Trump Is Acting Illegitimately, Opening Up A Second Front, Supporting Susan Crawford In Wisconsin

4pm ET today - David Leopold joins us live to talk Trump's escalating assault on immigrants (and even visitors) to the US

Morning all. The fight goes on. Trump and Musk have really started pouring resources and attention into April 1st Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Please donate today if you can, and volunteer too. I know many of you have been hard at work at this race for weeks now. The postcards are flying! Thank you all. We’ve hit our superstretch goal of $175,000 and are now shooting to raise another $23,000 to get to $200,000 altogether for Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler’s WisDems in these final critical closing days. Please donate or volunteer today.

To learn more about this race watch my recent discussion with Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler. It’s a great deep dive on this all important race!

As I wrote yesterday, it’s clear that our opposition movement took a big step forward last week. Events of all kinds are popping up now across the country as the weather warms. More and more people are getting involved. It is so great to see. But as our movement starts to move outside, we cannot let up on the contacts to Senate and House offices. For offices not only note when calls come in but also when they don’t. And when they don’t come in it can be read as disengagement, that folks have moved on. We cannot afford that, not for one minute. So for those who can call every day please keep calling. We need to be using all the tools in the opposition tool box, every day.

My recommended daily actions are below, as always, and catch the many great conversations I’ve had in recent weeks in our podcast tab on the main Hopium site.

David Leopold Joins Us Today at 4pm ET Live - Our good friend David Leopold, one of America’s leading immigration attorneys and experts, joins us today for our first “Substack Live” event. For those who want to join us look for a link at 4pm and click through to join. For those who can’t make it live a recording of our talk will be available here in tomorrow morning’s post.

David is an old friend, and we’ve collaborated on immigration and border issues since the early days of the Obama Administration. When I have questions about immigration law and policy my first call is always to David. He joined us a few weeks ago, and I am glad he is returning today to offer his thoughts on Trump’s dramatic escalation over the past weeks. Yes, people are disappearing in America; academics with anti-Trump views are being refused entry into the country; millions of legal immigrants are having their legal status revoked; Trumps is rounding up and shipping men here legally without criminal records to a prison in a foreign country without any possible authority to do so; after seeing their own citizens detained sometimes for weeks without due process our closest allies are issuing travel warnings about coming TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Here’s a new story, one of many that I see every day, that came across my feeds this morning, Immigration crackdown now hitting green card holders:

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Green card holders are officially Lawful Permanent Residents of the United States, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. But being a resident of the United States is very different from being a citizen.

Lewelyn Dixon immigrated from the Philippines to Hawaii 50 years ago. She graduated from Farrington High School and has been working as a lab technician at the University of Washington.

Dixon was returning home to Seattle from a family trip to the Philippines.

“She was there for like a couple of weeks. And then she returned on Feb. 28. And she was stuck in customs,” said her niece, Emily Cristobal.

“We got the news, I think it was March 2, that she go taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and then detained in the Northwestern detainment facility,” she said. “We haven’t officially been told why she’s being held. They just keep saying that they’re waiting for documents.”

She has been held without a court appearance for almost a month now. She’s been in America since she was a child. Came here legally, and is a legal permanent resident with a job and family in Seattle. 13m green card holders live in the US today. 13 million people who are no longer sure they will be able to stay in the country.

So, come hear from David today at 4pm and come learn why Trump’s assault on immigrants, the 1st Amendment, and our Constitutional order was never ever about “criminal aliens.”

To prep for today’s discussion read this Wikipedia entry on the Republican Party’s “Southern Strategy” - the terrible and historic choice the Party of Lincoln made in the 1960s to respond to the Civil Rights movement by making exploitation of racial fear their central domestic organizing principle.

Trump Is Acting Illegitimately And We Need To Say So - I haven’t totally worked the following line of thinking through yet so consider this more of a sketch than a finished drawing……

While Trump may have been legitimately elected, what he and his Administration are doing continues to be illegitimate exercises of powers the Constitution - and thus our nation, the United States of America - has not given them. It is as if our government has been seized by a hostile foreign power that does not consider themselves American or bound by America’s Constitution, law, norms and creed. They have replaced the American government with a new government operating completely outside our Constitutional order or the way in which any democracy has ever operated in any country at any time in history. Trump and his team are attempting to establish an authoritarian regime, here, in this country, that cannot any longer rightly be called America or the United States of America for it betrays the reason this nation was founded; and therefore, it is illegitimate. Trump lacks legitimacy for many of the actions he is taking today, and has become a betrayer of everything that has made this country great.

We are not Russia or a European country that has had various forms of governments and rulers throughout our history. And I think to some degree that lack of experience with despotism or tyranny has been a major reason our governing class has been dangerously slow to recognize what Trump is; even after he spent months attempting to overturn a legitimate election in America and then violently attacking our seat of government, the Congress, when all his legal avenues were exhausted.

This country was created to be a democracy. There is no other form of America. We are not a tribe or a people. We are as Joe Biden used to say, an idea, perhaps the most powerful and important idea in human history. There is no form of the United States of America that is not a democracy. If we are no longer a democracy we are no longer America. What Trump is trying to do right now isn’t therefore regime change, as some have argued. It is literally the ending of a country, and replacing it with something completely antithetical to it. And thus we should stop calling Trump the President, or the leader of the United States of America. He is attempting to become the leader of a new thing, something not at all American, something that feels far more Russian or Chinese, a foreign import. He should not be granted the respect of being considered the leader of a great country and a revered political system that he does not believe in and has betrayed.

Which is why the symbol of our opposition movement must be the American flag. We must be the guardians and custodians of the great American project in its current state of abandonment and betrayal. Our leaders need to start acting almost as the leaders of an American government in exile. We should be loudly condemning, daily, the “abuses,” “injuries” and “usurpations” that Trump and his team do every day as we condemned the actions of communist governments throughout the Cold War; make clear that we intend to restore the Constitutional order and an “American” not Russian or Chinese or Gilead government when we return to power; and that what Trump and his team are doing is illegal and unconstitutional under current American law, which, while Trump and his team may not believe remains in force, we, us proud American patriots, do - as do judges and lawyers all across the country.

All of this is why I’ve called on Democrats to open a Second Front; for old dogs to learn new tricks; to pen A Letter to America; to start issuing criminal referrals for the crimes these great American traitors are committing. Our leaders need to be conferring with far greater intensity leaders of other nations who have successfully fought regimes like this and learn from them. Today, it is clear, that while we are doing more, and making progress, we simply are not doing enough and must do far more to rise the moment in front of us now.

It’s also why I think we need to be encouraging state and local governments controlled by the American Party, the Democratic Party, to start issuing formal statements of condemnation of the illegal and unconstitutional acts of this foreign regime. Here is how I wrote about that recently:

One thing I think we should be encouraging our local Democratically controlled legislatures, city and county boards/councils to do is to pass condemnations of Trump. Go the record on whatever is of greatest concern - embrace of Putin, destruction of the US government, elimination of vital health research, mistreatment of workers. Whatever it is. As we discussed the other day these kind of bottom up public expressions of condemnation, of going on the record very clearly about why what Trump is doing is wrong, dangerous, a betrayal is very much in the spirit of how we last fought a mad king almost 250 years ago. We must become more comfortable going on the record with our fellow Americans laying out the case against him, spelling out what our Founders called in the Declaration of Independence “abuses and usurpations.”

State and local governments can defend America by introducing a formal statement of contempt or disapproval; create days of debate around it to engage and educate citizens about what is happening to connect them to the founding principles of our democracy; and then vote and pass it, getting Republicans on the record in every jurisdiction about whether they are agree with Trump’s attempt to end the great American project. Perhaps they can do this around the July 4th holiday, the day that celebrates the formal launching of this great idea of America, the start of We The People.

Those are my thoughts this morning. Let me know what you think.

Now let’s get to work and see some of you at 4pm today!

Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - While we have made many recommendations to Democrats in recent months for how to raise our game and fight harder and smarter, let’s focus on our current four recommended sets of actions for how we can best channel our love of country and our frustrations into concrete action today:

1 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this two weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.

2 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.

3 - Our Work In The States, The Spring Offensive - I am going to rework this today and share an updated recommendation tomorrow. So much has happened since we called on our community members to organize in the 17 most vulnerable Republican House seats. Rallies and protests have exploded across the country. The DNC/House Dems/State Parties have kicked off People’s Town Halls in all 50 states. I have come to believe that we should be learning on our state and local electeds to pursue these organized “condemnations” of the Trump regime and their betrayal of America. Let’s start talking now about what we are going to do on July 4th, a day with all of a sudden much more importance.

Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.

Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind in addition to our new House Hopium 7:

Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.

Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben. Thanks to a huge surge of support in recent days we have already raised $177,000 from over 2,000 of you, blowing past our original $50,000 goal and now our stretch goals of $100,000, $125,000 and $150,000. We are now upping this to a new superduper-stretch goal of $175,000 by March 31st. Amazing work everyone!

Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. You can give to all 7 through a single donation to our new ActBlue page and learn more about this important effort here. We’ve already raised over $30,000 towards our $50,000 March 31st goal - thank you all!

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government. We’ve raised more than $68,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year. We’ve raised $26,000 so far - thank you all!

Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,400 of you have donated over $102,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start!

Help Hopium Celebrate Our 2nd Anniversary! - In a recent post from I reflected back on our work together over these past two years, and made two asks:

1) Commit to bring in one new Hopium subscriber at the your current subscriber level this month. Help us grow this community, and bring our plucky, upbeat, hardworking spirit to more people across the US.

2) Upgrade your subscription to paid or paid to Founding (10% off annual paid subscriptions through March). The resources you provide allows me to work full time at Hopium and keeps our community vibrant, growing and making all sorts of good trouble every day. Gift and group subscriptions are also a great way to grow our community!

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