Probably not surprisingly I got a large number of responses to my post this morning on the intra-Democratic divide. These were responses to that post and also my post from other the weekend responding to the Coates’ piece in The Atlantic. I’m going to try to publish a number of them this evening. They run the gamut. I don’t agree or disagree with particular ones. But I think the breadth of opinions and insights are worth absorbing.

Here’s Part 2 of my conversation with Professor Stephen Shoemaker about his book The Death of a Prophet on the origins of Islam. If you missed Part 1, you can listen to it here. As I noted when we ran the first episode, this is one of the most interesting historical works I’ve read in some time.

Back at the end of July we cut short the last two weeks of our Prime sign up drive until we’d done a full rebuild of the sign-up process, making it easier to use, making instructions more clear, making it more straightforward how to purchase credits and easier to apply to get free subscriptions. We’ve finally finished that process after a lot of hard work by our design and tech team. So we’ll be jumping back in for two more weeks of our drive. For now, though, I wanted address one point which I’ve told many of you over the last few months I’d get back to you on.

A number of existing Prime members have asked if they could do more to support TPM journalism beyond their Prime membership fee. Well, yes, you can! Part of the reason we were doing the rebuild I mentioned was to make the sign up and record keeping process for doing so more robust and organized. This weekend we finally rolled out our FIN (Future Is Now) program. You can purchase FIN credits and that money is all specifically and exclusively earmarked for our growing TPM Investigations Desk.

At the same time, for each credit people purchase we will make available a free Prime subscription for an enrolled student – high school, college, graduate, full-time or part-time. They’re available for any enrolled student.

So do you want to turbo-charge our investigative reporting. Just click right here to purchase FIN credits. Are you a student who’d like to get a free Prime subscription? Just click here.

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Over the weekend I dipped into the debate within the Democratic party and the left side of the political spectrum over the meaning of Trumpism and the path forward to defeat it. As I noted, I’m pretty clearly on the side that sees Trump and Trumpism as fundamentally about race and racial backlash. It’s not solely about that. It’s also about rural areas versus cities, it’s about Christianity, it’s about sexual traditionalism. But fundamentally it is about race. That’s my take and the take of many others. Read More

Even if Bob Corker retires, a Dem pick up in Tennessee would be a tough proposition. But we’re starting to see the numbers of retirements that precede a big shake up.

You may have heard this. But the White House Director of Social Media – who got his start as President Trump’s caddy – tweeted a fake picture of flooding at Miami International Airport. And Nicole Lafond picked the perfect picture for our write-up of the story.

I noted yesterday what I think should be obvious: that there is no ‘bipartisan path’. Beyond that, it’s quite something to see how rapidly a number of mainstream media voices have moved from Trump as far-right ideologue putting racist revanchism at the center of statecraft to Trump as post-ideological, pragmatic dealmaker. Serious, what are you people thinking? Read More

Michael McFaul is Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor of Political Science at Stanford, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Additionally, Michael served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House, and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation. His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations, and the relationship between democracy and development.

Michael will be joining us in The Hive to discuss American foreign policy, Russia, and more. Post your questions or join us this Tuesday! If you’d like to participate but don’t have TPM Prime, sign up here.

It’s quite a moment. Last month Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair said that the the Antifa and BLM “thugs” at Charlottesville were a bigger threat than the Nazis and alt-righters. Now he’s gone all in and posted an actual anti-Semitic meme on Facebook.  Read More

TPM is now officially offering free Prime memberships for all enrolled students. You can be full-time or part-time. You can be in high school, college, graduate school, vocational schools. You just need to be enrolled. Read More