Ezra Klein

Lovely riff from Naomi Klein on what it means to “build a more welcoming left” - and where you can see it already happening.

“I think what Americans intuitively get better than their political elites, their national security elites and even some of their media is this: War is terrible. War has risks - and even if it’s well intentioned on paper, leads to bad outcomes for the Americans who have to fight in it, the American taxpayers who pay for it, and the people on the other end of the war, whom you say you’re trying to help.” - @brhodes

One of the real advantages Democrats have going into 2026 is that Trump seems to genuinely believe his presidency is going great.

"Economic justice is mentioned 3,000 times in our Scriptures, both the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures. This is such a core part of our tradition, and it’s nowhere to be seen in Christian nationalism or on the religious right." - @jamestalarico

.@jamestalarico has a message for @JDVance

What makes Newsom so fascinating right now are his contradictions — the places where he's going in two directions at once. We talk a lot about a lot of those here. youtube.com/watch?v=PqBsRN…

Trump often lies about Democrats giving healthcare to undocumented immigrants. In California, Newsom actually did it. And defends it. "I'm proud of that. I believe in universal health care." But, he says, "we failed on the border. We need to own up to that."

To beat back Trumpism, does the Democratic Party need to be more populist? More moderate? More socialist? Embrace Abundance? Yes.

In the last few years we've seen: - The plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer - The Storming of the Capitol and pipe bombs left at the RNC and DNC - The break-in to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and the brutal on Paul Pelosi - Multiple assassination attempts against Trump - The assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and the shooting of on State Senator John Hoffman and his wife - Luigi Mangione's assassination of Brian Thompson - The assassination of Charlie Kirk Political violence is contagious. It is spreading. It is not confined to one side or belief system. It should terrify us all. The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in it without fear of violence. Political violence is always an attack against us all. You have to be so blind not to see that.

It's ghoulish to mock or justify the shooting of Charlie Kirk. Rising political violence is a horror of our time. Unchecked it will lead to catastrophes none of us want to imagine. Deeply hoping he pulls through. We are all people, whatever we believe. That has to come first.

A few months back, Dems thought the courts might save them. Not this Court. Full episode on SCOTUS swinging into defense of Trump’s powers here, or wherever you get your pods. youtu.be/mhZBLpzcYx4?si…

I’ve not been taking the Trump third-term talk very seriously. But @kateashaw1 is, and she knows a helluva lot more about the Court than I do.

“If you were trying to replicate that path to autocracy, I don’t know what you would be doing differently than what Trump is doing now.” -@radleybalko

This interview, which is also available to listen to as a podcast, provides a useful overview of some of the dangerous trends we’ve been seeing in recent months regarding federalization and militarization of state and local police functions. nytimes.com/2025/08/27/opi…

Quote of the day in the @nytimes ‘We have the Bill of Rights for a reason. You can’t vote away basic constitutional rights. They aren’t subject to the whims of a majority. The government is not allowed to start violating our basic constitutional rights just because people voted for that in an election — or thought they were voting for that.’ Via the @ezraklein show

Thanks, Obama!