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Republicans Thought They Were Getting A Bro-Podding Business Guy. They - And We - Are Getting A Russian-Backed Monster

Derek Tran declares victory in CA-45/Let's keep working it everyone!

Simon Rosenberg

Nov 26

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Good morning all. We start today with some very good news - Derek Tran declared victory in CA-45 last night. I know folks here have worked very hard on that race, and while it hasn’t been officially called yet we should be optimistic about where it’s headed. If you want to keep working to cure ballots in CA-45 and CA-13 (Adam Gray) sign up with our friends at Grassroots Democrats HQ. Here’s the current count in both races:

If we win both these races the House will be 220R-215D, and we will have picked up two seats net from the last Congress. With three vacancies due to House members leaving to join (or attempting to join - Gaetz) the Trump cabinet, House Rs will begin Congress next year at 217-215, a one vote majority in what has been a very factious and fragile Republican “Majority.”

Here’s where our 15 endorsed House candidates stand today:

Flips (4) - Whitesides (CA-27), Gillen NY-4, Riley NY-19, Bynum OR-5
Too Close To Call/Still Counting (2) - Gray CA-13, Tran CA-45 (optimistic!)
Losses (9) - Shah AZ-01, Engel AZ-06, Salas CA-22, Rollins CA-41, Bohannan IA-1, Vargas NE-02, Jones NY-17, Altman NJ-07, Stelson PA-10

I remain very proud of the good we’ve done this past cycle. We made deeply strategic investments and got important wins in a tough year in AZ, NC, NE, WI and in these critical House seats. Of the 6 House seats Dems flipped this cycle, our community aggressively backed 5 of them - George Whitesides CA-27, Tom Suozzi NY-3, Laura Gillen NY-4, Josh Riley NY-19 and Janelle Bynum OR-5.

If both Gray and Tran do win, the Hopium community will have played meaningful roles in electing 7 of the 8 House candidate who turned red seats blue this year. Great work everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While We Are Tired, And Down, We Have To Fight - I’ve thought a lot about how this place is going to work in this second Trump era. As we’ve discussed it is going to be hard. Bad things are going to happen. And we are going to have to keep fighting through it all, not disengage or get too down, and forge ourselves into a ferocious and effective opposition. Some are going to need to take time off to rest, recover, regroup. That’s fine. Do what you need to do. But friends, if we’ve learned anything in the past few days, we are going to have to fight, and we are going to need everyone on board when they are rested up and ready to go.

While I’ve maintained a very upbeat and optimistic outlook here at Hopium since we launched in March of 2023 I also have been very clear-eyed about who Trump was, and the threat he represented. Rapist, fraudster, traitor, 34 times felon. Or this passage, which I shared again and again:

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.

Or this one that I also repeated again and again:

Trump is a Russian-backed wrecking ball who wants to end the American-led global economic system that has made us prosperous, end the Western alliance that has made us safe, and end American democracy that has made us free.

A central cause of my optimism that we would win this year came from my belief that our campaigns would have more to work with to disqualify and degrade Trump than any campaigns have ever had, as Trump/MAGA 2024 was far more dangerous, criminal, extreme than any previous iteration of Trump/MAGA. We had beaten the extremists in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023; the fascists had underperformed and been beaten in Europe and France this past summer; and I felt the conditions were such that we could once again prevail against this dangerous politics in the November election.

We know what happened next. Despite his historic ugliness and threat to the country, we didn’t win. And it is clear now, within just a few weeks of Trump’s election, that he is not going to be just one of the guys, a country club Republican CEO, that nutty dude with a red hat doing bro-pods; and that he wasn’t just engaging in “locker room talk” about all those crazy things he rambled on about. Voters were fooled into believing Trump was just a wacky but successful business guy - again. What they - and we - got instead was a Russian backed monster seemingly intent on destroying the American economy and the country from his very first day in office.

Consider the news from the past few days:

“Trump plans tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China that could cripple trade” (NYT)
“Walmart says Trump tariffs could raise prices” (CNBC)
“Trump’s deportation vow alarms Texas construction industry” (NPR)
“US farm groups want Trump to spare their workers from deportation” (Reuters)
“Trump officials to receive immediate clearances and easier FBI vetting: president-elect’s team planning for background checks to occur only after administration takes over bureau” - The Guardian
“Kennedy’s antivax views and friends can cause real damage” (NYT)
“Trump Pentagon pick (Hegseth) had been flagged by fellow service member as 'Insider Threat’” (AP)
“Tulsi Gabbard’s sympathetic views towards Russia cause alarm as Trump’s pick to lead intelligence services” (AP)
“Sexual misconduct allegations sank one Trump nominee and loom over Kennedy” (WSJ)
“Gaetz exit puts spotlight on other Trump nominees accused of sexual misconduct” (Reuters)

Here’s the Washington Post this morning on Trump’s new tariff announcement:

President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he will issue executive orders imposing new tariffs on all imported goods from China, Mexico and Canada, the nation’s three largest trading partners, as one of his first acts upon reentering the White House. He said 25 percent tariffs would be imposed on Mexican and Canadian merchandise and 10 percent on Chinese goods as part of a plan aimed at stopping an “invasion” of drugs and migrants into the country. Economists have warned that American consumers would face higher prices on goods because of the proposed tariffs.

As we’ve been discussing here, we are not going to win every battle, and we have to be really smart about where we engage. But fight we must. Here are two things you can do right now, before Thanksgiving:

Call your Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s pick of Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.
Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately.

Trump could have let us have a quiet Thanksgiving holiday. Instead, because he is mad, impulsive and a serial betrayer of the country, we get these wild threats of crippling, autocratic tariffs. Here is Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell on CNN last night talking about how these tariffs are going to drive up costs of so many of our every day goods:

Rest up this long weekend my friends. Enjoy your time with family. Take long walks. Binge watch your favorite show. Read that book that has been sitting by your bedside table for months. Cure a few more ballots for Gray and Tran. Rest up, recharge and for those of you ready to jump back in next week get ready. We have a lot of work to do.

Remember, Hopium is hope with a plan. We just don’t hope that things will turn out as we want. We do the work to make it so. And man do we have a lot of work ahead of us.

What Happened, What Comes Next - Our approach here has been to go slow, listen and learn, and right now I have far more questions than answers. New resources from Hopium:

Notes on 2024 And What Comes Next (11/20/24) - In a new detailed post and comprehensive video released I offer my latest thinking about what happened in 2024 - the ugly and the encouraging.
In this post and video I offer my heartfelt thanks to the members of this community who left it all out there on the playing field this cycle.
I’ve written a series of related post-election posts on the need for us to get louder here, here, here and most recently this one on how we need to get far smarter in how we strategically contest the right’s information superiority in our campaigns. Both the Trippi and the McGowan/Pfeiffer conversations below also speak to this urgent need, and exciting opportunity.

To help us learn from others throughout the family, I’ve launched a new What Happened, What Comes Next discussion series. Here are the first four of those talks, along with 2 relevant segments from my fall Closing Strong series with Tara McGowan and COURIER Newsroom:

Anderson Clayton - On Our Impressive Downballot Wins in North Carolina
John Della Volpe - On Trump’s Gains With Young People
Joe Trippi - On The Power Of Networks And The Need To Build Our Own
Rep. Abigail Spanberger - On Winning The Virginia Governors Race in 2025. Learn more about Abigial | Volunteer | Donate To Her Campaign

From Closing Strong:

On The Need For Pro-Democracy Media - With Tara McGowan and Dan Pfeiffer.
Beyond MAGA Creators - Russia’s Influence On The Republican Party Runs Deep With Stewart Stevens and Jiore Craig.

I’ve also set up a thread for paid subscribers to offer their thoughts on what this wonderful and plucky community should do next. I’m grateful for the many comments we’ve received so far. Weigh in if you can in the coming days, and note that an annual Hopium paid subscription is now 10% off through the end of the year for those who may want to sign up or give a bit of Hopium as a holiday gift.