TPM Reader JB:
Not sure I’ve ever written in before. I’m feeling crushed, and fearful, and grim—of course. But thanks to all your efforts, for better or for worse I’m not shocked and I’m not demoralized.
And as I sit here, waiting for the sun to rise (as it will), I suddenly realize I have zero appetite anymore for dire warnings of how bad this could get. It’s not from resignation—its just that, as you have so often said, history doesn’t end. What happens next hasn’t happened yet. So how do we get to dealing with it?
I’m not interested in recriminations or in a resistance ~aesthetic~, either. I want to know what’s happening, and what can be done, even if it’s only on the margins. I trust TPM more than anybody else to tell me those things.
I know what my country is, I love it deeply in all its contradictions, and I dream of what it can be. I wish our story hadn’t taken this turn, but I’m a stubborn, cock-eyed optimistic American and I’m not giving up on us yet.
Stay strong TPM, keep doing what you do so well, and let’s not take an inch of whatever’s next as given—
