I wanted to share a small observation about the interweaving worlds of AI, oligarchy, monopoly and – more distantly, but only a bit – autocracy. Over the years I’ve written regularly about the intersection of technology and journalism and the business models which underlie journalism. Because of TPM I had a front row seat to many key events, trends, dead ends and more in the evolution of the business of models of digital journalism over more than two decades. I’m not sure I knew more than anyone else, certainly lots of people knew more than me about the details of particular areas of knowledge. But I was up close and had a good view of the big picture. What set me apart somewhat was that there were very few people working so closely and obsessively with these evolving business models (a matter of pure necessity) who was also a full time writer. In any case, those of you who’ve been TPM Readers for many years will know a lot of that writing. (I have a post coming in the next few days which will add a new chapter to that, TPM’s place in those evolving or declining business models, and I hope you’ll take a moment to read it.)

About a decade ago I wrote a lot about Google’s evolving monopoly role in the advertising business. But what I always worked to keep front and center in that writing was that Google was significantly different from the other emerging platform monopolies in that its DNA and profit centers were built around the open internet. Facebook is a walled garden. It always was. Ideally it wanted you to spend every minute on Facebook. Apple was and is also a walled garden, albeit a more lovely one. Google’s DNA was different. Its wealth and power began with search. And search requires things you want to search for, which is to say other places to go besides Google websites. Now, in practice not everything Google did was just like this. But, big picture, this made Google a very different operation than Facebook, to cite one very big example. Its profound monopoly power in the digital advertising world grew directly out of its power in search. And even after that monopoly power was firmly entrenched its advertising business was heavily weighted toward non-Google websites subcontracting to Google the right to run its digital ads on those websites.

I’ve been observing the unfolding conversation about big DSA wins in New York City on Tuesday and specifically the clout Mayor Zohran Mamdani has gained because he went three for three in congressional endorsements. It’s a complex picture and I’m generally more sanguine about what’s happening than others. As I wrote, I think Chevalier doesn’t have any business in Congress. Lander and Valdez are simply the left wing of the Democratic party and on that front even Lander and Valdez are very different candidates. I may do a separate post on Chevalier’s extremism on Israel-Palestine and, yes, Jews, as well as other issues. Important topic but not the topic of this post.

I’ve made the point a few times that our political language and mental geography assumes that there are two political spectra in the Democratic party, one that is right/centrist to left and another that is accommodation to fight. It’s often assumed that these pretty neatly line up — progs and left-wingers are up for a fight but the more center-left or liberal folks are more cautious, institutionalist or even accommodationist. And yet there’s no real connection between these two things.

So far, so good. You’ve heard me make this general point many times. But it is really on the center-left, or liberals, to make clear that this isn’t the case. And to a great degree they are not — not convincingly — though there’s been progress on this front over the last eighteen months. And in a political climate in which people are both really angry and really scared and think major change is necessary, the old rhetoric, the old posture just isn’t going to cut it. It doesn’t speak to anyone. It seems jarringly out of touch with the moment.

An important new story by Layla A. Jones out this morning shows yet another way right-wing conspiracy theories may be making their way into government, impacting regular people’s lives.

For more than a decade, the Census Bureau has been preparing to swap out the way it records people’s race and ethnicity, eliminating the separate “Hispanic or Latino” ethnicity option and adding more options to the question about race. The change was intended to offer people categories that better reflect their understanding of their identity; many respondents had been checking “other” rather than choosing from the categories available.

Here’s where the story gets weird.

You’ve now probably seen news that Trump plans to use the U.S. Postal Service as a key part of his war on the 2026 midterm. Specifically, according to testimony Wednesday from Postmaster General David Steiner, if a state doesn’t hand over its absentee and/or voter list to the federal government, the post office simply won’t deliver that state’s ballots. This morning a court blocked aspects of the policy.

Lets start by saying this is blatantly anti-constitutional, though of course it’s possible that the corrupt Supreme Court will allow it.

But this front in Trump’s war against the 2026 election is illustrative of a number of critical factors in the challenge before us.

The key paragraph from this bizarre Josh Kovensky story about how Ken Paxton, the Trump DOJ, and a federal judge who is notoriously friendly to Republican causes worked together to scrap an immigration rule they didn’t like — in just a few hours.

Timestamps show that the complaint was filed against the DOJ at 1:51 p.m. At 2:59 p.m., the DOJ and Texas filed a motion jointly asking the court to order what Paxton’s complaint sought. At 6:29 p.m., 278 minutes from the time the case was filed, Judge O’Connor, chief judge in the Northern District of Texas, gave the DOJ and Paxton much of what they asked for.

From TPM Reader BD, responding to Josh’s post here:

Hi—as a 42-year Washington Heights resident (and a 26-year TPM reader), I feel moved to comment on your dismissive judgment that Darializa Chevalier doesn’t belong in Congress. I’m going to take a wild guess that your view of her is based on some of the truly objectionable social-media breadcrumbs that she has left, and that have been widely circulated by her antagonists.

From TPM Reader RR, responding to Josh’s post here:

I live on the UWS and campaigned a number of days for Micah Lasher talking to a good number of voters. I have a bit of a different take on the Israel question. (For what it’s worth, I’m also a secular Jew.)

One of the big stories coming out last night’s primaries are the wins for House candidates endorsed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He endorsed three House primary candidates and each won. Those included Brad Lander, who we might call a left-leaning member of the pre-AOC/DSA New York Democratic Party who allied late with Mamdani during the mayoral primary in which he was also a candidate; Claire Valdez, who won an open primary against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; and Darializa Avila Chevalier who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a five term Dominican-American rep and longtime NYC pol. So two wins against incumbents (Lander over Rep. Dan Goldman and Chevalier over Espaillat) and another against a quasi-incumbent, since Reynoso is the sitting borough president and had the endorsement of Rep. Nydia Velázquez, whose retirement opened up the seat.

Three candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani — Claire Valdez (NY-7), Brad Lander (NY-10) and Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13) — won their congressional primaries tonight. In another New York City congressional race, the chaotic NY-12, won by Micah Lasher, Mamdani didn’t endorse.

There was voting in New York state today and I had to choose a candidate in a race I’ve observed, but not really as a voter. Who should I pick? I understood the question a little better when I explained my thinking after the fact to my son.