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The State Of The Union Is That We've All Had Enough Of Trump's Bullshit

We had a very good week everyone. Thank you for all that you do......

Simon Rosenberg

Feb 21

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Morning all. What a week. It’s was a good one. Opposition to Trump is becoming bolder, more ambitious. Shock and awe is over. Together, little by little, the checks and balances our Founders envisioned are re-asserting themselves. It’s become clear Trump is terrible leader for the country, doing real material harm to our national interest and all of us. He’s gone too far. It is all too much. It’s not OK. He really is dangerously out of his mind, not just kooky. And what more and more people are realizing is that it is our obligation, our responsibility to stand up to him, and stop him from doing harm to us, and to fight for the great gift of the Constitutional order we all inherited. We are coming to understand that we must, together, keep taking the keys away from this old horrible failed leader who really should be not leading us any more.

Let’s review the gathering momentum of our opposition movement. Last year Congress voted unanimously to force Trump to end his illegal cover up and release the Epstein files in one of the most significant rebukes of American President in our history. In recent months both Houses of Congress voted to repeal his illegal, destructive tariffs. Yesterday the Supreme Court ended his ridiculous “Liberation Day” tariffs and reminded him their were limits to his powers. The people of Minnesota have been standing up for their neighbors, courageously defying the regime, and got the regime to announce a retreat. Democrats are fighting now using the appropriations process to rein in ICE, end the mass deportations, and stop the building of the detention centers. Democrats have fought back against Trump’s mid-decade redistricting and may end up gaining more seats than the Trumpists. The Europeans challenged Trump on Greenland and he retreated. At the Super Bowl Bad Bunny sung in Spanish and reminded us “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Members of the Epstein class, including an English Prince, have begun to fall. HHS reversed its burying of the mRNA flu vaccine. MAHA Moms are in open rebellion against the regime. Pro-life and Catholic groups are now organizing against ICE’s inhumanity. The Fed keeps defying his imperial commands. Farmers and small business owners have loudly protested the destructive tariffs. Republican politicians across the country are coming out against the construction of ICE detention camps, and property owners are cancelling the sales of warehouses to ICE. Judges in decision after decision are becoming far more direct and ambitious in their arguments and their rulings. Millions and millions of us have marched, protested, and our we keep winning elections of all kinds even in red districts in red states.

Renee Good and Alex Pretti gave their lives to stopping Trump’s un-American Mad Kingism.

The Campaign to Destroy Renee Good | WIRED

It’s begun to feel like protesting him, rebuking him, fighting him has become a cultural thing in America, like a thing now that we must all do, in our way, on things that matter to us. It’s why this ad from Illinois Senate candidate Juliana Stratton captures something important - Fuck Trump. It speaks to how we all feel, to how a nation has begun to feel as it realizes who he actually is, and not what he promised or pretends to be. Let’s watch this ad again, and just see easy and normal it feels to say “Fuck Trump.”

My main point this morning is that there is now tremendous, organic momentum to our opposition movement, something we all have been hoping for. Courage is contagious it turns out. For it’s become clear, to a majority of the country, that he is a malevolent, corrupt, sundowning rich asshole who couldn’t care less about any of us or the country. He’s in it for him and his buddies and that’s it. He’s a plunderer not a President. And we thought we were electing a President, and that’s what we want again - a responsible leader who follows the law and the Constitution and does his or her best to make things better for all of us.

In Hamlet Shakespeare famously wrote the “the play’s the thing. But for us, now, I think we need to understand that it’s “the fight’s the thing.” Fighting Trump on all fronts, 24/7/365, yielding no ground, is the thing, the American thing, the thing we must all do now. For as we discussed in our weekly get together when we fight Trump we get stronger, and he weaker. And so we must do more of it, and on many more fronts, every day.

To dive a bit deeper into this moment, and this sentiment, check out the meaty discussions we had this week:

Economist Rob Shapiro explained why the battle to counter Trump’s failed, ruinous, and self-enriching economic agenda is really only beginning
Rep. Delia Ramirez talked about the fight to rein in ICE, and the need for us to stand up for our neighbors
Historian Phillips O’Brien made it very clear that we should be doing much more to challenge Trump’s selling out of Ukraine and Europe to Russia
Iowa Dem Chair Rita Hart talked about their special election success and why 2026 is looking like a year of opportunity in Iowa

The State of the Union is this week and I am planning on being very active and visible. You can get the details and links on our newly revamped Events page, but tomorrow I will be joining Allison Gill for her weekly Sunday MeidasTouch program; on Tuesday I will be joining Mike Nellis for his Endless Urgency live show; on Wednesday I’ll be joining Katie Phang for a live post SOTU recap, and our paid subscribers will gather at our usual time that night at 7pm EST. And I am sure I’ll be adding a few more interviews with leaders making things happen for all of us.

We had a really good week everyone. It was full of Trumpian retreat, failure, repudiation. Let’s close today with my favorite photo of the week - inspiring gold medal winner Alysu Liu celebrating her remarkable win. Perhaps we can all do a joyful jump like that this weekend…….

Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $172,500 raised, $250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10). Now including funds already raised with our friends at FridayAction for a joint event we are doing in late March.

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $376,400 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas. Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties.

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $36,400 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and learn more. Amazing start everyone!

Winning Ohio - $60,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue! | Watch my conversation with David Pepper, who does a great overview of the opportunities we have in Ohio this year. Note a generous donor has sent $21,000 worth of Hopium-infused contributions directly to the candidates which are not included in our on-line goal tracker.

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $78,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper and a new, terrific one with NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton

Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $130,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defend Our Democracy

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:

Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his new threats to seize Greenland and his new, dangerous European tariffs;
Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law, and the US must withdraw from Venezuela and cease other threats to violate the UN Charter and the sovereignty of other nations
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse the cuts to the wealthy and corporations and rescind the extra funding for ICE
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties adopting the Dem leadership’s ten point plan to rein in ICE; ending mass deportation and the expansion of the detention camps; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents and vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; ending the use of the military on our streets and the dangerous occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented regime corruption; forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress and end the rancid cover up of the Epstein crimes; and ensure we have free and fair elections this November.
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; take part in Stand Up For Science’s National Day Of Action on March 7th.