A compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You will rarely find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links, with brief commentary, to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's – and the world's – future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
Somehow, in the final weeks of the 2024 election season, media outlets, pundits, and commentators have been more focused on anticipating how we will vote than in reporting what we should know. That said, it’s not too late for this trend to turn around. We still have 18 days until November 5th. Voting has already begun, and early/absentee voting rates are high (more on this later) – but many of the voters Harris needs to win are just now tuning in. Every day counts.
There's more than one reason why, as the author writes in his newsletter, we're "sleepwalking" into dictatorship. But one of the key ones, as he says, is the refusal of our most important media outlets – particularly the New York Times – and pundits in general to recognize how close we are to a fascist state. This continues to shock me, profoundly. Podhorzer's long, analytical essay lays out in plain language what is happening, and offers some speculation on why – with a plea at the end that, I'm afraid, falls on deliberately deaf ears. I've said this before, so apologies for the repetition, but if America falls under the grip of fascists next year, the Times and its peers will have been among the most culpable. I'll also repeat myself on what will happen to them next, since they seem to have forgotten that democracy is a precondition for freedom of the press. So, should Trump take office, they will have a choice: Be quislings for a fascist regime, or join the resistance. Given their timidity, if not cowardice, in the past several years, I'm sad to predict that most of them will choose the former. And if so, their place in history will be covered in disgrace.
We view a deterrence strategy as the key to getting out of this cycle. The best way to force Republicans to re-evaluate their commitment to asymmetric interstate aggression is to remove the asymmetry. As legal scholar Jack Balkin argues, “When your opponents engage in constitutional hardball in order to get their way, the correct response is not to wring your hands and urge them to play fair by the old rules … Rather, the correct response to constitutional hardball of this sort is to engage in constitutional hardball of your own, in order to make the other side come to the bargaining table and agree to a new set of understandings about how the game of politics is to be played.” Other scholars have made the same point: If you want to end constitutional hardball, you have to get on the field.
The authors of this American Prospect commentary are urgently advising what Democrats have refused to consider for decades: fighting back, in kind, against the Republicans' asymmetric hardball. They did so in Wisconsin, and there have been flashes of backbone elsewhere. The advice in this essay is detailed and useful. Whether the Democrats will have a shot on a wider stage may well depend on a Harris victory, because (as noted above) Trump is not joking about running a fascist dictatorship. But better late than never.
[He] and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics. But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.
Applebaum knows what she is talking about, and her Atlantic post may be her loudest warning yet. She is an expert on 20th Century European dictatorships, and the rhetoric that helped spawn them. Trump and his apparatchiks, adored by his increasingly violence-prone cult, are not playing around, even if Big Journalism desperately tries to pretend that all of this is either unserious or just more "normal" political gamesmanship.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
Take your personal contact list, compare it to the national voter file, and find out which of your actual friends, family, co-workers and past acquaintances live in swing states and districts where a call or text from you could be hugely influential.
Please read Micah Sifry's advice – and heed it! You still have time to make a huge difference.
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.
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Michael Podhorzer
Arkadi Gerney and Sarah Knight
Anne Applebaum
Micah L. Sifry
