This new version of “With Democrats Things Get Better” was recorded on May 9, 2023. The presentation is about 30 minutes long, and then there is a moderated discussion afterward.
Enjoy, and please help me share this uplifting, powerful story with others. It is also available on YouTube for those who prefer that channel. And let me know what you think by leaving a comment in the comments section below.
This is my most important work, and I am pleased to be able to share it with the Hopium community each month. It is also very relevant to the current economic and fiscal debate Washington is in the midst of right now. For our paid subscribers, know that your financial support is what makes ambitious projects like this one possible.
Keep working hard all and enjoy this powerful presentation! - Simon
Background/Companion Materials
Overview of the With Democrats Things Get Better Project
The May Jobs Report - US Economy Remains Remarkable Strong, Republicans Are Trying to Ruin It
The Return of the GOP’s Economic Wrecking BallRob Shapiro on the GOP Pushing US Into Recession and Default
Rob Shapiro On The GOP Pushing Us Into Recession and Default
On The Need for Democrats To Win the Big Economic Debate This Year
My Core Explanation for What With Dems Is
Fellow optimists,
Each month I create a new and updated version of my core presentation, With Democrats Things Get Better. It is my most important work, a lively distillation of my many years in the fight, and the main source for all this Hopium I have for our future. It should be viewed as a sort of orientation for this site, and I hope everyone here will have time to watch it this month.
With Dems takes 30-35 minutes, and I promise you will leave the presentation proud of your party, proud of your President, and prepared to go out and help us win the big economic debate with Republicans this year.
With Dems tells a simple but very powerful story - that since 1989, when the Cold War ended and a new age of globalization began, Democrats have repeatedly made things better when in the White House. In the Clinton, Obama and Biden Presidencies, we’ve seen growth, strong job creation, lower deficits, and American progress. With the two Bushes and Trump we’ve seen something else, something far worse. We’ve seen recessions, higher deficits and American decline. And now dangerous extremism too.
In my mind, the story we tell in With Dems is the most important, least understood story in American politics today. For what it shows is that our politics is not really about left and right, but forward and backward, modern and reactionary, success and failure, good and not so good, pragmatic and extreme. There is one modern, successful political party in America that has repeatedly made things better when in power; and another, which has repeatedly failed to do its part. The frame of left and right so common in our political discourse is “red wavy,” and serves the right by obscuring the good we’ve done and their repeated failures. We must fight against it with all of the energy we can muster.
Working to establish this far more accurate contrast of “Dems good and Rs a wrecking ball” is one of our most important collective projects here at Hopium Chronicles. Consider this graph, one of the core graphs from With Dems. Since 1989 there have been 49m jobs created in America. 47m of those jobs, 96%, have been created under Democratic Presidents. Essentially all of them, over 34 years now. The scale of the failure of Republican economic policy over a very long period of time needs to be more widely understood.
The story we discover in With Dems is very relevant to our current moment, one where we find the Democrats once again fighting to keep our economy growing and the Republicans once again pushing us into recession and now, incredibly, also into an unprecedented default.
So hope to see you on Tuesday if you can make it live, or watch it when you have the time. But do watch - With Dems will leave you with a little extra spring in your step. I promise.
Keep working hard all, and thanks for being part of our early days here at Hopium - Simon
Key With Dems Graphs
With Democrats Things Get Better - May, 2023