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Folks Aren't Buying What Trump Is Selling, Dems Are Hurdling Into A New Era (New Video)

Trump's Budget Bill Keeps Taking Hits - Need To Keep Calling Everyone!

Simon Rosenberg

Jun 26

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Morning all. For those needing a bit of morning live Hopium I will be joining digital strategist Mike Nellis for a live discussion at 1115am ET. Click here at 1115am to join us.

Our plucky, proud and patriotic paid subscribers got together last night for a spirited conversation about another extraordinary week in US politics. A recording and transcript are above. Get to it when you can. Lots of meaty stuff in there for you to chew on.

I made three main points last night:

1 - Trump is struggling and unpopular. Despite his efforts to wag the dog - immigration escalation, his sad parade, Iran - his poll numbers just keep dropping and he just had the worst week of polling of his second term. The circle of defiance keeps growing, he keeps losing in court, the people of America and the world aren’t bending the knee, and he looks far more like a painted clown than an American President. While he will need new things to restore what Anne Applebaum called his “spectacle of power,” his budget bill, due to a large degree to all of our work degrading it, is very unpopular (appropriately so) and is unlikely to give him a lift even if they can manage to pass it.

Trump’s weakness and decline is a big deal folks. Whatever scenario one can imagine for beating him and mitigating the damage he is doing starts with his losing his grip on the public - and right now we are there. The immediate rejection of his Iran ploy by the public is a sign of how much opposition there is to him now, and it appears that a clear majority of the country is no longer willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. However we got here this is a huge movement wide achievement, and we just need take credit for it, celebrate it, and keep working to further define and degrade him.

2 - It’s been a core tenet of Hopium that Democrats and pro-democracy forces must view this moment as one of re-invention, re-imagination and building. As I wrote yesterday:

1) We are clearly now entering a new post-Clinton/Obama/Biden political era in the center-left, pro-democracy coalition 2) We are in the early stages of this new era, and it is likely to feel “messy” as new leaders emerge, new ideas tested and new tactics are tried 3) We should welcome this “messy” period of experimentation, competition and debate as it is the only way we can effectively grow, evolve and improve 4) there is far more experimentation and innovation happening in our coalition today than is widely understood.

I view our job here as encouraging, accelerating and celebrating this re-imagination of our politics, and for us to learn and build together. Taking a step back it is remarkable how much innovation there has been in our politics in recent years:

Thousands of self-organized grassroots groups have spawned across the country, doing the hard work of our politics everyday
The DNC is attempting a major overhaul and re-invigoration of both the national party and state and local parties across the country
New media orgs like Meidas Touch and COURIER Newsroom have emerged, and Substack has now become a powerful new platform for our politics. Think of how your own news and media consumption habits have changed in the past year (Hopium was a pioneer here)
A whole new network of pro-democracy legal orgs have emerged to defend our Constitutional order, led by the 23 intrepid Dem AGs
New leaders are emerging, rising to the moment, breaking though (Newsom, Pritzker, Crockett, Murphy, Frost, AOC, Booker, Slotkin, Mamdani, etc)
We are communicating who we are right now through our opposition to Trump and our work to prevent his assault on the middle class, weakening of our health care system and abandonment of the Constitutional order. I think these fights are helping connect us to the core of who we are - champions of every day Americans, proud patriots who love this country and are willing to fight for it.
We are learning how to mass protest, do Tesla take downs, contact our Reps and Senators daily, do empty chair town halls in red districts, pass resolutions of condemnation across the US. National Democrats - and all of you - deserve a great deal of credit for working hard to successfully degrade the Trump budget bill these last few months as it is now arguably the single most unpopular part of Trump’s agenda
Our campaigns must keep working to reinvent our politics for the new media age as Mamdani just showed us. Enormous urgency here.
We are also continuing to win and overperform in critical off year and special elections, and have very strong candidates - Spanberger and Sherrill - for the two big statewide races this fall.

It is my continued belief that he is weaker, and we are stronger, than it feels right now. For as we go forward we must assess where we are accurately to understand where we need to go. And I think while we are not where we need to be by a long shot, we are further along on the path to building this effective, ferocious opposition, this next thing that we need to build together, than it often feels in the day to day scrum of the hard work we do. And this is particularly true for much of the work being done is being done in a self-organized, bottom up way and is very hard to catalog and account for.

3 - The power of the Hopium community. We have done a lot of important things together - big wins in 2023 and 2024, almost $8m raised since the fall of 2023, unimaginable number of doors knocked on, postcards written, calls made, protests and rallies attended. It is my hope that as we imagine and build this next era of our politics, together, the members of this proud and patriotic community become cheerleaders and leaders of this process of reinvention; recognizing that we don’t really know what we need to do now but we must be persistently fighting, experimenting, learning and growing together; and that we must, at all costs, hang together, embrace our diversity, encouraged informed internal debate or we will hang separately.

Let us be the ones lifting each other up in this time of enormous challenge, not tearing each other down. For there is nothing MAGA wants more than for us to turn on one another, factionalize and lose sight of who the real threat is the country - Trump and his MAGA allies.

That’s what we discussed last night. Get to it when you can and let me know what you think.

Dems Get Further Byrd Bath Wins, Batter Senate Budget Bill Stumbles Forward - the DC press is full of bad stories for the Rs this am. Here’s Politico - Senate GOP dealt major blow on megabill health plans -

Senate Republicans are facing major new issues with their domestic policy megabill after the chamber’s parliamentarian advised senators that several provisions they are counting on to reap hundreds of billions of dollars in budget savings won’t be able to pass along party lines.
Those include of major pieces of Medicaid policy, including politically explosive plan to hold down Medicaid costs by cracking down on state provider tax — a provision that is expected to have a nine-figure impact on the bill. Republicans now will have to try to rewrite major sections of their Finance bill or potentially leave out key policies.
The decisions were detailed in a Thursday morning memo from Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. Other provisions now at risk include several GOP proposals to exclude undocumented residents from Medicaid, including by withholding federal funds from states that make them eligible for benefits.
The rulings come at a precipitous time for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other GOP leaders, who are already facing a revolt inside their conference from members wary of the practical and political impact of the Medicaid changes. They have proposed reverting to a less drastic House plan, which would merely freeze the existing provider taxes, though it’s unclear if that provision could also pass muster under Senate rules.

From Punchbowl:

News: Senate Republicans are considering delaying a politically explosive Medicaid cut as they look for ways to win over GOP moderate holdouts threatening the massive reconciliation bill.
The discussions come as Senate Republican leaders are trying to ratchet up the pressure on wavering GOP senators to fall in line and meet their self-imposed July 4 deadline for sending a bill to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Several Republican senators are quietly pitching their leadership on delaying the implementation timeline of the Senate’s stricter crackdown on Medicaid provider taxes. Paired with a stabilization fund for rural hospitals, this could help win over enough of the half-dozen or so wavering senators.
To be sure, Senate GOP leaders have a ton working against them right now beyond Medicaid problems. For one, the “Byrd Bath” for key portions of the reconciliation bill isn’t finished yet. And Republican senators demanding additional changes have said they won’t vote to begin the floor process until they see final legislative text.
All of that could change dramatically once Senate Majority Leader John Thune makes his first procedural move, with Trump at the ready to help him finish the job.

Folks, our family has successfully degraded this terrible bill, making it incredibly unpopular; Senate Dems have been wildly successful in knocking out the worst provisions of the bill in the “Byrd Bath” process; and now we all just need to be relentlessly contacting our Senate and House members and do everything we can to kill this terrible “more for me, less for all of you” Trump bill.

Upcoming Events - You can find our latest schedule of events on our Events page:

Thur, June 26th, 11am ET - Simon goes live on Substack with Mike Nellis, Founder of Authentic and author of Endless Urgency. Click here to join live!
Sat, June 28th, 10:45am ET - Simon speaks at Network NOVA’s 9th Annual Women’s Summit in McLean, VA. More info and tickets here. There will be a Hopium meet up in Continental Ballroom C at 1230 for those want to connect while there.

All of our recent discussions (Tom Bonier, Senator Van Hollen, Anne Applebaum, Dana Nessel, etc) can be found on the Podcast tab on the main Hopium site and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify too.

Now, Let’s Get To Work

Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - June 30th Filing Deadline Is Coming Up!

Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov - $200,000 goal ($25k by 6/30), $16,000 raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer
Abigail Spanberger VA Gov - $200,000 goal, $136k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview
Jon Ossoff GA Senate - $200,000 goal ($25k by 6/30), $12,000 raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer
Hopium House 7 - $200,000 goal, $138k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews

1 - Stop The Reconciliation Bill - Job One for us this summer remains fighting Trump’s ruinous and deeply unpopular 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. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play in the coming weeks.

Here’s a possible script to use to fight the reconciliation bill and tariffs. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.
But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.
Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

2 - Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us. See my recent interviews with Joe Garcia, Leon Krauze and Senator Chris Van Hollen for more.

In the coming days I want to work with all of you to do something more explicit about demanding the end of masked, plain clothes “police” snatching people here in America without warrants.

3 - Own The Fourth, The Flag And Patriotism - To keep our momentum going after this weekend’s No Kings events I encourage to explore ways of Owning The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly one for our mad wannabe king.

Inspired by the tactics of our Founders, learn about how Hopium members are advancing “resolutions of condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Our resolutions passed in New Mexico yesterday - let’s keep the mo’ going everyone!

4 -Volunteer To Help Your State and/or Local Democratic Parties Stand Up Voter Registration Efforts - In the presentation he made to our community on Friday Tom Bonier made a persuasive case that Democrats must once again make partisan voter registration a national priority. State and local Democratic Parties are in the planning stages to take this on. Members of our community should consider contacting their state and local parties and offer to help stand up these vital efforts in the coming months.

For more on the need to make partisan voter registration great again see my recent interview with Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, DNC Vice Chair and President of the Association of Democratic State Committees.

5 - Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today.

Note that we did get a great court ruling restoring the NIH grants the Bethesda Declaration calls for. Here’s how one medical journal characterized the ruling:

District Judge William Young, a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, blasted the Trump administration’s NIH cuts as discriminatory and “bearing down on people of color because of their color.”
A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s sweeping terminations of NIH research contracts are not only illegal, but are also a clear manifestation of the government’s “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”
In a speech after delivering his verdict on Monday, U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts called the administration’s move to cut federal funding for certain research grants “arbitrary and capricious,” going against established government standards, as per the Associated Press. Young blasted the Trump administration, which he said was “bearing down on people of color because of their color,” NBC News reported. “The Constitution will not permit that.”

In a very important development, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy has called on Robert Kennedy to delay the meeting of his newly constituted fake vaccine advistory committee this week.

For more on the need to fight Trump’s war on science, research, academia and our public health see my recent interview with noted climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann.

Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Grow 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. If each current paid subscriber brings in just one new subscriber this summer we will hit our goal.

To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day and we’ve launched a new referral awards program too. So you can earn months towards a paid subscription by bringing in new subscribers to the Hopium community!