We had a solid first week of this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. But we have a long way to go to get to our goal of raising $500,000 and, if possible, a bit more. If you haven’t taken a moment yet to contribute, please take just 90 seconds or so out of your Monday midday routine and join us now. (If you have, thank you so much).
Just click here. I know from experience that a big bar to contributing is just the few minutes of hassle of dealing with the mechanics of it. But we’ve made it super easy. Members don’t even have to take out their credit cards. Just click, choose a contribution amount, hit send and you’re done. This is a critical part of what keeps TPM alive and vital. We will put every dollar to good use.
We’ve discussed a number of times that the high-profile/high-violence occupations of blue cities in 2025 and early 2026 were never designed to maximize deportations. They were meant to overawe and terrorize the city’s inhabitants and the sovereign state governments of those jurisdictions. The public blowback became too extreme and then, along with canning Kristi Noem, DHS/ICE switched to focusing on deportation numbers without most of the high-visibility operations which weren’t really aimed at deportation numbers in the first place. But there have been an increasing number of reports over the last few weeks suggesting that ICE/DHS is intensifying its efforts and upping the number of arrests and detentions. It seems highly likely, though not certain, that the two recent ICE-involved shooting fatalities in the last week — one in Houston and another just today in Maine — are tied to that intensified push for deportation arrest numbers. ICE agents tend to be poorly trained and operate in a culture of violence and impunity. So events like these could happen at any time. But keep an eye on the relationship between the two things. DHS/ICE has been trying to intensify its efforts while avoiding the headlines which were so damaging last winter. But the rapid resorts to fatal violence and the culture of impunity that sustains it, so embedded within Trump Era ICE’s culture, seems to be breaking through.
There’s not a lot I have to add to the reporting on Lindsey Graham’s sudden and unexpected death. The longtime South Carolina senator died yesterday evening after what his office is calling a “brief and sudden illness.” (Other unconfirmed reports point to a heart attack and cardiac arrest.) Obituaries are referring to him as a consistent foreign policy hawk, a stalwart Trump supporter. Both true. But there’s another feature of his personality and political career that is key to understanding the man. He always needed a daddy. Or let’s say a political leader. A top dog.
If you’re a podcast listener, I want you to check out The TPM Social Club, our second podcast which is hosted by reporter Josh Kovensky and publisher Joe Ragazzo. I particularly hope you check out the latest episode where Josh and Joe interview TPM’s Capitol Hill reporter Emine Yücel. They talk about covering Capitol Hill for TPM, being an international competition-level fencer and also her background as an immigrant from Turkey and reporting on Capitol Hill politics through the prism of a Turkish background and upbringing.
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 looking good to hit $200,000 by the close of day tomorrow in this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. We can’t thank you enough. Truly. If you’d like to join us and make a contribution just click right here. We run these drives in waves. $200,000 is the first big milestone, then $250,000. When we hit $400,000 the goal is in sight and then the momentum picks up again. We go in waves of going full time in drive mode, ease up, before pushing again. We appreciate both your generosity as well as your patience as we work through this critical part of our enterprise, our business model, how we make all of this work. Thanks.
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