Talking Points Memo

It's a presidential election year, and so it's natural that people are focused on the election. This means polls and candidates and issues. This year we have the added drama of a former president running again while involved in myriad criminal and civil cases. Our Josh Kovensky lines up every day around 4 or 5 a.m. to make sure he gets a seat to bring our readers live updates on the Donald Trump hush money case from inside the courthouse.

But while all eyes are on the election, it's important not to lose sight of the long-game being played. As Kate Riga reported Tuesday, conservative judges on the 5th Circuit seem eager to tee up the Supreme Court to slash any civil rights protections they can get their hands on. Meanwhile, as Khaya Himmelman writes, far-right groups are busy mobilizing their own brigades of Big Lie believers to "challenge" voters who they think are ineligible, the latest volley in the ongoing attempt to undermine the function of democracy.

There are Christian nationalists prepping for a "national divorce" — increasingly the preferred euphemism for some hairbrained secession effort popular among the most ardent, enthusiastic, aggrieved, white male evangelicals. And of course, as Hunter Walker reports, Republicans continue to say there is some massive non-citizen voter conspiracy — really anything to keep people scared and justify re-installing Trump as president.
 

All of this is going on right now and it has nothing to do with polling or election issues per se because, as TPM's reporting and analysis has explicitly stated time and time again, the very idea of democracy and free-and-open elections is at stake. However, not many outlets are adept at this kind of coverage and reporting. TPM has been reporting on extremism and nut jobs since the very beginning. It's what we do. We also pride ourselves not on covering everything that is going on but curating, for our readers, the most important political developments, and then with a small but intelligent and tenacious team, covering the hell out of those developments. 

We can afford to be selective and cover what is important, rather than what drives traffic because we answer to our readers, who trust us to deliver the critical information they need. We take that responsibility very seriously … but not too seriously. I mean, these characters are dangerous but they are also objectively ridiculous. We need not elevate them to something they are not. Anyway, you get the idea. Join now and help support our work and we'll support you by providing all the important updates you need.