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My Interview With Ben Wikler, Fighting The Unacceptable 4, What's Happening In NC Is Wrong And Our Leaders Should Say So
Catch my new interview with Anthony Davis of MeidasTouch on 2024 and what comes next
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Good afternoon all. Got a few things for you today:
A New Interview With The Great Ben Wikler, Chair Of The Wisconsin Democratic Party - I got to spend some time with Ben Wikler this morning, and am pleased to share our discussion with all of you (video above).
Ben holds a special place in the Hopium community. The very first campaign we worked on together after Hopium launched in March of 2023 was the campaign to elect Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Ben was our very first live Hopium interview, and many of you donated and worked on that campaign which we won by 11 points, 55%-44%. Among the many things that came from that big win was the unwinding of Wisconsin’s extraordinary gerrymandering of its federal and state legislative districts (the Fair Maps campaign). This fall our community raised $150,000 for the Wisconsin state legislative races; we made calls during our Thursday night postcarding/calling sessions into Wisconsin; and many of our 2,000 subscribers in Wisconsin and others across the country worked hard to help support the statewide efforts there and our candidates in the newly redrawn state legislative maps.
As Ben discusses in our interview while Harris-Walz lost Wisconsin by just 0.9 points, our best showing of the seven battleground states, Senator Baldwin did prevail and we picked up 10 seats in the Wisconsin Assembly and 4 in the state Senate. So, like North Carolina, impressive down ballot wins in a tough year. For a good recap of the vital state legislative gains we made in Wisconsin, check out Democrats flip 14 seats in the Wisconsin Legislature in 2024 after redistricting. An excerpt:
Wisconsin Republicans held on to the state Legislature in the Nov. 5 election, but the flipping of 14 Senate and Assembly seats from red to blue provided the clearest evidence yet that the 2011 partisan gerrymander was real and is now dead.
Republicans will maintain majorities in both the Assembly and Senate — though at much slimmer margins than during the most recent legislative session. The math sets up a chance for the Democrats to retake at least one chamber in 2026, especially if Republicans face the usual midterm headwinds that check a new president.
Ben is now a leading candidate for DNC Chair. We caught some of his ideas on what we need to do now in the interview, but you can learn more about Ben’s vision by visiting his DNC Chair website. Here’s the introductory text from Ben’s site:
Today, the country we love needs the Democratic Party to be stronger. To unite. To fight. And to win.
In Wisconsin, we run a permanent campaign. We organize and communicate year-round, in every community—and it works. We've ended GOP control and unrigged our state.
What has made a difference here can make a difference everywhere. So I'm running for Chair of the Democratic National Committee—to UNITE, FIGHT, and WIN across every state and territory in our country.
The vote for DNC Chair, and other top offices in the Democratic National Committee is February 1st. We will be covering the election closely, and interviewing other promising candidates for some of the other leadership positions at the DNC too. Enjoy our interview with Ben and thank you to everyone who participated in our important victories in Wisconsin over the past two years.
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Fighting The Unacceptable 4, Disney’s Betrayal, What Is Happening In NC Is Wrong And Our Leaders Should Say So - We need to keep fighting:
Call your Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s pick of Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.
Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately and before Trump installs Patel to disable the process. Last week the Trump team signed an agreement allowing these background checks to go forward. President Biden should do Mr. Trump a favor and expedite the clearance process for the most sensitive jobs of State, Defense, DNI, CIA, Homeland Security and HHS (pandemic preparedness) so the new team can hit the ground running in January.
I will have more to say about Disney’s extraordinary betrayal of our democracy in the coming days, but will let The Bulwark’s William Kristol speak for me today:
Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos for saying he had been found liable for rape. It’s very likely, given the law on defamation against a public figure, that Trump would have lost the case, as he has lost many others. But on the eve of depositions, ABC News folded, announcing it will pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential foundation in a settlement and issuing a statement of “regret.”
One need shed no tears for Disney, the corporate parent of ABC. That $15 million is a drop in the bucket for them to buy goodwill with the incoming president of the United States.
But the precedent this sets, the floodgates it opens for many other such suits, the signal of open capitulation, are all terrible. What other corporate counsels are going to advise their clients to fight such lawsuits if mighty Disney won’t? What other corporations—media or otherwise—are going to resist bullying by the Trump administration? What outlets, in the future, will walk on eggshells? Will they even avoid telling the truth in hopes of avoiding litigation?
Our friend Greg Sargent also goes deep on Disney/ABC’s disastrous decision in a new interview with one of our patron saints here at Hopium, the historian and author, Anne Applebaum.
Here’s Trump in his press conference this morning talking about how now, unlike his first term, this time everyone wants to be his friend:
Finally, as part of learning how to become an effective opposition in Trump II, we need to grow more comfortable to condemn and say things are wrong, even if they are legal. Silence can become complicity. The silence of our party’s leaders about what is happening in North Carolina right now has been a bit shocking to me. What Disney and ABC News did was wrong. What the NC GOP is doing is wrong. Our leaders should say so.
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New Podcast With Anthony Davis And MeidasTouch - I sat down for an in-depth interview this weekend with Anthony Davis for his weekly podcast on the MeidasTouch network, The Weekend Show. It’s the most comprehensive interview I’ve done so far about the election and what comes next, and we cover a lot of interesting new ground. Hope you will make the time to watch or listen in the coming days. It is below.
What Happened, What Comes Next - To help make sense of what happened in the 2024 election and where we go from here I’ve launched a new video discussion series to bring outside voices and experts into our conversation, one that starts with many more question than answers. Here are the first seven of our discussions:
On Winning Arizona And Getting Latinos Back - With Senator-Elect Ruben Gallego
On Winning Virginia In 2025 - With Rep. Abigail Spanberger, The Democratic Nominee for Virginia Governor | Learn more about Abigail | Volunteer | Donate To Her Campaign
On The Future Of The DNC and The Democratic Party - With Ken Martin, Minnesota Democratic Party Chair and A Leading Candidate For DNC Chair
On North Carolina’s Impressive Downballot Wins - With Anderson Clayton, Chair Of The North Carolina Democratic Party
On Trump’s Big Gains With Young People, Particularly Young Men - With John Della Volpe Of Harvard’s Institute For Politics
On The Power of Networks - With Joe Trippi, Legendary Democratic Strategist and Campaign Manager, Founder Sez Us and Resolute Square
On Reinventing Government and The Perils of DOGE - With Dr. Elaine Kamarck Of Harvard and The Brookings Institution
You may also find these two segments from our fall Closing Strong collaboration with COURIER Newsroom and Tara McGowan helpful:
On The Need For Pro-Democracy Media - With COURIER’s Tara McGowan and Dan Pfeiffer of Crooked Media
Beyond MAGA Creators - Russia’s influence on the Republican Party runs deep with Stewart Stevens and Jiore Craig
And here are my three most important recent post-election analyses if you haven’t gotten to them yet:
More Notes On Trump’s Unprecedented Ugliness And Becoming The Fercious Opposition - early thinking about how Hopium evolves next year
For Dems It’s A Time For Re-imagination, Re-invention and Innovation (video too)
More Notes On What Happened And What Comes Next (video too)
Give The Gift of Hopium This Holiday Season - I’ve set up a thread for paid subscribers to offer their thoughts on what this wonderful and plucky community should do next. I’m grateful for the many comments we’ve received so far. Weigh in if you can in the coming days, and note that an annual Hopium paid subscription is now 10% off through the end of the year for those who may want to sign up or give a bit of Hopium as a holiday gift!
Simon on Bluesky - For those on Bluesky you can find me here, @simonwdc.bsky.social. So grateful to be spending far less time on Twitter.
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Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
