We’re now in the midst of one of these now and again collective Democratic meltdowns, filled with dooming laments, drama, intra-party attacks and insults, rending of clothes, “reckonings” and more. But there’s a fact, little discussed and under-appreciated, that is nestled in these collective freak-outs. This may sound nonsensical or perhaps a semantic point with no real meaning. But it’s foundational to how the Democratic Party functions and why it functions differently and often disappointingly compared to the GOP.

We hear lots of arguments in Democratic politics that the party’s base is its left wing. There’s a certain logic to that. It’s a center-left party so it’s left wing is its base and it’s filled out by more fair-weather voters or less ideological ones. In a sense it’s really their party or they’re the legitimate owners of it as soon as corporate interests and softies and other interlopers can be kicked to the curb. But it’s not. The most obvious reason is that are just too few of them. But they are also very different, sociologically, ideologically, demographically from the rest of the party. This isn’t just a dig on the left. The same applies to white liberals. There are dramatically more of them. But they are still really, really different from much of the rest of the party.

We’re now more than a third of the way toward our goal of raising $500,000 in this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. It’s sounds repetitive or cliche. But thank you so much. Your commitment to having our back means so much to our operation. We need to get to $200,000 by the end of Friday to stay on track toward this critical goal. If you haven’t taken a moment yet to contribute, I get it. I’m constantly putting stuff like this off. You’ve got to stop what you’re doing, probably in the middle of the work day. Please take that moment right now, just 90 seconds. We’ve set it up to be super easy. You don’t even have to take out your wallet. Take a moment, literally right now, this moment, and join us. Click right here. We’ll put the money to really good use.

From TPM Reader OM …

I’ve been reading TPM since my junior year of college (I graduated in 2003, so pretty early in the TPM journey), and from the beginning, it’s done news the way I respect most: it has a perspective and a point of view, but it follows the reporting and respects the facts. The notion that news can or should be a neutral glass pane is farcical, and TPM is one of the first outlets I found in my formative years that didn’t pretend to do the “just the facts, ma’am” kabuki dance.

When news breaks — about, say, Graham Platner’s Senate campaign imploding over sexual assault allegations or Mitch McConnell’s hospitalization — I always scramble to open TPM’s Slack to see what my colleagues are posting about it. They’re so quick to share the latest updates or jokes that help add some levity to a grim situation.

That’s the spirit of our upcoming event in Brooklyn on Wednesday July 29. Our own Josh Marshall and Marisa Kabas, independent journalist and founder of The Handbasket newsletter, will weigh in on whatever hell is currently breaking loose, in a conversation moderated by TPM publisher Joe Ragazzo. Marisa is a diligent chronicler of our current hellscape, who has broken stories about the takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Office of Management and Budget’s effort to freeze billions of dollars in federal grants and loans. (She also wrote an essay for our 25th anniversary last year about journalists becoming personal brands). So we’re thrilled to be able to bend her ear about the news of the day and making it work in independent media. 

Nicole LaFond and I will kick off the event with some politics trivia for the audience, and we’ll end the night with a happy hour, where our staff hopes to meet readers of both The Handbasket and TPM. We’d really love to see you there.

Tickets are on sale now for $25 (or free for TPM Inside members). Get yours while they last.  

From TPM Reader BC …

I am a long time reader, since the early aughts.  I have been giving to the fund since I have been able.  In the past year I have noticed some of the changes at TPM with  the podcasts, newsletters,  and Substack conversations and they are helping me navigate my changing relationship to the internet and social media.   When I was thinking about this a couple days ago,  I was actually thinking about Yglesias even before the post today.   His history of punching down, smugness, and deliberate misinterpretation comes up a lot in my feed.  It’s always a little disappointing when he gins these things.  He is not stupid.  I actually have wondered if it is a program when he needs to get some new subscriptions.  Will Stancil and the people obsessed with him need to all take a breather.  There are great voices on bluesky and it has its use but I have been trying to curate a little more and hang out at my library.   

Your contributions are helping us make good progress toward our goal in this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. We need to get 1/3 of the way toward our goal by tonight. That’s $166,666. (Ignore the satany numerology.) It’s doable tonight if we can keep up the current momentum. Can you make this evening the moment you join us? Just click right here and make a contribution at any amount that works for you.

Thank you from all of us.

This morning on Bluesky Politico’s Josh Gerstein flagged to me and others a piece by Matt Yglesias in which, he said, Matt “says progressive Dems [are] too obsessed with fighting Trump rather than winning in marginal states/districts [and] picks fight with Josh Marshall over it.”

It turns out Yglesias is responding to a piece I wrote a couple weeks ago entitled “Centrists, This Is on You.” I sat down and read Matt’s piece and found myself kind of baffled because he has me saying perhaps not the diametric opposite of what I wrote but pretty close to the opposite of it. I always try to be sensitive to the possibility that when someone so thoroughly misunderstands what I wrote that it may be that I just wasn’t clear. There’s the additional factor that I usually write assuming familiarity with the stream of posts I’ve written on the same topic in recent days and weeks. People read a single post and some of my meaning might not be clear. Here though I can’t help but think that Matt zipped through the post in question, zeroed in on a few buzzwords like “fight” and then just plugged those into his existing framework and didn’t actually pay attention to my argument. Because, as I said, he’s just arguing against these stock arguments that I never made.

Still, there are some illuminating things that can be drawn from the misunderstanding and/or disagreement.

We’re into our second day of this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. And we’re off to a solid start. In fact, one day in we’re coming up on 1/3 of the way toward our goal of raising $500,000, which is great. If you haven’t had a chance yet I would be so in your debt if you could take a moment right now to join us by contributing in any amount that makes sense for you. Just click right here.

We need to try to get past the 1/3 mark by the end of today if at all possible.

Click here to hear about why this year’s drive is so important.

From TPM Reader WM …

Three thoughts on Platner from a coastal Maine resident and why while I’m mad as hell, I’m not feeling all that pessimistic — yet:

From TPM Reader CS …

I contributed some cash money to the TPM fund and you asked people to let you know why we did, so…

I support TPM because I agree with you about the current importance of independent media. Major media (if that’s the correct term) now seems entirely captured by the billionaire class that has demonstrated a clear lack of concern with civic democracy and an active interest in mass opiates. So independent media is a critical bullwark for civic democracy at a time when voices opposing the status quo are being systemically eliminated with a historical efficiency (see: AI and social media).