This is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money.
QUOTE: Legislative sources said the special session is intended to be narrowly focused on providing legal resources to the attorney general’s office — perhaps as much as $100 million — to fight the Trump administration. The goal is to appropriate the money before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, though given how many new members are joining the Legislature, they may not be ready to act until early January. As priorities for California’s opposition, Newsom listed civil and reproductive rights, climate change, Trump’s threats to withhold disaster relief dollars and the potential repeal of deportation protections for immigrants who were brought to the country without authorization as children.
This CalMatters story goes to one of the only possible remaining guardrails in coming years: states doing their best to protect their citizens against the predatory federal corruption that's sure to come (see the next item for more on that). California Gov. Newsom may be engaging in several things here, one of which is to position himself for his certain 2028 presidential campaign, assuming we still have elections by then. But state governments, including California's, did a fair amount of blocking during Trump's first term. A reader of this newsletter wrote today to ask if blue-state governors could mount a united front. My reply: Try everything. Slowing down the extremist train could reduce the damage it causes when it crashes. Keep in mind, however, that Republicans' long-avowed belief in states' rights applies solely to policies they favor; they will abandon that "principle" the day they take full power.
QUOTE: We can get ready for four years of pay-to-play deals, corporate back-scratching, and a public unprotected from scam artists. Good times.
Donald Trump was by far the most corrupt president in American history, and ran by far the most corrupt administration. Now multiply the graft, theft, and sleazy deals by 10, and you have an idea of what's coming. This American Prospect piece gives only a hint of how bad this is going to be. But I fear, just as they did during the first Trump administration, our major journalism organizations will periodically cover the most egregious examples of Trump world corruption – but treat them as one-offs distinct from each other. Providing context is not a journalistic norm. It is nonetheless baffling that our news media can’t be bothered to pull it all together — to show the staggering breadth and depth of the Trump world sleaze. Our news media notice some of the brush fires. But they never notice (or tell the rest of us) that the entire forest is ablaze. Could they please give it a try this time?
QUOTE: No matter how the United States election went, the fights were going to continue. A Harris victory would not solve our problems, domestically or worldwide. Nor would it change the fact that a sizable portion of people in this country are buying what Trump and his allies are selling. The only open questions were who the specific adversaries in the White House would be, who among the fighters would keep fighting, and who would join the fight. The first question has been answered. Now the questions are: if you have been fighting already, are you going to continue to fight? If you haven’t been, are you going to begin?
From one of the very best of America's young independent journalists comes a call to hope and action in the wake of the election. Her essay is teeming with detailed, sound advice. White was blowing the whistle on the super-scammy ways of the crytpocurrency crowd long before the rest of the press caught on in any serious way, and has moved from strength to strength in her work. She has been a beacon for the open Internet, and her writing, often about complicated subjects, is a model of how to explain things with context and clarity. I have a paid subscription to her newsletter and recommend that you join me.
QUOTE: This is the year in which it became obvious that the right-wing media has more power than the mainstream media. It’s not just that it’s bigger. It’s that it speaks with one voice, and that voice says Democrats and liberals are treasonous elitists who hate you, and Republicans and conservatives love God and country and are your last line of defense against your son coming home from school your daughter. And that is why Donald Trump won. Indeed, the right-wing media is why he exists in our political lives in the first place. Don’t believe me? Try this thought experiment. Imagine Trump coming down that escalator in 2015 with no right-wing media; no Fox News; an agenda still set, and mores still established, by staid old CBS News, the House of Murrow, and The New York Times.
The editor of the New Republic is overstating the case here, but he is absolutely correct about the pernicious impact of America's thoroughly dishonest right-wing media. For decades, but with more virulence in recent years, the Murdoch family's Fox "News" has been injecting poison into our civic bloodstream, for power and money. It has powerful media allies in the odious Sinclair Broadcasting, which reaches most American homes; the general public doesn't understand its influence. Then you have the chorus of small but even more extreme right-wing websites and affiliated social media bile factories run by people like Steve Bannon – and, of course, Elon Musk's ExTwitter, which he has turned into a propaganda outlet and haven for fascists. (In the WTF category, nothing today tops Trump putting Musk on the line during his call with Ukrainian leader Zelensky.)
"Mainstream" journalism still pretends the Fox does news, and many journalists from top media organizations still actively participate on Musk's platform. In other words, our (somewhat) legitimate news media can't be bothered to tell even their own audiences what's going on, and they actively support the most powerfully sleazy social media platforms, notably Musk's. Every day that a journalist remains active on Twitter is a day of reduced integrity. I've often said that I understand why people I otherwise respect are staying there, but at this point the respect is dwindling rapidly.
Meanwhile, people who give a damn about reality and honesty in media need to jettison their forlorn hopes of Big Journalism reforming itself, as I wrote earlier this week, and realize we have to replace it outright, starting from the grassroots. The extremist right has what amounts to infinite money to fund its wholly-owned media's lies and loathing. Unless the rest of us start (or keep) supporting media that has integrity, we are truly lost. How can you help, right now? Two thoughts: 1) When you click through to the work I point to here, pay for what you consider the best. 2) If you subscribe to cable/satellite TV or an online equivalent, you are sending money every month to Fox "News" and Sinclair Broadcasting whether you realize that or not. Please cancel, and use your dollars to help real journalists do their vital work.
Please send your suggestions
I spend a lot of time looking for essential coverage, and hope you'll help me by letting me know about the good stuff you find. Let me know.
Subscribe
Was this forwarded to you? If you would like to have your own free subscription, please click here.
Alexei Koseff, Jeanne Kuang
David Dayen
Molly White
Michael Tomasky
