Along with seven or eight other papers, which tend to be in swing or swingish states, I subscribe to The Cleveland Plain Dealer. So I get various emails from them. And one is an email that comes from their editor, Chris Quinn. I glance at these occasionally but they normally deal with local issues or issues about the paper that are more for local residents. But one came Saturday that grabbed my attention. The headline was “There aren’t two sides to facts” and, as Quinn explains, it’s an answer to Trump supporters who complain that the paper judges Trump and Biden by two separate standards.

Keep an eye on the events out of Israel. It seems possible they’re reaching some kind of turning point, though one hesitates to use that phrase about a country which has been in such an extended political paralysis for so long. The key to understand is that whatever crisis or shift may be in the works isn’t driven by the issues animating coverage in the U.S. To the extent it is tied to the Israel-Hamas war it is about the hostages and the widespread belief that the Netanyahu government isn’t that focused on striking a deal to get them home. Hovering around this is the fact that the government has at best tended to ignore and shun the hostages families. The communities along the border with Gaza tend to be made up of left-leaning Kibbutznik types. So they’re not Netanyahu’s people by any stretch of the imagination. That’s been a subtext to much that has happened over the last six months.

You also have the anti-judicial coup coalition which was holding massive weekly protests for almost a year before October 7th going back to the streets. All of that had stopped cold on October 7th. It’s been slowing reassembling since. But the protests this weekend are bigger than any since just before the massacres in southern Israel. They are now a coupled message for the government to resign and to bring the hostages home.

We are still in the running to hit 700 new TPM Members by the end of today. We’re currently at 644. 56 more of you on a Friday afternoon is a tall order. But it’s possible. Please listen to this: If you’ve been considering joining during our drive, please choose to do it today, right now. It will take just a couple minutes tops. Click right here and let’s see if we can do this together.

Late Update: We might actually get there! 668!

Later Update: 11:56 PM on the east. But we’re at 680 and there’s still time out West. In range! Become part of our club!

Even Later Update: 687! Saturday is the new Friday! 700 is within reach!

Let me add a brief follow-up to my post from last night which seems to have resonated with people. I’ll say it again: I don’t think this is going to happen. But this isn’t just a caveat or covering myself if it doesn’t. It’s kind of why I did the post. In life and political analysis (and so many other things) we’re constantly having to be on the look out for new data which challenges our assumptions about what’s happening. In this case, the data points I mentioned definitely challenge my assumptions about what’s happening. And I’m still sticking with my assumptions! But those data points are high volume enough, not random little edge case things, that it’s at least worth me clearing my throat and telling myself I’m seeing a bunch of things that don’t square with my assumptions, sort of a punditing note to file if you will.

As I said, I’m sticking with my assumptions. But keep it in the back of your head, or write your own note to file.

In this post I’m going to suggest something that is possible but still unlikely. But it would be a big enough deal that I think it’s worth having in the back of your mind as we move into the 2024 election season. It’s become a cliche that House Republicans are beset by division, dysfunction and general comedy. In a way this has been the story for years and yet, despite the antics, total indifference to doing the actual work of governing and more, they still seem to do okay. And yet, I think there’s some argument that this Congress is in a different category. The entire 118th Congress has been one long-running shutdown drama. Mike Johnson is now effectively running the House with Democratic votes. Then there’s the indicator which is harder to brush off: a non-trivial number of Republican representatives are just quitting. In a couple cases, we’ve seen them quit without even having a new gig lined up. Apparently more may go.