Thanks for presenting these analyses (good work) as newsletters rather than podcasts. I do not care to hear people talk. I like my disaster news quiet, and on my time.
I agree! I am a reader because reading is a much better use of my time than listening to people talk or, worse, watching people talk. Even when podcasts are accompanied by edited transcripts, the transcripts can be tedious to read. I like well-crafted sentences that flow nicely from one to another. I like paragraphs organized thoughtfully within a passage. I like authors who write with elegance and economy. Margaret Sullivan is one such writer.
So glad to see that I am not the only one who much prefers to read over listening to (or viewing) podcasts! I'm a very visual person, but video doesn't stick with me the way that reading something does. Much less audio! My retention of what I hear is next to nil. My saving grace in college lectures was to take notes so I could (a) concentrate on what was being said, and (b) have something to refer to when I invariably forgot! Kudos to Margaret and others who continue to use the written word as their primary medium.
Agree. I hate podcasts, which are so tedious and often unctuous. There are some authors on The Contrarian whose columns I will read but whose podcasts I immediately delete.
A valuable look at the coverage. One point of disagreement--or at least difference in interpretation--though. On WaPo's piece re D identity, I found G. Elliott Morris's analysis (which I found via Brad DeLong) very helpful. (https://www.gelliottmorris.com/i/178051880/democrats-affordability-message-worked-regardless-of-nominee-ideology) At that link Morris argues that while Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani all ran from different ideological starting points, they had in common a clear and intense focus on affordability, with a shared diagnosis and responses/solutions shaped by their different electorates. Add the freedom theme (people really don't like the idea of masked thugs grabbing people out of homes and cars) and you have a shared starting point from which to build a range of D candidacies in different settings. The D brand may be down (Morris thinks so) but a D identity built around those pillars is not just a possibility; the results from yesterday show us that it's already taking shape.
I too have been very impressed by Morris' newsletter and pushback against the popular pundit narrative that suggests the party must choose between the progressive and moderate wings. Using in-depth data analysis, he's poked many holes in the simplistic political narratives promoted by the MSM and liberal intellectuals/strategists.
It's informed a lot of my own thinking of the political landscape lately.
The Democratic party is composed of many factions that can coalesce around some policies, putting those into the party platform, and disagree on other policies, yet still work together wherever and whenever possible for a purpose. That purpose in 2026 is a Democratic majority in House and Senate. Keep the agreed policies at the forefront, we can argue about the rest later.
Thank you so much for your columns and for not paywalling it so that all of us can read your thoughts. I value your writing but cannot afford a subscription so I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you. ❤️
I really want to thank you for offering gift links to NYT and WaPo stories. It makes fully understanding your takes much easier. I wish everyone did this (looking at the Poynter Institute newsletters especially!).
The fact that Trump's 60 Minutes interview got huge viewership doesn't ask why people tuned in. Maybe they wanted to see how compromised CBS has become. Maybe they wanted to see how delusional and untruthful he would be. Or maybe they were Trump fans. Who knows?
The reviews weren't good, especially if you saw the entire transcript.
I’ve only read about the interview, but I’m surprised how many people appear to be taking T at his word when he says he doesn’t know who he pardoned. At this point, I would be skeptical if he said the sun rises in the east.
If Trump actually doesn’t know who he pardoned, how does that make him different from the accusations that Biden didn’t know, but someone auto-penned the Biden pardons? Nope, either he knows and is lying (not his first time), he is kept busy at irrelevant stuff (building/renovating/golfing) so that other people (Heritage Foundation and tech bros) can run the government down the drain and shred the Constitution), or the man is very sick (dementia) and can’t retain current information longer than a few minutes (requiring the 25th Amendment, immediately). I think it is a combination of all three.
As some analysts have pointed out, that situation opens a great line of inquiry into just how the Trump pardon process is working if Democrats retake power in Congress in 2026. A pardon process so unhinged that the President by his own statement doesn't know who he's pardoning (except that they are in the same crypto line as his sons) cries out for oversight.
And I would also like to know who watched it. If 13 million of the viewers were registered Republicans, then it doesn't really matter.
I'm hoping someone steps up and sues CBS for editing Trump's 70 some minute interview down to 28 minutes. Trump got $16 million out of CBS, that should be a slam dunk for someone with requisite standing.
The pollsters got another one wrong. They were predicting a very close race in New Jersey, perhaps a Republican win. The same was true with Prop 50.
I believe all those people who stayed home last November came out. Republicans under estimated the level of outrage of the American people.
Last night was a day of relief. We can not become complacent. We take a couple of days to relish the moment and then get back to work getting focused on November 2026.
Actually, I have been intrigued with the various newsletters focusing on the Dems victories in more local races around the country, including Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The narrative is counter to the Republicans who said the successes were limited blue cities and blue states.
Thanks so much for this and all you do to help keep us sane in the current media climate. I think the best one-sentence take on the election was this bluesky post by Greg Sargent:
"The factional grifters will hate this, but the Mamdani-Spanberger-Sherrill axis actually suggests the outlines of a broad, emerging Dem coalition organized around both anti-Trump *and* affordability politics, not a party bitterly divided against itself."
It wasn't just the Post red-baiting. Andrew Cuomo called the Zohran a Communist too in one of his campaign mutterings. The new mayor-elect came in a distant third, behind Cuomo and Sliwa, and possibly fourth behind George Santos, in my very socially conservative district in NE Queens, according to the Times map. My mother-in-law, who passed away last week at 96, was a Dem activist who was best friends at one point with Matilda Cuomo, Mario's wife and Andrew's mother. Some of the old-school politicians from the Queens Democratic club came to her shiva last week. We didn't talk about politics. But I did have to reassure my rabbi that the sun would continue to rise, even if the son did not.
Here’s an idea for democrats to define themselves: We’re the difference between right and wrong, between empathy and entropy. We believe in the American experiment as defined by the founders, not as defiled by the finders-keepers.
You asked what my diet for election coverage is. As always, I fast during election seasons, knowing I will get the proper amount of sustenance from you when it’s over, and I did.
Oh, and I finally subscribed. Margaret Sullivan is worth it; I am only sad it took me so long on my fixed income to save up.
Going through all the post-mortems on Tuesday's election results has taken hours. Ranging from The New York Times (several articles and analyses plus and editorial) to Bulwark, I covered much of the field. Pleased to see the Times Editorial Board acknowledge its opposition to Mamdani pre-primary but now offering reasonable yardsticks to measure his first year as mayor. Most of the coverage examines reasons for the across-the-board Democratic victories, but I want to go deeper. What unites the wide variety of Democratic and Independent voters to produce such broad nationwide victories? I expect we'll hear a lot more in the next days. Thanks again, Margaret, for your unsparing coverage of the media.
Thanks for presenting these analyses (good work) as newsletters rather than podcasts. I do not care to hear people talk. I like my disaster news quiet, and on my time.
I agree! I am a reader because reading is a much better use of my time than listening to people talk or, worse, watching people talk. Even when podcasts are accompanied by edited transcripts, the transcripts can be tedious to read. I like well-crafted sentences that flow nicely from one to another. I like paragraphs organized thoughtfully within a passage. I like authors who write with elegance and economy. Margaret Sullivan is one such writer.
You’re very kind! I, too, prefer to read.
So glad to see that I am not the only one who much prefers to read over listening to (or viewing) podcasts! I'm a very visual person, but video doesn't stick with me the way that reading something does. Much less audio! My retention of what I hear is next to nil. My saving grace in college lectures was to take notes so I could (a) concentrate on what was being said, and (b) have something to refer to when I invariably forgot! Kudos to Margaret and others who continue to use the written word as their primary medium.
Agree. I hate podcasts, which are so tedious and often unctuous. There are some authors on The Contrarian whose columns I will read but whose podcasts I immediately delete.
A valuable look at the coverage. One point of disagreement--or at least difference in interpretation--though. On WaPo's piece re D identity, I found G. Elliott Morris's analysis (which I found via Brad DeLong) very helpful. (https://www.gelliottmorris.com/i/178051880/democrats-affordability-message-worked-regardless-of-nominee-ideology) At that link Morris argues that while Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani all ran from different ideological starting points, they had in common a clear and intense focus on affordability, with a shared diagnosis and responses/solutions shaped by their different electorates. Add the freedom theme (people really don't like the idea of masked thugs grabbing people out of homes and cars) and you have a shared starting point from which to build a range of D candidacies in different settings. The D brand may be down (Morris thinks so) but a D identity built around those pillars is not just a possibility; the results from yesterday show us that it's already taking shape.
Thanks for this, Tom!
I too have been very impressed by Morris' newsletter and pushback against the popular pundit narrative that suggests the party must choose between the progressive and moderate wings. Using in-depth data analysis, he's poked many holes in the simplistic political narratives promoted by the MSM and liberal intellectuals/strategists.
It's informed a lot of my own thinking of the political landscape lately.
The Democratic party is composed of many factions that can coalesce around some policies, putting those into the party platform, and disagree on other policies, yet still work together wherever and whenever possible for a purpose. That purpose in 2026 is a Democratic majority in House and Senate. Keep the agreed policies at the forefront, we can argue about the rest later.
Can we ALL agree that we promote democracy and fight corruption?
I think we've all had enough of the brothers Cuomo. Sometimes the apples fall very, very far from the tree.
Thank you so much for your columns and for not paywalling it so that all of us can read your thoughts. I value your writing but cannot afford a subscription so I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you. ❤️
I really want to thank you for offering gift links to NYT and WaPo stories. It makes fully understanding your takes much easier. I wish everyone did this (looking at the Poynter Institute newsletters especially!).
The fact that Trump's 60 Minutes interview got huge viewership doesn't ask why people tuned in. Maybe they wanted to see how compromised CBS has become. Maybe they wanted to see how delusional and untruthful he would be. Or maybe they were Trump fans. Who knows?
The reviews weren't good, especially if you saw the entire transcript.
I’ve only read about the interview, but I’m surprised how many people appear to be taking T at his word when he says he doesn’t know who he pardoned. At this point, I would be skeptical if he said the sun rises in the east.
If Trump actually doesn’t know who he pardoned, how does that make him different from the accusations that Biden didn’t know, but someone auto-penned the Biden pardons? Nope, either he knows and is lying (not his first time), he is kept busy at irrelevant stuff (building/renovating/golfing) so that other people (Heritage Foundation and tech bros) can run the government down the drain and shred the Constitution), or the man is very sick (dementia) and can’t retain current information longer than a few minutes (requiring the 25th Amendment, immediately). I think it is a combination of all three.
As some analysts have pointed out, that situation opens a great line of inquiry into just how the Trump pardon process is working if Democrats retake power in Congress in 2026. A pardon process so unhinged that the President by his own statement doesn't know who he's pardoning (except that they are in the same crypto line as his sons) cries out for oversight.
this is interesting..I wonder if all the pardons can be invalidated because of this... at least questionable.
And I would also like to know who watched it. If 13 million of the viewers were registered Republicans, then it doesn't really matter.
I'm hoping someone steps up and sues CBS for editing Trump's 70 some minute interview down to 28 minutes. Trump got $16 million out of CBS, that should be a slam dunk for someone with requisite standing.
On the basis of what would someone sue CBS?
On the same basis that Trump successfully sues them.
The pollsters got another one wrong. They were predicting a very close race in New Jersey, perhaps a Republican win. The same was true with Prop 50.
I believe all those people who stayed home last November came out. Republicans under estimated the level of outrage of the American people.
Last night was a day of relief. We can not become complacent. We take a couple of days to relish the moment and then get back to work getting focused on November 2026.
Rock on America!
Be aware that the GOP flooded the zone with slanted polls in NJ, as they are wont to do in all elections.
Thanks to all for commenting. I read your words with a lot of interest.
Actually, I have been intrigued with the various newsletters focusing on the Dems victories in more local races around the country, including Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The narrative is counter to the Republicans who said the successes were limited blue cities and blue states.
Thanks so much for this and all you do to help keep us sane in the current media climate. I think the best one-sentence take on the election was this bluesky post by Greg Sargent:
"The factional grifters will hate this, but the Mamdani-Spanberger-Sherrill axis actually suggests the outlines of a broad, emerging Dem coalition organized around both anti-Trump *and* affordability politics, not a party bitterly divided against itself."
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3m4tzxtrzs22p
Yes!
And Greg is doing such good work. We go back to the W Post, in better days.
It wasn't just the Post red-baiting. Andrew Cuomo called the Zohran a Communist too in one of his campaign mutterings. The new mayor-elect came in a distant third, behind Cuomo and Sliwa, and possibly fourth behind George Santos, in my very socially conservative district in NE Queens, according to the Times map. My mother-in-law, who passed away last week at 96, was a Dem activist who was best friends at one point with Matilda Cuomo, Mario's wife and Andrew's mother. Some of the old-school politicians from the Queens Democratic club came to her shiva last week. We didn't talk about politics. But I did have to reassure my rabbi that the sun would continue to rise, even if the son did not.
Here’s an idea for democrats to define themselves: We’re the difference between right and wrong, between empathy and entropy. We believe in the American experiment as defined by the founders, not as defiled by the finders-keepers.
You asked what my diet for election coverage is. As always, I fast during election seasons, knowing I will get the proper amount of sustenance from you when it’s over, and I did.
Oh, and I finally subscribed. Margaret Sullivan is worth it; I am only sad it took me so long on my fixed income to save up.
I'm with David Smith. https://open.substack.com/pub/bobgriendling/p/last-night-was-the-political-equivalent?r=f65k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
“The Democratic party’s brand “is still under water,” [Smith] writes,…”
Oh my, that’s trite and tedious. Sure it’s not the NYT Pitchbot? Sounds like it.
Going through all the post-mortems on Tuesday's election results has taken hours. Ranging from The New York Times (several articles and analyses plus and editorial) to Bulwark, I covered much of the field. Pleased to see the Times Editorial Board acknowledge its opposition to Mamdani pre-primary but now offering reasonable yardsticks to measure his first year as mayor. Most of the coverage examines reasons for the across-the-board Democratic victories, but I want to go deeper. What unites the wide variety of Democratic and Independent voters to produce such broad nationwide victories? I expect we'll hear a lot more in the next days. Thanks again, Margaret, for your unsparing coverage of the media.