Trump Is Looking More And More Ridiculous Every Day, "Pay More, Get Less" (LOLOLOL), Owning July 4th
Some rambling notes on the path forward
Morning all. Cheers to those protesting and rallying today and over the weekend. Know many of you were out yesterday. Thank you everyone.
I wake this morning thinking about a few things:
1) We are experiencing a daily, wild, extraordinary spectacle of this lawless, extremist regime losing again and again in Courts of all kinds. Incredibly, they came in believing the Constitutional order no longer existed, that they literally could do whatever they wanted. The Courts, the states, plaintiffs don’t agree. Most of us are operating as if rule of law still exists in America, even if the Trump regime and Republicans in Congress have decided to abandon it. The level of defiance, of resilient rejection, of you “have to be shitting me” response from the Judiciary has been overwhelming and encouraging. And something that has just not gotten enough attention is that voters understand what is happening and are really, really unhappy about it. Here’s Pew:
Here’s new data from Navigator:
Here’s the NYT report on a Trump appointed judge rejecting the regime’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, and essentially saying “you have to be shitting me that you think that the presence of a few hundred Venezuelan gang members is an ‘invasion’ of the United States”
A federal judge on Thursday permanently barred the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law, to deport Venezuelans it has deemed to be criminals from the Southern District of Texas, saying that the White House’s use of the statute was illegal.
The decision by the judge, Fernando Rodriguez Jr., was the most expansive ruling yet by any of the numerous jurists who are currently hearing challenges to the White House’s efforts to employ the powerful but rarely invoked law as part of its wide-ranging deportation plans.
The 36-page ruling by Judge Rodriguez, a President Trump appointee, amounted to a philosophical rejection of the White House’s attempts to transpose the Alien Enemies Act, which was passed in 1798 as the nascent United States was threatened by war with France, into the context of modern-day immigration policy.
The Supreme Court has already said that any Venezuelans the White House wants to expel under Mr. Trump’s proclamation invoking the act must be given a chance to challenge their removal. But Judge Rodriguez’s ruling went further, saying that the White House had improperly stretched the meaning of the law, which is supposed to be used only against members of a hostile foreign nation in times of declared war or during a military invasion.
While Judge Rodriguez’s decision applied only to Venezuelan immigrants in the Southern District of Texas — which includes cities like Houston, Brownsville and Laredo — it could have an effect, if not a binding one, on some of the other cases involving the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.
“The court concludes that as a matter of law, the executive branch cannot rely on the A.E.A., based on the proclamation, to detain the named petitioners and the certified class, or to remove them from the country,” Judge Rodriguez wrote.
He also found that the “plain ordinary meaning” of the act’s language, like “invasion” and “predatory incursion,” referred to an attack by “military forces” and did not line up with Mr. Trump’s claims about the activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang, in a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
I think what is getting lost in the day to day to coverage is something that both Glenn Kirscher and MN AG Keith Ellison talked to us about in our interviews this week - in many cases the Trump world is taking actions that have no possibility of being lawful in the US, or any democratic society. And thus they just keep losing in Court, again and again and again. The rampant, Olympian levels of lawlessness is, if you take a step back, a breathtaking, ridiculous, and unbelievable betrayal of everything that has made America great for almost 250 years. How in the world did these Americans talk themselves into getting to this extraordinary place?
It’s why the circle of defiance is growing. For there is a growing recognition of how absurd on its face Trumpism is. It’s not just wrong, and dangerous, it’s also ridiculous, comical, deeply unserious, tin pot dictator, Monty Python, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Mike Myers, Banana Republic, “you have to be shitting me” stuff. Putin wants peace? Prices are GOING DOWN? Your economic strategy is for Americans to both PAY MORE and GET LESS? You are doing a military parade on your BIRTHDAY? Are you really saying that you cannot pick up the phone and get Abrego Garcia back? You claim that a Venezuelan gang here in the US is AN INVASION? Your insane budget bill is going to increase the deficit and debt by tens and tens of trillions of dollars and essentially bankrupt the country and yet you and Musk are claiming that mantle of fiscal responsibility? You are dismantling the public health care system in the US while claiming you are MAKING AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN? You revoke Harvard’s tax status because you DON’T LIKE THEM?
In interviews this week Trump repeatedly claimed prices were GOING DOWN. Here’s the reality:
Yesterday, ABC News released a bit more of their time with Trump in the Oval Office. Just watch this segment. Trump is asked about the Declaration of Independence. His response:
it's a declaration of unity, love and respect and it means a lot. It's something very special to our country.
Our leader has NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, this has become a rant. I’m sorry. Some days I know where I am going when I get up and others I don’t. But, my friends, why does this matter? For it’s my argument that Trump is not just falling in the polls and becoming far weaker, but the growing circle of defiance we are seeing and the growing recognition of how absurd and ridiculous this all is starting to significantly undermine the legitimacy of the regime itself. Trump is not just losing his hold on the public, I think he is starting to lose something more important - the legitimacy to run the greatest country in the history of the world.
2) Trump’s terrible tariffs are about get real for tens of millions of Americans. From CNN this morning:
Many Americans might not have felt major effects from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs – until now.
That’s because a major shipping loophole expired at one minute past midnight on Friday. The de minimis exemption, as it’s known, allowed shipments of goods worth $800 or less to come into the US duty free, often more or less skipping time-consuming inspections and paperwork.
The loophole helped reshape the way countless Americans shop, allowing ultra-low-cost Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein, Temu and AliExpress to pour everything from yarn to patio furniture, clothes to photography equipment and more into US homes.
Its impending end has rung alarm bells across social media, with a baseline tariff as high as 145% depending on the carrier set to take effect on Chinese imports, potentially more than doubling the cost for all those cheap products deal-hungry Americans scooped up.
And the end of the de minimis exemption for Chinese goods will also distill abstract, complicated, messy, hard-to-follow trade policy into something much easier to understand: a receipt.
3) The tariff vote failed. What is our focus now? I’ll be reworking our “actions” in the coming days but here is where I’m thinking we focus now:
We link his terrible tariffs with his even more terrible reconciliation bill, and work to undermine both of them, together.
We keep fighting to get Dems to more aggressively open up that Second Front, pen a Letter to America, introduce and debate state and local “articles of condemnation” and commit to owning July 4th this year. We have to firmly cement our identity as patriots and theirs as betrayers.
We develop and lean in hard a big comprehensive argument against their multi-pronged and barbaric assault on our health, our public health system, science, research and academic freedom.
Let us keep these powerful words from Thomas Jefferson front of mind as we go forward:
4) We are going to be doing more live and recorded events. Please continue to give us feedback on these, as Hopium will now be going to twice a day several days a week. I know we are all getting too much thrown at us every day but I commit to only bring you guests worth your time (and mine). We had great guests this past week and hope in the coming days you get to spend some time with them. I think yesterday’s discussion with Jane Kleeb was perhaps the most important of the week and hope you catch it this weekend.
You can learn more about how to catch our live events here. Our interviews can be found under Podcast on the Hopium site’s navigation bar and on YouTube and Spotify too. We will also be up on Apple Podcasts soon.
5) I continue to be inspired by all of you, every day. Here’s a wonderful note from Alyssa H:
I work for a public health non-profit in Massachusetts and on Thursday mornings, I join a Zoom call with other non-profits that have been meeting to share resources and provide solidarity since COVID started. This morning, their guest speaker was our Attorney General, Andrea Joy Campbell. She was incredible. We had a Q&A with a small group and so I swallowed my nerves and thought of Hopium and got to ask her directly if MA would be joining other states in the tariff lawsuit. She had an interesting answer, which was that even if a state isn't leading or joining a specific suit, they all work together as a coalition and so MA is supporting the suit and looking at impacts and other avenues. Sometimes the strategy is legal, other times it's communications and focusing on how these tariffs and the harm they are causing are one man's fault. She talked in her intro about the importance of centering joy and taking care of ourselves as a form of resistance. I'm not sure if she's part of your Democratic AG speaker lineup Simon but she was so inspiring, I think the Hopium community would love her!
Tonight I'm attending for the first time my town Democratic caucus to apply to be a delegate at the MA statewide convening in the fall. I'm a millennial and I want to lend my voice as a new generation of Democrats. Thank you Simon and Hopium for inspiring me.
Thank you Alyssa, and thanks to all of you who are leaving it out there on the playing field for America every day. If you want “go to work” today with Hopium head here.
Keep working hard all. We are making progress, real, meaningful progress and I am really proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
Self reporting from yesterday's protest in Arlington TX. Had a very interesting encounter.
Went to the Arlington Texas (DFW) protest, which is in a very red part of the state, though there is large-ish university there with a lot of international students. I was pleasantly surprised that 400-500 people were there. Most of the protesters were on the older side, with quite a few seniors. I’d just been at a coffeeshop a few blocks away where a bunch of hip and pretty young people were hanging out, but I didn’t see anybody like that protesting. This area, on top of being heavily Republican, can also be politically apathetic, so maybe this doesn’t reflect elsewhere, but I’d like to see younger folks at these protests.
I carried my traditional American flag again (there were two upside down flags, but no other traditional flag), and something interesting happened. When I was packing it up at the end, a big white guy came out of a non-upscale tattoo parlor across the street and crossed to meet me. I was unsure what was going on, but he shook my hand and thanked me for carrying the American flag. Then he turned and crossed back to his shop where a little old lady (his mother?) was watching, then they went inside.
This goes to some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about. I mean, this guy was not a normal leftist protester type. He could have had a police record. He could have been a vet. Who knows? But the fact that somebody decided to carry a traditional flag in the protest moved him to leave his place of business to thank me, and no one else. It obviously made a big difference to him, and possibly made him more open to the message we’re trying to deliver. That flag somehow made him feel represented among all the much more lefty messages (which are needed too, of course). And the thing is, I don’t think he needed more than one American flag in that crowd, but he damn sure needed one.
So I’m going to carry my traditional flag and possibly be a bridge to some of these more centrist or even off-the-grid people. The rest of y’all keep doing what feels right for you. If I’m being honest, one reason I’m carrying that flag is I *suck* big time at making signs. But I also think about my mom who was very emotional about the flag, and if she saw a group of protesters and there was a flag in the crowd she’d feel completely different about them than had there not been one.
Friends, suggestions for how I can collect photos from the rallies and protests?