Our friend and award winning journalist Leon Krauze dropped by yesterday to talk to us about the significance of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It turned into an incredibly thoughtful and timely discussion about the global fight for freedom and democracy, and our own fight here in the United States. A recording and transcript are above. Get to it when you can - it’s one of the most important conversations I’ve hosted this year.
Leon published an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday, The Nobel honors a hero - and Venezuela’s struggle for freedom (gift link). It begins:
The Nobel Committee in Oslo has awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado. It is an inspired choice.
For more than two decades, Machado has been one of the most courageous, consistent and articulate opponents of Venezuela’s barbaric Chavista regime. She has led the country’s democratic resistance against one of the most repressive dictatorships in the Americas. Standing firm against the autocratic system built up by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, she has insisted on the democratic path — on voting, on citizenship, on hope.
In 2002, she founded Súmate, an organization devoted to election monitoring and the defense of the vote, an act that led to criminal charges against her. She was elected to the National Assembly in 2010, until the Chavista majority expelled and disqualified her four years later for denouncing the regime’s abuses. Both Chávez and Maduro have sought to silence her through threats and defamation campaigns. Today, Machado lives in hiding, fully aware that her freedom — and perhaps her life — remain at risk.
“There are rare moments when the love of democracy cannot be defeated by weapons or torture,” Venezuelan intellectual Moisés Naím told me upon hearing the news of the award. “The Nobel confirms the legitimacy of María Corina’s leadership, both inside and outside Venezuela.”
Last year, after the most recent presidential election in Venezuela, in which Maduro managed to cling to power through massive fraud (documented by Machado and opposition candidate Edmundo González), I interviewed her.
I asked her then how she thought history would judge Chávez, a man she confronted publicly on several occasions, including one unforgettable moment in the National Assembly.
“It was the darkest period in Venezuela’s history,” she told me. “It has been a painful lesson in the value of freedom and human dignity. Today, Venezuelans cherish liberty as never before — the ability to live in our own country, to keep our families together. It has been a deeply painful lesson.”
A screenshot from Leon’s interview of María Corina Machado
Let us be inspired in our own work by María Corina Machado’s extraordinary courage………
In our discussion we also explore what Leon describes as Trump’s “attack on Hispanic and Latino identity.” I asked Leon whether he believed that this attack was impacting the political affiliation of Hispanic voters. Here is a rough transcript of his response:
Simon, before the 2024 election, I know you’ve thought about this, written about this, like very few people.
There was this debate on Latino voters, right? And whether we were seeing a generational shift towards the Republican side. And some people insisted that that was the case for two main reasons.
First, Latino voters were fed up with permissive immigration policies. And the second reason was the economy. And so since Democrats had failed on both, we were going to see the emergence of new conservative Latino quasi-majority.
I suggested to a couple of people on social media that once Trump showed his true colors on immigration, secured the border, all right, but then turned this country into a terror state for immigrants, Latinos would immediately begin reacting once the stories were told. And thank God that the media is telling the stories, but not only the media, Simon, social media. Thank God for social media.
All over, we’re seeing the stories of heartbreak, of families being fractured, of kids being zip-tied, of the abuse of power, of overreach of the new ICE recruits.
And of course, I’m very happy that I think I was right because obviously once the Latino community sees this injustice this active injustice this campaign of terror you were going to see a reaction of course there are people who are angry at Trump because of inflation yes but there’s an attack on the Hispanic and Latino identity in this country.
And I see it here in Miami as well with Venezuelans and Cubans who were very enthusiastic and have been very enthusiastic and very hot on Trump for a while. They are terrified now. Venezuelans are actively angry and terrified, and Cubans. I mean, you probably read John Lee Anderson’s very interesting piece in The New Yorker just recently (link).
There is a realization that this administration has begun and led a campaign of terror and that it’s turning this country into or trying to turn this country into an authoritarian regime.
I think that the spell has been broken and I think it was tenuous to begin with, but the spell has been broken and it has been broken for many reasons, beginning in my understanding of things and of my community with the horrors that we’re seeing around immigration enforcement.
In our recent discussion Senator Ruben Gallego told us a very similar story about how it is no longer cool in younger Hispanic social circles to be a Trump supporter. His was a version of the same story - that the Republican spell in Hispanic/Latino communities has been broken.
We saw this new political reality in that University of Houston Texas poll I shared yesterday:
While Trump’s advantage over Harris among these Latino voters in 2024 was 8 percentage points (53% to 45%), if these Latino voters could vote again for president, Harris would lead Trump by 11 percentage points among Latinos (52% to 41%), marking a 19 percentage point shift. This finding suggests that any modeling of Latino voter behavior based on Trump’s unprecedented success with Texas Latino voters in 2024 could be significantly overestimating the 2026 Latino vote intention for Republican congressional candidates in the recently redrawn Texas U.S. House districts. And, as a result, Republicans may have a more difficult time than expected defeating Democratic incumbents Henry Cuellar in the 28th Congressional District and Vicente Gonzalez in the 34th Congressional District, while also suggesting that Republican victories in the 9th, 15th, and 35th Congressional Districts, though still the most likely outcome, are not nearly as certain as they would be if Latino voters cast ballots for Republican candidates in 2026 in the same way that they did back in 2024.
We see this shift in our weekly breakdown of the Economist/YouGov poll:
As I discussed in my weekly video I don’t believe Congressional Democrats are doing enough to challenge Trump’s escalating authoritarianism and terror campaigns across the country. We cannot accept that scenes like this one have become commonplace here, in America:
Which is why it was so heartening to see Illinois’ two Senators joining the protests outside the Broadview/Chicago ICE facility yesterday:
It is time now for Democrats in Washington to challenge Trump as directly on his escalating authoritarianism as we are on his savage attack on health care and his ruinous tariffs. It is not only something that simply must be done for our democracy and freedoms, but if we are to take advantage of the collapse of support for Republicans in the Hispanic/Latino and immigrant communities, they will need to see us, in this dark and terrible moment, our there vigorously fighting for them and their families.
For the loss of freedom of anyone in America is a loss of freedom for all.
FDR Memorial, The National Mall (SR photo) I want to thank everyone who has given in recent days. We saw a big uptick in giving before the critical q3 filing deadline. Note that we’ve hit $200,000 raised now for our 7 House incumbents and Abigail Spanberger, and $100,000 for Mikie Sherrill. Thank you all!
Winning The Fall - Support Our November, 2025 Candidates and Yes On 50
Hopium members in CA/NJ/PA/VA - please vote on Day 1, or as early as you can, either by mail or in-person. When you vote early your names comes off the campaign GOTV rolls allowing them to move on to lower propensity voters, which increases D turnout and makes it more likely we win. Voting early = another way to help us win.
Please vote early and encourage everyone you know to join you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates
Expanding The Map - Support Our Audacious Expansion Fund (2026-2032)
Our updated fundraising goals are now for the end of the year, December 31st, except for the 2025 races, which are now for Election Day, 2025.
Defending America, Winning The Big Argument With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our our emerging four part agenda. Demand that your Senators and House Member work to keep the government open and
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
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE, restoring due process for immigrants across the country, vigorously defending the 1st Amendment, warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents, and ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy
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 and China
2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston, and offer advice on how to get a resolution passed in your own community.
Remarkably, members of this community have passed or are advancing 85 (!!!!) resolution projects in 23 states + DC. Can we get to all 50 states by the fall election?
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! Been impressive to see how many of you remain involved in local, in person protests of all kinds in your communities. Great to see!
Keep working hard all, and remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today. We do the work to make it so - Simon
