Zeleneskyy Comes To Washington, The Remarkably Strong American Economy, Winning Suozzi/Keen
We Gather Wednesday Night at 7pm EST/Welcome New Subscribers!
Happy Monday all. Going to be a big week in DC. Let’s get to it:
Hopium Gathers Wednesday Night at 7pm EST - Our monthly Hopium-wide gathering is Wed night at 7pm EST. Please register if you haven’t yet and yes a video recording will be available here to those who can’t make it live.
Zelenskyy Visits, MAGA Extremism and Dysfunction on Full Display Now - It is mid-December, and Congress still hasn’t passed a budget for the 2024 fiscal year which began on October 1st, the Defense bill, Ukraine and Israel funding or an immigration/border bill; and the House hasn’t passed the many appropriations bills which were supposed to be critical to allowing us to get to a budget deal in Mid-January when the current stop gap agreement expires. The House did, however, just expel a corrupt Congressman, and is about to vote to authorize a formal investigation into Joe Biden, without any evidence of course. So there’s that.
President Zelenskyy visits Washington tomorrow to try to unlock the stalled Ukraine funding package. This is existential now for Ukraine, and for the broader credibility of the West. But Republicans do not care. By making wild and impossible demands in their border/immigration package, the Republicans in this MAGA era are once again ending up on the side of Putin and global autocrats against the interests of the US and the Western world. Corrupt, venal, unconcerned about America and democracy - the whole world will be reminded this week, again, that the Republican Party’s descent into illiberalism and extremism has become an extraordinary threat not just to freedom and democracy here, but everywhere in the world.
While I am generally an optimist, reading news accounts this morning it is very, very clear that the mainstream media is not adequately conveying the level of dysfunction and sabotage we are witnessing right now. It is unprecedented in the modern history of our country, and is making Joe Biden’s job, in an already deeply challenging time, almost impossible. But that’s the goal, isn’t it? To wreck his Presidency - even if it harms America itself - for bringing back the orange one is all that matters now to the former party of Lincoln and Reagan; oh, that, and doing everything they can to turn America’s women into “host bodies” (Texas).
I don’t know what’s going to happen this week, or next, or in January, but fighting these traitors and extremists is what we do here at Hopium. Let’s now focus on a few things we can do with this righteous anger at MAGA’s ongoing betrayal of the country and its people:
Support Suozzi/Keen - Building on what we did in Virginia this fall (and Jacksonville, OH, WI earlier in the year) we’ve launched a campaign to win two critical elections in early 2024 in places we have to learn/re-learn how to win again - Long Island, New York and Florida. I’m asking the entire community here to take an action on behalf of Tom Suozzi and Tom Keen in the coming weeks - donate, postcard, call, text, canvass - whatever you can do, please do. When tens of thousands of people work together to win an election like this it can make an enormous difference, as we’ve seen throughout 2023.
Thank you to all those who’ve already taken an action on behalf of the two Toms. We’ve already raised over $20,000 through our Hopium giving pages (thank you) and I will be updating volunteering options as they become more fleshed out in the coming days on the Suozzi/Keen page - so keep checking back.
Support Anderson Clayton and the North Carolina Democratic Party - Another place where we need to learn how to win in 2024 is North Carolina, which is likely be the hardest state for us to win in the core 2024 Presidential battleground. I am recommending that for folks who want to help Biden and the Democrats win next year, putting a little extra time and money into North Carolina really matters.
Come learn more about how to support the North Carolina Democratic Party on our new “Winning North Carolina” page, which includes my recent discussion with the dynamic new chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Anderson Clayton.
Get Loud About Biden’s and The Democratic Party’s Economic Accomplishments - Last week I published two separate analyses on the remarkably strong American economy:
Please spend time with the data and analysis in these two posts. Learn the data, the arguments, and help spread them through your networks. Getting Biden into a better place on the economy remains our of most important jobs, and we have very strong and compelling arguments to make. But we need to make them!
And yes, inflation was zero last month, and groceries only rose 2.1% in the last year. We are getting there peeps. Things have been hard - insurrection, COVID, supply chain problems, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global inflation, OPEC repeatedly raising oil prices, war in the Middle East - but things are better now, we are getting to the other side and we should be loud and proud about it all.
This chart is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week - inflation was zero as you can see. Zero. And groceries only rose 2.1%, less than the 4% wage growth workers saw over the last 12 months. We are getting there peeps.
Stay Optimistic About 2024 - Some reminders about why we should be optimstic about 2024:
We keep winning elections across the US - this matters more than polls
Recent large sample Hispanic and youth polls are good for Biden
Six national polls in last two weeks show Biden ahead or tied (via 538)
43-42 Morning Consult (last week)
42-41 Economist/YouGov (last week)
39-37 YouGov
37-35 Leger/Canadian Press
44-42 Economist/You Gov (2 weeks ago)
43-42 Morning Consult (2 weeks ago)
The CNN Michigan poll today has Biden losing 18-44 year old voters by 11 points, something that is among the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in the last 2 years. Biden won 18-44 year old voters by double digits nationally and in Michigan in 2020 and Whitmer received 55% of the overall vote in 2022. Swings of this magnitude - 20 to 25 points - barring some extraordinary event like a depression are just not possible, particularly when mounds of other polling show something like this has not happened. The CNN polls are garbage, an embarrassment for the network, and should be dismissed.
Yes there are bad polls; but there are good polls too. Whatever the polls are now we know we are not where want to be, and have work to do. Let’s stay focused on doing the work and fight together to make 2024 as good as 2023 has been.
And remember one of the cardinal rules of Hopium - if you are not on offense in politics you are losing. We need to stay on offense, expanding and growing our coalition, taking stuff away from them, getting to 55 throughout 2024. It is how we win.
Chins up, keep working hard all - Simon
Thank you, Simon. Feeling the same about much of our national media's abhorrent editorial judgment. Appreciate your continuing to call them out!
Just made my first contributions to the two Toms! Also want to highlight something Senator Raphael Warnock said at a "Winning North Carolina Starts With Mecklenburg County" event last week: "We win when we step up. If we lose, we lose by the margin of our disengagement." Rest assured, the Hopium family is committed to staying engaged and to winning those margins everywhere we can in support of freedom and democracy!
RE: Polls.....
I think we should follow the lead of Taylor Swift who says about songwriting: “Amateurs wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”