Why I'm Optimistic About Winning This November, Hopium Year 2, What They Want

Tuesday Night 7pm ET - Our Monthly Hopium-Wide Get Together - Register Today!

Happy Friday all. Got a few things for you today:

Why I’m Optimistic About Winning This November - Some resources:

• My Latest Take on Where Things Are (Video, 4/12/24) - This is my latest overview of where we are in the 2024 election and why I am so fundamentally optimistic. The post also has a deep dive on recent, encouraging polling data. While it remains a close, competitive election, things have gotten bluer in recent weeks, and Trump no longer leads.

• My Interview With the NYT - This long interview with me ran last week. Do read. Lots of great stuff in here.

• Deep State Radio Podcast with David Rothkopf and Tara McGowan - every week few weeks I get together with my good friends David and Tara for a review of the latest in the 2024 election. Do listen, this is always a great podcast with two of the smartest people I know.

Last night I joined MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle to make my case for optimism. It’s a fun conversation and worth your time (yes it was late, and i look a little tired!)

Stat Of The Day - Since 1989 and a new age of globalization began, 51 million jobs have been created in America. 49 million of those jobs, 96%, have been created under Democratic Presidents. Essentially all of them, over 35+ years.

What They Want - Here’s what Speaker Mike Johnson has scheduled for floor votes next week. No, my friends, this is not a joke:

As they play games, let’s recall what it is Trump and MAGA are really fighting for:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. The American economy to crash, and the global economy to fracture. Women and people of color to lose more freedoms and rights. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist's baby to term, and for more women to die on an operating room table. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Big tax cuts for their donors, higher deficits and less for everyone else. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to get pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

That’s what they want, and that’s why we are here. Because we are not going to let that happen.

Upcoming Events - Register Today! - Been a busy week, a few more events next week. Check out our full spring schedule here. If you want to join our paid subscriber events and aren’t yet a paid subscriber you can sign up here. Looking forward to seeing folks soon!

• Tue, April 16th, 8pm ET - Monthly Hopium Community Wide Get Together w/Simon - Register here

• Thur, April 18th Evening - Simon speaks in person at the Maricopa Country Democratic Party 100th Anniversary Event (Phoenix) - Buy A Ticket Here

• Sat, April 20th Evening - Simon speaks in person at the Arlington (VA) Democrats Blue Victory Dinner - Buy A Ticket Here

• Fri, May 3rd, 1pm ET - Monthly Hopium Founding Member Discussion With Simon

• Wed, May 8th, 7pm ET - Monthly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

Hopium Year 2 - Modest Hopium Price Increase on May 1^st – Subscribe Today, Save Money, Help Fund Hopium’s Growth and New Content – As our site has grown a great deal in recent months, and the election is upon us, I have to bring a bit money than we’re currently bringing in to manage our growth and produce more high quality content for you.  So, starting on May 1^st, an annual Hopium paid subscription will increase from $45 to $50.  It is my hope that this incentivizes some of our general subscribers to become paid subscribers for the rest of this critical election year, and help bring in the resources necessary to meet our goals. 

My hope is that together we can bring in 1,500 to 2,000 new paid subscribers at the current rate by the end of the month. Just yesterday in the first day of this campaign we gained 200 new paid subscribers - thank you all!

A reminder that when you subscribe Substack grandfathers in your original subscription rate for all time.  So if you subscribe at $45 today, the current annual rate, you will only pay $45 next year no matter what the price is then.  So there is a significant advantage to subscribing now. It locks in the current $45 annual rate for as long as Hopium is doing it’s thing.

Additionally, as we are now a little more than a year old, some of our earliest paid subscribers have begun to go through the renewal process.  Renewals are automatic at Substack.  Your card on file just gets charged.  If you have changed credit cards and need to update your account, or just want to check on your subscription status, click here and scroll down to “subscriptions.” It will tell you whether you are current and provide other information.

One of the other benefits of being a paid subscriber is our daily chat. It is realistically the only place I can engage all of you given how much we’ve grown. I can no longer answer individual emails to me, and please don’t send them. I love the chat for when people pose questions and I answer thousands of others can see them, and we also get to discuss the issues of the day - respectfully, thoughtfully, without dumping anger or frustration - together. It’s also been a great place for people to share ideas and learn from one another on how to be more effective at fighting for our beliefs and values.

The resources paid subscribers provide also allow almost of the content here on the site to remain free and widely available to the Democratic family. In this critical election year where so much is on the line I think that’s really important, and I’ve worked really hard to keep this site and its content easily accessible to all. Paid subscribers make that possible.

Finally, I was talking to Hopium member Lindsay Billingsley the other day and she asked about gift and group memberships.  I realized that I have never really promoted these features here at Hopium.  So, one way you can bring more folks into our community and generate a bit more revenue is by buying discounted group memberships or purchasing gift subscriptions for others.  You can learn more about both by clicking here and reviewing the group and gift links at the top of the page.  

I will be offering more thoughts about year 2 of Hopium Chronicles in the coming days. But just a big hearty thank you for being part of the early days of this plucky and proud community of patriots and information warriors. I am having a lot of fun working along side all of you, and I think we are making a real difference, every day.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - Here are Hopium we channel all the worry we have about the election into purposeful action. Hopium is a hope with a plan. We don’t just hope we will win this November we do the work to make it so. Right now we are in the final push for three must-win projects - the Biden-Harris campaign, Anderson Clayton/NC Dems and Arizona’s Ruben Gallego. Learn more, donate and volunteer here. Thanks to all of you who’ve stepped up so far!

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