Kate Riga is on vacation this week. So no podcast this week. We’ll be back next week on the regular schedule.

We are coming up on the end of the second week of this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. We’re hoping to get to $300,000 raised by the end of the day. That’s 60% of the way toward our goal. We’re currently at just over $277,000 raised. We know there’s a ton going on. But if you could make today the day you contribute to the drive we would deeply appreciate it. It’s quick and easy. You can take just a moment out of your routine right now and take the plunge. Just click right here. We thank you.

We’ve talked a lot recently about presidential politics as a series of performances of power. When I coined the phrase “bitch-slap politics” (later revised to “dominance politics”) in 2004, it was in reference to the “swift boat” campaign George W. Bush mobilized against John Kerry. In charge of the campaign was Donald Trump’s current co-campaign head, Chris LaCivita. The truth of those attacks weren’t the point. They were demonstrations of power. Bush was powerful because he could hit Kerry in a demeaning and vicious way and he would not or could not defend himself. This was an element of American political culture which Trump, a decade later, placed at the center of American political culture.

It was in this context that I saw the news, first reported by the Post, that JD Vance, at a private fundraiser, referred to the candidate switch as a “sucker punch.”