I don’t normally promote Morning Memo in the Editor’s Blog (though you should definitely sign up to receive it in your inbox), but you can’t really understand the Trump campaign hack and Iran’s attempt to interfere in the U.S. election without seeing all the key elements laid out in a timeline from June through today.

I want to urge you not to let the week come to an end without making your contribution to the TPM Journalism Fund. 

We come to you in a bit of a different posture this year. Compared to past years, TPM isn’t just stable financially but in a stronger position than perhaps we’ve ever been. It’s a product of a prudent business strategy applied consistently over time. No tricks, no magic, no secret sauce, except the longstanding relationship we have with you that has given us the luxury of time. Time to retool, rejigger, experiment, fail, and try again. The community you have helped us to build is the source of our hardiness in what remains an extremely difficult environment for many news publishers. 

So why give to TPM now if things are going well? The answer comes down to the enormous difference between running a news business while constantly having to bail water out of the bottom of the boat versus being able to focus on navigating toward an ambitious destination while avoiding bad weather and treacherous shoals. 

We don’t know what the next four months hold, let alone the next four years. But we do know that if your support lags now we’ll be left vulnerable in the rough weather and high seas we’ll inevitably encounter. But if you continue to give us the support you have in recent years, we can use that to build out a sturdier craft, which in turn lets us be more ambitious about where we sail it. 

Whether it’s confronting the grim reality of a Trump II presidency or working to shore up the foundational elements of democracy and protect them from future threats like Trump, there is a lot of work to be done. We want to do that work at a high enough level that the impacts in the world are real and tangible and extend beyond the confines of the TPM community. 

Asking for your support is a humbling thing to do. We don’t take your support for granted. In fact, we marvel at it. We are constantly evaluating and reevaluating how to earn and sustain that support not just because there are no guarantees but because you deserve our best effort. That, too, is foundational to this community.

Please, give what you can. If you’re in a financial position to give a little extra and take some of the load off of others, we’re asking you to take that on as part of your contribution to the TPM community. For everyone who has given so far, our deepest thanks.