TPM THIS WEEK...

Some weeks in an election season are easier to make sense of than others. Even in this time of diminishing attention spans and Trump-era craziness, often enough, a throughline emerges connecting the various events, media and campaign reactions — and subsequent overreactions to the reactions. And more often than not, the same themes surface enough that it almost feels professorial to keep pointing them out. In this way, despite the unprecedented nature of many of the things that are happening, a portion of the media coverage comes to feel repetitive and even banal. To keep the stakes in perspective, you end up with a certain amount of: sure, you've heard it all before, but have you heard it at this volume? 

So what to make of this final week before the election? A week that began with Trump holding an auspicious rally at MSG — that even the NYT called a "closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism" — and has included everything from burning ballot boxes, to the Supreme Court decision allowing Virginia to purge non-citizens while federal courts across the country shut down non-citizen voter fear mongering efforts, to a bad faith effort to rehash "the deplorables", to House Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledging that a Trump presidency would mean resumed attempts to gut Obamacare, to The Washington Post losing 10% of its subscriber base after billionaire owner Jeff Bezos nixed the endorsement of Kamala Harris in what seems like anticipatory obedience to Trump, and so much more. 

As far as closing statements go, Trump and Co. remain on brand. The authoritarian aspirations, the racism, the misogyny, the vengeance — it's all out in the open, even turned up a few decibels in case you somehow weren't paying attention. Trump's avowed refusal to accept an outcome other than victory has resulted in a predictable amount of pre-election chaos and fear as well as barely concealed plans to "Stop The Steal" again if things don't go Trump's way. While some in mainstream media continue to fumble the coverage with an insistence on both sides-ing their coverage and a reliance on political reporting tropes that make them vulnerable to GOP talking points, it should be clear enough at this point to see what Trump is offering. The only guesswork left is how many voters will take up his offer.

Earlier in the week, Kate Riga looked back at the lawsuit Elon's Musk filed against Media Matters last November after it published a report showing advertisements from major companies on X (formerly Twitter) juxtaposed with neo-Nazi content that also appears on X. Experts she talked to said that this kind of lawfare against media outlets could become even more commonplace — and dangerous — under a Trump administration. 

On the podcast, Kate and Josh discuss both campaigns' closing arguments and the mess at the Washington Post.

By Josh Kovensky

If asked by the Trump campaign, would any 2024 Trump electors convene in the event of a Harris victory as part of another, perhaps even more farcical, effort to attain power after losing?

To find out, TPM contacted 61 of the 83 people who, per secretary of state offices, are set to serve as 2024 electors for Trump in six swing states — Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona.

Election Day — and, with it, another electoral certification on Jan. 6, 2025 — is approaching alongside the specter of violence.

To understand what to expect, TPM spoke with an intelligence expert who was on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 and has continued to monitor the far-right. 

In a pre-Trump era, when civic norms were more or less respected, it might have been viable for a billionaire with large exposure to regulatory and government contracting harassment to own a news organization. But in the Trump era it's really not.

"This has been the playbook in Hungary, in India, Turkey, Poland — it's a sign that we have an oligarchy, essentially," Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic, told TPM. "And it could be turbocharged under a Trump administration with the imprimatur of the state serving the whims of billionaires." 

Kate and Josh discuss both campaigns' closing arguments and the mess at the Washington Post.

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