It is a rough week for US allies.
On Sunday, Trump announced on social media that he was scaling back joint military exercises with South Korea, while at the same time praising North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un.
On Monday, Trump threatened to bomb “the sh*t” out of Oman if it gets in the way of US efforts to achieve a peace deal with Iran. See CNN, Trump swings hard at Oman and South Korea, but his foreign policy misses are piling up.
On Tuesday, 50% tariffs on 200 Canadian imports into the US are set to take effect at midnight.
It’s hard to imagine what Trump will do on Wednesday—let alone Friday.
Trump’s foreign policy is in a state of collapse. His frustrations over his loss to Iran have led him to blame Oman, which has served as a mediator between Iran and the US.
And Trump followed Sunday’s blindside of South Korea with praise for Kim Jong Un on Monday, saying
Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect. I understand him. He understands me.
If Kim Jong Un understands Trump, that is a problem. It means that Kim understands that Trump is an incompetent, erratic, weak-willed president who can be manipulated by dime-store flattery.
Trump’s flailing foreign policy is a symptom of an administration that is wildly out of control. Indeed, it seems that the whole of government exists only to satisfy Trump’s insatiable demand for vengeance and constant need for praise.
Like many presidents in their second term, Trump has surrounded himself with a close-knit group of advisors who insulate him from the harsh realities of his failing presidency. Trump hasn’t a clue about how much the electorate dislikes Pete Hegseth, Todd Blanche, and Kash Patel—all of whom he has sent on the road to campaign for Republicans in November. See CBS News, Hegseth to go to Iowa to campaign for GOP candidates, sources say.
As Trump relies on three unpopular Cabinet members to campaign for a beleaguered GOP, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia has been ripping into Trump, calling out his unusually close relationship with White House aide Natalie Harp. Per Mediate, Ossof said,
While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. So he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar
Senator Ossoff’s reference to Natalie Harp brought discussion of her relationship with Trump into the mainstream media. See Forbes, Natalie Harp Seen Everywhere With Trump Lately—Why That’s Raising Questions.
Harp was one of the four people Trump took with him on the military transport plane after credible intelligence suggested that Iran might attack Air Force One. (Trump left Marco Rubio, Karoline Leavitt, and Stephen Miller behind on Air Force One, which was considered to be a “decoy” plane that would be sacrificed to allow Trump to escape Turkey unharmed. Karoline Leavitt quit a few days later.)
Senator Ossoff made a factual statement about the fact that Natalie Harp is accompanying Trump on weekend trips to his golf resorts. Trump’s response was to refer to Senator Ossoff as a “Pee Wee Herman” look-alike. Spoken like a true 12-year-old in middle school. Trump is deteriorating before our eyes.
Natalie Harp’s presence is relevant because her job is to print out favorable news stories about Trump and give them to the president to stoke his ego. Trump is living in a fantasy world fabricated by aides whose jobs depend on keeping the president happy
Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior is a symptom of his isolation and detachment from reality. Threatening to bomb Oman and walking away from South Korea are the actions of a madman. Notably, the most recent Reuter’s/ Ipsos poll shows Trump at his lowest favorability rating ever. See Reuters, Exclusive-Trump approval falls to 33%, lowest of his presidency, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
As we have learned, polls can be unreliable. But Trump’s polls over the last year have been remarkably consistent in showing a slow, steady decline in public support—a decline mirrored by the GOP’s steady erosion in the generic House ballot.
None of this means we can relent. But Trump is doing his darndest to make the midterms more difficult for Republicans. We must exploit that advantage to the fullest
We all receive variations of the same texts and emails every day: “Unless you donate by midnight tonight, Democrats will lose the House / Senate / White House / state legislature / or the battle to stop the SAVE America Act.”
Many spam emails and texts are generated by high-pressure operations within a handful of electronic fundraising firms that account for much, if not most, of the spam that harasses us every day.
Such tactics are harmful because they lead to confusion and resentment among Democratic donors. They make it difficult to distinguish legitimate fundraising—a necessity in modern politics—from spam operations that are profit-making businesses that keep an outsized portion of the donations for themselves to cover “fundraising expenses.”
Most people ignore emails and texts that are obvious spam from high-pressure operations. But a recent Substack article by Adam Bonica, a respected scholar and political scientist at Stanford University, concludes that such spam fundraising elicits an outsized response from a relatively small number of senior citizens. See Adam Bonica, On Data and Democracy (Substack), Hook and Squeeze.
Bonica’s lengthy article is worth reading in its entirety.
He begins by identifying the source of spam emails and texts:
Who is behind this flood? A thriving industry of digital-fundraising consultants who specialize in offering spam as a service, and the political action committees and candidates who adopt their methods. Together, they form a broader network of fundraising that deploys these methods at scale.
The most visible players in this ecosystem are what I call “spam PACs” — organizations that use high-volume digital fundraising firms to raise small-dollar contributions, only to sink a disproportionate share of those funds right back into fundraising.
Bonica then identifies the cohort that contributes the most money in response to those spam emails and texts: about 138,000 donors averaging 75 years of age.
Per Bonica:
Among the fundraising ads run by the largest spam PACs, between 70 and 85 percent of impressions are delivered to users 65 and older, though people in that age band account for just 14 percent of Meta’s adult users in the United States, according to data published by Meta.
The FEC donation records, cross-referenced with the L2 national voter file, reveal a similar but even more pronounced skew. Less than 1 percent of all Democratic donors account for almost half of the $1.4 billion raised by spam PACs since 2017. Put more precisely, roughly 138,000 donors averaging 75 years of age have each donated to these PACs one hundred times or more. I call them “captive spam donors.”
The statistics cited by Bonica are complicated and subject to differing interpretations. But Bonica’s analysis, if correct, is damning, particularly because Democratic Party leaders and candidates use these “spam PACs” to raise money for congressional candidates.
Bonica worked for a year on his investigation, expecting the New York Times to publish it. The Democratic Congressional and Senate Campaign Committees then sent a cease-and-desist letter (using Marc Elias’s law firm) to the New York Times general counsel demanding that the paper not publish Bonica’s investigation.
The New York Times ultimately declined to publish the article, although the Times never claimed that Bonica had made misstatements or that his methodology was flawed. The spam PACs have said they “do not target seniors”— a claim Bonica does not make. Instead, he notes that, as a matter of empirical fact, the people who respond to those spam emails and texts are a relatively small group of seniors, averaging 75 years of age.
Bonica writes,
But who receives fundraising spam matters less than who responds. . . . No age filter is required at the sending end when the message does its sorting at the receiving end. Whether or not anyone set out to target the elderly, the sorting happens either way.
As I said, I recommend the article in its entirety. If the Democratic campaign committees, Democratic leadership, or Marc Elias’s law firm publishes a response to the article, I will discuss that response. I expect that grassroots groups will be discussing the issues in the article in the near future.
Bonica’s article raises the most frequently asked question by readers: What is the best (or most effective) way to donate in a confusing fundraising environment?
The short(-ish) answer is that we must collectively donate in every way necessary to defeat the GOP's dark-money PACs. We must support candidates directly; we must support top-of-ballot and down ballot candidates; we must support state legislative races; we must support congressional campaign committees; we must support grassroots groups dedicated to registering Democrats and motivating them to vote; we must support the critical “must win” races; and we must support the bottom of the ballot Democrats who have little chance of winning but are on the ballot to give Democrats a reason to show up to vote.
But you don’t have to do everything personally. Pick a candidate; pick a grassroots group; pick a campaign committee. Do what you can--and then trust that Democrats collectively will fill in the gaps.
I have consistently recommended pro-democracy and grassroots organizations that identify groups of candidates, strategic congressional races, swing states, state legislative races, state supreme court races, and get-out-the-vote and voter registration efforts.
You know their names: 31st Street Swing Left; Indivisible; Field Team 6; Focus for Democracy; Markers for Democracy; The States Project / Giving Circles; VoteRiders; Latino Victory Fund; The Civics Center, Senate Circle, and many more featured in my “Opportunities for Reader Engagement.”
The organizations I promote are generally groups that raise money directly for candidates and causes; they are not professional fundraising organizations and do not take a cut of donations to pay for fundraising. (Note: Many use ActBlue to process credit card payments; ActBlue charges a 3.9% processing fee and asks for voluntary “tips.”) They are volunteer organizations that conduct the due diligence necessary to recommend effective candidates, races, and organizations.
In other words, they are the answer to the most common reader question: What is the best (or most effective) way to donate in a confusing fundraising environment?
If you are concerned about the issues identified by Adam Bonica, I encourage you to support grassroots groups raising money rather than responding to spam emails and texts from PACs with names that sound vaguely pro-democracy but are part of the network of spammers identified by Adam Bonica.
And in today’s edition, below, I am including an interview with the co-founder of States Win (formerly known as Sister District). Although the interview was recorded before Adam Bonica’s article, my interview with co-founder Lyzz Schwegler touches on many of the reasons why donating through grassroots organizations is an effective way to contribute in a confusing fundraising environment.
States Win, formerly known as Sister District, is dedicated to electing Democrats to state legislative seats—a key priority in the fight to reclaim democracy in the United States. States Win describes its mission as follows:
States Win (formerly Sister District) builds enduring progressive power in state legislatures. We recruit and mobilize volunteers, raise grassroots donations, and provide strategic support to competitive state legislative campaigns, especially in states that are often overlooked by national politics.
Our political strategy involves endorsing and supporting candidates in four types of state legislative chambers: blue flips, blue holds, breaking Republican supermajorities, and blue inroads.
States Win is seeking volunteers and donations to support key state legislative races. Donations to candidates through States Win go 100% to the candidates (but if you use ActBlue to donate, there is a processing fee and a request for a “tip".”)
I hope you will take a few minutes to watch my interview with Lyzz Schwegler, which demonstrates how grassroots organizations differ from the professional fundraising organizations that spam us every day.
With just over a month until early voting begins, several urgent funding priorities remain. Focus for Democracy invites you to join them on Wednesday, August 19th at 5 PM Pacific/8 PM Eastern, when they will share how—with a leading get-out-the-vote program that has been tested across multiple election cycles and a cost-effective model for increasing voter turnout—they aren’t leaving any votes on the table.
Wednesday, August 19th at 5 PM PT/8 PM ET.
Register at this link.
Author’s Note: After I wrote about Adam Bonica’s article, I received a request from Focus for Democracy to promote the above event. I visited Focus For Democracy’s website and looked for a disclosure about how the organization handles fundraising costs. The following information appeared in the FAQ section:
Does Focus for Democracy take a portion of donations for overhead?
No. All donations you make to organizations recommended by Focus for Democracy go directly and entirely to those organizations. Focus for Democracy does not deduct any funds to support our own operations. Key supporters separately cover our operating costs, so you can be assured that all donated funds will go directly to the programs we’ve recommended.
Reader Rob Okun penned a column for the Greenfield Recorder under the headline, My Turn: Joining Robert Hubbell’s democracy brigade. I deeply appreciate Rob’s kind words and efforts to promote the newsletter.
Many readers have asked me to comment on a recent article by Judge Luttig that recycles David French’s NYTimes essay about how Mike Johnson will supposedly “refuse to seat” the next Congress. I will do so tomorrow because I have run out of time this evening. I will simply note for now that neither the Constitution nor federal law gives Mike Johnson any role in seating the next Congress. Repeating David French’s flawed claim doesn’t make it true or credible. And, as always, the people who ascribe extra-constitutional powers to Mike Johnson are the same people who forget to mention that we, the people, have a say in the matter.
Talk to you tomorrow!
For information on the Helix Nebula, please see the wonderful article in Yale News, “A dying star offers a rare glimpse of how the universe recycles its raw materials.
Please send photos to rbhubbell@gmail.com. Please include a short caption.
Pittsfield MA
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Freeport, Maine, Visibility Brigade on the streets 8/15/2026
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Rally August 15 Englewood Florida
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Operation Overpass
Clearwater, FL
8/15/26
36 people joined us this morning. We were part of the national visibility brigade BE BRAVE messaging.
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Our Merry Crew in New London, NH Protesting Friday Afternoons Since Way Back When
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August 15, 2026 Why we show up each week… “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama
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Another restorative Saturday morning in Yarmouth, Maine since 6/2025! We won’t Clam up!
Join us in front of Town Hall, Main St every Saturday 9-10 AM.
A chance to speak up, enjoy others who are concerned about the direction of our Country and if that is not enough there’s cookies and music 🎶
Not what you voted for? No problem, you are welcome here !
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Pittsford, NY weekly Canal Brigade
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Bend, OR
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Pics from Saturday, 8/15/2026, Highlands, NC
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On the Highland Street bridge over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Newton, last Wednesday the message THIS ENDS WHEN WE SAY NO met with enthusiastic honks - all the more so because down the Pike, at Lewis Terrace, another bridge brigade had posted an outbound message END THIS STUPID WAR. So drivers got two messages in a row! This week the message will respond to the increased ICE presence: BEWARE ICE PROTECT NEIGHBORS!
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NEO Progressive Collective Visibility Brigade photo from Saturday, August 15th in Solon, Ohio.
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Bringing our joyful resistance to Pelham, NY ON 8.16. More honks. Fewer fingers!
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Democracy Bridge in Portland, OR has been messaging since March 2025. This one may have received our most positive response ever, with MANY long, sustained honks from drivers.
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Lyons, CO. Demonstrating weekly since Feb 2025
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Freeport, Maine, Visibility Brigade on the Desert Road bridge over I-295. 8/17/2026
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Brave Resisters with the Billerica (MA) Common Coalition remind us that Voting is also fun! 8/15/26
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Photos from The Visibility Brigade of Paramus 8.15.26. Be Brave Day.
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Philly suburbs over the PA turnpike where we guesstimated 5,250 vehicles passed under us…and it appears that the heavens approved our message.(we turn the message around and hang it on poles for the motorists below).
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August 15, 2026
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Pembroke Pines, Florida. Mom wanted to stand outside last week with her sign even on her 106th birthday.
Here she is standing up for our democracy.
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Oakland cares about our sailors unlike Trump!
August 17
Oakland, CA
Indivisible East Bay
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Upper Valley Visibility Brigade & NH Bridge Brigade, Sun., Aug. 16, 2026, I-89 N & S, Enfield, NH.
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As seen in Red Lodge, Montana on August 14th!
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Norton, MA today 8/17/26
Indivisible Mansfield and Beyons
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Louisville/Superior CO
Author’s note: Among many brilliant signs, this one is especially brilliant!
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On 8/3/26 our group stood in front of the Smithsonian Museum of American History as well as the National Museum of African-American History & Culture; and held signs of support that read:
Preserve the whole truth: honor the triumphs, face the injustices
History without the hard parts is only half told
We cannot heal what we refuse to face
Learn from history lest we make the same mistakes
History does not just belong to rich old white men. Tell all the stories!
All history matters
We gave away over 600 pencils that read: “Don’t erase history. Learn from it.”
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The One Million Rising Alliance of Leisure World had another great weekly protest Saturday the 15th of August in front of our 55 & older community. We have been doing these since February of this year. We were joined by “Bob” from Baltimore with his Euphonium, on which he played protest songs. Honking gets more enthusiastic every week!
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Activist Evenings/Indivisible - Hands Off Our Vote, Brookline, MA - Aug. 17th
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