We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For

Together, one day and one action at a time, we are building the ferocious opposition required to counter Trump, Musk and Putin

Morning all. It’s President’s Day. And we have a lot of work to do.

I don’t want to spend this morning talking about Trump’s assault on our government, our prosperity, our health, our safety and security, the Western alliance and what I call the “America of the Four Freedoms.” For the assault and his world-altering betrayal of America has intensified in the last few days, the damage he’s became far more grave. We will have time to talk about it all in the coming days. For while the details may change day to day, Trump’s intent is now clear, very very clear.

Today, what I want to talk about is what we do about it all. For the only way this gets better is if we fight like hell.

First, I have no idea what is going to happen. We are in uncharted waters as a nation, or at least uncharted since the American Revolution in 1776. This time is not like any other in our lifetimes. As I’ve been writing I think what is most important now is that our actions should be guided by a spirit of re-imagination, re-invention, innovation - what we had wasn’t adequate and new capacities have to be built, new strategies and tactics tried, new leaders must emerge and together we must construct a new, effective and ferocious opposition to try to mitigate the damage Trump is causing and begin the long slow road of restoring our democracy.

To do this I think we have to spend far more time talking about what we can do and less about what our leaders must do. We need to do more, talk less in essence. I started Hopium almost two years ago because I had become convinced that the explosion of citizen activism and the emergence of a new, decentralized, organic grassroots was changing our politics, making us far stronger. So I built Hopium not to speak to the Washington Party where I had lived and worked for decades but to engage and support all of you doing the hard work out there - donating, postcarding, canvassing, phone and text banking, info warring - work that has brought us electoral success in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and key Senate and other downballot races in 2024.

As we seek to build this new and ferocious opposition we need to recognize the building blocks are already there - it’s all of you. In 2024 we had the most donors we’ve ever had as a party, more volunteers than ever before. I fought hard, unsuccessfully, to get the Biden-Harris campaign and the national party to see all of you as “partners in the fight, not donors to the cause” - to understand that all of you were not just ATMs but proud patriots ready to go the work of saving our democracy. Here is a passage from an essay I wrote in The New Republic a year ago, Biden Must Reinvent What A Presidential Campaign Is:

When we think of the campaign war room, we think of 20 sweaty kids drinking Red Bulls and cranking out TikTok videos. But this year, I hope the Biden campaign can reimagine the war room as two, three, four million patriots networked together, amplifying the good works and the second-term agenda of the president through their networks. Republicans have what I call a “loudness advantage” over Democrats, and for Democrats to have the election they want this year, they need to be creative in finding ways to close that gap. The Biden team should ask supporters not just to help on campaigns in all the traditional ways, but also to become “information warriors” this year and help their side get very, very loud. We left the broadcast era of politics long ago, and it is time to start building campaigns not around top-down advertising but around bottom-up and shareable organic content appropriate for the networked information age we are now in.

The Washington Democratic Party continues to fail to grasp that the raw material of a powerful Opposition has already emerged, and that it is waiting to built into something new and powerful. That’s why yesterday I repeated my call for Leaders Schumer and Jeffries, and the new team at the DNC to build some-kind of new political and comms superstructure that will harness the immense power of what we now have:

• millions of experienced, battled tested donors and volunteers

• an emergent new world of pro-democracy media organizations, influencers and decentralized Democratic grassroots organizations

• tens of thousands of elected Democrats across the country at all levels of government who can get much, much louder

• the traditional Dem party infrastructure and allied groups

What we’ve done here at Hopium has been to engage primarily in traditional political work where we had meaningful wins throughout 2023 and 20024. We helped us “get louder” through our campaigns. We are continuing that work this cycle too, raising money now for Ken Martin and his new DNC, Susan Crawford and the WisDems and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. But we’ve added something new and powerful these last few months - we are contacting our elected leaders and helping them understand what is expected of them now in time of a national emergency for the country. Many thousands of you here are making your calls, visiting offices, writing your letters/emails/letters to the editor, heading to rallies and protests and making your voice heard. In doing this work we are literally building The Opposition that we need now. For what I am seeing now in our daily chat is more stories about you taking this work we are doing - helping teach our leaders about what is required of them now - and bringing it into your networks and organizations, and encouraging tens of thousands more to follow you. In doing this you are not waiting for The Opposition to be built - you are literally building it yourselves.

While the Washington Party gets its act together you are not waiting. All of you who are taking these actions are leading. You are becoming, through these works, the ones we’ve all been waiting for.

In my conversations with leaders here in DC it over the past few weeks it has become clear to me that the emergent power of all of us is not well understood. Want protests and calls from red states and red districts as many of our leaders want? Well there are lots of Democrats in these places. We know who they are. We have voter files, donor lists and lists of electeds in these places. How about asking them to help, rise up, organize and make sure their red reps hear from them and not just ask them for money?

We’ve been doing that here, modestly, over the past few weeks as I’ve been asking members of the Hopium community with Republican Senators and House Members to be particularly loud. And it has been heartening to see the stories in our chat of those who are now engaging your R electeds, aggressively. In these self-reports you can see a form of awakening in our community, a sense of that I am not powerless; there are things I can do even in these red places. I have a voice - but it only matters if I use it.

So in addition to our campaign work, and our daily contacts into offices to try to stop the Trump/Musk assault I want to add a new area of action today - creating understanding and opposition to the Republican budget that is taking shape in Washington. While not complete we know it will do three things 1) cut close to a trillion dollars from our health care system, devastating our public health system already under siege from Musk 2) dramatically cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations 3) explode the deficit.

We will be mounting a major education campaign to get all of you up to speed on the various bills as they develop so you can start educating your own communities, networks, friends and families, about what is coming. But we are also going to start working our electeds hard to get them to oppose this extraordinary reckless legislation. While we need to work our electeds wherever they are, those of you in states and districts with the 17 most vulnerable GOP House Members have a special role to play in the coming weeks. Check out this story from Politico, Vulnerable House Republican warns against benefit cuts:

Pennsylvania Rep. Rob Bresnahan is the latest swing-district Republican to issue a warning over deep spending cuts GOP leaders are targeting for key safety net programs in a bill to enact President Donald Trump's massive domestic agenda.

“I ran for Congress under a promise of always doing what is best for the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania,” said Bresnahan in a statement Friday. “If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it. Pennsylvania’s Eighth District chose me to advocate for them in Congress. These benefits are promises that were made to the people of NEPA and where I come from, people keep their word.”

Bresnahan could become a major problem for GOP leadership in the coming days. Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose only one vote on any party-line legislation he wants to pass on the House floor. That includes the budget resolution the House Budget Committee advanced Thursday night, which is the first step in allowing lawmakers to move ahead on drafting the measure to enact top legislative priorities through the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process.

But Johnson and fellow GOP leaders are facing rising anger from vulnerable Republicans after agreeing to demands from their hard-right flank to force deeper spending cuts of $2 trillion in the budget resolution — which, if adopted, will dictate how much committees need to cut from programs under their jurisdiction to pay for the larger reconciliation legislation.

That means members will likely have to extract deeper spending cuts across Medicaid, food assistance and other safety-net programs. And Bresnahan, who flipped a blue district in northeast Pennsylvania last fall to help maintain the House GOP majority, is among the growing contingent of centrists blanching at that prospect.

Bresnahan is also part of a group of vulnerable Republicans who privately warned GOP leaders last month to not slash key safety net programs as they look for ways to pay for the sweeping domestic policy bill that spans border, energy and tax cuts.

There are 16 more Rob Bresnahans and we need to start organizing to make sure they hear form us. Here they are according to The Cook Report:

Those of you in these states and districts should start contacting the local organizations that are you are active in - the state and local Democratic Parties, Indivisible/Swing Left and other grassroots groups, traditional Dem allied groups - and ask them what they are doing to start lobbying these 17 against the coming Republican budget bill. As I wrote to you last week Trump’s approval rating has dropped by 5-7 points already, and in many of the most reliable polls he has the highest disapproval rating of any President at this stage in their Presidency since polling began in the 1950s. While Trump may not be running in 2026 these 17 are, and they are going to have to defend the Trump/Musk shitshow to voters. It’s why they need to hear from us now, aggressively, relentlessly in all the ways we are learning how to contact our reps. If you live in one of these states or districts, you need to start turning your attention to these 17, and encourage the orgs you work with to develop a plan and start fighting.

Here is what I wrote in that very first Hopium post on March 7th, 2023:

I am calling it Hopium Chronicles because I want this to be a journey guided by hope and optimism, of belief in ourselves, in love of country and a clear understanding of the nature of the conflict we are in. I have become convinced that part of Greater MAGA’s strategy is to intentionally poison our discourse with negative sentiment every day. They want us to feel bad about America, our democracy, our leaders, our institutions, our success, each other, ourselves. We cannot let them do that any more. While they talk American down every day, we need to talk it up. While they spread lies, we respond with truth and data. Hopium is a rejection of the darkness they are trying to spread. It is a way of standing up for our great country and its remarkable people. It is the key to how we win.

Keep working hard all. We have a country to save, and a future to secure for our kids and grandkids. And let us get up every day, to paraphrase JFK, asking not what our leaders are going to do for us, but what we are going to do for the Opposition and the country. And one of those things we are going to do is to keep letting our leaders know what is expected of them now. I have no idea what is going to happen, or how this is going to play out. But one thing I do know is that Trump and MAGA thrive on weakness. If they push and don’t get push back they keep going. The absence of opposition creates more ambition in them. Which is why they, and everyone in Washington, need to keep feeling us. For the absence of our voices insisting our leaders fight this extraordinary assault on our country will accelerate our proud nation’s decline.

It’s one day at a time peeps. We need to get up every day, and put one foot in front of another. It’s what I am doing here at Hopium. We need to keep making our calls, giving to candidates, writing our postcards in Wisconsin and getting more and more of those you know to join us. We need to keep building the Opposition, together.

Trump and Musk are counting on us to lose heart, to give up. Every day we don’t we keep hope, and the Opposition, alive.

Current Hopium Work

• Republicans Are Now The Party of Appeasement, Chaos and Betrayal - My new comprehensive essay on the Trump/Musk assault on the US government and what I call the “America of the Four Freedoms”

• Inflation Spikes, Trump Is Not Winning - my latest take on why Trump is much weaker and more vulnerable then he appears right now, and why understanding Trump as weak not strong is essential

• Standing Up For Our Democracy, Every Day - Notes on Building An Effective and Ferocious Opposition - My new video presentation and post on our current moment

• A Collection Of Notes On Building The Opposition - Yesterday’s post which pulls together a lot of my recent writing about how together we build this Opposition we all want to have

Here are my current working recommendations for calls/contacts this week. Four today, and thanks to all of you who are busting your ass right now:

• Keep calling to stop Musk’s crime spree and assault on the US government. Encourage your Senators and Reps to file a criminal referral for him and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI; insist Senators and Reps file amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own; encourage them to hold daily press conferences to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG and outrageous treatment of the proud patriots who have served our country.

• Keep calling Attorneys General in the states. Ask them to protect you and your data/privacy, and to keep federally mandated monies flowing to your states and communities. For those in the 19 states that brought the successful Treasury suit last weekend thank them and encourage them to keep going. I still believe these 19 states should make criminal referrals of Musk/his posse to DOJ/FBI this week, and raise the stakes.

• Insist they fight to challenge and rollback Trump’s tariffs which will raise prices here, strain our alliances, undermine the rules-based global order and make us a rogue, pariah nation. This is all particularly true as new data tells us the American economy is slowing, inflation is rising and consumer sentiment is dropping. There is perhaps no greater Trumpian betrayal of America than these tariffs. For more background, see this post which includes my recent interview with leading economist Dr. Rob Shapiro.

• Lets your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain.

Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.

A note - while physical protests and rallies are a vital part of how we build our new opposition movement, make sure you only attend or promote events by organizations you know and trust. Please do not support any action - boycott, protest, rally, etc - unless you know and trust the organizers. This is really important my friends.

For those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have three Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind right now:

Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,000 of you have donated over $84,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start. We now have a new stretch goal of $150,000 by March 31st after our very strong start for this effort (note that we did have some money clawed back due to an error in the amount someone gave!)

Note that two other good friends of Hopium - David Hogg and Jane Kleeb - were elected Vice Chairs of the DNC this weekend (Jane was elected head of the ASDC which also makes her a DNC Vice Chair). You can watch my inspiring interviews with David here, and with Jane here and learn more about where they want to take the party in the days ahead.

Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.

Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben and thanks to a huge surge of support this weekend we have already hit our March 31st goal of $50,000 raised. Thank you all!

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government. We’ve raised more than $35,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

More Things To Do - Dive into my recent interviews with folks who are making a difference. Check out our upcoming events. Come see me in Bethesda, Maryland tomorrow night. Become a paid subscriber to Hopium, or purchase a gift or group subscription!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon