Trumps Edges Closer to War With Europe, Saly Comes Home, It's All About Courage NowMay the courage, fearlessness, and humanity of Dr. King be an inspiration to us all in our fight, today......
Morning all. Here’s the MLK quote that I think about most often:
Yesterday we saw ICE remove and detain an elderly Hmong man from his Twin Cities home, without letting him get dressed, in 10 degree weather (via Reuters):
Here is what we now are learning this morning:
A reminder that “Freedom From Fear” is the fourth freedom of FDR’s visionary Four Freedoms:
This morning we are learning that our addled, ailing, and unhinged leader sent the following message to the Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre:
We are also learning that the 11th Airborne, an Army unit that specializes in operating in arctic conditions, has been given “prepare-to-deploy” orders for possible deployment in “Minnesota”:
A few days ago Trump declared himself, formerly, “The Acting President of Venezuela,” and implicitly the Emperor of the Americas. In recent days we’ve come to learn that he also now sees himself as the leader of Gaza, and is up to very Trumpian corrupt and malevolent shit there (WaPo, gift link). Having successfully taken possession of both Gaza and Venezuela in recent weeks, at least in his own mind, Trump is clearly readying to grab his next possession. And it’s a big, icy European one. Here’s what I wrote yesterday in my essay, Coming Together: We are here now, deep into dangerous Mad King/Bond Villain territory. 2026 is no longer about affordability or restoring the ACA subsidies. It is about pro-democracy movement somehow coming together and forming a unified and far more powerful front against his dangerous Imperial and dictatorial designs. In an ideal world, what we would see next week is a public statement signed by all Dem Governors, AGs, Senate and House Democrats that states clearly that
Stake in ground. Unified voice. Muscular defense of liberty, democracy, and the American creed. Yes, it is time now for something akin to our Letter to America, and for our leaders to make clear, before it is too late, that we are willing to come together and fight for America, freedom, and democracy; and for us to start listing, clearly, his modern day “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations.” That we elected an American President and not a dictator, and it is way past fucking time he start acting like one……. I really don’t know how some leaders of the Democratic Party talked themselves into believing our politics was going to be about “kitchen table” issues and not “No Kings,” Trump’s escalating madness and the clear threat he represents to our freedoms, security, and prosperity. As I’ve been writing here for months the polling doesn’t even back up this strategic choice, as “threats to democracy” has been a top tier issue for voters since the summer. G. Elliott Morris has written about the provocative findings of that new CNN poll we discussed here on Friday: But if you’re reading this and thinking that Democrats should only be focusing on the economy, since that’s what people say is their top issue (hellooo Chuck Schumer), check out this table showing the reasons people give for disapproving of Trump, in their own words:
If you ask Americans who disapprove of Trump why they don’t like the job he is doing as president, the biggest single policy they will mention is immigration and deportations. Democracy in general is the category with the highest response percentage. After that is “the economy” in general terms, then corruption, then foreign military involvement, then a three-way tie between governance in general, being “unpresidential” in general, and the cost of living specifically. So if you’re optimizing for decreasing Trump’s disapproval rating, this table suggests hitting the president on the economy might be a less successful strategy than hitting him on immigration, corruption, or his general vibe as president. People say the economy is, in general, important to them, and they say Trump is failing on it, but they do not overwhelmingly cite it as a reason for disapproving of his presidency. In a presentation I gave to Dem State Chairs in May of last year I talked about how Democrats had developed a listening problem. That our roided up and arrogant data bros had developed narrow and rigid systems that were causing us to miss memes, ideas, sentiments pulsating through the electorate. In his seminal New Yorker essay and in our recent conversation Nathan Heller explains why he believes Democrats don’t understand how to navigate the emerging information environment, and remain wedded to old, outdated understandings of how information moves and opinions are formed. It’s one of the reasons why I hope the DNC chooses to release the most important elements of its look back on the 2024 election. We made some big, structural mistakes about how approached the big argument with Trump in the 2024 election cycle, and we must learn from those mistakes so we don’t make them again this year (which given the data above may already be happening). What his all comes down to now is courage. Our must leaders must show far more courage. We must challenge Trump on “No Kings,” and his broader agenda of American sabotage, unprecedented plunder, and traitorous betrayal. For one of the great lessons of 2025 is that when we fight Trump head on, we can win. And we know from history that when authoritarians are not challenged, they perceive weakness, and it becomes an encouragement for escalation (like what we are seeing now). We are Americans. Fighting for freedom and democracy is who we are, and what we do. We to need to get on with it now, meet the moment, and fight for “a new birth of freedom” here in this great country and everywhere around the world….. Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks to everyone who contributed our campaign for the Minnesota DFL. We’ve exceeded our goal and have raised $67,000! Thank you all. Now that we’ve hit our goal we are once again prioritizing our current working line-up: Winning The Midterms - Support Our Candidates
Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)
In three new essays (here, here, here) I discuss how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up, be loud, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land. The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got. Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defend Our Democracy - We have two recommended actions today: 1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:
2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - This July 4th America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his. One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:
So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year. Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Keep working hard everyone, and I remain so incredibly proud to be in this righteous fight with all of you - Simon You're currently a free subscriber to Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
|
Monday, January 19, 2026
Trumps Edges Closer to War With Europe, Saly Comes Home, It's All About Courage Now
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Today in Growth: TikTok Drops Microdrama, ChatGPT Gets Ads, and AI Moves Closer to Your Brain ☕️
Short. Smart. Addictive. ...
-
17 Personal Finance Concepts – #5 Home Ownershippwsadmin, 31 Oct 02:36 AM If you find value in these articles, please share them with your ...
No comments:
Post a Comment