While Trump And Republicans Have Given Up On America This Community Never Will

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Morning all. As I go to press this morning Republicans are still struggling to get to 51 votes in the Senate on their big, ugly monstrosity. My assumption is that they will get there, and if they do then all work moves to the House, and these 29 districts. In the Senate we need four defections to stop this bill. In the House we need only three.

If when you receive this the Senate has not yet passed the bill, we have four Senators to target for constituency calls - Collins (ME), Murkowski (AK), Paul (KY) and Tillis (NC). If you live in these states please call, now, and ask everyone you have ever known to join you. A reminder that both Collins and Murkowski voted no on the Senate ACA repeal in 2017, so there is precedent for both of them to denying Trump a big legislative win. MAKE YOUR CALLS PEEPS!

To understand the extraordinary fanaticism driving this process listen to the CNN commentator Harry Enten yesterday about how historically unpopular the bill is:

It is unpopular for this bill and Trump’s broader agenda really are an agenda of sabotage, plunder and betrayal. Trump is making America poorer, weaker, less safe and less free. And a majority of the country has figured this out.

The single most important message we can convey this week - that while this bill, if it is passes, may be a “win” for Trump in the way we talk about things in Washington it is not a win for America or the American people. America is not winning under Trump. We are losing. We are not stronger. We are weaker. We are not great again, but on a path for rapid, historic decline.

And that we are weaker, poorer, less safe and less free is that all matters.

If you haven’t gotten to it please watch my new discussion with Lincoln Square’s Stuart Stevens, “Trump’s Big, Ugly Bill Will Make America Poorer, Weaker, Less Safe and Less Free.” We go into depth about all this in what is a meaty and timely conversation about this perilous moment.

In my talk with Stuart we dive into something we often talk about here - how Trump sees the world through a very simple lens - winning and losing, strong and weak, success and failure, hero and villain. Look at how he describes his latest scam - perfume, yes, perfume - “Winning, Strength, and Success.”

“Winning, Strength, and Success.” While we have to campaign against his assault on our public health, his extraordinary betrayal of working people, his selling out of our clean energy future, his bankrupting of the country, his use of the military and ICE against civilian populations, we also must focus everything we have on dissembling the core of his brand positioning, and make him a loser, weak, a failure, a villain. America and the American people are not winning under Trump. We are losing, we are weaker, we are poorer, we are less safe and much less free. And our wins, our strength, and our success matter much more than whatever bullshit he is going to try to spew in the coming weeks to revive his flagging and awful “Presidency.” He will be, forever, the greatest failure, the biggest loser, the most pathetic and weak, and the least patriotic, man America has ever produced.

For Trump is now also a mass murderer, up there with modern history’s greatest villains - Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin and Mao. From the Washington Post’s new article, “In Sudan, where children hung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal” (gift link):

After more than two years of ferocious civil war, Sudan is home to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, the United Nations says. Both sides have attacked hospitals. The military often delays or denies aid access; the paramilitary it is fighting has kidnapped relief workers and looted aid facilities.

Disease and famine are spreading unchecked. More than half the population, some 30 million people, need aid. More than 12 million have fled their homes. For so many families barely hanging on, programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were a lifeline — providing food to the hungry and medical care for the sick.

While the Trump administration’s cuts to USAID this year have been felt deeply across the world, their impact in Sudan was especially deadly, according to more than two dozen Washington Post interviews with civilians, clinicians and aid officials in the capital, Khartoum, and surrounding villages.

When U.S.-supported soup kitchens were forced to close, babies starved quietly, their mothers said, while older siblings died begging for food. Funding stoppages meant that critical medical supplies were never delivered, doctors said. The lack of U.S.-funded disease response teams has made it harder to contain cholera outbreaks, which are claiming the lives of those already weakened by hunger.

The World Health Organization says an estimated 5 million Sudanese people may lose access to lifesaving health services as a result of the U.S. cuts.

5 million people could die in Sudan alone due to Donald Trump. A new study published in the leading medical journal, The Lancet, projects that these USAID cuts will cause 14 million people to die by 2030. 4.5 million of those will be children.

I write this for two reasons 1) Donald Trump is no great American hero. He is our greatest villain 2) once you are OK with killing tens of millions of the poorest people of the world on purpose, then killing Americans by taking away their health care, unraveling our vaccine regime, putting Marines on to the streets of Los Angeles and disappearing us into foreign gulags becomes what you do next, a no biggie. And here we are. The leader of this country, our great country, has chosen the path of the great villains of history and has begun his campaign of mass death globally, and perhaps here in America too. First we had “we are all going to die.” Now we have mass deportation czar Tom Homan saying “people die in ICE custody.” Yes, people dying after being seized by the Interior Ministry is “no biggie” now, here, in the United States of America.

It is why we cannot let up for one minute. For while Trump and his allies may have given up on America this community of proud American patriots never will.

Now, Let’s Get To Work

Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - Friends, you all rallied these last few days. We hit our $25,000 mark for newly endorsed Sherrill and Ossoff - thank you! Our $200,000 fundraising goals are for Labor Day, remarkably, only two months away, with the November elections now only four months away.

• Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov - $200,000 goal, $28,000 raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview

• Abigail Spanberger VA Gov - $200,000 goal, $146k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview

• Jon Ossoff GA Senate - $200,000 goal, $26,000 raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer

• Hopium House 7 - $200,000 goal, $152k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews

We also have ongoing campaigns to support the new DNC, the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.

1 - Stop The Reconciliation Bill - Job One for us this summer remains fighting Trump’s ruinous and deeply unpopular economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators and Representatives have a particularly important role to play in the coming weeks.

Here’s a possible script to use to fight the reconciliation bill and tariffs. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.

But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.

Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

2 - Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us. See my recent interviews with Joe Garcia, Leon Krauze and Senator Chris Van Hollen for more.

In the coming days I want to work with all of you to do something more explicit about demanding the end of masked, plain clothes “police” snatching people here in America without warrants.

3 - Own The Fourth, The Flag And Patriotism - To keep our momentum going after the remarkable No Kings events I encourage you to explore ways of Owning The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly one for our mad wannabe king.

Inspired by the tactics of our Founders, learn about how Hopium members are advancing “resolutions of condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Our resolutions passed in New Mexico last week, others are working to bring them forward - let’s keep the mo’ going everyone!

4 -Volunteer To Help Your State and/or Local Democratic Parties Stand Up Voter Registration Efforts - In the presentation he made to our community on Friday Tom Bonier made a persuasive case that Democrats must once again make partisan voter registration a national priority. State and local Democratic Parties are in the planning stages to take this on. Members of our community should consider contacting their state and local parties and offer to help stand up these vital efforts in the coming months.

For more on the need to make partisan voter registration great again see my recent interview with Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, DNC Vice Chair and President of the Association of Democratic State Committees.

On Monday the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DGA and the ASDC announced a major new “Organizing Summer” project. Learn more about it here, and there is a kick off call on Wednesday night at 8pm ET. I hope to have someone join us in the coming days to help us understand how we can support this exciting new initiative.

5 - Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today. Another is to back over 700 employees of the EPA who have taken a courageous stand challenging EPA Administration Lee Zeldin. You can learn more and sign your name in support of this remarkable effort here.

For more on the need to fight Trump’s war on science, research, academia and our public health see my recent interview with noted climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann.

Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Grow Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 152,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. If each current paid subscriber brings in just one new subscriber this summer we will hit our goal. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you, and a fight it surely is - Simon