Editors’ Blog

From TPM Reader GG …

My reaction to the election results is more straightforward than I expected: I’m not in the mood for national conversations for a while. Local, sure. Regional, definitely. But it feels like for a couple of decades now we’ve been trying a float-all-boats progressivism and it’s been responded to with spite, manipulation, deception and counterintuitivity by exactly the sort of people we’ve been fighting to help. 

I HAVE good healthcare in my area – I wanted to prevent healthcare deserts for rural areas. I can likely get the reproductive healthcare I need if I need to – I wanted everyone to have that. I wanted young families to have childcare options so they can work and live, despite the fact that I can pay for it myself if I need it. I see Ukraine and think it’s the start of something much bigger and bloodier and costlier TO US if we don’t step up now. I was willing to pay higher taxes in my bracket to make those things happen.  

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh with the view from the day after.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

From TPM Reader DS …

I’m a first time writer-in, but have read virtually all of your ed blogs since 2016. First, thank you for what you do, all of it. This was the only news source I checked on election night. I have not gone deep at all into media coverage this time around, but as soon as I heard Trump won again in 2024 it felt clear to me the reason is that he had a female candidate. This unique unfit and misogynistic man can beat Hillary Clinton & Kamala Harris but not Joe Biden. I believe Biden was an average candidate, and Clinton & Harris were exceptionally good candidates, with Harris having the advantage of not being a Republican bogeyman. I think this decision is not a pure economic or incumbency one, but one that requires a large percentage of the voting population to not be willing to stand for a female president. I say this as a woman and a mom of two daughters. It reminds me of companies who have all female directors but no women in the C-suite bc each qualified woman is discounted for “individual” reasons.

The post-mortems that Dems go through every time we lose an election are brutal and stupid. Everything is thrown at the wall, we argue for months over tiny issues that we’re sure lost us the election.

This one is simple:

From TPM Reader RL …

Good morning, my name is R(***) L(***) and I’ve been a long time reader going back probably 15+ years. I really enjoy reading your content, and lately I’ve been listening to your podcast as well. I’m listening to Episode 348 and just wanted to offer Miss Riga support on her analysis – at around 19:00 – that while we should be mindful of the message and how we shape it and who we target as Democrats, whether you are a progressive Democrat or (like myself) a pro-labor Democrat. I’m really aware of the fact that as a firefighter, we have firehouse kitchen table talks daily. I am constantly finding myself saying “Where are you getting your information from?” And the reality is that people are in their own bubble because of social media and the way people consume media now. 

From TPM Reader AJ …

Twenty-two year reader here.  I came back for a visit today looking for some astute commentary with grim humor, but there’s none to be found — which is appropriate, given the circumstances.

Last night, and like many others, I felt ill upon realizing that this was the new political reality: an unabating descent into authoritarianism and autocracy.  As a lawyer, I cannot imagine what is going to happen to our federal judiciary — both the Supreme Court and otherwise.  I know that my illness has become a chronic one.  I know that it won’t go away, and it may even result in my/our demise.  Nevertheless, I feel oddly calm.

More concretely, in analyzing the election results, I want to offer the following thoughts

From TPM Reader TS …

A period of reflection and stand down might make sense.  Two things will need to happen going forward in 2025:

From TPM Reader DC …

I’ve been alternating between depression, anger, and bewilderment today. I see things like

At issue [regarding Jack Smith], per NBC, is the long-standing DOJ policy we became so familiar with in Donald Trump’s first term: that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

And I think, at this point who the fuck cares about “long-standing DOJ policy”?! It’s also long-standing DOJ policy that a president doesn’t summarily fire independent counsels investigating him. If only Biden had just fired the investigators of Hunter he could have been done with it. But no, we have to follow long-standing policy. Trump can do whatever he wants, but the rest of us are just chumps.

From TPM Reader JG …

Usually I agree with your takes, but not with what seems to be your acceptance of the idea that the Trump victory was part of the global rejection of incumbents because of post-pandemic misery.  The failures were two:  first, Biden’s signal failure to educate the American public about the post-pandemic situation and what his policies were doing to get us through this period.  We see the trade off: a few more points of unemployment means suffering for a relatively small group but reduces inflationary pressures that would lead to price increases for the population as a whole.  Inflation — precisely because it expresses itself across the general population is politically riskier than protecting the well-being of the otherwide unemployed, a fraction of the population.  You can defend the policy choice for more stimulus on grounds of compassion and the common enterprise, but do recall any such case?  I don’t.  You know Bill Clinton would have been making that case.  And more generally to explain and defend success in navigating the post-pandemic environment.