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).

From TPM Reader TS …

I have been a member of TPM for 10 years and a reader for more than 20 years.  I gave this year and I try to give every year because your work brings me joy.  Yes, it informs me and educates me, but it also gives me great joy.  And not just as a reader who craves smart and thoughtful news and commentary, but as a fellow business owner.  I have had my law firm for over 22 years (we are now 7 lawyers and 3 staff), and I have learned that culture, openness, and transparency are the keys to success.  I treat my team and my clients like grown-ups, and it fosters an environment of respect and general fulfillment (is it a job after all!).  I see the same thing with TPM, and it shows in everything you do.  I get my news from many sources that I respect, but TPM is one of the few that I support financially because I feel like I am part of something positive with good people on your team and among your readers.  Thank you and keep up the good work.

From TPM Reader JB …

I contribute to the Journalism Fund for the same reason I am an Inside Member. Over the last quarter century, having read TPM since 2000, I have found it to be an invaluable lens for bringing the cacophony of national events into understandable order.

First, thank you to everyone who has contributed since we kicked off this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive this morning. We’re now past $100,000 toward our goal of $500,000 for the drive. We truly appreciate it. To keep this going please click here to contribute. (See this post below for a bit more on the drive and here for why it’s so important this year.) One additional thing to add to the community part of this drive and the TPM community itself: if you contribute, drop us a line to let us know why. (Send it to talk at talkingpointsmemo dot com with the subject line: “TPM J Fund”) What made you want to contribute? What is important to you about TPM? What role does it play in your news and politics world? Different ways to answer it but basically, “why?” We’ll publish them here. Again, thank you and keep those contributions coming.

It’s time to kick off this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. This fund is a critical part of what keeps TPM vital and strong. If you’ve contributed in the past — and especially if you haven’t — I hope you will take a moment this morning and join us in contributing. Just click right here. If you’re thinking you might get to it at some point, please take literally about a minute and a half and do it this morning. That helps us get to our goal all the quicker, and get back to focusing on the news 100% of the time.

This year we need to get to $500,000, and if we can get over that that will be great and a real assist. I explained here over the weekend why this year’s drive is particularly critical. TPM is a collaborative enterprise. It’s that way within our operation and from the literal beginning it’s been a collaboration with our readers, who gives us angles and tips and perspective on stories and who have our operation’s back with your financial support. It is a collaboration with you and today our team needs your support. We literally can’t produce what we are producing, play our — I believe critical — role in the news ecosystem without your contributions.

In the coming days I’m going to be sharing more about what we have planned over the next year and why the drive is so important. But for now, we need your help. Any amount gets us closer to our goal and helps us get there as fast as possible. It would mean so much to us if you could join with us today. It just takes stopping in your routine and giving us no more than two minutes today. Just click right here. We thank you.

Kate and I recorded an emergency insta-pod episode of the podcast to discuss the sexual assault allegation against Graham Platner which Politico published this afternoon. That pod will be on your devices shortly. It’s looked, since we recorded around 5 pm ET, that this was it for his campaign. Comments like “assessing the best path forward” are campaign speak for we’re pulling the plug. More news since then only confirms that apparent read.

I’ve been beating the drums for years about reforming the Supreme Court to bring its corruption and anti-democracy to heal. In general I’ve avoided getting very detailed about what reform would look like for two reasons. First, there are technical details I lack knowledge about and which others are more able to address. Second, my focus is on building support for the premise, the necessity of reform. Getting too bound up or identified with really specific reforms can get in the way of that.

However, I get asked this a lot. So I wanted to explain the outline of the reform path that makes the most sense to me. I put this forward as a concept, with the understanding that some points might need fine tuning either for technical or constitutional reasons.