Editors’ Blog

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.”

As the clock winds down on the Biden presidency, Democrats and the Democrat-adjacent are hashing out, often awkwardly and painedly, what stance to take toward the second Trump presidency. I’ve already discussed this issue in the piece I wrote back on November 14th: “The Most Pernicious Anticipatory Obedience Hides in Plain Sight.” As I wrote in that post, there’s a species of Democrat who imagines there’s “some power or badassery or even a species of courage in” declaring constantly that Trump is all-powerful and everyone is powerless before him. Today this is playing out over Trump’s threat to jail the members of the Jan. 6th committee after pardoning the insurrectionists themselves.

For myself, I’m with former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whose response to Trump was “bring it on.” This isn’t just about the personal and aesthetic importance of standing or going down fighting rather than cowering. (And yes, obviously it means much less coming from me than Kinzinger.) There’s also the deeper issue I discussed in that November post, which is how much fuel anyone should give Trump, how large a penumbra of fear and shock we should allow Trump to cast with boasts he probably lacks the courage to make good on and would probably struggle to make good on if he were up to trying. This isn’t the same as ignoring these crazed and degenerate threats. And it doesn’t mean these threats couldn’t come to pass. Managing that balance is at the heart of this period we are living through.

One of the central features of Trumpism is that Trump never wants to deal in pain. Not for people who might vote for him. Or at least, no pain to anyone who might vote for him … that they would blame on him. That’s why, at least in concept, he’s always said he’d never support cuts to Social Security or Medicare. That’s in concept of course. What happens down in the fine print of administrative decisions or omnibus tax bills is another matter. But the position in concept is still important and fairly consistent. But over the last couple weeks things have gone sideways in a pretty big way. And key players in his administration-in-the-making are now proposing massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

It seems all but certain that Pete Hesgeth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon is doomed. Yesterday he was reduced to promising not to drink on the job if he’s confirmed for Defense Secretary. You may not like him, but don’t deny him this: he’s going to have the best story ever when he introduces himself at his first meeting and explains what brought him to AA. It’s probably best to refer to Hegseth on Thursday afternoon as one of the “post-nominated.” Trump is already sounding out Ron DeSantis for the job. But he’s happy to let Hesgeth twist in the wind a bit longer. And in a paradoxical kind of way I appreciate his doing that. This of course will be Trump’s second top-tier nominee to go down in flames, and the third overall.

Has this gone well for Hesgeth? I don’t mean in terms of getting the job. I mean in the general sense of reputation, dignity, etc. I’d say it’s gone … well, pretty badly? Kind of the fate of everyone and everything who locks up with Trump.

DeSantis is much like Marco Rubio, a generally clownish figure, if somewhat more malevolent, but in the overall ballpark of the kinds of people who get these jobs. He’s served in Congress. He’s been governor of the one the country’s most populous states. Given the type of people Trump often hires for these jobs, the country could do so much worse.

So does it matter that Hesgeth goes down the tubes?