I wanted to flag your attention to this piece by Jonathan Last at The Bulwark: The Washington Post is dying. I can tell you “how.” But not “why.” I’m not sure the central assertion is a big surprise to people. But Last does a good job at running through the details, the steps on the path of descent. He puts some focus on legacy systems — suboptimal arrangements, structures, compromises that any organization builds up over time. I first thought he was distracting from the decisions made under the ownership of Jeff Bezos. But I think he’s right to put some focus on them. These aren’t the reason the Post is dying. But this legacy debt — which most big and old organizations have — adds to the challenges that Bezos would have had even if he weren’t making terrible decisions.

You’ve blessed us with a very solid start to this year’s annual TPM Journalism Fund drive. The challenging part is the second half of our way toward our goal of raising $500,000 this year. We’re currently at $287,886, so just over $12,000 from hitting the 60% benchmark. We really need your help getting to $300,000 today. If you’ve been thinking about contributing, it would be a great help if you could do it today. I get delaying, keep meaning to — that’s my main pastime. So if you could just take a moment right now and click here, we’d truly appreciate it. If you’re a member, you don’t even have to take out your wallet. Just a couple clicks. Super easy. Thank you in advance.

I saw a headline today that UnitedHealthcare has acknowledged that its Medicare business is being investigated by the Department of Justice. In the old days, which is to say basically any time before January 2025, I would have assumed that UHC had probably been guilty of some kind of wrongdoing. Or let me state that more precisely: I would have assumed that there was evidence meriting an investigation, whether that was civil, criminal, perhaps over antitrust. I would assume merit. When I heard this news today my default assumption was that UHC was being punished by the Trump administration or had gotten crosswise in some way with the White House. It’s not even either/or. Let’s assume the probe starts for legitimate reasons. The fact that UHC couldn’t make an offering at the White House and have the probe killed must mean they’re on the outs, right?

It’s too much to say — I think, or I hope — that there’s no one left at the DOJ interested in simply enforcing the law. It’s also true that the gutting has been spread around unequally. Some divisions are more or less intact. But certainly the weight of crookdom and integrity has shifted significantly. Unfortunately, my shift in assumptions seems merited.

A friend asked me recently: how is it that MAGA is so over the top about finding out which rich and powerful men may have had sex with 16 or 17 year old girls when it’s apparently fine that the leader of their movement is a longtime sex abuser and serial predator? On the one hand, this person was saying, how is one thing so beyond the pale and the others are completely fine? On another level, this person was asking, is it really so hard to believe that a guy who appears to have routinely assaulting women just over 18 did the same with those just under?

There are a few different ways to answer this. At one level, in MAGA world, Donald Trump is different. No rules apply to him. It’s good to be the king. At another level, it’s a complicated question comparing the horror of different kinds of sexual predation, or whether a person who does one is likely do do another. But there is one level of MAGA’s hyper-focus on pedophilia and sex trafficking conspiracy theories which needs to be emphasized. Because at a basic level, that obsession has nothing to do with pedophilia as a thing in itself — not as most of us might understand it.

I’ve told you before about my kind of love/hate feelings about Tom Edsall, longtime reporter for The Washington Post, who more recently writes a weekly column for the New York Times. It’s not too much to say that almost regardless of the facts of the moment he’ll come up with an explanation for why those facts are terrible news for Democrats. Yesterday’s column is a kind of tour de force in this genre (“This Is a Realignment That Has Significant Staying Power.”) The column collects quotes and quick exchanges with a range of political scientists who argue that the first six months of 2025 have shown just how enduring Donald Trump’s 2024 realignment is turning out to be and quickly dismisses the views of the few observers he quotes who disagree.

As someone who tries to comment on and understand current events as best as I’m able, columns like this are kind of a warning sign of a path not to go down, that path being looking for the analyses and data points which back your preferred view of things or the one you feel reflexively must be the case. So I tried my best to not do that while thinking about this piece.

If you’ve been reading TPM for awhile, you may already know that our organization can shift on a dime. We typically have around five reporters. (A few of our editors also write.) That means, unlike larger news organizations, we don’t have people with particular beats. We don’t have people who author a particular kind of story — no one who just writes breaking news or just writes features or just does a newsletter or a podcast. Everyone, at any moment, can pitch in with anything on any topic. 

Though it wasn’t always the result of a conscious decision on the part of the editors, TPM has made use of this flexibility during this unprecedented time. We’ve reinvented our approach to the news repeatedly since August 2024, when our last Journalism Fund drive concluded, with our reporters working in different modes and in different styles across a wide range of topics to contend with a historic moment in American history.

As we reflect on the many ways TPM is unique during the journalism fund drive, I thought readers might enjoy a glimpse of how we see the journey we’ve traveled over the last year — in terms of what we understood ourselves to be providing to readers, and what we understood readers to need from us. 

I wanted to take a moment today to highlight something that to me, at least, is behind a certain uncanny quality to the summer of 2025. Two things, which point in two entirely different directions, are happening at the same time. Every day you can find in the news a new example of the president cutting funding (either by legal or extra-legal means) or asserting direct control over funding in order to entrench his direct personal power. This might be defunding universities, ending funding of public broadcasting, or anything in between. He’s now opened criminal probes into numerous public officials. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to expand its war not only against the undocumented and legal residents but also against self-government in major American (blue) cities. I could mention dozens of other examples but the simplest overview is that the president continues to expand and entrench his authoritarian vision of rule, in which the whole machinery of government exists to impose his will and battle his enemies, with courts that are mostly but not always compliant.

I’m happy and relieved to report that early yesterday we hit the halfway point to our goal of raising $500,000 in this year’s annual TPM Journalism Fund drive. We’re currently at $252,305. The second 50% is way harder. That’s just the logic of drives. But getting to this point in less than one week is very encouraging. As we’ve been explaining, the TPM Journalism Fund is a key part of how we keep this site alive and thriving. So if you’ve been considering making a contribution this year, please take a moment to do so now. It’s quick and easy, and every dollar helps. Just click right here.

Here’s a story a TPM Reader just flagged to me which seems somehow unremarkable in the Trump II Era but would be comical and unreal in a non-degenerate era. “A top State Department official who oversaw recent mass layoffs is now taking over as the acting head of the General Services Administration, according to an email sent to staff.” The article, which Federal News Network ran as a breaking news item with details to follow, explains that Michael Rigas, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, has personally been ordered by Donald Trump to take over as acting head of GSA, while the just-relieved acting head will remain as Rigas’ deputy acting GSA head.