Hopium Chronicles With Simon Rosenberg Podcast

Friends, there were some technical issues with the email and video I sent out this morning so please delete that one and use this post and updated video instead. Sorry, and thanks all! - Simon

My New Interview With MN Dem Party Chair, Ken Martin, A Leading Candidate for DNC Chair - Friends, this morning I sat down with my old friend Ken Martin who is running to be the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee (video above). Ken is the long time Chair of the very successful Minnesota Democratic Party, and Chair of the Association Of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), an association of the state Democratic Parties. It’s a great conversation about the road ahead. Enjoy!

Learn more about Ken:

* Ken Martin seeks historic seventh term as DFL Party Chair - “The longtime chair has helped steer from debt to complete control of state government.”

* I’m a DNC vice chair, here’s how Democrats reconnect with voters - “In the heartland where I'm from, I saw how local voters embraced issues straight from Democratic agenda.”

The DNC Chair’s race is going to be an important vehicle for our much needed conversation about our path forward, together. We will be following it closely here at Hopium. In January there will be four public forums for the DNC Chair candidates to lay out their ideas and debate with the final vote coming on February 1st.

I know many here are fans of Ben Wikler (site), the Wisconsin Dem Party Chair. I’m in talks with Ben’s team to get an interview scheduled in the coming days. I should also note that another good friend of the Hopium community, Nebraska Dem Chair Jane Kleeb, is running to replace Ken as the Chair of the Association of Democratic State Committees (ASDC). I hope to have her join us soon as well.

Fighting Trump’s Unacceptable 4/Winning The Info Wars - Yesterday, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer dropped incredible new reporting about Pete Hegseth’s ouster from the leadership of a veterans’ group he ran:

After the recent revelation that Pete Hegseth had secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017, President-elect Donald Trump stood by his choice of Hegseth to become the next Secretary of Defense. Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, issued a statement noting that Hegseth, who has denied wrongdoing, has not been charged with any crime. “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his administration,” Cheung maintained.

But Hegseth’s record before becoming a full-time Fox News TV host, in 2017, raises additional questions about his suitability to run the world’s largest and most lethal military force. A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

Here’s how CBS News played it last night:

Let’s keep working it, peeps:

* 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.

Thanks to those of who have self-reported that you have taken these and other steps. We “do more and worry less” here at Hopium and given Trump’s early, dangerous nominations we all need a whole of lot more doing right now.

In a new TNR podcast released this morning Greg Sargent talks to Hopium friend Tara McGowan about the opportunity Dems have to use Trump’s unacceptable nominees to learn how to better fight and win the coming info wars. In their discussion Greg references my recent post, Re-Imagining The Roles Of The DNC, Elected Officials And Grassroots Dems In The Info Wars. As this essay is also relevant to my conversation with Chair Ken Martin, I re-post this excerpt:

As we’ve discussed since the very first day of Hopium, our family has to learn how to be loud not just in our muscular campaigns but every day, 24/7/365. We need to work together to close what I call the loudness gap with the right. We’ve talked here about the need to grow pro-democracy media organizations like Crooked Media, COURIER Newsroom, MeidasTouch, Resolute Square, Deep State Radio and fellow Substackers like Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder. We’ve talked about the role we all have to play in working our networks each day, getting louder, and becoming more accomplished information warriors for our democracy. Today, I want to talk another piece of a new loudness strategy - the roles of our party committees and elected officials.

First, the DNC and other state parties must become more like MeidasTouch. The DNC has to become a central communications hub of the new opposition, and produce high quality, modern, social and YouTube content everyday both advancing our ideas and leaders, and challenging theirs. As some have mentioned here, elements of the social-based KamalaHQ should be brought into the DNC, and large gatherings of Dems along the lines of White Dudes For Harris should become a regular thing. Our party infrastructure simply has to take on a greater comms responsibility in the 20 months outside of the last 4 months of elections every two years, and large donors in our family should support this strategic evolution.

Next, the relationship between Democrats across the country and our big campaigns and party committees must change. The millions of us who gave and volunteered need to be treated like partners in the fight not just donors to the cause. There has to be a more respectful information based relationship between us, where our campaigns and parties start treating us not only like ATMs but also like proud patriots, information warriors and willing amplifiers. In this networked age we must see the 4-5-6m people who gave this past cycle as a vast information network to be deployed to counter the right’s information superiority. Imagine the Senate/House/DNC doing a training on how to understand and talk about Trump’s tariffs or his mass deportation plans with a million Dems over Zoom? Creating a true and robust center-left amplification network has to be an immediate, 2025 goal.

Finally, our elected officials, every single one of them, at all levels of government, need to get louder in every way possible every day. There has to be a revolution in how we see the role of an elected official, both on the official side and on the campaign side. Electeds need to not only govern and legislate, but also should see themselves as influencers and info warriors with enormous platforms to help shape the information environment every day, 24/7/365. Simply, they have to work it as hard as they can, every day, using all the tools at their disposal.

Party leaders should work to create a new baseline of understanding of how people get their information these days to help every person in this process become more effective. Classes and training should be required for all electeds and their staffs, and best practices shared.

In the last Congress we saw examples of where we need to go. House Members like AOC, Eric Swalwell, Jamie Raskin, Maxwell Frost, Jeff Jackson, Jasmine Crockett and Jerad Moskowitz were effective at creating “hot moments’ which broke through the noise and went viral. These kinds of tactics are going to become far more important now in this period of opposition.

What Happened, What Comes Next - Our approach to the big post-election conversation has been to go slow, listen and learn, and right now I still have far more questions than answers. Here are some resources for you to dive into the big post-election conversation in the coming days:

* Notes on 2024 And What Comes Next (11/20/24) - In a new detailed post and comprehensive video released I offer my latest thinking about what happened in 2024 - the disappointing and the encouraging.

* In this post and video I offer my heartfelt thanks to the members of this community who left it all out there on the playing field this cycle.

* I’ve written a series of related post-election posts on the need for us to get louder here, here, here and most recently this one on how we need to get far smarter in how we strategically contest the right’s information superiority in our campaigns. Both the Trippi and the McGowan/Pfeiffer conversations below also speak to this urgent need, as does my new post, Learning How To Tell Our Story More Effectively.

* In a new post I discuss the need for Democrats to develop a broad agenda for renewal and reform, a topic we’ve been discussing here for many months and one central to my February New Republic essay, Biden Must Reinvent What A Presidential Campaign Is.

Adam Gray still leads in CA-13 - fingers crossed everyone!

To help us learn from others throughout the family, I’ve launched a new What Happened, What Comes Next discussion series. Here are the first four of those talks, along with 2 relevant segments from my fall Closing Strong series with Tara McGowan and COURIER Newsroom:

* Anderson Clayton - On Our Impressive Downballot Wins in North Carolina

* John Della Volpe - On Trump’s Gains With Young People

* Joe Trippi - On The Power Of Networks And The Need To Build Our Own

* Rep. Abigail Spanberger - On Winning The Virginia Governors Race in 2025. Learn more about Abigail | Volunteer | Donate To Her Campaign | We have already raised more than $10,000 towards our $100,000 goal!

From Closing Strong:

* On The Need For Pro-Democracy Media - With Tara McGowan and Dan Pfeiffer

* Beyond MAGA Creators - Russia’s influence on the Republican Party runs deep with Stewart Stevens and Jiore Craig

I’ve also 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. Paid subscribers should sign up for our next get together on Wednesday, Dec 4th at 7pm ET. Lots and lots to talk about!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon