Member Newsletter
I want to share with you this note from TPM Reader PP. But context is important. I received it on November 7th — two days after the election. So you need to understand it in that moment. But it’s been rattling around my head ever since. I’d actually intended to publish it at the time. I just didn’t find the right moment. What he says doesn’t mean the conversations about new ecosystems are wrong. They’re not at all. That’s not my takeaway. But if you’re serious about building up alternative media that isn’t dominated by right-wing voices and politics-adjacent channels dominated by right-wing ideas, I don’t think you can succeed or even have a plan to succeed without starting with the premises PP is articulating.
I have read TPM for just more than half my life, and the entirety of a 20-year career in political campaigns and consulting that I decided to wind down earlier this year to pursue a very different and unrelated career.
I’m writing now somewhat in response to the broader conversation about Democrats/men/algorithms/media and somewhat in direct response to TPM’s recent article about Democrats adapting to the “new media landscape.”