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Revisiting “The Gray and The Brown” with Ron Brownstein

Join Me and David Jolly In Jupiter, Florida On Monday, June 9th

Simon Rosenberg and Ronald Brownstein

May 31

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Happy Saturday all. It’s a beautiful and cool morning here in DC. Got three videos for your consideration this weekend: 1) my recent talk with Brian Tyler Cohen 2) my regular talk this week titled On Trump’s Plunder, Sabotage and Betrayal 3) and this one, above, a long and meaty discussion with award-winning journalist, Ron Brownstein.

You of course can find links to all my recent talks with folks like Senator Tim Kaine, Anderson Clayton and Katie Phang under the Podcast tab here on Hopium and on YouTube and Spotify too.

Also note that I’ll be traveling to Florida for an event next Monday, June 9th at Florida Atlantic University. I’ll coming down for a moderated discussion with David Jolly hosted by the Palm Beach Democratic Party. For those in the area - join us! Looking forward to seeing members of the Hopium community in person. Strongly recommend watching my recent conversation with David , Putting Florida Back In Play. Get more info on the event and register here.

Revisiting “The Gray And The Brown” - Yesterday afternoon the great political journalist Ron Brownstein joined us Live. A recording of our discussion is above.

I asked Ron to join us to revisit his seminal 2010 essay, The Gray And the Brown. In that essay Ron explores what has become one of the most important questions of the last several decades of American politics - would an aging white US population fund programs for kids who increasingly did not look like theirs? In other words would aging American whites embrace the profound demographic changes underway in a country that had just elected Barack Obama, or would they recoil?

As Ron and I note in our talk this essay arrived in a time when he and I been having public and private conversations about this question, and I am quoted in the essay. As someone who had been a leading champion in those years of Democrats leaning hard into this demographic transition the question Ron explores in this essay was then - and remains today - one I think about literally every day.

As we cover a lot of historical ground in this conversation (and yes we had some technical problems it appears now watching the video this morning, still learning how to use Substack’s Live platform) want to highlight two key areas we touch on:

1 - That the post-Southern Strategy GOP has never really had an economic strategy, but has sold a tribal social policy of “more for us, less for them” as economic policy for decades now. It’s an explanation for why the economy does so poorly when they are in power, and we are seeing it again with Trump 2.0 - everything is about more for him and his tribe and less for everyone else. This approach may work as social policy but it has repeatedly not worked as economic policy.

In the discussion I raise the question of whether Trump’s understanding of tribe has changed in Trump 2.0, narrowing from his 2024 coalition and white working class base to now just his fellow oligarchs. For the economic strategy he is pursuing - tariffs/big middle and working class tax increase, slower economy, higher prices, higher interest rates, huge tax cuts for the wealthy, weakening of US health care system and causing tens of millions to become uninsured, labor shortages due to mass deportation, gutting of US government, risking fiscal integrity of US - will cause, and is already causing hardship in his white working class base; as it is without question the most anti-worker and anti-working class agenda America has seen in generations.

In this graph from G. Elliott Morris’ Strength In Numbers site we see that between 25% and 30% percent of 2024 Trump voters currently disapprove of his handling of inflation. It’s a very big number, and suggests that at some point even loyal Trump voters may come to understand that despite the bread and circuses he and other “Let Them Eat Cake” Republicans are not on their side.

The difficulty Republicans are going to have in selling Trump’s “more for me, five pencils and two dolls for you” agenda to working people became evident this week in a now infamous moment in an Iowa town hall with Senator Joni Ernst. Below is the extended clip. You will note that her attempt to parrot the ridiculous GOP talking point that their Medicare/Medicaid cuts will only effect “those people” (illegals!!!!!) devolves into her admitting that yes many people will die.

2 - The groups that wandered into Trump’s orbit in 2024 that helped elect him - younger voters, working class voters of color, independents - are starting to figure out that Trump may not be on their side after all, and have begun wandering from him. Here’s the latest data from Economist/YouGov:

Ron makes the case that whether the Republicans can keep these voters who wandered to them in 2024 in their coalition over the next four years is one of the most important questions in American politics now. Like with most things, he’s right, of course.

It’s a great conversation with an old friend. Get to it when you can. Promise it will be worth your time!

Now, Let’s Get To Work - In last Saturday’s post I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you haven’t gotten to it yet.

Job 1 for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous 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.

I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I am still encouraging our community to explore ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king. Hopium Merch is coming soon, and be sure to check our robust Events schedule as new events are being added daily.

There are three additional efforts we’re working on now:

1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……

To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, watch her new TV ad, or head over to her campaign website We have now raised over $114,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all! We need to keep working it everyone!

2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $109,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - great work everyone!

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

3 - Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 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. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day too!