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Watch now   A Corrupt And Malevolent Monster, Greg Sargent On Stephen Miller, "Determination" - My Report From Los Angeles "we will take on whatever billionaire, whatever banker, whatever bootlickin’ bastard we have to in order to make sure the little guy gets his seat at the table" Simon Rosenberg Dec 15 Morning all. Got a few things for you today…….. Let’s start with this from Punchbowl News: The big picture. With just 17 days until the Obamacare tax credits expire, we can say definitively that Congress — and the country — is going over the Obamacare cliff. Even if the House passes something, the Senate isn’t going to move anything by the deadline. The Punchbowl story then goes on to describe the chaos, incoherence, and buffoonery of Mike Johnson’s House as they desperately, and pathetically, scramble to make it appear as if somehow they give a shit about the American people. For we need to be clear - the savaging of our health care system was THE CENTRAL AIM of their big ugly bill this summer. They took money from the health care of working people and gave it to large corporations and wealthy people. That was the policy. While also raising utility bills for all of us by eliminating energy subsidies and raising prices on everything else through their illegal and unconstitutional tariffs and inhumane mass deportation program. Helping the rich and privileged and making it harder for working people to get ahead is Trump’s overarching governing strategy, one we call here “more for me and less for all of you” or “they are for the oligarchs, and we are for the people.” Of course this represents an extraordinary betrayal of what the flim-flam confidence man promised the American people when he ran last year. This sense of betrayal is captured in a new and truly remarkable Washington Post story this morning, MAGA leaders warn Trump the base is checking out. Will he listen? A passage (gift link): a growing chorus of faithful MAGA supporters who have begun raising concerns over what they see as Trump’s second-term shortcomings. In recent weeks, pockets of the president’s base — well-known for its unwavering dedication to Trump and his MAGA agenda — have accused the president of focusing too much on foreign affairs, failing to address the cost of living issues he pledged to fix, aligning himself too closely with billionaires and tech moguls, and resisting the release of more investigative files on the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Across the conservative spectrum, a steady drumbeat of commentators have warned that Trump’s coalition is weakened, and the party is headed for defeat in November’s midterms elections. There are concerns that the base won’t show up over frustrations that Trump hasn’t pursued the MAGA agenda aggressively enough. And others worry economic concerns could threaten his standing with the independent voters key in next year’s midterms. Now let’s spend time with the comments for this story from Mark Mitchell, the lead pollster for Rasmussen, the most important of the right-aligned red wave pollsters, a man whose blood flows as MAGA red as anyone in America: As Donald Trump ate his crab cake lunch inside the White House last month, conservative pollster Mark Mitchell tried to explain that there was a disconnect between what the administration seemed to be focused on, and what Trump’s passionate base of supporters want to see. “Sir, you got shot at the Butler rally,” Mitchell said, invoking the “really strong optics” of Trump raising his fist in defiance after the attempted assassination in July 2024. “You said, ‘Fight, fight, fight.’ But nobody ever clarified what that means,” Mitchell continued. “And right now, you’re fight-fight-fighting Marjorie Taylor Greene, and not actually fight-fight-fighting for Americans.” The head pollster at Rasmussen Reports warned Trump that many of his supporters believe he hasn’t “drained the swamp” in Washington, and suggested the president refocus with a plan to embrace “pragmatic economic populism.” “To the extent to which we were talking about the economic populism message, he wasn’t as interested as I would have hoped,” Mitchell said, adding that it was a “long-ranging conversation.” And….. Mitchell was invited to the White House by Vice President JD Vance, who follows him on X and has communicated with Mitchell about polling in recent months. Before lunch with Trump, Mitchell met with Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Mitchell is not part of the president’s political operation, but Trump’s advisers were interested in hearing his outside perspective, a White House official told The Post. Mitchell said Trump listened to his concerns and asked questions, but eventually pivoted to one of his favorite conversation topics: golf. He gushed about two of his golf partners, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Fox News host Bret Baier, both of whom are the subject of MAGA-faction ire. Trump also bragged about how much money he had raised during a golf fundraiser for Graham the weekend before, a day after he declared he was rescinding his support for Greene. In an interview, Mitchell suggested that it would have been better for the administration to acknowledge early on that repairing the economy would take significant changes and would not occur overnight. “The very first thing they shouldn’t have done is lower gas prices one dollar and then say, ‘The Golden Age is here,’ ” he said. And…… Many supporters like her have been turned off seeing what was once a full calendar of rallies in Middle America replaced with opulent events with business leaders, deal-signings with billionaires and travel to other continents. While meeting with Trump, Mitchell told the president his base of supporters wanted to see him “smash the oligarchy, not be the oligarchy.” “Building billionaire-funded ballrooms and jet-setting around the world and trillion-dollar investment deals looks a lot like oligarchy stuff,” Mitchell told The Post. Crab cakes, golf outings, fundraising, gilded ballrooms and oligarchy - just OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are figuring it out. Even the loyalists. That Trump only cares about himself, his power, his cronies and does not give a shit about any of us. Why else would they let measles rage in South Carolina without the Federal government lifting a finger? Or keep the tariffs in place despite the harm they are doing to working people, small businesses, and farmers? Or trample the rights and liberties of citizens and sell out the West for Russian bribes, as we discussed on Saturday? Or literally do nothing to try to address their intentional breaking of the health care system? Or post deranged stuff like this? In the Capital this Washington Post story is something for it gets to the heart of the matter - that his own supporters are figuring out what a corrupt and malevolent monster he is. Here’s another passage: In Georgia, 36-year-old Jessie Meadows, a Trump voter who describes herself as “MAGA,” grew frustrated this year as prices remained high and the president responded dismissively to the push to release more files on Epstein. Her disappointment hardened as Trump attacked Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who also pushed for the files’ release. Trump’s online posts touting favorable polls and success bringing down inflation seemed like his own version of “fake news,” Meadows said. She voted for Democratic candidates in November’s Public Service Commission elections in Georgia that flipped the seats from the GOP, and said that going forward, she will back candidates she considers “America First,” regardless of party. “If I had known what Trump was going to turn into now, I would have stayed home,” Meadows said. Politico has another version of this story on it’s home page right now: And as I wrote in Friday’s post, Trump And Trumpism Are In Trouble As Republicans Are Growing Weary Of Defending The Indefensible, this dynamic of Republicans waking up to the reality of him - not the false story he’s been selling, the big con - is likely to get far worse for Trump in the new year as the clear material harm he’s done to all of us becomes far more pervasive and impossible to ignore. Greg Sargent On Stephen Miller - Our friend Greg Sargent has a major TNR piece out this morning on Stephen Miller….. Inside Stephen Miller’s Dark Plot to Build a MAGA Terror State He is descended from Russian Jews—you know, the kind of people who were once denounced as alien and unassimilable. Today, his project is to unleash government persecution of those he deems alien and unassimilable. How far will Miller’s sadistic designs go? Let’s read it together in the coming days and discuss. “Determination” - My Report From Los Angeles - So, last Wednesday, at the DNC/State Chairs meeting, I led a panel discussion looking back at our many 2025 electoral successes with: Rusty Hicks, Chair Of The California Democratic Party Charlie Bailey, Chair Of The Georgia Democratic Party Devon Murphy Anderson, Executive Director Of The Maine Democratic Party Peg Schaffer, New Jersey Democratic Party Vice Chair Larry Hailsham, Executive Director Of The Pennsylvania Democratic Party Brenner Taube, Deputy Executive Director Of The Virginia Democratic Party All six of these Democratic Parties had just been involved in what were blow out, riotous wins for us in November. GA Dem Charlie Bailey was also celebrating the big flip of a deep red state House seat on Tuesday night, and all of us were celebrating our big win in Miami too. I haven’t been part of too many discussions like this in my long career, for we have not had many electoral periods like these last few weeks where our margins of victory were so enormous in some different races and places across the country (sorry, the event wasn’t recorded as these are private working sessions). My overall take away from this panel, and the other conversations and events I attended, is that Democrats right now are very determined to win. In our panel there were no shiny objects, no silver bullets, just good ole fashioned, put-your- head-down, bust-your-ass and do-the-work politics - organizing, recruiting, communicating, targeting, team-building, and winning. I was able to sit down with our friend Kendall Scudder, the dynamic new Chair of the Texas Democratic Party. You can find a video recording of our conversation above. Here is some of what he told me. Feel the ambition, the grit, the determination here: For the first time since 1974, for either party, Texas Democrats have recruited a candidate for every state and federal office in Texas. Every state house. Every state senate. Every state board of education. Every statewide judicial. Every state executive office. We filled it. Hundreds of candidates. And we wouldn’t have been able to do that without your help and all of us operating like we’re on a team. Because it’s not about who’s in what fiefdom. It’s not about people operating in silos. We have to start operating like we’re on a team. And when we do, we’re able to accomplish great things. So what does it mean when you have Democrats running in every single position across Texas? It means that if you’re a Republican in Texas, you don’t get a free pass. If you want to represent your community, you have to fight us for it. And that is what I believe is essential in our ability to move forward. Because Democrats are not just people on the coasts or in big cities. Folks need to know they are in their communities. It’s their teacher. Their nurse. Someone in their community who loves it and is trying to move it forward. That’s what we’re going to have—a whole slate of passionate Texans ready to take this government back from a billionaire class treating the government like their own personal feeding trough. And we’re only going to be able to do it with your support—with these great folks having the resources they need to move forward. So the next step? The next step is to make sure that we’re resourcing those candidates. And when a lot of people hear “resources,” they think money—and that’s a piece of it. But what it actually is: these people have never run for office before. So how do we help them put stump speeches together? How do we make sure they know the details of legislation they can campaign on? How do we help them get their campaign finance reports filed? How do they target voters? How do they get access to the voter file? That’s what we’re setting up at our state party. Because we now have more candidates than we’ve had in 60 years, and we have to make sure we’re able to process all of those and help them be successful. When we are, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be winning a bunch of seats out in the panhandle—that’s not what I’m saying. It’d be great! What I am saying is when we start performing better, it lifts our statewide opportunities. And so suddenly, we’re able to start delivering a U.S. Senate seat from Texas, a governorship, and we’re able to look at all those congressional seats that Republicans tried to steal from the voters of our state and deliver them back. We can go to Congress and start fighting for nonpartisan redistricting committees. It’s crucial that when we win, we deliver. And that’s what we’re laser-focused on—making sure every Texan knows that when you elect a Democrat, we will take on whatever billionaire, whatever banker, whatever bootlickin’ bastard we have to in order to make sure the little guy gets his seat at the table. That’s what it means to be a Texas Democrat. Thrilled to have a full slate. And thank you to the whole Hopium universe for all of your help and support. As someone who has been doing this a long time I can tell you that I was saw and felt in Los Angeles was the hole in our donut getting filled. Meaning that the core of our pro-democracy movement, in the center of it all, the national and state Democratic Parties - the only entities in our entire ecosystem focused just on winning and gaining power - have been allowed to atrophy, leaving vital, essential work undone all across the country, in every state. Filling this hole and rebuilding the state parties is the core project of Ken Martin’s and Jane Kleeb’s new DNC/ASDC. Chair Scudder explained in clear terms what it means to have a strong state party again in Texas. So does Charlie Dingman, the Chair of the Maine Democratic Party, in this recent conversation we had. He talks about how the big win they had on Question 1 - which we contributed to - simply could not have happened without a strong, well-funded state party: I hope you listen to both discussions for they help make clear why these investments we are making in the state parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas (and earlier investments this year in NC and WI) are so important. For state parties are the ONLY entities in our ecosystem that get up everyday and work on winning, for all Democrats in the state, just winning, nothing else. In my closing remarks I told that room that what I was seeing and feeling were Democratic Parties that were strong now, not weak; and listening to the stories of our huge wins in 2025 and all the other progress being made, the sheer determination to win that I felt from everyone I talked to, the ambition, the drive - that this grand experiment to fill the hole our movement’s donut was working. It’s working. And I hope all of you are proud that we here at Hopium are playing such a vital role in reviving the state parties and making our party, the Democratic Party of the United States of America, strong all across this country, again. Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In two new essays (here, here) I talk about 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 now, be loud now, 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 Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $58k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $103k raised, $250,000 goal, - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $38,000 raised, $50,000 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) Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032) Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $227,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Enjoy my conversations with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties! Keep working hard all. We’ve had a very good electoral year in 2025. Let’s commit to make 2026 even better - Simon Expansion Fund link to donate. This transcript has been edited for formatting purposes. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Simon: Hey everybody, it’s Simon. Good to see you all. I’m here at the ASDC meeting. We just had a terrific panel of six state party officials talking about our amazing wins in 2025. I’m joined now by Kendall Scudder, the great state party chair of Texas, who’s had an interesting couple of weeks. So let me turn it over to Kendall. I want him to do an update for all of you on what’s happened. I mean, Texas has been a lot of activity and you also have some really exciting news to share, don’t you? Kendall Scudder: I sure do. Well first, I mean, thank you, Simon, and the whole Hopium team. The community has just been so supportive of our state party, and I’m just so grateful for it. We’ve been working our asses off in Texas trying to make big things happen. Even though the Supreme Court’s a group of partisan political hacks, regardless, we’re sprinting forward. What it’s going to mean for us politically is that we now have new maps in Texas that were based on the 2024 numbers. But if they were based on the 2018 numbers, we would gain a seat. And so it’s not some distant past we’re trying to recreate—it’s something that happened recently. We just have to catch that lightning in a bottle like we did in 2018 and make sure that we’re replicating it. Tell them to take these maps and shove it. And I’m really excited about it. Here’s the exciting news I wanted to share with y’all first, because of how helpful y’all have been to our efforts: For the first time since 1974, for either party, Texas Democrats have recruited a candidate for every state and federal office in Texas. Every state house. Every state senate. Every state board of education. Every statewide judicial. Every state executive office. We filled it. Hundreds of candidates. And we wouldn’t have been able to do that without your help and all of us operating like we’re on a team. Because it’s not about who’s in what fiefdom. It’s not about people operating in silos. We have to start operating like we’re on a team. And when we do, we’re able to accomplish great things. So what does it mean when you have Democrats running in every single position across Texas? It means that if you’re a Republican in Texas, you don’t get a free pass. If you want to represent your community, you have to fight us for it. And that is what I believe is essential in our ability to move forward. Because Democrats are not just people on the coasts or in big cities. Folks need to know they are in their communities. It’s their teacher. Their nurse. Someone in their community who loves it and is trying to move it forward. That’s what we’re going to have—a whole slate of passionate Texans ready to take this government back from a billionaire class treating the government like their own personal feeding trough. And we’re only going to be able to do it with your support—with these great folks having the resources they need to move forward. So the next step? The next step is to make sure that we’re resourcing those candidates. And when a lot of people hear “resources,” they think money—and that’s a piece of it. But what it actually is: these people have never run for office before. So how do we help them put stump speeches together? How do we make sure they know the details of legislation they can campaign on? How do we help them get their campaign finance reports filed? How do they target voters? How do they get access to the voter file? That’s what we’re setting up at our state party. Because we now have more candidates than we’ve had in 60 years, and we have to make sure we’re able to process all of those and help them be successful. When we are, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be winning a bunch of seats out in the panhandle—that’s not what I’m saying. It’d be great! What I am saying is when we start performing better, it lifts our statewide opportunities. And so suddenly, we’re able to start delivering a U.S. Senate seat from Texas, a governorship, and we’re able to look at all those congressional seats that Republicans tried to steal from the voters of our state and deliver them back. We can go to Congress and start fighting for nonpartisan redistricting committees. It’s crucial that when we win, we deliver. And that’s what we’re laser-focused on—making sure every Texan knows that when you elect a Democrat, we will take on whatever billionaire, whatever banker, whatever bootlickin’ bastard we have to in order to make sure the little guy gets his seat at the table. That’s what it means to be a Texas Democrat. Thrilled to have a full slate. And thank you to the whole Hopium universe for all of your help and support. Simon: Kendall, can I ask you one other question? Let me come back to Simon here. I don’t know, this isn’t going to look so good. But—so first of all, amazing congratulations on your success. I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about one of the things we heard—we just did this panel with six of your colleagues around the country—and so much of what they were talking about is just blocking and tackling. Just executing with more money, more ambition, more resources, more confidence, more strength. Can you talk a bit about that? Kendall: Yeah, it’s not rocket science. It’s just math. You win elections when you get more votes. I think we overthink it. We always think there has to be some big, new shiny way for us to get voters. It’s about showing up in communities, shaking people’s hands, looking them in the eye, telling them what you stand for, and asking them for their vote. And I’m not just saying that as some guy that’s spewing it—I’ve done it myself. I took the most conservative district in Texas back in 2018 and turned it into a district where Republicans spent $3 million to beat me. So it’s this retail politics. I think Democrats learned about social media and accidentally got a little bit caught up in it. Reality? Just get back to the old-fashioned way—shaking people’s hands and talking to them. That’s what we intend to do. And it’s a whole lot easier to do it when there’s more hands available to shake other hands. And so that’s our mission. Simon: Okay, brother, listen, thank you. I know everyone’s busy. I appreciate you taking the time. Folks, I just want you to know—the money we’ve invested in—I’ve been hearing from everybody: this money has made an incredible difference. These off-year early investments are like yeast, right? To use the old Emily’s List term. I’m just so grateful for all of you who’ve contributed—to the Texas party, the other state parties, all the candidates we’ve been investing in and helping win. Eileen Higgins—we were all in on that race. A huge win for us in Miami last night. I just want to say—echo what Kendall said—which is: thank you all so much for what you’re doing. We’ve had a really good year. Let’s make 2026 even better. Thanks, everybody. Thank you for your financial support of our wonderful Hopium community. This support allows us to do our work, and keep most of our content free for others to learn from and enjoy.