This was excellent. Lots of insights from political science, political theory, and history. And incorporates events at home and abroad.

"Affordability is important because people feel like they can't be comfortable financially, no matter how hard they work, it gets sucked up into their electricity bills, they end up paying more for home insurance, every raise goes out the door straight away. Pounding on that is good."

"I would personally be interested in reading the autopsy. But I don't think we would learn anything. We know why she lost. ....Last year was an anti-incumbent year across the board, around the globe. Voters wanted change. You don't want to overcorrect for something that was particular to 2024."

Describing the working class as anyone without a BA (about 60 percent of U.S. adults) isn't great analysis. What might be a better metric? Those with household income $30,000-$70,000, says @monicapotts.bsky.social. Our conversation on Dems and the "working class." newrepublic.com/article/2047...

"Part of what they need to be loud about is changing the economic story of America. It would be undermining that idea that private wealth generates wealth for all of us, that the government has no role in ensuring your economic security," says @monicapotts.bsky.social.

"The idea that Dems need to go through their platform with a scalpel and excise the things that might be bothering working class voters is really silly. That's not how voters make decisions. Democrats have to decide what to be loud about and how to be loud about it," says @monicapotts.bsky.social.

"Weiss and Ellison’s interference into “60 Minutes” creates a de facto state media, but their burgeoning empire is about consolidating oligarchical control over legacy media that will endure long after Trump fades into irrelevance," writes @ahjohnson.bsky.social. theintercept.com/2025/12/22/b...

they are chosen by affluent media ownership SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE they aren't burdened by any sense of responsibility to their profession or the public

The Olivia Nuzzi story and the Bari Weiss at CBS story are the same story, which is that the upper echelons of legacy media are absolutely rife with people who worship power and don't feel burdened by any sense of responsibility to their profession or the public.

This year, many people resigned their posts at the slightest hint that the Trump regime was displeased with them instead of staying and making someone fire them. Sharyn Alfonsi is showing us why you stay and refuse: you make clear your superiors are wrong and may them pay the costs of firing you.

Counterpoint: Public displays of fealty to the right are her whole job and the one thing she’s good at!

Shout out to all the fools who fell for the free speech grift. You helped this along.

she's just doing what she was hired to do

It’s easy to be cynical about the media but entire GENERATIONS of mostly not-famous journalists at places like CBS and the WaPo spent their whole careers doing the work that created the credibility those places had which made them important enough for self-serving billionaires to decide to ruin them

There is a tremendous opportunity for a brand new generation of media outlets to rise up right now because many news outlets that spent decades painstakingly building their credibility are seeing it torched by bootlickers with incredible speed.

Try this instead: I was wrong. I overstated narrow election results, underappreciating how many Trump voters didn’t believe he’d do what he said. I miscast fascists and oligarchs gaining political power as a popular cultural shift. I got some of this on X, failing to recognize it’s skewed that way.”

The gall to treat the 2024 election like it was a binding referendum on American culture, a lasting “vibe shift” to which others must accommodate, then within a year proclaim the cultural change over, as if a bystander, not an active contributor manufacturing vibe shifts by overdetermining results.

Good discussion with @brianbeutler.bsky.social and @whstancil.bsky.social about the affordability discourse. They argue prices don't fully explain Trump's unpopularity and that keeping prices low will probably not be a panacea for Dems when they are in charge next. newrepublic.com/article/2045...

It really is very good. There is a transcript if you prefer to read rather than listen. (It's a discussion between @volts.wtf and @samuel-bagg.bsky.social about how people adopt political views based on identity/group/social factors, not rational policy assessments.) www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/oy0u8...

Yes. I wanted to say something like this but yes, this.

Great list.

"There is infinite money in telling oligarchs what they want to hear, and what they want to hear is that the left is bad, moving the left more towards the right is right, and you’re such a special little boy for thinking it." powermapmag.com/the-argument...

"We can try to figure out: do the Right Wing Excusers genuinely want more left wing outcomes, and just wrongly believe that always moving right is the only way to get closer to them? ....But ...is this really the best use of our time in 2025? powermapmag.com/the-argument...

"The mere idea that there can be a 'bottom vs top' politics should not be allowed in serious discourse. By any reasonable understanding, this is what left vs right is." powermapmag.com/it-is-about-...

Good list. @joyannreid.bsky.social was the first person who confidently told me that Trump would win the primary and that he could win the general too. She did not use the phrase "economic anxiety" in that conversation.

Remember when Klein wrote the "David Shor is Telling Democrats What They Don't Want to Hear" piece in 2021? It was comical, because Shor was/keeps saying exactly what the party establishment always want to hear. (Progressives are pulling the party too far left.)

Yes. Yes. Yes. Popularist beliefs are held by many powerful and wealthy people and institutions. NYT columns, consulting gigs, podcast appearances and other benefits go to those willing to amplify these views. It's at this point hard to tell who sincerely believes this stuff.

If you want to read a 2024 autopsy from folks who aren't cheering for/fine with the party moving right on policy, check out these two. democraticautopsy.org/how-democrat... and chartingthewayforward.substack.com/p/towards-st...

"Crockett’s detractors have to be more honest about their misgivings. Because while there are reasons to prefer Talarico, the only reasons to be fatalistic about her candidacy lie in racial and gendered assumptions," writes @brianbeutler.bsky.social. www.offmessage.net/p/the-unspok...

Got yelled at this week for making statements that will supposedly alienate the average white male voter and what I want to emphasize is this: appealing to the average white male voter is not my aim and not my job.

To me the guiding question has to be: What is a politics that is directed and singularly focused at the source of people's pain and suffering? - That is not a question of interest to the abundance Dems or the fascists.

I mainly point this out because you see writers say that the Washington Post and CBS are making horrible business decisions. Or that CNN's audience will tank under the Ellisons. True! But it's beside the point. No one doing this cares about any of that.

Wash Post, CBS News, next CNN?, etc are not money makers. The owners give the Trumpists what they want and get favorable treatment for their other businesses in exchange. Owners make money that way. The regime wants quiescence. No one in this exchange cares if the outlets have audience or profits.

That Compact essay is very easily picked a part with actual data/evidence, but what has become clear is there is very little will to do so as its dubious claims confirm a deeply held grievance amongst an apparently large % of our white colleagues that they are the victims of rampant discrimination.

This proposal from @econmarshall.bsky.social, @higheredlabor.bsky.social and others to overhaul higher education is really compelling. Worth reading in full. marshallsteinbaum.org/wp-content/u...

CNN has a show with a similar line. That the problem with this country is we just aren’t talking to each other. It’s the kind of diagnosis that a toddler would land on.

Excellent piece.

Yes. Well said.

"Any politician who says, "I'm for democracy," which a lot of politicians are doing these days, particularly Democrats, we should be asking them, 'What is your agenda for journalism?" Because if you want to defend democracy, you need to defend journalism."

You can check out our recent conversations with @victorpickard.bsky.social, @kimberlecrenshaw.bsky.social, @victorerikray.bsky.social, @adambonica.bsky.social and other brilliant folks thinking about how to defeat not just Trump but authoritarianism/Trumpism here. newrepublic.substack.com/podcast

"We really have to this paradigm shift, where we think of our news media, especially local journalism, the same way that we think of public education, libraries, public parks. There are these public goods that we would never leave entirely up to the market," says @victorpickard.bsky.social.

"We can all find our preferred outlets. We have our influencers, we have our podcasts. But are they covering the local school board? Obviously not. ...It's a golden era for discourse and commentary. But for actual journalism, I'm not so sure," says @victorpickard.bsky.social.

"People say, 'Well, if the market's no longer doing this, why don't we rely on nonprofits, who rely on rich benefactors, philanthropists, foundations? But disproportionately, those resources go to the metropolitan areas. It's not going to work in most other places," says @victorpickard.bsky.social.

"The newspaper industry served as a feeder for our entire news media ecosystem. So when we lose those newspapers, we've lost that journalism. In the early 2000s, we had 40 journalists per 100,000 people. We're now down to 8 journalists per 100,000 people," says @victorpickard.bsky.social.

For the second year in a row, the wealth gains for the 100 richest Americans exceeded what ALL American households spent on groceries combined. ~$995B for billionaires vs ~$775B in total grocery spending. We have an oligarchy and inequality problem masquerading as an affordability crisis.

I pick up my mail each afternoon in the faculty lounge -- at an Ivy League institution, no less! -- and I've never heard anything discussed there that's been picked up by the Democratic Party. Stop repeating Republicans' lies about your own party. In fact, John Podesta -- please just stop talking

Indiana Senate Republicans displayed more backbone to Trump this week than the leaders of Columbia and Northwestern and many law firms and countless other corporate leaders.

"Voters don’t actually apply defined ideological frames when they evaluate candidates and choose whom to vote for. Their decisions are more complex and filtered through their social, family, and work lives—a conclusion supported by much political science research." newrepublic.com/article/2042...

Great piece.

"With only 18% coming from megadonors, Dems have a fundraising advantage among grassroots supporters that enabled them to outraise Republicans in 2024. Yet the party courts billionaires while campaigning against oligarchy," writes @adambonica.bsky.social. data4democracy.substack.com/p/money-does...