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Friends, I sat down with our paid subscribers last night for our weekly check-in about how we are doing in our fight for freedom and democracy, here and everywhere. This week our gathering was a lively and comprehensive session about this moment in American politics - get to the episode when you can. Keep working hard all - Simon

Morning all. Today I’m excited to feature another conversation with someone leading the charge to help us “come together.” Julia Spiegel is the CEO of a new organization called Governors Action Alliance. GovAct describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit initiative that supports governors in championing fundamental freedoms, serving as a centralized platform for collaboration across governors’ offices—incubating, launching, and supporting alliances of governors. So far GovAct has launched three major initiatives across the states - the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, Governors for Public Health, and Governors Safeguarding Democracy. This innovative network of governors grew out of the response to the Dobbs decision ending Roe. Hear from Julia about the meaningful work of their Reproductive Freedom Alliance, new alliances on public health and democracy protection, and visit my analysis on Substack to find excerpts along with a full transcript from our interview. Recently I've argued that our leaders in Congress must continue to learn how to organize ourselves differently. They need to be aggregating more power to provide a much more meaningful check on Trump’s escalating authoritarianism, as demonstrated by yesterday's important hearing on DHS' use of violence. Our congressional leaders should not accept that legislating is the only tool available to them now and “come together” with free state governors, AGs, and mayors to forge a unified, national front against Trump’s increasingly out of control and dangerous behavior in at least two areas: 1) rule of law must be re-established in America, ICE must be reined in, and Trump’s outrageous plunder and corruption must end, and 2) he must back off his illegal and destructive territorial ambitions, end all these ridiculous tariffs, and re-commit to the Trans-Atlantic Alliance. For we in our pro-democracy movement are much stronger together than apart. Keep working hard everyone - Simon

Greetings all. One of our core working understandings right now at Hopium Chronicles is that in year two of Trump’s second term we must learn how to “come together” to aggregate our power and use it to more effectively block Trump from the damage he’s doing to the US and the world. Year one was successful for our movement politically and electorally. We won elections of all kinds all across the country, some by enormous margins, and Trump has become a degraded and unpopular leader. My hope is that in year two we build on that success and aggregate our power to more successfully counter his regime. You can learn more about this idea of "coming together" in a series of my recent essays which are linked in my post on Substack this afternoon. This week, I’m excited to feature conversations with two people leading the charge to help us “come together.” The first is a discussion with Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, the 7th Democratic Attorney General we’ve interviewed in the past year, and he, like his colleagues, tells us about what may be the single most innovative and successful collaborative project we’ve seen in Trump’s second term - the work of the 23 Democratic attorneys general. We’ve spent time exploring and learning about this collective effort in our interviews this past year. The Democratic state attorneys general have banded together and become one of the effective bulwarks against Trump’s escalating authoritarianism so far. Listen to our discussion here to learn more... it’s an uplifting story (and note the interview was completed late in 2025). In this episode you will also learn about AG Rayfield’s other legal successes this past year including his spirited fight against ICE and Trump’s attempted deployment of the National Guard to Oregon. Friends, follow the podcast here on Apple, join our community on Substack for all of my analysis and keep working hard everyone - Simon

Friends, I sat down with the great Stuart Stevens of Lincoln Square this afternoon for our monthly get together. It’s a lively and wide-ranging conversation around the theme of “meeting the moment.” Keep working hard all - Simon

Friends, excited to send along my weekly talk recorded last night with our proud, plucky and patriotic paid subscribers who help keep our community going and the Hopium flowing. I am traveling today to a gathering of Democrats that I’ll be sharing more about in the coming days. For now, make your calls to the Senate today, tell them to rein in Trump and rein in ICE. Here are 5 things I'm recommending in a list for reining in ICE: - ICE must leave Minnesota immediately - Clarity of mission, prioritization of criminals, no targeting of legal immigrants - No masks - Aggressive oversight of detention centers - Miller has to go Keep fighting all - Simon

Afternoon all. Sending along a recording of the timely conversation I had this morning with Jen Rubin and Norm Eisen over at The Contrarian. As we discuss, Trump’s stumbles and dangerous overreach are creating a big opportunity for the pro-democracy movement right now. Let’s work on seizing it, together - Simon

Morning all. Some takeaways from my weekly talk. I cannot stress how much Trump looked like a clown, buffoon, madman, idiot, bully/coward - choose your words - to the world yesterday. His rambling, incoherent speech confirmed to many that he is addled, and not fit to lead a great nation. He also showed the world that he cannot take a punch, and is weak, cowardly, pathetic, and desperate. As we discussed with Rob Shapiro yesterday, Europe has enormous leverage over the US, and can cripple our economy if they so choose. They began selling US Treasuries, the markets freaked, and Trump folded (for now). Trump learned this week that there are checks to his power other than his “own mind.” I think it is critical that we do not allow the narrative of what happened this week to be about Trump retreating. For what he did, as we discussed with Rob yesterday, is the greatest policy mistake by an American president in our history. He has done enormous, lasting damage to the country. We are a far weaker nation today, and calls for him to resign should grow. Not for his madness, his corruption, his rancid cover-up of the Epstein files but because is a historic, titanic F*** up who cannot be trusted to run the country any longer. He will go down in history as our worst leader who pursued an agenda of sabotage, plunder, and betrayal, and did enormous damage to the causes of freedom and democracy here and around the world. My hope is that Trump’s wild anti-European buffoonery these past few weeks will also weaken the far-right in Europe, and strengthen the liberal parties fighting him head on. Trump’s early January 2026 escalation - Minnesota, Venezuela, Greenland/War with Europe - has also left him weaker here at home. In a rash of new polling we’ve received this past week Trump has clearly fallen further, as the country again rejects his new strongman plays. New data confirms a pattern we’ve seen since Trump sent troops to Los Angeles in the spring - when he goes strongman, the country recoils, his approval drops, he grows more distant to the electorate, and this failure/rejection/repudiation encourages him to further escalate, as he desperately and manically seeks to feel strong, powerful, mighty again. And yes given his humiliation yesterday, his clear failure, we should anticipate further escalation in the days to come. This week the Europeans came together and used the power of their collective to knock Trump off course. That is the big lesson for us in the US - we must organize ourselves into a larger collective to accrue greater power than we have when we fight him in isolation or alone; and we can never appease, only fight... so friends, keep working hard all. Visit Substack for the remainder of my written analysis - Simon

Friends, sending along a new conversation with noted economist Rob Shapiro. I asked Rob to come by and talk to us before Trump’s humiliating climb-down today in Davos. As Rob explains in our sober discussion, Trump’s retreat cannot undo what has been done these past few weeks, and the costs now to our economy and security are going to be extraordinary. With Dr. Robert Shapiro. Keep working hard all. We often talk about there being good days and bad days here. Let’s work to make tomorrow a good one - Simon

Friends, sending along the video recording of my conversation yesterday afternoon with legal commentator and former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. As Glenn has been one my most important teachers in this dark age of Trump, it’s always a thrill for me to able to spend time learning from him. I asked Glenn to come back and talk to us about the escalation we’ve seen from Trump in recent weeks - the new repeated assertions by Trump, Miller, and the regime that domestic and international law no longer apply to them; and ICE’s brutal and lawless campaign in Minnesota. Get to this informative and timely discussion when you can - it’s a good one! Keep working hard everyone - Simon

Friends, sharing a recording of my Wednesday night talk with paid subscribers of the Hopium community. We are entering a new phase of Trump’s second term. A period of dramatic escalation at home and abroad. Trump ended the year weak, politically and physically. He has started 2026 off with a wildly aggressive campaign to reclaim control over the national debate and restore his power. The “success” of the Maduro operation has clearly emboldened him; he has, in his desperation and growing madness, declared himself Emperor of the Western Hemisphere, High Lord of the Western Hemisphere, and has declared that the US Constitution, domestic US law, the UN Charter, international law, and Senate ratified treaties with our allies no longer apply to him and his regime. This next phase, Trump unbound, is a very, very dangerous one. Like with all of his other “strongman” plays these new 2026 ones - Venezuela, Greenland, Minnesota - are already wildly unpopular and only play to a very narrow portion of his base while pushing away the majority of the country. All of this is giving Dems a chance to go on offense now, lean in, be proud patriots, and defend democracy and freedom here and everywhere. For Americans and the people of the world are now relearning, painfully, why autocracy and oligarchy are WRONG, DANGEROUS, INHUMANE, and must be challenged with everything we got. And after all we are Americans. Fighting for freedom and democracy is who we are. It’s what we’ve been doing for 250 years. While there is much darkness today, what we are coming to learn is that we must begin to organize ourselves differently now, to become stronger and more unified, less divided and isolated, to see all this uncertainty and chaos as an opportunity to make the case to the people of America and the world about freedom and democracy. We have an opportunity to encourage the free states and cities here in America to band together and connect to other free nations and peoples around the world. We must now build a “liberal internationale” to counter its rising illiberal counterpart, and while it is easy to visualize failure right now, we must increasingly spend our time visualizing success and victory, and build a plan suited to this new day to make it so. Keep fighting all - Simon

Friends, sending along a timely conversation I had today with Senator Chris Coons who is leading a high level bipartisan, bicameral congressional delegation to Denmark this weekend. Senator Coons is an old friend, and it’s just great news that he’s been able to put together such an important delegation to head to Europe at this critical time. We often talk here about how the free countries of the world need to see pro-democracy leaders here in the US visibly fighting alongside them for freedom and democracy. This trip is a great example of the kind of pro-democracy global diplomacy we must see far more of in the months ahead. I'm grateful to my old friend for dropping by and talking to us about both his upcoming visit and the broader fight against Trump’s reckless foreign policy, particularly given all that is going on right now. At the beginning of our conversation I asked the Senator why he put the trip together. Here is what he said: "10 months ago, at the Munich Security Conference, I sat down with the foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and a senior Greenlandic representative, and I asked them three questions. Are there any current significant security threats from Iran, from China, from Russia, to Greenland security? No. If the United States respectfully came to you and said, we’d like to partner in sustainably developing the critical minerals and rare earth resources of Greenland, what would your response be? Open arms. If we came to you respectfully and said, we’d like to exercise our rights under the treaty from 1951, and add American military assets on the east side of Greenland or the south of Greenland to monitor the movement of Chinese and Russian naval and air assets, what would your response be? Open arms…so it’s been clear, for at least the year that I’ve been thinking about this, that it is simply a made up conflict for President Trump to keep pushing for Greenland to become American territory. I have two Republicans coming and two other Democrats coming from the Senate… senior members of Foreign Relations, Appropriations… and we’re going to have senior meetings with both Danish and Greenlandic representatives. This will be hugely reassuring, I hope, to the Danes and to the residents of Greenland, to have a bipartisan group from the House and the Senate come to them and do interviews in the Danish press, meet with their business, civil society and elected and military leaders and say, we want no part of a military effort to seize control of Greenland." Keep working hard everyone, and enjoy this uplifting interview with one our more important foreign policy leaders, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware - Simon

Greetings all. It's always great to check in with our inspiring Democratic Party Chair of North Carolina, Anderson Clayton. Yesterday she dropped by our community to share some exciting news, as Democrats are running candidates in all 170 state legislative and 14 Congressional districts in North Carolina this cycle. It was huge undertaking for the Party and its allies, and a successful one. In our discussion you can hear us talk about why this matters so much, for it brings the fight to every corner of North Carolina, 24/7/365, and lifts up all Democrats in every race throughout the state. Anderson shares with us her thoughts on the 2026 election landscape which includes the all important efforts to elect Roy Cooper to the US Senate and keep Justice Anita Earls on the state Supreme Court. The bottom line is that things feel good, but there is a lot of work ahead of us. Friends, enjoy the update, share this episode, join our community at Hopium Chronicles and keep working hard. - Simon

Afternoon all. Sending along a new discussion with Greg Sargent, columnist at The New Republic. I asked Greg to come by to make sense of his new article, Inside Stephen Miller’s Dark Plot To Build A MAGA Terror State. Get to the episode when you can, everyone, and keep fighting. We have a lot of hard and important work ahead - Simon

Friends, yesterday I hosted Stuart for our monthly conversation. Keep working hard all. - Simon

Greetings all. Sending along an interview with our good friend Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee. Adam is in the middle of it all right now and I’m grateful he was able to spend some time with us. The Congressman and I celebrated the Senate’s War Powers vote this afternoon that would force Trump to receive Congressional approval before military action in Venezuela. It’s a significant public rebuke of Trump on a day when Speaker Johnson is going to get rolled by a discharge petition that will restore the ACA subsidy cuts. As Rep. Smith says “people in general are tiring of Trump and he is weakening as a leader.” On the killing of Renee Nicole Good, here's the Congressman: "...it's the abuse of state power. I mean this is Trump’s viewpoint. He’s in charge... whether that’s the U.S. military showing up and snatching Maduro in the middle of night and blowing up boats in the Caribbean, or ICE agents, you know, raiding various cities across America. The cavalier attitude towards the use of force by those institutions of our society responsible for enforcing the law, whether it’s the military or ICE or DEA agents or whoever… the whole thing has been macho cavalier, you do what you got to do, no consequences. That has an effect on the mentality of the people out there enforcing the law. If you look at that video from yesterday… there’s no excuse for using deadly force. But they’ve been told you know in a fight for survival you know kill them before they kill you. And who’s “them?” A 37 year old mother driving an SUV in Minneapolis. Didn’t commit a single solitary crime. U.S. citizen. That’s the person who you have to kill before they get you. But that’s the mentality that Trump is drilling in to people across this country. And it’s making every single one of us less safe and more vulnerable." Friends, if you enjoyed this discussion, a few reminders to follow the show here on Apple Podcasts and to join our community on the Hopium Chronicles Substack. All of my political analysis is there. Keep working hard everyone. - Simon