When We Fight Trump We Can Win - 2025's Most Important Lesson

Republicans are growing weary of "defending the indefensible"

Good day everyone. Three things before the main post today:

Aftyn Behn Phonebanks - Our friends at Stand Up For Science are running phonebanks all day for Rep. Behn. You can join the phonebank (and receive training if needed) at any point today here. Thanks to everyone who has contributed or volunteered for Rep. Behn - Republicans are running scared in a +22 Trump district! Let’s keep working it!

Today, 530pm EST - Fundraiser For The Alaska Democratic Party - I’’ll be speaking at a virtual fundraiser hosted by the Alaska Democratic Party this afternoon. Any of you who have have contributed to the Hopium Audacious Expansion Fund should have received an invitation to join our event today.

If you want to participate and have not yet contributed to our Audacious Fund please do so today by 430pm EST. For questions email Lincoln Cooper at lincoln@hopiumchronicles.com. Going to be a fun one - come join us!

Further Signs Of Their Collapse - DC Media Starting To Read Like The Onion - Punchbowl News has a remarkable story this morning about how much trouble Mike Johnson is in right now. It contains two passages that could be mistaken for a parody journal…..

Enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits expire at the end of the month. Most House Republicans don’t want to extend these subsidies. But Johnson’s leadership team understands that there are vulnerable House GOP lawmakers who badly want a vote on something to combat the idea that Republicans are indifferent to massive spikes in health care premiums.

Here’s the rub, however —Hill Republicans have no health care plan.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And…..

There are just 59 days until government funding expires once again. We’re very careful about predicting government shutdowns. But it will take a lot for the House and Senate to pass nine spending bills between now and Jan. 30.

The House has just 24 days in session between now and then. House GOP leaders don’t plan to take up a single spending bill before the new year.

By law Mike Johnson needed to have all appropriations bills passed and signed by the President by September 30th. Because he gave his Members four months off they aren’t even planning to vote on these appropriations bills until January!!!!!!!

Holy historic incompetence Batman!!!!

When We Fight Trump We Can Win - 2025’s Most Important Lesson

So, my post today is a deeper dive into some of the themes Stuart Stevens and I explored yesterday in our lively and punchy conversation. Strongly recommend it if you haven’t gotten to it yet. My thoughts here also draw heavily on recent conversations we’ve had with Leon Krauze, Nathan Heller, and Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat.

So here’s my big takeaway from the last few months….

When we fight Trump we’ve been winning.

So now we need to fight harder, and across more fronts.

What we’ve come to learn is that the Trump thing is rotten to the core, and when we contest and fight, it crumbles. Consider:

Tesla take downs and months of focused action drove Elon Musk out of Washington.

Texas Dems, JB Pritzker, Gavin Newsom and the House Dems took on the corrupt mid-decade redistricting plan to steal House seats - and we appear to be in the process of winning that fight (or at least not losing it). A remarkable achievement given where everyone thought we were this summer.

Senator Tim Kaine led an effort to have the Senate vote to roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs - and won. In fact he won three times as the Senate voted three times to roll back the tariffs.

Leaders Schumer and Jeffries fought Trump on the ACA subsidies and while that fight may have ended prematurely (I think so) polling data now makes very clear that Trump and the Rs took a huge hit during this period which contributed to our enormous November election victories. The ACA-shutdown fight was a huge win for us.

We’ve been winning and overperforming in elections all across the country this year, and just had a legit blue wave wash across the country in November, giving us wins that went way beyond anything any of us could have hoped for. We won statewide elections in CA, GA, ME and PA by more than 20 points (!!!!!!!!); Sherrill and Spanberger blew out their elections; and we won down ballot races all across the country (see this Politico story about the huge gains we made across NY State).

House Democrats led the fight to get the Epstein files released - ending Trump and Bondi’s rancid cover up - and were incredibly successful, getting a 427-1 vote in the House and an unanimous vote in the Senate. This Epstein vote was one of the most significant Congressional rebukes of an American President in our history, and it spurred unprecedented public challenges of Trump by leaders of his own party.

His illegal and unconscionable tearing down of the East Wing and his plans to build himself a gilded ballroom has put his unprecedented corruption, his embrace of oligarchy, and his contempt for the American creed front and center in our politics now and people are not fucking happy about it. In some polls it is the single most unpopular thing he has done this year.

Six courageous Congressional Democrats made a video reminding our troops they needed to follow the law and not men - and all hell has broken loose. Congressional inquires in both chambers have been launched; stories are being “updated”; Admirals thrown under the bus. It’s become a very Trumpian shitshow now.

Dem state AGs and legal groups all across the country keep racking up deep, consequential wins against the regime in court. While the regime may act as if there is no law in America most of the rest of the country is still operating within an American rule of law framework, something that will become reinforced in this current fight over their lawless actions in the Caribbean.

Despite their extraordinary propaganda machine and efforts to take over legacy media Trump’s approval rating just keeps dropping, hitting new lows in polls every week it seems. We are now regularly seeing polls with him in the 30s on job approval and 60s in disapproval; his agenda is even more unpopular that he is; the battlefield has shifted towards Democrats by between 8 and 12 points since last year and the Senate is now clearly in play; Republican retirements keep growing; they are fighting to hold on to a +22 Trump district in Tennessee today. Fighting to hold on a +22 district…….

He is not only in clear political decline but Trump is also in impossible to ignore physical and cognitive decline, and there is a growing possibility that he will not be able to finish out his term. As we saw this week Trump claimed he did not know what part of his body his MRI looked at, and last night he posted more than 400 times - yes more than 400 times - on Truth Social, after midnight East Coast time. As we discussed with Ruth Ben-Ghiat his madness, his decline, his isolation, his inept advisors, his impulsivity make it far harder for them to make sound decisions, govern effectively, and manage their way through a crisis. His wild overreaction to both the video made by Congressional Dems and the shutdown made everything far worse for them.

Trumpism is in retreat now for it is rotten to the core, and when aggressively challenged, it keeps crumbling.

So we must challenge it more and open up additional fronts. Our leaders simply must recognize where we are now, and seize the moment. We have to become more ambitious, creative and courageous now, and get out of our defensive crouch from earlier this year. Trumpism is on the run and we are being given a real opportunity now to significantly weaken it and the regime. We need to seize it.

Here is how we see our December opportunities:

• Win the TN-7 and Miami elections

• Forcefully challenge Trump’s malevolent agenda - his deepening alliance with Putin, his ridiculous illegal, war in Caribbean, his escalating corruption, his ongoing cover up of the Epstein crimes, his assault on our health care, and his terrible tariffs

• Make Trump defend his corrupt, dangerous, lawless advisors - Hegseth, Noem, Witkoff, Bondi, Kennedy, Vought, Sacks

But one area where there needs to be a very serious internal discussion in the family is what are we going to ask for in the budget negotiations beyond desired levels of funding for critical programs. Should we be requiring

• the resignation of malevolent and lawless Cabinet secretaries and advisors

• the ending of the tariffs

• full support of Ukraine and our European allies

• the roll back of the ICE expansion

• provisions that reign in/expose their corruption and lawlessness, including forcing Treasury to release all the Epstein related financial records they have

• the canceling of the illegal building of the gilded ballroom and the restoration of the East Wing

• what else?

In addition I think it is time now to create a bicameral Congressional team that files criminal referrals to DOJ on every act of the regime’s lawbreaking, so that we are 1) documenting the crimes for future accountability 2) reminding everyone in the corrupt regime that they someday may face dark legal or reputational consequence for what they’ve done.

Those are my thoughts today……now……

Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning December With Behn and Higgins

• Rep. Aftyn Behn For Congress (Dec 2 special election) - $52,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate | Learn More and Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Aftyn Behn | Amazing work all!!!!!!

• Eileen Higgins For Mayor Of Miami (Dec 9 run off) - $11,900 raised, $25,000 goal | Donate | Learn More and Volunteer | Enjoy my our conversation with Eileen Higgins

Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates

• Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $54k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper

• Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $99k raised, $250,000 goal, - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

• Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $26,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01) and Jo Mendoza (AZ-06) | Interviews with Paige Cognetti (PA-08) and Janelle Stelson (PA-10) coming soon

• Hopium House 7 - Our Top House Incumbents Running For Re-election (2026) - $247k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents | Keeping these newly elected Members in Congress is the first step in winning the House in 2026

Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps (2026-2032)

• Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $216,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Enjoy my conversations with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!

In a new essay I talk about 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 now, be loud now, 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.

Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump - We have three 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:

1. 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

2. Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law

3. 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

4. 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 unlawful occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress, end the rancid cover up, and release all of the Epstein files

5. Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy

2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - Next year, on 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.

3 - Make Hopium Stronger - There are several ways you can help make our community stronger:

• Take advantage of the 10% discount through 12/31, become a paid Hopium subscriber for the all important 2026 election year

• Invite your friends, bring in new subscribers, earn rewards

• Buy holiday gift or group subscriptions for colleagues, friends, and family

• Hit “like” on our posts and videos. This will encourage the algorithm to push our work to more people on the Substack app

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 all, and together let’s make this is a big month for our democracy, and the American people - Simon

Watch my new Conversation With Stuart Stevens, “They Are For The Oligarchs, We Are For The People.” It’s punchy and very timely.