A Year In Preview

Onward.

Many newsletter writers mark publishing milestones by sharing the lessons they’ve learned through independence as publishers.

Like them, I’ve certainly learned a lot this past year. But in my case, almost all of it was about entrepreneurialism and self-worth, none of it terribly novel. I’d been a staff writer and editor, and at least adjacent to publishing and development strategy, for half a career. In every roll, I worked for small media companies without big corporate parent, and in small shops it’s easier to learn across professional lines by osmosis.

So instead of dumping heaps of technical knowledge on your plate, I’ll close out this anniversary week with a look ahead at year two.

Obviously the immediate undertaking here will be to cover the rest of the election with the same rigor and energy as in year one. More under-covered stories and angles, more on the stakes, more critique, more on opportunities taken and missed.

The only challenge I anticipate is that there’s actually not that much election left. I of course expect a bunch of clumsy bullshit from the Trump campaign in October, and will be braced for surprises of all kinds. But the conventions are behind us. There will probably be no second debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. (Aside: Harris should set a deadline for Trump to man up and agree to debate again.) I’m definitely excited about the vice-presidential debate, but VP debates have historically mattered even less than presidential debates (which, prior to this, cycle had never been determinative in elections).

I’m also obviously poised to cover post-election violence and corruption in the event that Trump loses. Honestly, I think the odds of that are fairly high, mostly because Trump is Trump, and Harris is well situated to win. Republicans have also intentionally slowed vote counting in East Coast swing states, increasing the likelihood that we won’t really know who won until late on election night, or even for days afterward.

That would create the same grey zone Trump exploited to begin spreading the Big Lie in 2020, and I’d expect him to do the same thing this year. The real possibility that Harris will win North Carolina, and the off chance that she’ll win Florida, would give us (and the media) a high degree of certainty in her victory early enough put a damper on a second insurrection. That’s probably the best hope to avoid more violence, more defamation, more social arson.

In either case, though, I’m reasonably confident that the true winner of the election will be sworn in on January 20, 2025—even if it’s Trump as popular-vote loser once again.

With that in mind, I’m mostly looking ahead to covering a new administration, whoever happens to lead it, from the same critical perspective I’ve applied to politics all along.

KEEP KAM’, CARRY ON

In other words, this place will look very different depending upon who wins.

The course of a Harris presidency would be determined by whether Democrats lose the Senate, or eke out a bare trifecta. (I strongly suspect that if Democrats win the presidency, the’ll also win back the House.)

In a bare trifecta, we should expect a lot of contention, and a great test of expectations:

• Will Democrats, with their two most high-profile filibuster supporters retired, follow through on their pledge to abolish or reform the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade?

• Will they once again begin governing by quickly advancing the president’s economic agenda through the budget-reconciliation process? And how will they leverage the looming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to accomplish that?

• What will become of accountability for Trump-era corruption? More “look forward, not backward?” Does Merrick Garland get to keep his job?

• Can Democratic leaders engage in enough long-term thinking to impel front-line members to pass meaningful pro-democracy protections? Statehood for Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico? Voting rights? Redistricting? Court reforms?

• What will defeated Republicans do after so many sequential Trump-related defeats? What will Trump do? Will he go to prison? Will he try to maintain gangster-like control over the GOP?

But we should be honest with ourselves: This is a very hopeful scenario. Democrats are likelier to lose than maintain control of the Senate. And if that’s what happens, Democrats will have a bunch of other decisions to make:

• What will they do during the lame duck vis-a-vis judgeships and executive branch appointments?

• What will the do in the new year if Republicans systematically obstruct all confirmations?

• How will they deal with GOP sabotage legislating?

• Will Harris respond with reciprocal hardball, or with the same pliancy that Joe Biden and Barack Obama showed?

• Would she even contemplate using the new Republican-imposed doctrine of presumptive presidential immunity to advance liberal objectives?

In either scenario, the abstract question hovering above all the practical ones is whether Democrats will embrace sharper tactics to impose consequences for Trumpism and try to nudge Republicans back into some form of loyal opposition, or whether they’ll play patsy to whatever new extremisms Republicans cook up.

TRUMPS AND WEASELS

Alternatively, Trump could win.

That would be a multifaceted, existential catastrophe for America, which would of course be the big story: How would Trump abuse power? How would he misgovern in term two? What would become of American democracy? Would 2024 be the last passingly free-and-fair election?

But it would give rise to an important set of questions for liberals, too:

• Will the resistance remobilize? Even if Trump once again were to take power as the popular-vote loser? Would resistance be generally weaker in 2025-2026 than it was in 2017-2018? I suspect many Trump resisters would be exhausted and resigned—they did everything they were supposed to, mobilized in greater numbers than Republicans, and were nevertheless foiled by antidemocratic aspects of our political system and dirty tricks—but would remobilize in opposition to mass deportation, Trump’s threat to occupy cities, and (if Republicans manage to win a trifect) a far-right legislative agenda.

• What will become of the Democratic leaders and top party strategists who oversaw the failure of Trump accountability and his rise back to power? Any professional consequences?

• Would Democrats manage to flip the House in a scenario like that?

• Would a divided Congress do anything in the lame duck with the aim of restraining Trump before he took power? Curb his unilateral power to impose tariffs? His “presumptive immunity?”

• If Democrats do take the House, would they undertake aggressive oversight this time, or would they revert to Nancy Pelosi’s conflict-avoidance strategy of 2019 and 2020?

That’s about as far ahead as I can see, and even this much is cloudy. But it gives you a sense of where my focus will lie, come what may, and what you can expect if you stick with me and this community for another year. I hope you will.