We Are Fighting for Democracy, Freedom And Our Future - And Cannot Let Up

New Biden Ad, Holy Smokes Did Our Community Make June Count!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Monday all. I am supposed to be on vacation this week so the posts will keep coming but will be a little lighter than usual. It’s an important time, and we need to keep grinding, discussing, fighting, together.

The Biden campaign released a new ad this morning that starts running in the battlegrounds today. It is a very good ad, and we need to share it aggressively through our networks today:

This ad is a reminder that while we can debate our future as a party, the campaign goes on. Money has to be raised, events planned, ads cut, arguments made, canvassing organized, calls made. Early voting starts in ten weeks. The campaign goes on. We cannot let up for one minute. For we are not fighting for Joe Biden, or any one candidate. We are fighting each day for our democracy, our freedom, our future. We are fighting, each day, for all of us.

And we cannot let up.

I am excited to report this this community brought it big time in June. Our twin Winning The House and Making June Count campaigns brought in more than $1.3m in the last five weeks. We’ve already raised over $500,000 for our 12 House candidates, a number I didn’t think we would hit until the Democratic Convention in August. We’ve raised $150,000 for Biden-Harris in the past few days and over $560,000 overall. We’ve hit our stretch funding goals of $300,000 for Anderson Clayton in North Carolina and $100,000 for Jane Kleeb in Nebraska. We still have a bit to go to hit our $300,000 goal for Ruben Gallego in Arizona. Hope some of you will help us hit that goal in the coming days by donating what you can.

Here’s how we made June count:

• Biden-Harris - $561,000 today, $450,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

  Yes, we’ve blown past our ambitious $400,000 goal, and our new one of $450,000 too - thank you all!

• Winning The House - $466,000 today, $400,000 goal - yes!!!!! - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised $40,000 directly to our 12 candidates individually, so yes we are over $500,000 today!

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $268,000 today, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More - Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego. Ruben needs a little love this week!

• North Carolina - $309,000 today, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More - Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Nebraska/Blue Dot -$107,000 today, $100,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More - Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb. Amazing!

A few more in the do more, worry less vein:

• Watch our interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) and Andrei Cherny (AZ-01). Hope to have all interviews with all 12 of our House candidates posted here by early August.

• Volunteer for the Biden-Harris campaign. Their phonebanks into the battleground are ratcheting up next week. I am going to do at least one shift - can you join me?

• Commit to Vote on Day 1, and get everyone you know to join you. More on that in the coming days.

Yesterday our community donated over $200,000 in a single day, more than twice as much as any other day since Hopium began. As we’ve learned in election after election since Hopium launched in March of last year when the Hopium community is called, you answer, powerfully. Thank you all. I am so unbelievably proud to be in this fight with all of you. We are making a real difference in this fight for our democracy.

Yesterday I talked about how I hope our community can not just do in the coming weeks but lead. We have hit a rough patch in our fight for democracy and freedom, and just need our community to keep things moving forward, keep people engaged, keep doing the work, keep lifting people up, keep raising the money and just keep fighting. It’s what we do here at Hopium - we just keep fighting.

I am grateful for the spirited and intense discussion we are having in our paid subscriber chat about our current moment, and I have a few thoughts about it all this morning:

1) We need to make this election a referendum on Trump, not Joe Biden. It’s why have to keep talking about Trump’s bat shit crazy debate performance and the threat he is to all of us. As you plan your own public engagements and discussion with others keep in this in mind at all times.

2) Yes we need to hear from Joe Biden and the campaign in the coming days about why Thursday night went so wrong, and what can be done to ensure such terrible events don’t happen again. They need some time to discuss internally and come together around a new strategy. The new ad above is a sign the campaign is still on the front foot, doing it’s thing. But we should not expect an immediate new direction from Bidenworld. Let them have this week to rest, take a deep breath, talk to friends and colleagues and kick stuff around. The President is hosting a major NATO meeting next week, we have elections in France and the UK. The business of politics goes on, and he will be there to lead us in a very important week next week in Washington. We need to give them a little time and space, time for reflection and assessment. But yes we do need to hear from them….

3) As I discussed on Saturday early polling suggests the race has not changed, and that Trump’s historically awful performance was seen by voters and it hurt him. I still maintain that one of the central dynamics of the last two years is that the DC elite are far more inured to Trump and MAGA’s ugliness than voters are, and that when voters engage with the realities of MAGA Rs it’s a big problem for them. Fear and opposition to MAGA has been the driving force of our politics since 2018, and is likely to be again this year - for it is the most issue in our politics today, far more powerful than disappointment in Joe Biden and the Democrats.

I told you a few days ago I wanted to take my time in coming to an understanding of where we are now in the election. I think many jumped out too quickly, too definitively. Yes, there was shock and disappointment last week. But with time and reflection we also come to understandings like this powerful editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer, To Serve His Country, Donald Trump Should Leave the Race:

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?

To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”

“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.

As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling, and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.

Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.

Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting, and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.

Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.

Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.

Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.

Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.

Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.

Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.

There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.

In this fight for democracy and freedom there will be good days, and bad days. Triumphs and setbacks. Boot-shaking joy and deep deep sorrow. But fight we must. The campaign goes on. And so do all of you.

Keep working hard all. It’s how we win - Simon