Enjoy The Weekend All And Some Thoughts About The Summer Ahead Got a few things for you to chew on if you decide to dive into politics this weekend Simon Rosenberg May 24 Happy Saturday all. I’m going to have a weekend, and unless something significant happens my next post will be Tuesday morning. I’m headed to one of my happy places today, Nats Park, for what promises to be a beautiful afternoon of baseball. Hope you are getting to spend time in your own happy places this weekend. We all need to rest up, recharge, reboot and get ready to get back at it next week. As summer is now upon us I wanted to share some thoughts about what I hope to do with Hopium this summer. Feedback is encouraged! 1 - Keep Fighting Trump’s Ruinous Economic Agenda - Will be job one this summer as the reconciliation bill heads to the Senate and the debate continues. Thanks to all of you who have been making your calls and working it. The House vote this week was prep for the even bigger battles ahead. 2 - Keep Working For Our Candidates And State Parties - Winning the New Jersey and Virginia elections this fall is our highest electoral priority. We’ve rallied for Spanberger - thank you all - and will get involved in the NJ Governor’s race when we have a nominee next month. We’ve taken the first early and important step to flip the US House by supporting newly elected Dems in tough races - the Hopium 7. We got Ken Martin off to a good start by raising him $100,000 in his first few weeks as DNC Chair, and raised $150,000 in that all important Supreme Court win in Wisconsin last month. We will keep supporting our good friends in North Carolina, and be looking for other opportunities to make a difference this summer. I hope to be able to do in person Hopium canvasses in both NJ and VA as we get closer to the election, and perhaps reboot our popular Thursday night postcard and phone banking events that we did last year. I want to thank all of you who are already writing postcards, canvassing and busting your butts for local candidates, state parties, people’s town halls and all the other ways you are contributing in this challenging time for the nation. It’s amazing to see all the work being done by members of our community in the paid subscriber chat each day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 - Owning The Fourth - I’ll be returning to this important project next week. I see the No Kings rallies on June 14th as a run up to this idea of making sure that the pro-democracy movement owns the July 4th holiday this summer. Together, we need to become seen and understood as patriots, they the betrayers. 4 - New Merch, More Hopium Live Events, Fall Travel - Hopium Merch is coming in June, and expect more Hopium Live events during the week. We are likely to have a live event early in the week each week - Monday or Tuesday - and one on Friday too. I will also continue to do recorded interviews with people driving our politics forward each day. In addition to our first in person canvasses and get togethers in NJ and VA I hope to start traveling more to do in person events with Hopium members. Some of you have invited me to come visit. Thank you. I want to hit the road some this fall as live, in-person events have not really been a part of the Hopium experience but it is time now for that to change. 5 - Fighting Trump’s Attack On Science, Academia, Knowledge And Our Public Health - I am working on a Hopium project that will allow us to more directly fight this pernicious part of the Trump agenda more forcefully. More on this soon (I hope). Head to the end of this post for an excerpt from a new and important NYT essay defending Harvard and higher education from Harvard Professor Steven Pinker (gift link). If you have the time this weekend read the whole thing. It’s worth it. 6 - Growing Hopium - I want to set a target of getting to 175,000 subscribers by Labor Day. We are 151,000 strong now. Will need everyone involved in this important summer project. More on this soon. As part of this campaign I’m extending the current 10% discount on an annual paid Hopium subscription all the way through Labor Day. These paid subscriptions make Hopium possible so if you are thinking of signing up today would be a good day to do it! \ 7 - Having A Summer - As we discussed in our weekly gathering this week, here at Hopium let’s all commit to having a summer, a real summer and not let this important work we do together overwhelm us. While Trump is taking many things from us we cannot allow him to rob us of joy, of family, of warm summer nights with friends, of getting away. In that vein here’s a photo of a street garden my wife and I planted a few years back. It’s flourishing now….. I end this Saturday post with a selection of Hopium essays, meditations, interviews and actions if you want to spend some time diving into politics this weekend….. A New Birth Of Freedom - Re-sending the Gettysburg Address for it just keeps speaking to me this weekend: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. On Trump’s Ruinous Economic Agenda Fighting Trump’s Agenda Of Sabotage, Blinding Greed and Betrayal - my new video and post about the current moment Slower Growth, Higher Prices, A Huge Tax Hike, Explosive Deficits, Credit Downgrades - more on Trump’s ruinous economic agenda My interview with Dr. Rob Shapiro, and his new Washington Monthly article, Trump’s Perfect Storm That Could Sink The American Economy Great primers on why Trump’s economic agenda is so destructive from Rep. Tom Suozzi and Rep. Haley Stevens Other Timely Hopium Fare Revisiting My Post-Election Recommendations For Democrats (worth your time) Anderson Clayton On The Impressive Success of North Carolina Dems In 2024 (new and terrific!!!!!) Jane Kleeb On Modernizing The DNC And State Democratic Parties David Jolly on Putting Florida Back In Play Dr. Michal Mann On Trump’s Attack on Science, Knowledge and Our Public Health (this is a must watch interview) Amy Spitalnick On Trump’s Use Of “Antisemitism” To Censor Speech and Assault Higher Education in America NM AG Raúl Torrez on Putting Democracy First (this was a great discussion) Two more things you can do today to channel your outrage, anger and fear for what comes next for this once great nation: 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, released yesterday. We have now raised over $107,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all. If you want to volunteer for her race head over to her campaign website today. We can do this people! 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 $97,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - can we get to $100,000 today? An Excerpt From Steven Pinker’s Long Defense Of Harvard and Higher Ed - University leaders should be prepared to affirm the paramount goal of a university — discovering and transmitting knowledge — and the principles necessary to pursue it. Universities have a mandate and the expertise to pursue knowledge, not social justice. Intellectual freedom is not a privilege of professors but the only way that fallible humans gain knowledge. Disagreements should be negotiated with analysis and argument, not recriminations of bigotry and victimhood. Protests may be used to generate common knowledge of a grievance, but not to shut people up or coerce the university into doing what the protesters want. The university commons belongs to the community, whose members may legitimately disagree with one another, and it may not be usurped by one faction. The endowment is not an op-ed page but a treasure that the university is obligated to hold in trust for future generations. Why does this matter? For all its foibles, Harvard (together with other universities) has made the world a better place, significantly so. Fifty-two faculty members have won Nobel Prizes, and more than 5,800 patents are held by Harvard. Its researchers invented baking powder, the first organ transplant, the programmable computer, the defibrillator, the syphilis test and oral rehydration therapy (a cheap treatment that has saved tens of millions of lives). They developed the theory of nuclear stability that has saved the world from Armageddon. They invented the golf tee and the catcher’s mask. Harvard spawned “Sesame Street,” The National Lampoon, “The Simpsons,” Microsoft and Facebook. Ongoing research at Harvard includes methane-tracking satellites, robotic catheters, next-generation batteries and wearable robotics for stroke victims. Federal grants are supporting research on metastasis, tumor suppression, radiation and chemotherapy in children, multidrug-resistant infections, pandemic prevention, dementia, anesthesia, toxin reduction in firefighting and the military, the physiological effects of spaceflight and battlefield wound care. Harvard’s technologists are pushing innovations in quantum computing, A.I., nanomaterials, biomechanics, foldable bridges for the military, hack-resistant computer networks and smart living environments for the elderly. One lab has developed what may be a cure for Type 1 diabetes. Practical applications are not the only things that make Harvard precious. It is a phantasmagoria of ideas, a Disneyland of the mind. Learning about my colleagues’ research is a source of endless delight, and when I look at our course catalog, I wish I were 18 again. DNA extracted from human fossils reveals the origin of the Indo-European languages. Grimm’s fairy tales, with their murder, infanticide, cannibalism and incest, reveal our eternal fascination with the morbid. A single network in the brain underlies remembering the past and daydreaming about the future. Nonviolent resistance movements are more successful than violent ones. The ailments of pregnancy come from a Darwinian struggle between mother and fetus. The “Who is like you?” prayer in the Jewish liturgy suggests that the ancient Israelites were ambivalent about their monotheism. And if you’re still skeptical that universities are worth supporting, consider these questions: Do you think that the number of children who die every year from cancer is just about right? Are you content with your current chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease? Do you feel our current understanding of which government policies are effective and which ones are wasteful is perfect? Are you happy with the way the climate is going, given our current energy technology? In his manifesto for progress, “The Beginning of Infinity,” the physicist David Deutsch wrote, “Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.” To cripple the institutions that acquire and transmit knowledge is a tragic blunder and a crime against future generations. Rest up everyone, enjoy this long weekend, and see you Tuesday! - Simon

Fighting Trump's Ruinous Economic Agenda, Inhumanity Of Trump/Noem's Treatment Of Migrants Grows, Trump's Decline …

Fighting Trump's Ruinous Economic Agenda, Inhumanity Of Trump/Noem's Treatment Of Migrants Grows, Trump's Decline Is Undeniable Going live with Brian Tyler Cohen on Thursday, Anderson Clayton Friday Simon Rosenberg May 20 Morning all. Here’s the insidery DC pub Semafor’s lead story this am: US stocks looked set to fall in early trading while Treasury yields crossed a symbolic threshold as concerns mounted over the health of the world’s biggest economy. S&P 500 futures and the dollar dropped in European trading, and though US bonds rose, the yield on 30-year Treasurys briefly topped 5%. Major figures in finance, meanwhile, voiced caution over the prospects for the American economy: Following last week’s downgrade of US Treasurys by Moody’s, the Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio said that, if anything, “the risks for US government debt are greater than the rating agencies are conveying,” while JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that markets were underpricing geopolitical and inflation risks. We must keep the pressure on. Even if you have been calling please your Senators and Reps today. We must do everything we can to prevent this rancid reconciliation bill from passing. Those of you with a Republican Rep and Senators have a particularly important role to play today. Call, email, visit however you reach your Reps do it now and plan on doing it every day this week. Here’s our working script. 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. Please self-report on your actions today. I know folks have been working hard and these reports of our gritty fight helps lift all of us up every day. Here’s more background: Slower Growth, Higher Prices, A Huge Tax Hike, Explosive Deficits, Credit Downgrades - my latest take on Trump’s ruinous economic agenda My interview with Dr. Rob Shapiro, and his new Washington Monthly article, Trump’s Perfect Storm That Could Sink The American Economy A great primer on why the reconciliation bill is so terrible from Rep. Tom Suozzi The simple reality the Rs face now is that Trump’s terrible tariffs have weakened the economy to the point where something like the reconciliation bill with its huge explosion of debt just isn’t possible any more. Passing this bill given current economic conditions would be reckless and dangerous, which is why Moody’s and the markets - and folks like Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon - are sounding the alarm. It’s why here at Hopium we don’t talk about the tariffs or the reconciliation bill in isolation. It is what they will do together that has the markets so spooked; and why what we are fighting for here is both the killing of the reconciliation bill and the rolling back of the tariffs. They are, on their own, destructive economic policies. Together they are ruinous for America and the American people. Another reason the markets are getting spooked is that it not clear the Trump team understands what they are doing, or what the risks are. In yesterday’s post we heard the Treasury Secretary - the f—ing Treasury Secretary - say “who cares” about the US getting our most consequential credit downgrade since 1919. Yesterday, the White House Press Secretary denied the reconciliation bill would add to our debt. This was one of those Orwellian “sky is red not blue” moments from Trump world that cause foreign governments and global markets to lose faith in this terrible team. Watch: Job one today, all week, all summer is to stop the ongoing Trumpian sabotage, and do everything we can to minimize the damage he is causing. We need to fight this ongoing betrayal of the country with everything we got. This White House Is Not Covering Up Trump’s Decline. It Is All Out There For Us To See - Everyday now we are getting jawdropping moments of Trump, the oldest man ever elected to the Presidency, having no idea what he is saying, where he is, or just inventing crazy shit. The latest disturbing incident, though, came in a deeply consequential meeting with European and Ukrainian leaders yesterday: President Volodymyr Zelensky had to remind U.S. President Donald Trump that negotiations with Russia are already underway after Trump announced to EU leaders the Kremlin's readiness for talks, Axios reported on May 20, citing sources present at the call. The exchange reportedly took place during a phone call involving Trump, Zelensky, and the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Finland, and the European Commission. It followed Trump's earlier call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian leader provided vague assurances about peace efforts but again rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump told the leaders that Putin agreed to start direct negotiations on a ceasefire immediately, which led to a few seconds of "puzzled silence" during the call, Axios' source said. Zelensky then reminded Trump that Putin had previously agreed to this, and the first round of direct talks had already taken place on May 16 in Istanbul, marking the first direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow since 2022. Trump did not directly respond, the sources said. The Ukrainian president and other leaders also pointed out to Trump that it had been his idea to start the peace talks with an immediate 30-day ceasefire, according to Axios. While in the Capitol this morning our leader repeated delusional untruth after untruth but will spare you from having to watch any of it. Yes, we should be talking about the decline of an American President. The current one, of course, not the one no longer in office. Events This Week - got a few good ones on tap this week: Wed, 8pm ET - Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together. Note this week’s time. Register here. Thur, 455pm ET - I sit down with the great Brian Tyler Cohen for a livestreamed discussion for Field Team 6’s “Register Democrats Summit.” Learn more, register here. Fri, 1215pm ET - North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton joins us for a live discussion. Our good friend will be reviewing the big wins NC Dems have had at the ballot box and in the courts in recent months, and offer an early look at 2026 in one of our most important battleground states. Excited to welcome Anderson back this Friday! (will send link tomorrow) A reminder to check our Events page for our latest schedule of events and links to register. You can find recordings of our Live events and other recorded conversations on the Podcast link on the Hopium site and now on YouTube and Spotify too. Trump and Noem In Overdrive To Deport Millions Of Migrants Here Legally To Unsafe Places - Trump is stepping up policies that drew the ire of now Pope Leo XIV - the incredibly inhumane treatment of migrants here in the US. Yesterday the CATO Institute published a report that at least 50 of the men sent to CECOT were here in the US legally and never violated immigration law. Trump has revoked TPS (temporary protected status) for over 500,000 Venezuelans and Cubans, a policy now signed off on by the Supreme Court. Now the Washington Post is reporting that Trump is developing plans to send over 700,000 people back to war-torn places, including Ukraine (!!!!), using illegally commandeered USAID funds: The Trump administration has devised plans to spend up to $250 million earmarked for foreign assistance to fund instead the removal and return of people from active conflict zones, including 700,000 Ukrainian and Haitian migrants who fled to the United States amid extreme, ongoing violence back home, according to draft internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post. …….. While prior administrations have supported using taxpayer funds for the voluntary repatriation of migrants, the proposal developed under President Donald Trump is unusual because it includes people who escaped from some of the most dangerous parts of the world and appears intended to bypass the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a U.N.-affiliated body that typically aids in returning migrants to their homes. It coincides also with the administration’s polarizing bid to drastically slash foreign aid, most notably by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and terminating 80 percent of its programs, including those that served Ukraine, Haiti and other troubled countries. In addition to Ukrainians and Haitians, the draft documents also mention Afghans, Palestinians, Libyans, Sudanese, Syrians and Yemenis, saying they, too, could be targeted as part of the voluntary deportation program. The U.N.-affiliated migration office does not support the return of people to any of those places, the draft documents say. The IOM did not respond to a request for comment. This morning the Secretary of Homeland Security, the one disappearing and deporting all these people, was asked by Senator Maggie Hassan if she knew what habeas corpus was. Watch her answer, below. It is shocking, disqualifying and folks need to be calling on her to resign for what she says here for it’s so fucking insane: Perhaps this answer explains why they are also just now arresting and charging black elected Democrats for sport. For when you are famous, our leader once told us, they let you do anything including, it appears, sending brown, black and “those people” to prison without cause or even knowing what habeas corpus is. Right before the 2020 election I published an essay in Letras Libres, a Mexican-based intellectual journal, on what I hoped for if Joe Biden won. Here was my final wish: Of all the big things we have to do in the coming years there is one more – to honor and build on the work of FDR American leaders should forcefully denounce white supremacy in all of its forms. We have to make clear that American, Western, liberal, Four Freedom values are universal values, values of all people everywhere, regardless of race, religion or country of origin. They belong to all of us. White supremacy is not just a malicious legacy belief system from our racist and colonial past, it’s also profoundly anti-modern; for who could, after seeing the advances and potential of the people all over the world over these past fifty years ever believe that any race or religion or culture was somehow not capable of extraordinary things, and the people of all nations not deserving of the opportunities and freedoms we cherish. Trump’s white supremacy must be returned, aggressively, to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. In addition to making our calls and contacting these offices, we have two more projects I hope you will consider supporting: 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, released yesterday. We have now raised over $105,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all. If you want to volunteer for her race head over to her campaign website today. We can do this people! 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 $83,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - thank you all! Friends, this is a big week and we need to leave it all out there on the playing field, together - Simon