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Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

Trump's Incredible Meltdown, Rigging Elections, And The "Majority Illusion"

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3 days ago · 419 likes · 74 comments · Simon Rosenberg

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Trump’s meltdown is epic, indeed, and he’s beginning to take on the appearance of a caged animal. He and the MAGA base are crying foul at the Los Angeles mayoral race because their chosen candidate (a reality star, obviously) didn’t make the final cut. On social media, there are a million posts about how Trump and Co. don’t understand how elections work, or how they’re all a bunch of soft babies, etc.

And maybe that’s true. But it could also be true that they know exactly how elections work, and they know they’re about to lose in potentially historic fashion. Their whining about the mayoral race could be a preview of something much more sinister.

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and Simon talk through the MAGA meltdowns, Trump’s recent wild spate of losses, and what it will take to win and rebuild this country.

On Friday, a federal judge put a stay on the funds until legal fights related to its dispersement were heard. There also was a tepid response from many Republicans on the Hill about a fund going to insurrectionists who beat police on January 6th. So Trump has given up, for now.

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Susan J. Demas and Edwin Eisendrath, host of It’s The Democracy, Stupid, discuss Trump’s failed attempt to grift off the American people and wonder how we can use this momentum to put a stop to some other vanity projects, like his ballroom and proposed arch.

Jump into Susan and Edwin’s latest conversation about the slush fund, critical primary elections in Iowa and California on Tuesday, Trump and Netanyahu having it out over their disastrous Iran War and more, right here on Lincoln Square.

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His new book is God Forgives, Brothers Don’t: The Long March of Military Education and the Making of American Manhood — a sweeping history of how the U.S. military, from West Point to JROTC to the Boy Scouts, has shaped American masculinity into something brutal, and how that formation runs straight through our politics today.

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He joined Sam Osterhout to talk about masculinity, violence, religion, the military, and how all of it comes together to build toxic men like Pete Hegseth.

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Donald Trump may have betrayed Ukraine, but they are fighting for democracy — and it’s a fight they must win.

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It’s a poignant message on Memorial Day. Let us know how you’re observing Memorial Day in the comments.

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The released autopsy from earlier this week really doesn’t do anything. It places blame on a few figures — rightly or wrongly — but doesn’t present a vision for the future. Think about it this way: no team goes into the Super Bowl trying to figure out why they lost during the regular season. They focus on why they win.

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Dems have an opportunity to win. The midterms are theirs to lose. But they have to look beyond the midterm to present a vision of how they will govern. That’s what gets people to the polls.

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But as Anna’s city grows — it is among the fastest growing cities in America, with around 150,000 new residents in a single year — cracks in the social safety net are becoming more pronounced. Homelessness is up dramatically. Housing costs are skyrocketing. And people like her parents, who came here looking for a brighter future for their families, are finding life that much more difficult.

Anna is in a unique position, politically. She could be called a rising star, but after her tenure in the Florida statehouse, her advocacy against Alligator Alcatraz (which in no small way led to its closure), and her very obvious political instincts, it might be more apt to imagine her as a central figure in new Democratic roster of superstar candidates, among others like Congressman Maxwell Frost, also from Orlando, and her close friend.

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Many expected her to run for national office or governor. Sam asked why mayor of Orlando was the right move for her right now, and her answer should give everyone fighting for democracy hope.

Check out the interview, and leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Hey, grifters gotta eat too, right?

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Today on Lincoln Square, Susan J. Demas and Edwin Eisendrath of It’s The Democracy, Stupid discuss the continued corruption before our eyes. The President just settled with himself regarding his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, accepting $1.776 billion for a slush fund that could be accessed by cop-beating insurrectionists allies he claims were wrongly targeted by former President Joe Biden.

And they talk about why Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis just dealt a blow to the rule of law and gave Trump a massive win in January 6 revisionism.

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Jump into more with Edwin Eisendrath and Susan J. Demas right here on Lincoln Square.

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When it came time to vote on the nomination of RFK Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Cassidy knew that a no vote would potentially be the end of his Senate career. So he voted for RFK Jr.

Cassidy, a doctor, once told of the tragedy of watching an 18-year-old patient suffer acute liver failure due to hepatitis B, a disease preventable by vaccination. He believes in vaccines. He believes in public health.

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RFK Jr. does not. Cassidy made a Faustian bargain by voting for him — perhaps, he may have thought, I’ll be able to check the impulses of RFK Jr., if I’m able to stay in the Senate.

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It doesn’t happen anymore. Not like it used to.

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I’ve had conversations with friends about politics of all things – literally the subject I cover in media – and have been totally lost. A friend will bring up a detail about some SCOTUS decision or some kid of some politician or some scandal somewhere and it’s like they’re speaking a different language.

How can we possibly be living in the same world? I mean, come on. I’m perpetually online (and not in a good way, I admit). How could a non-political, non-media person know something I don’t?

Brian Daitzman, Editor-in-Chief of The Intellectualist, says that our common culture functionally ended around 1999.

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He wrote about it last week on his popular and engrossing Substack, and I had to talk to him about it (finally, an article we had in common!).

The Intellectualist

The Hollowing of the Shared Room

Bits & Bytes — AI, science, and what comes next…

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a month ago · 8 likes · The Intellectualist

The thing is, this kind of silo-ing has impacts far beyond culture. What is a democracy except a system of collaborative decision-making? What happens when we don’t even a fundamental understanding of the problems we collectively face – not even with the people with whom we agree?

What happens? Well … you’re living it now.

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Watch this conversation and leave your thoughts in the comments.

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There was no better person to talk to about this than Justin Wolfers, professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan. He joined Susan J. Demas today on Lincoln Square and put our economy in historical context and discussed tariffs, the housing market, gas prices, the AI revolution and more. And yes, Donald Trump figured heavily into the conversation.

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Pencils out for this important economic discussion with Susan J. Demas and Justin Wolfers. And be sure to check out his new Substack, Platypus Economics, a clearheaded resource to understand this chaotic economy.

Platypus Economics

Economics. Explained. Clearly.

By Justin Wolfers

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"We do not rebuild the trust that Donald Trump has squandered. It may take us twenty years and leadership through whatever the next tragedy is, provided we're able to lead. But that's gone." ~

This won’t come as a surprise to you, but Trump and his administration are not serious. We learned that (again) with reporting that Sean Duffy, our Transportation Secretary and former reality TV star, spent roughly seven months filming a family reality show — Great American Road Trip. He did this while on the federal payroll, amid the first fatal commercial air crash in over a decade and four-hour TSA lines at major airports. Sponsors of the show include Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, and Royal Caribbean — all companies regulated by Duffy's own department.

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Taking this at face value, the most generous assumption might be that people like Duffy (or Hegseth or Patel or Pirro or Trump himself) believed that America would ultimately run itself and that their titles were perfunctory, or otherwise ceremonial.

We’re all finding out quickly, and to our horror, that filling leadership roles with inexperienced spotlight seekers out to make a name and a buck has devastating effects. People run this government. It doesn’t run itself. And right now, they’re running it into the ground.

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As Trump prepares to meet with Chinese officials, Edwin and clarify exactly what’s at stake here.

It’s a lot.

Watch the conversation and leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Thankfully, Jones and Pearson were reelected to their seats, because we need them all in Tennessee now more than ever.

Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson stopped by Lincoln Square with Susan J. Demas to shine a light on the push from Republicans, following their counterparts in several other Southern states and redraw Congressional lines in the wake of the SCOTUS Callais decision. And she certainly isn’t pulling any punches. Here she was last week on the Tennessee House floor calling out this maneuver for what it is — a “white power grab.”

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While this is deeply disturbing, especially heading into the midterms, Representative Johnson is optimistic. “What they’ve done in a midterm election is perhaps created more potential than they ever imagined for Democrats, especially at a time when this president is so unpopular. When grocery costs are higher than they’ve been in years, when Tennessee is seeing record electricity bills, utility bills are off the charts in Tennessee.”

Representative Johnson, we hope you’re right.

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Check out this behind the scenes look at what the Tennessee Republicans are attempting and what we can all do to help her state and others in the South, right here on Lincoln Square.

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Michelangelo Signorile, SiriusXM Progress host and author of The Signorile Report over on Substack, took the mic today here on Lincoln Square to help draw further attention to the redistricting madness in the South. Along with fellow SiriusXM Progress host Joe Sudbay, the two veteran LGBTQ activists drew comparisons in the fight for LGBTQ equality to standing up for voting rights.

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Check out this vital conversation with Michelangelo Signorile and Joe Sudbay here on Lincoln Square and why it’s up to us to pressure leaders to beat back the voter suppression we’re seeing across the South.

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Prices are skyrocketing? Joe Biden did it.

An airline goes under? That was Joe Biden.

Farmers are suffering under his tariffs? You better believe that was all Joe Biden.

Today on Lincoln Square, Edwin Eisendrath of It’s The Democracy, Stupid and Susan J. Demas examine Trump’s tanking poll numbers in the wake of a war no one asked for and an economy in tatters. Even many in MAGA are waking up to the reality that Trump has no plan for America.

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Check out this conversation with Edwin and Susan, right here on Lincoln Square.

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Simon Rosenberg, Democratic strategist and author of the Hopium Chronicles on Substack, spoke with Lincoln Square’s Stuart Stevens about the United States failing to help Ukrainians defend against Russian aggression and how Europeans have filled that lack of leadership left by the U.S.

Stuart shares his perspective, as only he can, after doing several humanitarian missions to Ukraine.

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Since 1980 or so, wealth hasn’t just funneled upward dramatically. apital has concentrated into the hands of a few monopolistic corporations that are very quickly assuming the levers of societal power.

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In our mythical understanding of capitalism, we see fierce competition allowing small businesses to thrive, while smaller businesses behind them innovate in ways that make them more competitive. It’s a ratcheting upwards, where the consumer and the worker can make great strides alongside the corporations that are doing battle in the market.

But it’s a fairytale, says Kurz, especially in the tech industry.

Big tech is actually anti-competitive in a novel way. As capital flows into the monopoly players, they continue to consume the start-ups that might one day challenge them. They own the entire stack, so to speak. They own the software that runs on the machines; they own the machines that are built in the factories; they own the factories that build the intellectual property; and they own all the IP.

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Kurz estimates that most wealth in the United States is monopoly wealth (by a long shot). This is a blow to labor. It’s a blow to consumers. And it’s a critical threat to democracy.

In this interview, Prof. Kurz explains why our current form of capitalism is destroying us, and prescribes a solution.

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Congressman Brendan Boyle, who represents Pennsylvania’s 2nd Congressional District, is the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. He spoke with Susan J. Demas on Lincoln Square about the concerns he has about how Trump’s budget will impact American’s as they’re already feeling the pain in their wallets.

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That’s what Roger Wicker, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CNN in In February 2025.

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Stuart Stevens know the Senator well. He used to work for him. But now Stuart sees a powerful Senator throwing in with our buffoonish Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and betraying both our allies in Ukraine and democracy writ large.

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Sara Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, has been talking about the need for a general strike since the early days of the second Trump administration. She joined Sam Osterhout to discuss that on Lincoln Square.

“I do think that the consciousness and the recognition that mass protest is the way to do it is moving the needle a little bit and I think has actually slowed down some of the worst things,” Nelson said of No Kings and other protests. “We have to organize on mass scale so that we can actually take the share of the profits that belong to us. ... And in order to do that, in order to organize at that scale, we have to organize uphill because the labor laws are not written in the favor of workers.”

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She also has a new initiative called Union Now, a national worker power and organizing fund, which she announced alongside Sen.Bernie Sanders and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

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Grab your poster boards and get inspired by Sara Nelson, right here on Lincoln Square.

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Enter Katie Paris, who had previously worked in political campaigns in Washington, D.C., but moved out of that bubble to Ohio. Shocked by the political climate we were facing, she used her campaign know-how to start organizing locally, forming Red, Wine, and Blue with likeminded women from across the state. Today, that group has grown into 800-plus networks and 650,000 women.

Katie joined Edwin Eisendrath on It’s The Democracy, Stupid to talk about how she’s been so successful with building this coalition, how organizing doesn’t have to be all doom-and-gloom, and how they’re truly engaging people as we head into the 2026 midterm elections.

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Grab the Pinot and find out how you can join a local Red, Wine, and Blue chapter with Katie Paris and Edwin Eisendrath, right here on Lincoln Square.

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