Tag: Hopium

Some Hopium on Thursday

Winning The House w/Rudy Salas (CA-22), Good Week Of Polling For Harris, Trump Is The Ugliest Thing We’ve All Ever Seen by Simon Rosenberg

Join Us To Make Calls and Write Postcards for Janelle Bynum Tonight at 730pm ET Read on Substack

Happy Thursday all. Been a really good week for us. Got a few things for you today:

It’s A New, Bluer Election – 8 polls have been released this week showing Vice President Harris leading (all polls via 538):

  • 49%-45% (+4) Civiqs
  • 49%-46% (+3) Leger (was +7 Trump)
  • 48%-46% (+2) FAU (was +5 Trump)
  • 46%-44% (+2) Economist/YouGov (was +3 Trump last week!!!!!!)
  • 45%-43% (+2) Redfield and Wilton
  • 50%-48% (+2) American Pulse Research and Polling
  • 44%-42% (+2) Angus Reid Global
  • 47%-46% (+1) Morning Consult

Yesterday we discussed that a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll had Harris leading in the battlegrounds 48%-47%, ahead in AZ, NV, MI, WI, tied in GA and only down 2 in NC. A new set of polls by GOP/DeSantis pollster Public Opinion Strategies found good news in the battlegrounds, Harris-Trump:

  • WI 48-45
  • PA 48-46
  • MI 45-45
  • NV 45-46
  • AZ 43-48 (note Harris leads by 2 pts in AZ in the Bloomberg/MC poll)

We also learned yesterday that the Trump campaign has started buying ads in North Carolina, meaning they view it as in play (which it is!) and we saw very good polls in both MN and NH, consistent with Harris having modest national popular vote leads.

Let’s discuss what this all means. Right now the Vice President appears to be opening up a modest lead in the national popular vote. Battleground state polls this week have her leading in AZ, NV, MI, PA, WI and close in GA, NC. We still have not yet seen the full effect of the rallying around her, a week of campaigning next week with the new VP pick, our joyous Convention or what will now be the most powerful early vote/GOTV machine ever seen in an American election.

Trump and Vance continue to generate far more negative press than positive, and we are now on offense, playing hard and perhaps even beating them now on social media. Taken together I think it is reasonable to expect that we gain a few more points in the election over the next few weeks and enter the home stretch in a much stronger position than the pro-Putin, Project 2025-loving MAGAs.

Based on polling and our very strong 2022 performances I always felt it was likely we would hold the three Blue Wall states – MI, PA, WI – which gets the Vice President to 269 Electoral College Votes (note the UAW endorsed VP Harris yesterday, meaning we head into the fall with the most enthusiastic labor support a Democratic ticket has had in many years). Which is why here at Hopium we’ve focused on winning AZ, NC and the Nebraska blue dot. Winning any of these 3 gets us to 270. We currently lead in NE-2, and our friend Jane Kleeb the NE State Party Chair is as good as it gets. AZ and NC are in play, with extremists Kari Lake and Mark Robinson at the top of the GOP tickets in those states, and Ruben Gallego and Josh Stein running very strong campaigns for Senate and Governor. In addition to the $800,000 we’ve raised for Biden and Harris, our community has now invested more than $800,000 into AZ, NE and NC as part of what I’ve called our check – MI, PA, WI – and checkmate – any of AZ, NE, NC – strategy.

Here’s our friend Anderson Clayton, the NC Dem Party Chair, thanking the Hopium community for being the largest outside investor in NC Dems this year: (vid on the page)

Friends, we are not playing catch up any more. We are playing to win.

Here’s a new ad from the Harris SuperPAC, Future Forward: (vid on the page)

Trump reminded us yesterday what a racist pig he is, and once again did remarkable harm to his candidacy. But remember folks, here at Hopium, nothing he does or says is a surprise. We know he is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. We know he is old, very old, profoundly unfit and deeply unwell. We know he is a modern day Bull Connor, a white supremacist, a bigot and a xenophobe. We know he is the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen.

Here’s Stuart Stevens with a great riff on Trump the babyman from MSNBC last night: (vid on the page)

And we know what Trump and Commander Vance want to do if they somehow get into the White House next year:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. 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. Huge new tariffs which will raise prices on everything and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and tax increases for every day people. 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 be pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

The reason we are all here is that we are committed to not letting any of this happen. And this week while you all have rallied for the Vice President, raising more than $100,000 (amazing), we’ve also significantly stepped up our efforts to flip the House to give the Vice President the legislative partner she needs to advance her agenda next year. We heard from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this week. We’ve raised close to $150,000 for our House candidates since Friday and almost $800,000 in the past two months. You can catch our 7th interview with our House candidates, Rudy Salas, above. Rudy is running to flip CA-22 and become the first Latino Member of Congress from California’s Central Valley. And tonight we kick off our Thursday night Hopium Winning the House phonebanking and postcarding Zooms, this one supporting Janelle Bynum in OR-5. I’ll be starting things off at 730pm ET and we will be joined by Janelle herself to give us a bit of motivation to go out and do good, together.

You can join us tonight by signing up here. You can learn more about this new grassroots collaboration project to win the House, including how to order postcards if you need them. Please consider giving us a shift or two in the weeks ahead. We can do this people!!!!

For those who want to support Rudy Salas, you can support him by donating to all of our 11 House candidates in one donation split 11 ways, or by donating to him directly. You can also volunteer for him here.

Here are additional ways to do more and worry less in the days ahead and help us win. All of our goals are by the first day of early voting in the Presidential election, September 20th (or maybe by the last day of the Dem Convention???):

  • Harris For President – $794,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $794,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $194,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President
  • Winning The House – $727,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $55,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 11 or each one individually). Watch my recent interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It will get you all fired up to make him our next Speaker
  • North Carolina – $351,000 raised today, $400,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
  • Arizona/Ruben Gallego – $308,000 raised today, $350,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
  • Nebraska/Blue Dot – $127,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s how you can do even more:

As Tuesday’s primary in AZ-01 is still too close to call, I have taken Andrei Cherny off our 12 way split for House contributions until we have a clear winner there. Thanks to all of you who have supported Andrei. He is a close friend, and truly one of the smartest and best people I’ve ever worked with. More on this soon.

Finally, please help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Use this link to sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack.

We are now over 97,000 strong – help us get to 100,000!!!!!

Keep working hard all. Lot’s to be excited about right now. Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon

The President’s Speech, We Choose Freedom, My Interview W/Will Rollins, The Economy Is Strong

“There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now”

(I haven’t posted a Hopium in a couple of days. Enjoy!)

SIMON ROSENBERG JUL 25, 2024

Happy Thursday all. It sure is a new day. Got a few things for you today:

The Biden Boom Keeps Booming – We just got the 2nd quarter GDP number and it was a very good one – 2.8%. The economy has grown by an average of about 3% in each year of the Biden Presidency – remarkable stuff, and certainly much faster than any other advanced economy in the world. Right now growth is strong, the job market the best since the 1960s, the stock market keeps breaking records, inflation fell last month and is at the Fed target of 2% over the last six months, the uninsured rate is at historic lows and new business formation keeps running at record highs. Under Joe Biden America has prospered, and as the Wall Street Journal wrote recently, our economy today is “the envy of the world.” Importantly, contrary to the media rabble, Americans know things are better where they are:

Joe Biden has been a consequential and successful President. The country is far better off today. We need to be loud and proud about all this economic success, my friends, for it is true and it is really going to matter in the months to come.

President Biden’s Historic Oval Office Speech – In my Tuesday night talk and in posts this week we’ve discussed how President Biden’s decision not to run was a powerful affirmation of American democracy in a time when democracy here and everywhere is under threat. An “American Cincinnatus” I’ve been calling him, something we will be discussing more in the days ahead. I watched the speech. Have it read it over several times. I’ve included the transcript of the speech at the end of this post for you to spend time with today and in the coming days. Here’s my favorite passage:

We are a great nation because we are a good people. When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country, is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cherry that cause cherish it so much. The cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it.

In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.

So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.

One of those fresh voices released her first campaign video this morning. It is clearly a new campaign, with a new candidate, a new vibe, a new argument:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sHky_Xopyrw?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Here’s the text from the ad. Many of you ask for talking points to help make your arguments better, more compelling. Well, here they are:

In this election, we each face a question.

What kind of country do we want to live in?

There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate.

But us. We choose something different.

We choose freedom.

The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body.

We choose a future where no child lives in poverty. Where we all can afford health care, where no one is above the law.

We believe in the promise of America and we are ready to fight for it.

Because when we fight, we win. So join us.

Go to kamalaharris.com and let’s get to work.

I like this new language, this new narrative, this new argument. It’s very good stuff coming this early in the transition, and we should expect it to evolve as the campaign matures and road tests all this stuff. I particularly like the way the Vice President talks about the economy and opportunity. It’s simple, smart and effective:

the freedom to not just to get by, but get ahead

Here we go people. The torch has been passed.

So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.

And yes it’s time to get to work, and go out and win this thing, together.

Donate and volunteer for our next President, Kamala Harris, today!

Fired Up, Ready To Go/My Interview With Will Rollins (CA-41) – I am excited to share a new interview with Will Rollins, one of our Hopium 12, who is running to flip a very competitive seat in Southern California. Will is a very impressive candidate. He’s smart, experienced, determined. I think you will enjoy our discussion, above, and here are ways you can help Will win – Donate to Will | Volunteer | Learn more.

This is the fifth candidate interview in our Winning The House campaign. Perhaps watch some of the others this weekend – Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) and Andrei Cherny (AZ-01). We have a great set of candidates running this cycle and if we do the work we can flip the House, sending the extremist, insurrectionist Mike Johnson packing. You can donate to all 12 here in a single donation, or visit our Winning The House page to donate to the candidates individually. Together, we’ve already raised over $630,000 for these intrepid twelve. Many of you are already working hard on their elections. Your response to this campaign has been incredible and inspiring.

Let’s keep working for the Hopium-endorsed candidates and state parties:

  • Harris For President – $730,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $730,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $130,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President. Note the new campaign released its first Harris for President merch this week. Stuff looks good!
  • Winning The House – $583,000 raised today, $600,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $50,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 12 or each one individually)
  • North Carolina – $334,000 raised today, $400,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
  • Arizona/Ruben Gallego – $300,000 raised today, $350,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
  • Nebraska/Blue Dot – $124,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s how you can do even more:

Finally help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber at this link. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. We are now over 95,000 strong – let’s keep the community growing and the Hopium flowing!

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

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-presidents-speechwe-choose-freedom?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Monday Hopium

It’s Vice President Kamala Harris Now, And We Have An Election To Go Win!

Joe Biden is a proud patriot, a warrior for all of us and a great American President

SIMON ROSENBERG JUL 22, 2024

Happy Monday all, and what a Monday it is. We have a new Presidential candidate, a new ticket soon, an historic, profoundly successful President to honor and be grateful for and an election to go win.

To talk about our new moment I’ve scheduled two calls this week – tonight at 7pm for paid subscribers, tomorrow night at 7pm for the broader Hopium community. The Tuesday night call will be recorded and shared here on Wednesday. You can RSVP to either by following the links above and if you want to become a paid subscriber to join the call tonight you can do so here.

Since President Biden announced he was leaving the race the new Harris campaign has raised over $50m online, and we’ve contributed more than $55,000 so far here at Hopium. I hope all of you will take an action on her behalf today, this week – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. Let’s help the campaign get to $100m raised and overwhelm their volunteer shifts!

We are all going to learn a lot about the Vice President in the coming days – her story, her vision, her agenda. Let’s start with this ad from her 2020 primary campaign. It’s a good indication of what we can expect from her:

A few things about the 2024 election remain true today:

In the last few months we’ve gotten repeated and powerful confirmations of the success of the Biden-Harris Presidency – inflation *fell* last month and is running at the Fed’s target rate over the past six months, crime and murder rates are way down, gas prices are down, the flow to the border is down. We’ve had the strongest economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world, the best job market since the 1960s, the lowest uninsured rate in American history, the deficit is trillions less, the Dow has broken 40,000 and all three indices continue to hover in record territory. Domestic oil, gas and renewable production continue to be at all time highs leaving America more energy independent than it has been in decades. The Wall Street Journal has called the American economy the “envy of the world,” and the Economist recently wrote about the unprecedented start up boom America is experiencing right now. The three big Biden-Harris investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to combat climate change and will be creating opportunities and jobs for our workers for decades to come. Together, the President and Vice President have reinvigorated the Western alliance, been an historic champion of democracy and freedom, and President Biden helped successfully defeat the fascists in recent European and French elections.

What is also true today is the election remains close and competitive. The Vice President has led Trump in several recent polls. Our Senate polling has held, and remains encouraging. We have one of our largest leads in the Congressional Generic this year, and the largest since Mid-May. We’ve been winning elections of all kinds all across the country these last few years and the far-right was just denied power in Europe, the UK and France – folks just keep voting against the fascists. We have no idea where polling on the race will be for some time, but right now the race is close, and winning the Presidential, keeping the Senate and flipping the House remains something we can do. Expect lots of games from right wing pollsters in the coming days – prepare to block out the noise – as we just won’t really know where the race is for weeks, perhaps until after the Vice President chooses her running mate and we have our Convention in August.

What is also still true today is that Trump remains a rapist, a fraudster, a traitor and a felon. He is old, unfit and unwell; a dangerous extremist; and here’s what he and his Project 2025 and Russia loving VP want to do if in the White House:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. 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. Huge new tariffs which will raise prices on everything and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and tax increases for every day people. 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 be pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

What also remains true today is that in addition to rallying behind the new Harris campaign, we have other critical candidate and state parties who need your help today, for here at Hopium we do more and worry less:

Here’s how you can do even more:

Finally, I want to thank all of the members of the Hopium community for raising your game these last few weeks as we debated the best way to beat Donald Trump. I asked folks to be guided by respect – respect for our President, respect for our Party leaders, respect for each other. I asked you to not be a bystander but a leader, and to work to keep us together during a tough period, and bring us back together when the path became clear. I know there are many in this community, many many of you, who love and admire President Biden and wanted him to remain our candidate. I am sure yesterday came as a shock and that many of you will need some time to process what happened, to take some time off and focus on other things. That’s fine. Yesterday was a shock. After returning from Raleigh yesterday and a great trip to North Carolina, I was at a Nats baseball game when the news broke. I thought I was going to have a day off. The weather was beautiful in DC yesterday and the Nats are playing good baseball right now. And then my phone started going crazy and we all got the news.

(snip-more Hopium on the page)

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/its-vp-harris-now-and-we-have-an?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Saturday’s Hopium

In It To Win It In North Carolina!!!!!

Excited to be in Raleigh – folks are fired up, working hard and doing everything they can to win here

SIMON ROSENBERG JUL 20, 2024

Happy Saturday all. Reporting in this morning from Raleigh, North Carolina, ground zero in the 2024 Presidential election. Last night I did an event with one of our Hopium heroes, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton. I got to meet some of members of our plucky community last night, including one of our earliest members, Bridget Johnson, also known as “B Johnson” in our paid subscriber chat. He we are together last night. B was so great to meet you!

After our wonderful event last night Anderson and I recorded a video for all of you. You can find it above. I am here in Raleigh representing all of you. By raising $325,000 for the North Carolina Democratic Party this cycle our community is the largest investor in North Carolina in the country. We went in early for I believed that we could win here this year, and I believed that Anderson has what it takes to be a great chair and leader here. I got to spend some time with Anderson yesterday getting her report on everything here and I am convinced we have made a wise investment, and that she is doing everything we all hoped for – building the statewide effort here from the ground up, precinct by precinct, fueled by the same passion and and commitment of the grassroots that drives all of you.

I also got to see an old college friend, Gerda Stein, a fellow Tufts Jumbo and sister of Josh Stein, who will be (with our help!) the next Governor of North Carolina. Great to see you Gerda! So proud of your brother, the Hopium community is excited to be on the Stein team!

While we may be in a bumpy patch right now, the work to win this election is going on all across the country. Here in North Carolina people are fired up, working hard, and fighting to win this thing. Many of you have put your head down and channeled your anxiety into good works, supporting candidates and state parties across the country. As I’ve been saying for weeks now we simply cannot let up. We cannot take our foot off the gas. Early voting in the Presidential election begins in three states on September 20th – 2 months from today! We need to keep working for working hard, outhustling them, is how we’ve been winning elections all across the country these last few years and and how we are going to win this November.

One bit of good news in polling today – Dems lead by 1 point in what’s called the Congressional Generic, or who will you be voting for in your Congressional races this fall. This is our largest lead since May 15th and one of our largest leads of the year.

If you want to do more and worry less this weekend here are some things you can do:

Here’s how you can do even more:

Finally help me spread Hopium and grow this remarkable community of proud patriots, info warriors and big citizens. Sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber at this link. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep the Hopium flowing and our community growing!

I’ll send some more update for North Carolina tomorrow or Monday. Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/spreading-hopium-in-north-carolina?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

6 responses to “Saturday’s Hopium”

  1. eurobrat Avatar
    eurobrat

    That poll about Congress is really good news. Hopefully some of the MAGA antics and the info about Project 2025 will bring people out to vote for Democrats!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. ali register & vote! redford Avatar
      ali register & vote! redford

      I hope so, too. Thank you for reading! It’s nice to meet you, and I’ve followed your blog. I’ve been reading Xena for a couple of years, give or take.

      I’m noticing much better, fairer (not fair, just fairer) coverage on local news outlets, even in Wichita, KS. I see it online a lot; they show voters stating they want the naysaying to stop, and to get to work to elect our ticket. Those media show things like Minority Leader Jeffries stating that Pres. Biden is our nominee. It’s difficult; the Kool Kids all want to talk about whatever it is while they protect their money from fair taxation, but there are still more of us voters than there are of them. When it gets down to it, are those donors who want the president out actually going to vote for the Don for US president? They’re going to be among the first to be picked up under Project 2025, and all their money will be stolen from them, as opposed to them having to give up some fair taxes. I wish the Dem donors and the Kool Kids would finally change the subject!

      I’d also like each of them to show that the Don is any at all more able than Pres. Biden. From what we see, he’s far less able, but nobody’s calling him on it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. ali register & vote! redford Avatar
        ali register & vote! redford

        https://www.youtube.com/embed/OjYoNL4g5Vg?si=ANdFZZtbr-KlKVo0

        Like

        Reply
      2. eurobrat Avatar
        eurobrat

        Well, it looks like Joe is out. I will admit that I’m relieved and happy about this–I did not think he was a strong candidate anymore, and I’m glad he listened. I sincerely hope we stick with Kamala as our nominee–she is underestimated, I firmly believe she will make a fantastic President, and I’m super excited to support her in the election!

        I do absolutely agree with you that through this entire mess, not enough attention has been paid to how terrible another four years of Trump would be. Really, Biden’s brain in a jar should be able to win against him–I don’t understand how anyone still supports the Donald. But sadly, that is not our reality.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  2. ali register & vote! redford Avatar
    ali register & vote! redford

    https://www.wdbj7.com/video/2024/07/19/democratic-house-leader-jeffries-touts-biden/

    Like

    Reply
  3. ali register & vote! redford Avatar
    ali register & vote! redford

    I must be rattled. I got the embed link for Gilda’s line I’ve adopted, but somehow, the link for something that is no longer in play got posted. I’ve tried to delete it, or edit it, or both, but finally had to close the page, get back on, and post a new comment. The one with Rep. Jeffries is not the pertinent comment, it’s just taking up space. Enjoy the Gilda one; short and sweet, and my sincerest feelings just now. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

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Today’s Hopium

Our today’s dose of inspiration to GOTV!

Yes, Trump Is The Ugliest Political Thing We’ve Ever Seen. That’s Why We Have An Election To Go Win and Cannot Let Up by Simon Rosenberg

I’m In Raleigh, NC Today at 5pm ET, The Hopium Community Gathers Tuesday

Read on Substack

(OK, here’s a snippet. I’m trying out the embed link they provide.)

SIMON ROSENBERG

JUL 19, 2024

Happy Friday all. I’m writing to you today from Raleigh, North Carolina where I am excited to be spending the weekend campaigning with Anderson Clayton, Josh Stein, Governor Cooper and the good Democrats and Hopium community members who are busting their ass to turn this state blue this November.

The Republican Convention is over and last night Donald Trump gave the longest, most bizarre and worst speech at a party convention in American history. Friends of mine from across the country who are not that involved in politics reached out to me shocked at how bat shit crazy he sounded, how long he went on, how unfit and unwell he so clearly is. That he was oh so weak not Trumpian strong. Here at Hopium none of this was a surprise. We’ve been talking about him from Day 1 here. We know he is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. We know he is far more extreme and dangerous now than he was in 2016 or 2020. We know that this danger to our democracy, our freedoms and our future became far more manifest when he picked pro-Russia extremist JD Vance as his running mate and heir apparent. To us here at Hopium we didn’t need to hear a single word of that terrible speech last night to know what they are fighting for, what they want for this country:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. 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. Huge new tariffs which will raise prices on everything and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and tax increases for every day people. 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 be pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

Hannibal Lecter. Future GOP meetings in Russia-allied Venezuela. Hitler’s “poisoning the blood.” Autocratic leaders of China, Russia, Hungary and North Korea heaped with praise and respect. J6 criminals are “hostages.” Another embrace of QAnon, a violent cult calling for the jailing and assassination of Democrats. It was all there, ugly as it fucking gets, extreme, nothing held back. Another confirmation of why we are all working so hard to win the election, and why hard-working people of this great country deserve much better than this Putin-loving lunatic. (snip-More; the Hopium follows this)

Today’s Hopium

Voters in Europe, The UK and France Just Denied The Far Right Power. It’s Our Turn Now

Join Me And Anderson Clayton In Raleigh, North Carolina This Friday!

SIMON ROSENBERG

JUL 17, 2024

Happy Wednesday all. Only more 2 days of the Republican Convention! Got a few things for you today…..

Hopium community member Roger Poulard dropped this note on our paid subscriber chat last night responding to a link I shared from Biden-Harris about needing volunteers:

Did my first [DNC] phonebanking shift tonight. 65 calls made – talked to 10 people, 7 of which are voting for Joe, and two who are undecided or won’t say. Feeling a little bit better about everything. It’s a close race and I really hope things go our way, but I’m going to do my part to try to make it happen.

Community member TCash added this:

Here’s a little hopium of my own to share. This morning I got an email from “postcards to swing states” . They are pausing sign-up for the moment because of the overwhelming number of volunteers who have reached out and they need to catch up. In the last two weeks alone over 19,000 volunteers have requested 5.5 million postcards. In early August, they will resume taking orders with a goal of 29 million postcards to be sent out. Maybe this kind of news isn’t reported in the media or reflected in the polls but it’s a wonderful thing to see such an amazing amount of enthusiasm in a grassroots organization.

Community member ArcticStones added this:

On a related note, last night I was on a Zoom call where Red Wine & Blue hosted Heather Cox Richardson. An intense discussion ensued about Trump’s Project 2025 – and what we can do to stop it! Everyone received information and tool-kits to make other voters aware of the danger America faces.

There were 35,000 people on that call. Afterwards it broke into separate Zoom action groups, organized geographically, to prepare concrete action.

Throughout our nation, patriotic defenders of American democracy are rising!

VP Harris released this short video ahead of JD Vance’s speech tonight:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/AS4KQUYEEzs?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

We now have a few days of polling after the events of the weekend and the race remains remarkably stable, close and competitive (all polls can be found on 538). Biden remains 2 points down on 538’s average. The Congressional Generic is back in positive territory and has been encouraging for us these past few weeks. Senate polling continues to hold. We’ve had polls this week with Biden up in MI and WI and down just 2 in NC. As we discussed yesterday, JD Vance may be good for Trump’s fundraising, but he is not good for him electorally. The 538 forecast this morning has Biden at 277. Here’s the current battleground in the 538 forecast:

Here’s the RNC Chair yesterday saying “there is no red wave.” For there isn’t, and Rs got heavily burned by their bullshit polls and wishful thinking in 2022. The election is remarkably stable, close and competitive, with Trump, perhaps, having a slight advantage. Commentators on television suggesting otherwise are operating outside the data available to us today.

From my read over the last few weeks the Trump campaign understands they have a lot of work to do to win. After publicly dissing her they clumsily gave Nikki Haley a Convention speaking slot at the last minute because they don’t have her voters locked up. They’ve kept Trump off the campaign trail because every time he speaks his idiocy, extremism and craziness hurts the campaign. They know that selling a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon to the American people is no easy thing. They have to lie about Biden’s Presidency because they know how successful it has been – that the economy is booming, the stock market setting records, inflation dropping, crime is way way down and flows to the border are now the lowest they’ve been during the Biden Presidency. They sold the VP pick to Silicon Valley because they needed the money. They’ve tried to bury their extremism and run from Project 2025. They know the pro-Russian views of their two candidates is a stone cold political loser. They know we’ve won more votes in 7 of the past 8 Presidential elections. They know that we’ve averaged 51% in the last 4 Presidential elections, our best showing since FDR’s 4 elections, and that this is a center-left country today. They know they are not at 270 Electoral College votes in current polling. They know that when voters have voted in these last 2 years since Dobbs they keep underperforming and struggling, and we keep winning and overperforming. They know the power of American women and the Democratic grassroots. They know the abortion ballot initiatives could cost them a few critical points in critical battleground states. They know the far right flamed out in the European, French and UK elections. They know NeverTrumpers remain a big threat to their ability to win the election.

And they know that the guy who tried to kill Trump is almost certainly one of theirs and a very public confirmation of the threat their radical politics is to the country. From Newsweek this morning (and this has been confirmed by other news outlets):

A neighbor in Bethel Park, the Pittsburgh suburb where Crooks lived, said they saw pro-Trump signs in the family’s yard as recently as a few months ago.

“There absolutely was MAGA-supporting signs for a while,” Kelly Little told WTAE-TV.

Not only I am optimistic we can win this thing based on current data and my assessment of the landscape but because of the “margin of effort” all of you are putting in. As a fellow citizen I remain deeply inspired by your commitment, love of country, grit and willingness to just put your head down and do the work required for us to win.

But our party today is not united as we need it to be. There remains deep concern about the President’s ability to go out and win the election given his struggles of late. This concern is not just being expressed by some party leaders (who by the way know how to win elections in tough places) but based on current polling is shared by tens of millions of Democrats themselves. As I said in my video to you a few days ago (above), I am optimistic we can win this November; but if the President is going to win he is going to need to do far more to assuage the legitimate doubts many Democrats have about his candidacy, and all of us will have to come together soon – for a divided, fractious Democratic Party will lose the 2024 election.

My ongoing advice to this community is to approach these coming days with respect – respect of the President, our nominee; respect of party leaders who are working to ensure that we can win the election; and respect of one another who today are not all on the same page. For those of you backing the President telling your fellow Democrats who continue to have doubts to stop it and get in line is counter-productive, insulting and corrosive. For those of you wanting the President to step aside recognize that the most likely scenario is that our ticket remains Biden-Harris and attacking him wounds him at a time we need to be building him and the Vice-President up. This current moment is not easy for us given the stakes but as I asked in my video think of yourself here as a leader, not just a citizen. Lead the party forward, show respect of views different than yours and work to bring us together not push us apart. Do the hard thing here not the easy thing. And the hard thing is to resist fighting with fellow Dems, publicly, right now, and keep putting our heads down and working; and commit to bring us all together as we head into our Convention in a few weeks. The only way we win is if we stay together.

I want to be very clear at what I am saying here. The doubts about the President’s capacity to lead us now is a serious matter. In the Washington Post poll released last week which had the race at 46-46, 56% of Democrats wanted the President to step aside for another candidate. This data is consistent with data from other polls in the last few weeks.

If the President cannot get this number down, way down, I think it will be very difficult for us to win the election this November. He is the President, and the leader of our Party. It is his responsibility to bring us together, to demonstrate that he can lead us successfully against this fascist threat. Perhaps his media appearances over the past few weeks, the ongoing encouraging economic news, his successful leadership of the NATO Summit, the shock of the ugliness of the GOP Convention and his confident and strong leadership in the aftermath of an assassination attempt of a former President has already started assuaging these concerns. But we are not where we want to be right now, have a lot of hard work ahead of us and we are not the “my way or the highway” party. That’s them. We are the bring everyone together, listen to each other respectfully, expand our coalition and go out kick MAGA’s ass party. We are the Democratic Party.

It is why I hope this weekend the President and his team to do one more final assessment of the political landscape given the tumult of the past few weeks, review the latest data, talk one more time to party leaders, and perhaps most importantly, do one more final assessment of whether an 81 year old man who has been struggling a bit can, in the next four months, be both the President of the United States in a very challenging time and a successful candidate for President in a race we are not winning right now. If the answer is yes I will be all in and work as I have, with all of you, to go win this thing for our democracy, our freedoms and our future. And if the President chooses to pass the baton I will be all in and work as I have, with all of you, to go win this thing for our democracy, our freedoms and our future.

I am proud of my President, proud of my party, and oh so proud to be in this fight with all of you. Let’s keep working hard everyone and commit to bring our party back together and go out defeat the fascists one more time. Voters in Europe, France and the UK just did their job. It’s our turn now.

Making July Count/We Cannot Let Up/Do More and Worry Less – Friends, we just did a remarkable job together here making June count. In five weeks from late May to June 30th we raised over $1m for our candidates and party committees. Many of you have been out there hustling for candidates, writing postcards, canvassing, calling and texting. We launched our Winning the House campaign which brought in more $500,000 for our 12 Hopium-endorsed candidates with the best opportunity to flip seats and help us take back the House. We added the blue dot in Nebraska to our “checkmate” state strategy, one designed to get us to 270 electoral college votes and win the election. We raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Biden-Harris, including more than $100,000 in the days after the debate. When called once again the Hopium community answered. That’s why we’ve launched a new campaign to “Make July Count” with new July 31st fundraising goals.

We cannot let up now, not for a moment. We are deep into the 2024 election and while it is summer, and we are not all on same page today, we cannot stop working to make the election everything we want it to be. So please do something this week to support this new campaign, and be on the look out for many more interviews of our endorsed House candidates in the coming days. Trying to get the remaining eight done by our Convention.

We can do this people!

Here’s how you can do even more:

Finally help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber at this link. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep the Hopium flowing and our community growing!

Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/voters-in-europe-the-uk-and-france?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Monday’s Hopium

It’s still good today, and if I get to it, today’s will be here today!

The Campaign Goes On And We Cannot Let Up

We Should Be Deeply Grateful That Donald Trump Is Safe, Unharmed And Back On The Trail

SIMON ROSENBERG

JUL 15, 2024

Happy Monday all. I had a hard time writing this morning. So much has happened since I last wrote to you on Saturday. Where to begin? We should all be grateful the shooter missed, and that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed. Democracies resolve differences at the ballot box and not with bullets. I have no idea how the shooting will impact this election, or what happens next. Polls conducted last week found the election close and competitive, with neither side having a clear advantage. Today Biden is at 270 Electoral College votes in the 538 forecast despite lingering and legitimate concerns about his candidacy. As I said in my video overview of the election from late last week we can and should win this election, but we need to stay together and not give into fear, factionalism or red wavy Trump has superpowers thinking.

So let’s start today with this reminder:

In the last few months we’ve gotten repeated and powerful confirmations of the success of the Biden Presidency – inflation *fell* last month and is running at the Fed’s target rate over the past six months, crime and murder rates are way down, gas prices are down, the flow to the border is down. We’ve had the strongest economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world, the best job market since the 1960s, the lowest uninsured rate in American history, the deficit is trillions less, the Dow has broken 40,000 and all three indices continue to hover in record territory. Domestic oil, gas and renewable production continue to be at all time highs leaving America more energy independent than it has been in decades. The Wall Street Journal has called the American economy the “envy of the world,” and the Economist recently wrote about the unprecedented start up boom America is experiencing right now. Biden’s big three investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to combat climate change and will be creating opportunities and jobs for our workers for decades to come. The President has reinvigorated the Western alliance, been an historic champion of democracy and freedom, and campaigned to help successfully defeat the fascists in recent European and French elections.

Joe Biden promised to make things better for all of us, to get us successfully to the other side of COVID. And he has. He has been a very successful President for America and virtually everything you will hear this week at the GOP convention about the Biden Presidency will be lies.Subscribe

Here’s Governor Josh Shapiro this weekend celebrating the life of Corey Camperatore who was killed at the Trump rally on Saturday: (video on the page)

Here’s a passage from David Frum’s powerful new essay in The Atlantic this morning (gift link):

When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked. One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.

After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy. His supporters chanted “Lock her up.” Trump laughed and replied, “Lock them all up.”

Fascism feasts on violence. In the years since his own supporters attacked the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election—many of them threatening harm to Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence—Trump has championed the invaders, would-be kidnappers, and would-be murderers as martyrs and hostages. He has vowed to pardon them if returned to office. His own staffers have testified to the glee with which Trump watched the mayhem on television.

Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well. The attempted murder of Trump—and the killing of a person nearby—is a horror and an outrage. More will be learned about the man who committed this appalling act, and who was killed by the Secret Service. Whatever his mania or motive, the only important thing about him is the law-enforcement mistake that allowed him to bring a deadly weapon so close to a campaign event and gain a sight line of the presidential candidate. His name should otherwise be erased and forgotten.

It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence “has no place” in American society. Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016, and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election.

Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. The Mussolini movement in Italy built imposing monuments to its fallen comrades. The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.

We enter the GOP’s Convention week with a few things still being true:

Trump is a rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon and the ugliest and most dangerous political figure in our history

And this is what his fascist party wants to do if back in power:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. 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. Huge new tariffs which raise prices on everything, and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors 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.

Matt Carriker of Demolition Ranch

The yound man who shot at Donald Trump on Saturday was a registered Republican wearing a Demolition Ranch t-shirt. A central reason he was successful at getting his shots off is that, unlike almost every other nation in the world, here in the US a 20 year old can legally carry a high-powered rifle in public within several hundred feet of a Presidential candidate and there is nothing law enforcement can do until he fires his weapon. Far right ideologies made Saturday’s shooting possible, and easy enough even a kid could do it. Violence is their goal, their aspiration, as is the ending of “law and order” and democracy itself. And here we are at a remarkably dangerous and consequential moment in our history.

(snip-there is more!)

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-campaign-goes-on-trump-remains?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web