Morning all. My main offering this morning is a recording of a comprehensive conversation I had yesterday with the great Stuart Stevens of Lincoln Square. We touch on all the big issues of the moment - the killing of Renee Nicole Good, Trump’s crowning himself The Emperor Of The Americas, Russia’s capture of the Trump and the GOP, the need for our pro-democracy movement to keep finding a higher gear, and Trump’s domestic struggles and fraying Congressional coalition. We even lament Ole Miss’s tough loss on Thursday night.
A recording of our talk is above and a rough transcript is here. I love these get togethers with Stuart. I always learn so much from him and promise you will too.
Trump’s Tariff and Immigration Policies Have Stalled Out The Economy - 50,000 jobs created in December, 584,000 for the year, 49,000 on average per month this year. Biden saw 16.4m jobs created on his watch, 4.1m per year, 341,000 per month.
Here’s economist Jed Kolko:
Here’s economist Heather Long:
Here’s another look at job growth in 2025 before and after the early May tariffs:
Despite the bluster and the bullshit America is losing blue collar jobs for the first time since the pandemic:
Consumer sentiment is the lowest in 65 years (via UMichigan):
Americans remain very unhappy with Trump:
My expectation is that we will get a lot of independent polling in the next two weeks which will tell us more about the public’s reaction to the killing of Renee Nicole Good and Trump’s lawless global ambitions. The only polls released this week with interviews after Good’s murder were not promising for Trump:
CBS/YouGov 41%-59% (-18) - 2 points worse than the current average (above)
RMG/Napolitan - 47%-51% (-4) - arguably the most pro-Trump pollster found Trump dropping 5 points since their last poll in mid-December. This drop will be noted in the White House and in right wing circles.
As I argued in yesterday’s post and in my new weekly video presentation I think it’s the failure of his domestic agenda, his soaring unpopularity, his clear physical and cognitive decline, his fraying Congressional coalition, and his fear of the Epstein files that is driving Trump to look abroad for ways to restore his STRENGTH, POWER, and MANLINESS.
There is great urgency in the White House to this restoration project for listen to Trump yesterday at what was one of his most unhinged, dissembling, and disturbing public performances of the last ten years (the meeting with the oik companies). I know it is hard to watch and listen to him but check out the racial anger, the incoherent rambling, the wild confabulation, and the clear madness as he claims he won Minnesota three times. He is profoundly and dangerously ill:
I am not going to write about Renee Nicole Good, and what is happening in Minnesota today. For my heart is heavy and I need a day off. I will, however, share this post below about the new video Agent Ross, the killer, released yesterday, the one where we see Good trying to de-escalate and where Ross spits out “fucking bitch” after killing her.
For yes, incredibly, Agent Ross filmed the whole thing with his cell phone that was in his right hand until he switched to his left to draw his weapon. Here is that moment when he switches his phone to his left hand, and starts to pursue, confront, and eventually kill Good. It is hard proof that our Government is making up reprehensible lies about the killing of Renee Nicole Good:
And I will let Governor Josh Shapiro close out our post today with appropriate and powerful contempt for JD Vance, his “idiotic gaslighting” and the “weakness of his character” that was on display this week for all of us to see:
Now, Let’s Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Winning The Midterms - Support Our Candidates
Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $58,900 raised, $250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10)
Winning Ohio - $4,700 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue! | Watch my conversation with David Pepper, who does an overview of the opportunities we have in Ohio this year
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $64k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversations with Gov. Cooper and NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $109k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff
Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $264,000 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas. Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties
This recent post recapped our our very productive year together in 2025. In three new essays (here, here, here) I discuss 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, be loud, 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.
Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defend Our Democracy - We have two 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 and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law, and the US must withdraw from Venezuela and cease other threats to violate the UN Charter and the sovereignty of other nations
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. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse these cuts to the wealthy and corporations
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 dangerous occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented regime corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress end the rancid cover up of the Epstein crimes.
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; support and co-sponsor the Stand Up For Science/Rep. Haley Stevens effort to remove Robert Kennedy from HHS.
2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - This 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.
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 everyone. We have a lot of work ahead of us - Simon
