Our Mad King has the highest disapproval of any President at this point in their Presidency, and concerns about his reckless economic policies are rising
Jane, I am taking this post down for it was written in anger and took a shot at me, unnecessarily. Feel free to come at it from a more constructive place and I will be happy to respond. Here, at Hopium, we do not engage one another in anger. It is disrespectful to the community and self-indulgent. Thank you.
And if you think there are things we all should be doing other than what we are doing now feel free to propose them. Be constructive. Do not dump your frustration and anger here without solutions, go forwards, things to do.
So he gets to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip and own it for one of his "beautiful " (read tacky, gaudy, and ugly) real estate development. Mad king indeed.
isn't gaza a country? dont the people of gaza have titles and deeds to their properties? he will withhold aid from egypt and jordan because he extorts. if egypt and/or jordan took in 2M gazans, it would bring hamas into their countries and ruin them. this is the jared kushner beachfront condo/hotels which he mentioned years ago. probably will use the saudi $2B to rebuild with, quietly. where is the united nations? he appears to be nuts when he speaks of this. he is president, not a RE developer. this could bring about another 9/11 for sure. just insane.
It’s amazing what brilliant ideas real estate developers can come up with – if they can ignore that the property in question belongs to somebody else, and that someone is already living there.
EDIT: That said, George Carlin had the solution to America’s homeless crisis:
I’d add this: Farmland operated by taxpayer-subsidized agribusiness growing monocultures of corn, when used to produce ethanol, which is added to degrade the gasoline we buy at the pump.
That's arguably worse. It's hard to fight that lobby. Something needs to replace it. Maybe land management for climate change mitigation, or wind farms, or solar panels. Or something.
Thanks for the George Carlin clip - it got me laughing. I really enjoyed having a good laugh today. This would be a great clip to distribute widely to the people who talk about 'elitists'.
Simon, I wanted to share a website I have recently put together to help offset the chaos. At the beginning of the year, I started Daily Haiku for You: https://www.dailyhaikuforyou.com
I add a daily haiku that offers hope and light in the midst of all this darkness and uncertainty. I'd love to share it with you who does SO much everyday for all of us with Hopium Chronicles. Please feel free to share it as well.
I have called my rep and my senators again this morning. One caveat with my rep. I asked (firmly, but politely) that my rep hold a town hall and answer questions from constituents when the House is on recess next week. I encourage everyone who is calling their Reps/Sens to do the same. We had over 1000 on a Zoom call last week with Sen Klobuchar and Sen Smith that was organized by Indivisible Twin Cities.
Ask your Reps to do the same and when they have a town hall meeting, you can stand up and ask them to demand action like Simon lays out. You can also ask them to not vote for any budget or government funding until the lawlessness and unconstitutional actions stop. Democrats control nothing and it's up to Republicans to fund the government and increase the debt ceiling. Tell your reps to only vote if Republicans get some backbone and stop the criming.
It was very good. They both had their Chiefs of Staff on the calls with them. The acknowleged what we were all telling them (we had Indivisible Twin Cities doing the talking and everyone else was in the chat) and they listened. They know that we are watching and encouraging them to do the right thing, which is what the whole point of the Zoom was.
Joaquin Castro, a representative from Texas, is holding a town hall tomorrow night! He says he's been getting calls from constituents who are deeply concerned about what's happening.
I forget the best part. When speaking with Sen. Smith's office, they again thanked me for calling, they told me that they are getting many calls on all of this and that the calls matter. They further encouraged me to keep calling. These actions are making a difference. Keep at it all.
I did hear about it, but I don't know any of the details. But Raskin is a thoughtful guy, so I am confident that whatever he does will have a solid plan behind it.
Tim, I copy/pasted your reply to friend in Klobuchar’s district. Faster than me trying to compose. Told them your message was in reply to Simon Rosenberg/Holpium post.
They hadn’t been in loop or heard about the zoom w/smith/klobuchar. So glad you posted!
I didn’t know their district; figured it’s good advice to everyone.
Here are some ideas from a couple of wise ones about how it could play out.. Since DOj will not do it, it will be on our backs. Get emotionally prepared but we still have to see it play out.
Robert Hubbell addresses that concern in his daily Newsletter on Substack
Michael, thanks for sharing this. Somehow I missed that interview with Norm Eisen. And I’ve been asking this question of everyone I can think of. Norm’s explanation is highly reassuring!
As part of a project here in Alabama, I just made 11 calls to all of the offices of Senators Britt and Tuberville, and Congressman Aderholt. I was strongly opposing the apparent shut-down of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I reached only one human being in all of those calls (DC for Aderholt). For the rest I left voicemails, except for one local Tuberville office where the mailbox was full. As part of my message, I said that it would be funny if it weren't horrifying that the tRump administration is trying to root out fraud and abuse by shutting down the agency designed to protect regular people from fraud and abuse.
Just spent the last 10 days in Alabama on vacation. $10/hour working at McDonalds in Greenville. There is no reason with tourism and such in Alabama that it is this poor... except of course.... unreal
Would love to believe the mad king is in such a vulnerable position. How do we all reconcile this information with 538’s recent approval ratings: 49.4% of Americans approve of him while 44.3% disapprove? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
Karen, that is not the data in this post. More than half of 538's average is made up of right wing red wave pollsters who have been cranking out lots and lots of polling these last few weeks. The polls I show above are independent polls, not right wing polls. And, even that 44% disapprove is the highest ever recorded at this point in polling history. This is a point 538 continues to make. Finally, things are clearly moving against him. Some of the movement is dramatic - the consumer confidence data, the M/C and YouGov movement is significant not incident. He is eroding. Finally, the whole point of my work in this space is about penetrating the fiction of his strength. It's an illusion. You can choose to believe the illusion. i choose not to.
Thank you for the clarification Simon. I wasn’t aware that the 538 polls continue to be heavily right-wing propaganda, but I realize I had no reason to believe otherwise. Duh! Continuing the phone calls, energizing the troops in Hudson NY and giving to Ken M, and Crawford. Doing 100 postcards for Swing Left postcards for Crawford this week.
Well, think of it this way. How much of the broader public is "tuned" in about these first 3 weeks? Those numbers may go up as time goes on. We shall see.
Last night I went to a live podcast recording with Roben Farzad interviewing Abigail Spanberger (Full Disclosure with Roben Farzad) at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. I encourage everyone to listen to this podcast as soon as it is published. As usual, she was brilliant, insightful, and sincere. Some of her talking points that I think we should be repeating: "Since when did it become okay to pick on children?" (in conversation about trans children). "Virginia has more federal employees than any other state." (and VA will be hit hard throughout all parts of our economy if there is job insecurity for federal workers) "Republicans are anti-trans, anti-woke, anti-immigration... what are they FOR??" She stated very clearly what she is for!
And he looks tired, small and weak. Only re-naming things and saving plastic straws seem to animate him. He is thoroughly under the thumb of Musk. Pretty soon we'll start seeing the rats deserting the sinking Trumptanic, while he snoozes behind the Resolute Desk. Keep up the pressure! No one in this administration can handle it. Trump is only a weak spokesman - they'll be lost when they can't wheel him out in front of the world.
Don't forget his revenge removal of the Kennedy Center Board. This is payback from Trump to Caroline. And his "favor" to Eric Adams was requested in court as "without prejudice" meaning they can hold prosecution over his head if he doesn't comply with Trump. I agree, he looks terrible. But he has many scoundrels working for him.
The power vacuum that will be left behind in 2028 is going to make the night of the long knives look like child's play. We think the GOP has factions now, just wait.
About the NIH funding cut: people might read that it is a cut on overhead costs, which might sound like it is just a reduction in administrative fat. But the expenses that can't be attributed directly to costs like researcher salaries are still critical for universities and other research institutions (like one at Berkeley i used to head). Overhead includes rent, utilities, IT costs, etc., and limiting this number to 15% of the direct costs, as proposed, would make it impossible for all but the wealthiest places to do research. It would be a death knell for America's leadership in medical breakthroughs, and they plan to do similar things to other agencies that fund other kinds of research.
PA friends: Please keep the pressure on AG Sunday. His team’s response to me was beyond inane, claiming some form of powerlessness. And Gov Shapiro’s response was infuriating. A note clearly designed to make sure Republican voters trust him and believe in his commitment to working with Trump as much as possible. They need to feel our outrage. Oh and McCormick’s note back was all about the great disrupters. I gave him a piece of my mind too. Don’t get me started on Fetterman. We need a full court press in PA.
The University of New Mexico has developed Rapid Response Teams to address these broad issues raised by ongoing federal executive actions: employment for students, faculty and staff; immigration and undocumented individuals; inclusive excellence; and research and federal funding. https://president.unm.edu/2025-federal-executive-actions/index.html
Thanks, Simon! You give us hope! Never-ending support and encouragement are priceless. This is such a bad dream and I keep believing we will wake up some day to our wonderful democracy being saved by people like you.
Senator Van Hollen and Rep. Raskin having town halls this week. Their staff were very empathetic to my calls this week. Would truly like to see the Dems start laying out a strategy for what to do if/when Trump defies court orders/judgements.
We will write to and call Durbin and Duckworth here in Illinois asking about the plan. Our state has been involved in all of the multi-state lawsuits against trump/musk. It's time for Durbin and Duckworth to speak up strongly as well.
Listened in on my IL rep Brad Schneider's telephone town hall. Loved the format- it was very professional and organized, allowing for a variety of questions and not scripted in any way. Schneider opened by acknowledging that he's received more messages and has done more interview and tv appearances than ever before, which is great to hear. That means he's feeling the pressure, even as a democratic rep. He also emphasized the reality of how republicans control 3 branches and that we have to work within those limits for now. By far the Elon Musk security concerns issue is the biggest one Schneider has been hearing about, followed by program cuts and tariffs. ICE/immigration didn't seem to be among the top issue- only one caller (who spoke Spanish and it was translated) expressed concerns about deportation (Schneider referred to a grandfather and worker who has been in the US 30 years and because he had one DUI from 20 years ago they targeted him for deportation).
I was very impressed with the level of questions that callers were asking- they presented facts and not in a scripted way. This also worked to avoid the hostile interruptions that MAGA types often use in live town halls. There was one right-wing caller who was all over the place compared to the other more focused callers in first dismissing the Musk issue offhand and then focusing on fentanyl, immigration (saying if you are undocumented you are a criminal by default), government waste (saying they've already been finding it, which is not true), and the grievance talking point about FEMA ignoring NC hurricane victims while giving money to USAID. Schneider handled that call well by stating information about USAID and how the government works with drug treatment programs. The other callers asked questions about: why the democrats weren't pushing back more forcefully (explained how as soon as one news issue is handled another one pops up/flood the zone), what happens if trump defies the court orders (didn't really have an answer there other than to refer to the strength of the courts and system), protecting the transgender community, preservation of social safety net, NIH/NSF funding concerns, IDEA and DEI survivability for educators, and why the executive branch has acquired so much power over the years (crash course in history from Roosevelt on up).
All during the call, Schneider's assistant collected some informal flash poll data (there seemed to be over a thousand on the call which was great). For the Musk data security issue, 93% indicated very concerned, 4% mildly concerned, and 3% no concerned. For the impact of tariffs on your cost of living, 1% said not much impact; 3% said a positive impact; 6% said some impact, and 90% said a lot. For what democrats should do in responding to trump's efforts, 2% said follow his orders; 35% said resist trump at all costs, and 63% said work together with republicans. I thought that 35% was a pretty significant minority when people tend to like to select the more collaborative answer when presented.
I wonder what a republican politician's telephone town hall would be like?
When the House is in recess February 14 through the entire Presidents' Day week, I'm imagining there will be very few town halls on their side. They will probably be golfing with trump in Florida or going on "fact finding" trips abroad at tax payer expense. I'm thinking they are cowardly and do not want to have any encounters with their constituents as the trump administration continues to unravel, consumer confidence continues to deteriorate, inflation goes up, we enter "stagflation" with the economy, and our reputation with the rest of the world is destroyed. The party in the majority sets the calendar. Here is the link:
Quite different, I’m afraid. Here is what I wrote about my experience with GOP rep, Mariannette Miller- Meek’s telephone town hall last week:
“The esteemed representative for Iowa’s 1st district held a telephone town hall last night. In the first 5 or 6 calls, my fellow constituents asked excellent questions about Musk’s illegal takeover of Treasury department computers, dismantling of the social safety net, and other over-reaches of the t***p-musk presidency. The congresswomen deflected, vowed that the president had sworn not to touch SS and Medicare, and claimed a general lack of knowledge regarding events of the past two weeks. When a caller referred to musk as one of the “illegal aliens” responsible for crimes in America, MM-M asserted that she had never heard that musky was anything other than a legal US citizen.
After the first few calls, her aides’ call-screening processes became more rigorous and callers only wanted to cheer on DOGE for finally getting waste out of the system, ask why taxpayer dollars were spent on turtles or something like that, and plead for the congresswomen’s assistance in resolving specific personal financial or health issues.
Sigh…. You would think that a GOP rep who only won her district by 800 votes on November 5 might have been a little more willing to admit to reality, but I guess not.”
Is there such a thing as a republican politician's current town hall? (Ah, apologies, I see a reply to the affirmative for Iowa.) I have requested such from my MT R officials. So far, crickets.
Jane, I am taking this post down for it was written in anger and took a shot at me, unnecessarily. Feel free to come at it from a more constructive place and I will be happy to respond. Here, at Hopium, we do not engage one another in anger. It is disrespectful to the community and self-indulgent. Thank you.
And if you think there are things we all should be doing other than what we are doing now feel free to propose them. Be constructive. Do not dump your frustration and anger here without solutions, go forwards, things to do.
Morning everyone! Let the self reporting begin!
So he gets to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip and own it for one of his "beautiful " (read tacky, gaudy, and ugly) real estate development. Mad king indeed.
isn't gaza a country? dont the people of gaza have titles and deeds to their properties? he will withhold aid from egypt and jordan because he extorts. if egypt and/or jordan took in 2M gazans, it would bring hamas into their countries and ruin them. this is the jared kushner beachfront condo/hotels which he mentioned years ago. probably will use the saudi $2B to rebuild with, quietly. where is the united nations? he appears to be nuts when he speaks of this. he is president, not a RE developer. this could bring about another 9/11 for sure. just insane.
It’s amazing what brilliant ideas real estate developers can come up with – if they can ignore that the property in question belongs to somebody else, and that someone is already living there.
EDIT: That said, George Carlin had the solution to America’s homeless crisis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4w7H48tBS8
(High time Donald put his land holdings to good use, if necessary by expropriation.)
Hysterical! Oh George, I miss you so! 😆❤️
Al Cervik knew:
Country clubs and cemeteries are the biggest wasters of prime real estate!
I’d add this: Farmland operated by taxpayer-subsidized agribusiness growing monocultures of corn, when used to produce ethanol, which is added to degrade the gasoline we buy at the pump.
That's arguably worse. It's hard to fight that lobby. Something needs to replace it. Maybe land management for climate change mitigation, or wind farms, or solar panels. Or something.
Thanks for the George Carlin clip - it got me laughing. I really enjoyed having a good laugh today. This would be a great clip to distribute widely to the people who talk about 'elitists'.
Proof that everything Trump does is for his personal benefit.
Oh - there's LOTS of "proof" out there - and it doesn't take much searching to find it.
Tacky and tasteless SOB to the end.
Simon, I wanted to share a website I have recently put together to help offset the chaos. At the beginning of the year, I started Daily Haiku for You: https://www.dailyhaikuforyou.com
I add a daily haiku that offers hope and light in the midst of all this darkness and uncertainty. I'd love to share it with you who does SO much everyday for all of us with Hopium Chronicles. Please feel free to share it as well.
With gratitude,
Monica Boruch
Washington DC
Beautiful, Monica! Thank you. I will check it every morning.💖
❤️
I have called my rep and my senators again this morning. One caveat with my rep. I asked (firmly, but politely) that my rep hold a town hall and answer questions from constituents when the House is on recess next week. I encourage everyone who is calling their Reps/Sens to do the same. We had over 1000 on a Zoom call last week with Sen Klobuchar and Sen Smith that was organized by Indivisible Twin Cities.
Ask your Reps to do the same and when they have a town hall meeting, you can stand up and ask them to demand action like Simon lays out. You can also ask them to not vote for any budget or government funding until the lawlessness and unconstitutional actions stop. Democrats control nothing and it's up to Republicans to fund the government and increase the debt ceiling. Tell your reps to only vote if Republicans get some backbone and stop the criming.
My congressman, Dan Goldman, is holding just such a town hall tonight. I'll be attending. Our calls are working!
They absolutely are working!
How was the town hall with Klobuchar and Smith?
It was very good. They both had their Chiefs of Staff on the calls with them. The acknowleged what we were all telling them (we had Indivisible Twin Cities doing the talking and everyone else was in the chat) and they listened. They know that we are watching and encouraging them to do the right thing, which is what the whole point of the Zoom was.
Joaquin Castro, a representative from Texas, is holding a town hall tomorrow night! He says he's been getting calls from constituents who are deeply concerned about what's happening.
Dan Goldman! Everywhere please 💕
I forget the best part. When speaking with Sen. Smith's office, they again thanked me for calling, they told me that they are getting many calls on all of this and that the calls matter. They further encouraged me to keep calling. These actions are making a difference. Keep at it all.
Anyone else hear Jamie Raskin looking into a class action lawsuit against Musk on behalf of the American people?
I did hear about it, but I don't know any of the details. But Raskin is a thoughtful guy, so I am confident that whatever he does will have a solid plan behind it.
I hope Raskin sues Musk in his (Elon’s) personal capacity so that damages will bankrupt him.
Here is a recent YouTube in which Congressmen Raskin lays it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpvjnY56uO0
I filed a claim with my A.G. a week ago. Hopefully more do.
Thank you for this link
Tim, I copy/pasted your reply to friend in Klobuchar’s district. Faster than me trying to compose. Told them your message was in reply to Simon Rosenberg/Holpium post.
They hadn’t been in loop or heard about the zoom w/smith/klobuchar. So glad you posted!
I didn’t know their district; figured it’s good advice to everyone.
Much appreciation for your post.
Happy to help. All Minnesotans should be calling Klobuchar and Smith, so I am glad this was helpful!
What are the consequences of Trump defying court orders? How does the judiciary enforce their decrees?
Here are some ideas from a couple of wise ones about how it could play out.. Since DOj will not do it, it will be on our backs. Get emotionally prepared but we still have to see it play out.
Robert Hubbell addresses that concern in his daily Newsletter on Substack
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/backstopping-the-courts?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=2nn4w5&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
and Norm Eisen also addresses it on the Contrarian
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/norm-eisen-explains-to-jen-rubin?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Michael, thanks for sharing this. Somehow I missed that interview with Norm Eisen. And I’ve been asking this question of everyone I can think of. Norm’s explanation is highly reassuring!
"Do More and worry Less"
As part of a project here in Alabama, I just made 11 calls to all of the offices of Senators Britt and Tuberville, and Congressman Aderholt. I was strongly opposing the apparent shut-down of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I reached only one human being in all of those calls (DC for Aderholt). For the rest I left voicemails, except for one local Tuberville office where the mailbox was full. As part of my message, I said that it would be funny if it weren't horrifying that the tRump administration is trying to root out fraud and abuse by shutting down the agency designed to protect regular people from fraud and abuse.
Just spent the last 10 days in Alabama on vacation. $10/hour working at McDonalds in Greenville. There is no reason with tourism and such in Alabama that it is this poor... except of course.... unreal
Thank you!
Would love to believe the mad king is in such a vulnerable position. How do we all reconcile this information with 538’s recent approval ratings: 49.4% of Americans approve of him while 44.3% disapprove? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
Karen, that is not the data in this post. More than half of 538's average is made up of right wing red wave pollsters who have been cranking out lots and lots of polling these last few weeks. The polls I show above are independent polls, not right wing polls. And, even that 44% disapprove is the highest ever recorded at this point in polling history. This is a point 538 continues to make. Finally, things are clearly moving against him. Some of the movement is dramatic - the consumer confidence data, the M/C and YouGov movement is significant not incident. He is eroding. Finally, the whole point of my work in this space is about penetrating the fiction of his strength. It's an illusion. You can choose to believe the illusion. i choose not to.
Thank you for the clarification Simon. I wasn’t aware that the 538 polls continue to be heavily right-wing propaganda, but I realize I had no reason to believe otherwise. Duh! Continuing the phone calls, energizing the troops in Hudson NY and giving to Ken M, and Crawford. Doing 100 postcards for Swing Left postcards for Crawford this week.
Well, think of it this way. How much of the broader public is "tuned" in about these first 3 weeks? Those numbers may go up as time goes on. We shall see.
Last night I went to a live podcast recording with Roben Farzad interviewing Abigail Spanberger (Full Disclosure with Roben Farzad) at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. I encourage everyone to listen to this podcast as soon as it is published. As usual, she was brilliant, insightful, and sincere. Some of her talking points that I think we should be repeating: "Since when did it become okay to pick on children?" (in conversation about trans children). "Virginia has more federal employees than any other state." (and VA will be hit hard throughout all parts of our economy if there is job insecurity for federal workers) "Republicans are anti-trans, anti-woke, anti-immigration... what are they FOR??" She stated very clearly what she is for!
And he looks tired, small and weak. Only re-naming things and saving plastic straws seem to animate him. He is thoroughly under the thumb of Musk. Pretty soon we'll start seeing the rats deserting the sinking Trumptanic, while he snoozes behind the Resolute Desk. Keep up the pressure! No one in this administration can handle it. Trump is only a weak spokesman - they'll be lost when they can't wheel him out in front of the world.
Don't forget his revenge removal of the Kennedy Center Board. This is payback from Trump to Caroline. And his "favor" to Eric Adams was requested in court as "without prejudice" meaning they can hold prosecution over his head if he doesn't comply with Trump. I agree, he looks terrible. But he has many scoundrels working for him.
Well, his damn third wife massacred the rose garden last time around. Guess it wasn’t enough to satisfy their… awfulness.
The power vacuum that will be left behind in 2028 is going to make the night of the long knives look like child's play. We think the GOP has factions now, just wait.
About the NIH funding cut: people might read that it is a cut on overhead costs, which might sound like it is just a reduction in administrative fat. But the expenses that can't be attributed directly to costs like researcher salaries are still critical for universities and other research institutions (like one at Berkeley i used to head). Overhead includes rent, utilities, IT costs, etc., and limiting this number to 15% of the direct costs, as proposed, would make it impossible for all but the wealthiest places to do research. It would be a death knell for America's leadership in medical breakthroughs, and they plan to do similar things to other agencies that fund other kinds of research.
PA friends: Please keep the pressure on AG Sunday. His team’s response to me was beyond inane, claiming some form of powerlessness. And Gov Shapiro’s response was infuriating. A note clearly designed to make sure Republican voters trust him and believe in his commitment to working with Trump as much as possible. They need to feel our outrage. Oh and McCormick’s note back was all about the great disrupters. I gave him a piece of my mind too. Don’t get me started on Fetterman. We need a full court press in PA.
There is now another lawsuit against trump/musk: Illinois joins nearly two dozen states suing to halt cuts in medical research funding:
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/donald-trump/2025/02/10/trump-lawsuit-states-attorneys-general-kwame-raoul-medical-research-funding-nih-hhs
I wonder if there are any current employees or alumni of research universities who could either contact the alumni association to express support for speaking out/lawsuits or to urge their universities to do so? For example, I'm an Oklahoma State University graduate and they receive large NIH grants like this: https://news.okstate.edu/articles/communications/2024/nih_grant_to_fund_oklahoma_center_for_microbiome_research.html#:~:text=The%20National%20Institutes%20of%20Health,microbiome%20scientists%20across%20the%20state.
The University of New Mexico has developed Rapid Response Teams to address these broad issues raised by ongoing federal executive actions: employment for students, faculty and staff; immigration and undocumented individuals; inclusive excellence; and research and federal funding. https://president.unm.edu/2025-federal-executive-actions/index.html
Good job by UNM! The have done a great job on communication and are providing good direction on how to respond.
Thanks, Simon! You give us hope! Never-ending support and encouragement are priceless. This is such a bad dream and I keep believing we will wake up some day to our wonderful democracy being saved by people like you.
Senator Van Hollen and Rep. Raskin having town halls this week. Their staff were very empathetic to my calls this week. Would truly like to see the Dems start laying out a strategy for what to do if/when Trump defies court orders/judgements.
We will write to and call Durbin and Duckworth here in Illinois asking about the plan. Our state has been involved in all of the multi-state lawsuits against trump/musk. It's time for Durbin and Duckworth to speak up strongly as well.
Listened in on my IL rep Brad Schneider's telephone town hall. Loved the format- it was very professional and organized, allowing for a variety of questions and not scripted in any way. Schneider opened by acknowledging that he's received more messages and has done more interview and tv appearances than ever before, which is great to hear. That means he's feeling the pressure, even as a democratic rep. He also emphasized the reality of how republicans control 3 branches and that we have to work within those limits for now. By far the Elon Musk security concerns issue is the biggest one Schneider has been hearing about, followed by program cuts and tariffs. ICE/immigration didn't seem to be among the top issue- only one caller (who spoke Spanish and it was translated) expressed concerns about deportation (Schneider referred to a grandfather and worker who has been in the US 30 years and because he had one DUI from 20 years ago they targeted him for deportation).
I was very impressed with the level of questions that callers were asking- they presented facts and not in a scripted way. This also worked to avoid the hostile interruptions that MAGA types often use in live town halls. There was one right-wing caller who was all over the place compared to the other more focused callers in first dismissing the Musk issue offhand and then focusing on fentanyl, immigration (saying if you are undocumented you are a criminal by default), government waste (saying they've already been finding it, which is not true), and the grievance talking point about FEMA ignoring NC hurricane victims while giving money to USAID. Schneider handled that call well by stating information about USAID and how the government works with drug treatment programs. The other callers asked questions about: why the democrats weren't pushing back more forcefully (explained how as soon as one news issue is handled another one pops up/flood the zone), what happens if trump defies the court orders (didn't really have an answer there other than to refer to the strength of the courts and system), protecting the transgender community, preservation of social safety net, NIH/NSF funding concerns, IDEA and DEI survivability for educators, and why the executive branch has acquired so much power over the years (crash course in history from Roosevelt on up).
All during the call, Schneider's assistant collected some informal flash poll data (there seemed to be over a thousand on the call which was great). For the Musk data security issue, 93% indicated very concerned, 4% mildly concerned, and 3% no concerned. For the impact of tariffs on your cost of living, 1% said not much impact; 3% said a positive impact; 6% said some impact, and 90% said a lot. For what democrats should do in responding to trump's efforts, 2% said follow his orders; 35% said resist trump at all costs, and 63% said work together with republicans. I thought that 35% was a pretty significant minority when people tend to like to select the more collaborative answer when presented.
I wonder what a republican politician's telephone town hall would be like?
When the House is in recess February 14 through the entire Presidents' Day week, I'm imagining there will be very few town halls on their side. They will probably be golfing with trump in Florida or going on "fact finding" trips abroad at tax payer expense. I'm thinking they are cowardly and do not want to have any encounters with their constituents as the trump administration continues to unravel, consumer confidence continues to deteriorate, inflation goes up, we enter "stagflation" with the economy, and our reputation with the rest of the world is destroyed. The party in the majority sets the calendar. Here is the link:
https://pressgallery.house.gov/schedules/2025-house-calendar
And - thank you so much for your detailed summary of last night's town hall. Your summary was really interesting!
Quite different, I’m afraid. Here is what I wrote about my experience with GOP rep, Mariannette Miller- Meek’s telephone town hall last week:
“The esteemed representative for Iowa’s 1st district held a telephone town hall last night. In the first 5 or 6 calls, my fellow constituents asked excellent questions about Musk’s illegal takeover of Treasury department computers, dismantling of the social safety net, and other over-reaches of the t***p-musk presidency. The congresswomen deflected, vowed that the president had sworn not to touch SS and Medicare, and claimed a general lack of knowledge regarding events of the past two weeks. When a caller referred to musk as one of the “illegal aliens” responsible for crimes in America, MM-M asserted that she had never heard that musky was anything other than a legal US citizen.
After the first few calls, her aides’ call-screening processes became more rigorous and callers only wanted to cheer on DOGE for finally getting waste out of the system, ask why taxpayer dollars were spent on turtles or something like that, and plead for the congresswomen’s assistance in resolving specific personal financial or health issues.
Sigh…. You would think that a GOP rep who only won her district by 800 votes on November 5 might have been a little more willing to admit to reality, but I guess not.”
Oh wow! That's terrible!
It *is* terrible - but I thank you for reporting this, being a witness to this because otherwise NO ONE WOULD KNOW.
Sorry for all caps shouting up there - but citizen reporting, citizen journalism becomes even more important in times like these.
THANK YOU
Is there such a thing as a republican politician's current town hall? (Ah, apologies, I see a reply to the affirmative for Iowa.) I have requested such from my MT R officials. So far, crickets.