My former boss and good friend David Kurtz, who writes Morning Memo for TPM, asked me to gab with him about the big, recurring questions of our time: How did we get here? How might we get out? And what would it take for a bright future to await us on the other side?
Naturally, these distill down to questions about the conduct of Republican and Democratic Party officials and leaders over the years. But my answers boil down to something like this: Long-term optimism is fairly easy to maintain when you remember that making key structural changes to the U.S. political system (abolishing the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court, adding states to the union, punishing public corruption etc etc) is easy. In theory, at least. It requires a governing trifecta, a clear understanding of the predicament we face, and a modicum of determination. Nothing more.
That’s what keeps me going. By the same token people like me and David have to wrestle with pessimism quite often—whenever it seems as though that last ingredient won’t be there. Democrats can and do still win elections, few if any of them remain in denial about the threat to democracy…and yet on a day-to-day basis they often don’t seem determined to address it. At the very least, they seem to believe that strong opposition—the kind that might instill the pro-democracy coalition with confidence—would backfire on them politically.
We discussed these issues for an hour, starting with early signs that the GOP had begun to radicalize against democracy, through to 2029, and what rebuilding with purpose would look like.
I hope you’ll watch or listen to the the whole conversation. I also hope you’ll check out TPM. Morning Memo is free, and everything that daily a.m. Beltway politics newsletters are not: substantive, informed, unspun. And its mothership, TPM, is in the middle of its annual subscription drive.
TPM has always been a top-tier, one-stop political news and analysis site, but it particularly shines when its mainstream competitors are most out of step with news consumers, as they surely are today. The existence of Off Message is just one small proof point. There’s simply no way I could do what I do without the knowledge and discipline I gained working for David and Josh Marshall over four-plus years. I’d livestream with David anytime, but it’s nice to be able to make content together with a side helping of gratitude.
