering or falling into factions, is paramount now. We are beating them, as we did in all these other elections. Trumpism is failing and in retreat. We cannot lose sight of this as we head into what should be a year of opportunity for us in 2026. Those who want to bring the fight inside the family, not against Trumpism, are false and reckless prophets, who are either wittingly, or unwittingly, doing MAGA’s work for them. For the way authoritarians stay in power for decades is when the opposition splinters and turns on itself.
So we can debate, argue, disagree, cajole, encourage, lobby with one another in the battles ahead but we cannot fight. Fighting is what we do with them, and for the American people. It is not what we do with others in the pro-democracy movement. For we will hang together or hang separately. And I would prefer to hang together with our beautiful and diverse rainbow of a movement and win back power next year.
That’s some of what we talked about last night. Watch our discussion. Share it with others. Hit like so the Substack algorithm will bring all of this to more people. And now…..
Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Closing 2025 Strong
Eileen Higgins For Mayor Of Miami (Dec 9 run off) - $22,200 raised, $25,000 goal | Donate | Learn More and Volunteer | Enjoy my our conversation with Eileen Higgins
Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $57k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $101k raised, $250,000 goal, - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff
Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $30,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10)
Hopium House 7 - Our Top House Incumbents Running For Re-election (2026) - $249k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents | Keeping these newly elected Members in Congress is the first step in winning the House in 2026
Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $217,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!
In a new essay I talk about 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 now, be loud now, 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.
Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Making Hopium Stronger - We have three recommended actions today:
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:
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; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his current efforts to force Ukraine to surrender
Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law
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; 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 unlawful occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress, end the rancid cover up, and release all of the Epstein files
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
2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - Next year, on July 4th, America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his.
One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year.
3 - Make Hopium Stronger - There are several ways you can help make our community stronger:
Take advantage of the 10% discount through 12/31, become a paid Hopium subscriber for the all important 2026 election year
Invite your friends, bring in new subscribers, earn rewards
Buy holiday gift or group subscriptions for colleagues, friends, and family
Hit “like” on our posts and videos. This will encourage the algorithm to push our work to more people on the Substack app
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!
Keep working hard all. I am proud, oh so proud, to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
