As We Keep Kicking Their Ass All Over The Country, MAGA Is Melting Down

Tonight 7pm EST - Come Talk The Big Suozzi Win In Our Monthly Hopium Gathering

Happy Thursday all. A few things for you today:

“We’re Kicking Their Ass All Over The Country”- Still savoring our big win Thursday night. Congratulations to all of you for the role you played in helping Tom Suozzi win. Thousands of you here volunteered - made calls, texted, wrote postcards, canvassed and spread the good word about Tom through your networks. Together we raised $115,000 from 2,073 of you. When I asked you at 630pm on Tuesday night to make a final round of GOVT calls almost 250 of you responded - just amazing. Thank you all for what you helped do for the country on Tuesday.

For those of you heard Tom’s victory speech you heard him thank the grassroots for rallying for him from all over the country. I know from talking to him and the campaign that they are very aware of the power of what we and all the other grassroots groups in the country are building, something I believe is the most powerful Democratic machine we’ve ever had. As I wrote yesterday, the emergence of this new grassroots - hundreds of thousands of proud patriots who are not letting their freedoms and democracy slip away - is a central reason we keep performing at the upper end of what’s possible in election after election all across the country in three calendar years now.

In this clip from the Last Word on Tuesday night I talk about how this new, muscular grassroots - all of you - are ensuring that we “kick their ass all over the country.” Please watch.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - I’m not sure what is next for us here, for what some of you have called the Hopium Cavalry. We’ve played meaningful roles in some of our most important wins in the past year - the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Jacksonville, Ohio ballot initiatives, Virginia, Tom Keen in Orlando, helping get the abortion ballot initiative on the ballot in Florida (fingers crossed), and now NY-3. Many of you have worked on other critical wins too - thank you. Read my post that spells out how I aa pproaching 2024, about getting to 55 and growth and expansion. Helping Joe Biden and the NC Democratic Party remain high priorities for us - donate if you can, today.

I’m going to take a week or so to talk to folks, get up to speed on races across the country and come back with some new recommendations soon. But remember, our work here in my mind is meant to supplement work you do at home, or with other grassroots groups or Democratic parties you may be involved with. I am never going to ask you to do a lot, as I know many of you are already involved in other organizations, campaigns and projects. So what I do here is only recommend actions that I think are of the absolute highest strategic and political value, that give us the greatest return. My recommendations will always be conservative, narrow, distilled and not deep and wide. My old organization, NDN, was for 10 years a PAC which only endorsed in and raised for swing races across the country - so I have a lot of experience in this process of distilling down, finding the biggest bank for the buck. For those of you are paid subscribers, it’s great to see you discuss in our chat ways of being meaningfully engaged beyond Hopium, as we all the want the same thing - to make sure the work we do has the greatest impact, that our time and money are well spent.

Finally, I want to mention, briefly, something I think about all the time. Watching all of you do the work, speaking to the groups I speak to several times a week, connecting with all of you on Zooms, Twitter, our chats - it’s just deeply inspiring. I really believe that this process of doing the work is creating a much deeper connection to our country and our democracy than perhaps many of us had before. It is as Heather Cox Richardson describes it “an awakening,” a movement, something bigger and more powerful than any of us. And it’s growing, getting stronger, becoming bigger and more powerful. We are all part of something deeply, deeply meaningful and important, for together we are working to make sure our that the freedoms we all inherited are there for our kids, our grandkids and for the people of the world. Other than perhaps military service, there is no more important work in a democracy, no higher form of patriotism, no more powerful way to express your love of country than the work we are doing, together; and I am deeply proud and honored to be in this fight with all of you.

Tonight, 7pm EST - Monthly Hopium Wide Political Briefing and Get Together - Tonight is our monthly gathering of the entire Hopium community, now 39,000 strong! I’ll kick it off with 20 minutes of opening remarks about our current political moment and then take your questions. Register here. A video recording of the event will be available to all who cannot make it live. Lots of good news to discuss and excited to have many new subscribers joining us tonight.

The 2024 Elections - Why I Am Optimistic About Winning This Year - Lots of material here for you to chew on in the coming days….

• Hopium Posts - Since Dobbs, Democrats Keep Overperforming, Winning and Republicans Keep Struggling, Building The Most Powerful Democratic Machine We’ve Ever Had, Another Huge Jobs Report, Notes on Recent Polling, Republicans Are Having A Truly Awful 2024

• Hopium Presentations/Videos - Why I Am Optimistic About Winning This Year (2/8/24), With Democrats, Things Get Better, I Thanked All Of You On MSNBC Tonight

• Op-eds/Essays - Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic)

• Video Interviews - MSNBC’s Last Word, CNN’s Amanpour

• Podcasts (Audio) - The Ezra Klein Show, That Trippi Show

“The disaster that is the House Republican leadership” - that’s the headline in today’s Punchbowl News, an insidery DC newsletter. An excerpt, and read slowly, it is shocking stuff:

Just this week, Speaker Mike Johnson has:

Seen Democrats win a special election in New York, narrowing the already minuscule GOP majority to two votes.

Lost a sixth rule vote on the House floor — a measure that would’ve allowed an increase in the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction — when 18 Republicans bucked their own leadership and voted no. This Republican majority has lost more rule votes than any other majority in five decades, a stunning sign of weakness.

Abruptly pulled a bill to overhaul FISA due to Republican infighting. The GOP leadership said the House would vote on the bill before locking down the votes, despite some senior Republicans raising internal objections. This is the second time Johnson had to pull a FISA bill this Congress.

Seen another committee chair announce his resignation. Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chair of the Homeland Security Committee, is leaving Congress after only six years. The 59-year-old Green — the fourth committee chair to retire — just led the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Decided against putting a bill on the floor to provide billions of dollars in new aid to Israel without offsets. Just a week ago, Johnson allowed a vote on Israel aid that he knew was going to fail.

Provided absolutely no insight to rank-and-file lawmakers on how he’ll handle the Senate’s bipartisan $95 billion foreign aid package. Johnson said the bill isn’t a priority because the federal government is scheduled to shut down in a few weeks.

Witnessed the House Intelligence Committee chair issue a dire public warning about a “serious national security threat” to the country, only to have Senate Intelligence Committee leaders and the White House downplay the issue.

This is the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective majority we’ve seen in decades covering Congress. It started this way under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and has gotten worse under Johnson.

And things aren’t going to get easier. The House is leaving town today by 2:30 p.m. for the 13-day Presidents Day recess. When members return on Feb. 28, there will be only three days to fund a huge swath of the federal government or face a partial shutdown. There’s another full shutdown deadline a week later.

Fair or not, there’s a tremendous amount of criticism focused on Johnson right now. The 52-year-old Louisiana Republican — speaker for just 113 days — is a very pleasant man. But he and his top aides, most of whom are new to the leadership, have still failed to get a feel for governing successfully. And hanging over this is the possibility of another motion to vacate if Johnson alienates hardline conservatives.

“Watching Speaker Johnson, who I have great respect for, grow up has been really fascinating. I just hope he has the time to finish growing up,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), a 30-year veteran of the House.

Johnson truly keeps his own counsel. His leadership colleagues often begin the week having no idea what the speaker is thinking or what he hopes to achieve. The speaker was also particularly hamstrung by having House Majority Leader Steve Scalise out for the last six weeks. Scalise has deep relationships across the conference and a true sense for fault lines within the GOP. Johnson has at times ignored the guidance of House Majority Whip Tom Emmer as well.

“There’s always this internal struggle [for Johnson] being a movement conservative and then having to be pragmatic. So that’s playing out a lot,” said a top Republican of Johnson. “It feels like chaos. Rudderless.”

Some of the power centers in the House Republican Conference seem more eager to buck Johnson than help him. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), for example, has been yanked around on the rewrite of FISA, a top priority for the outspoken conservative. Many factions in Johnson’s conference feel the same way on other issues.

Unlike speakers before him, this House Republican Conference was built without Johnson’s input or effort. McCarthy was the lead architect for this majority, having traveled incessantly for hundreds of candidates across the country. Former Speaker Paul Ryan led two committees, helping build relationships with dozens of lawmakers as he wrote budgets and passed bills. Former Speaker John Boehner had two stints in leadership, led a committee and traveled all year for the GOP.

Johnson has done none of that. He’s a backbencher plucked from obscurity to be the third-highest-ranking official in the American government.

The FISA episode is nearly a perfect encapsulation of Johnson’s curious decision-making. Johnson blew past warnings from his own leadership and Democrats, who said it was a mistake to even float a possible vote this week. Yet the House Rules Committee met and floor action was tentatively scheduled for Thursday.

By Wednesday afternoon, with Rules in a recess, Johnson pulled the plug and the leadership announced that they were cutting the week short.

—Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

So where we are now is that the Speaker is blocking a bi-partisan Senate bill that provide funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humitarian aid to Gaza; blocking a bi-partisan border and immigration bill which made significant concessions to Republicans and would address what they’ve argued is America’s most serious security challenge; continuing to prevent the United States from adopting a budge for the fiscal year that began on October 1st, 2023, five months ago. With all of this looming did the cowardly Speaker sit down this week with the President and the Senate leaders to hash out a path forward on these critical economic and security challenges that have now been under discussion since last summer? No. After getting his butt kicked in NY-3 he sheepishly sent Members home early, and began a two week (!!!!!!!!) recess. Even for MAGA, for Trump’s party, what we are witnessing in the House is an unbelievable, unprecedented level of dysfunction, dangerous levels of dysfunction and repeated betrayals of America’s national interest. On days like this it feels like the insurrection didn’t end three years ago, but is ongoing, in a different form.

As I wrote yesterday, all of this makes it far more likely we win in 2024, as we did on Tuesday, but now we also must prevent Trump and his allies, in ongoing acts of desperation and delusion, from crashing the country because somehow they believe it is how - and perhaps the only way - they can win this year. What happened on Tuesday should be a warning that this strategy is already not working, and they need to course correct, quickly. Listen to CNN’s Dana Bash on how Republican voters on Tuesday explictly told her they were voting for Suozzi because of all this outrageous dysfunction and extremism:

Given the threat MAGA is right now, to our security and economy, imagine for a moment the damage they could do if Trump wins the election this November.

Congrats on a great week all. Keep working hard, and looking forward to connecting with many of you tonight at 7pm EST - Simon