SELF GOVERNMENT: We've been thinking of Kevin Drum this week!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2026

He was an American journalist: We start with a speculation about the late Kevin Drum:  

He would have loved to see this.   

Last Tuesday night, he would have loved to see the election results roll in. Almost surely, he would have loved the beauty of the messaging which had emerged from the emerging talent—from the new, newly scrappy faces and names who were suddenly winning elections. 

("Talent" is a word we rarely use. We're willing to use it to describe the week's emerging public figures.)   

As reported here by his wife ("with a heavy heart," in a Health Update), Kevin left this life in early March of last year. It was a gloomy, challenging time for the forces of Blue America.   

Roughly a month before his passing, as his health continued to worsen, Kevin himself had included this note to his readers in this brief Health Update:

"Take care of Donald Trump for me."

So said the late Kevin Drum. 

In Tuesday's elections, it may seem that the electorate did take care of the sitting president. But large political gains can quickly turn into political backslides. How do we find a way to move (successfully) forward? 

If only briefly, Kevin resumed normal posting after the update to which we've just linked. As we continue to think about his work, here's the start of an overview he offered on February 15, 2025—four weeks into the sitting president's second term:

Madness

Before Trump was elected, I figured there were a a range of possibilities if he won.

1) On one end: he's a blowhard. He says lots of stuff he never follows up on.

2) On the other end: He's dead serious this time. He's going to deport millions; put tariffs on everyone; take a sledgehammer to DEI; and nominate lunatics to his cabinet. It would be a bloodbath, but the courts and Republicans in the Senate would rein in the worst of it.

But it's been so much worse—though not on stuff he ran on. Deportations have been low and he's backed off on a bunch of tariffs. But DEI has turned into a jihad against anything that so much as mentions Black accomplishment—or women or Hispanics or anything else. USAID has been demolished for no reason and the medical research community is being torn to pieces. The entire federal workforce is being given a haircut with a blowtorch, with no apparent rhyme or reason. Elon Musk is tearing through federal agencies doing God knows what—he won't tell anyone...

Kevin continued from there at some length. As you can see from part of that excerpt—"Deportations have been low and he's backed off on a bunch of tariffs"—much of the "madness" in question hadn't started at that time.

"Madness" is a colloquial term. As readers of this site will know, we think the recent state of American politics does involve issues of (literal) "mental illness."  (Also, we regard a diagnosable "mental illness" as an actual illness—often, as an illness with a physiological basis.)

Tragically but dangerously, we assume that the recent state of our politics involves issues of "mental illness." Once again, the New York Times has taken a total pass on that obvious possibility:

It did so in last Sunday's front-page pseudo-report about the recent weird behaviors of the sitting president. To peruse that report, just click here.

Sad! The "front-page report" was, in fact, on the front page of that day's print editions. But most people read the Times online, and in the kind of braindead behavior in which this paper often engages, the very existence of that lengthy report went unrecorded in the site which the Times headlines as "Today's Paper." 

(We know—you think we have to be joking. But go ahead—click this.)

Sad! For readers who work from the "Today's Paper" site, that relatively toothless report didn't even exist! Persistent haplessness of this type has impeded American attempts at self-government during the (more than) 28 years in which we've maintained this site.

(Then too, there's what the later Wittgenstein alleged about the persistent haplessness of the heralded work performed by the western world's most heralded alleged thinkers! We began to wonder about that possible version of systemic error during our first year out of Aragon High. To see what Professor Horwich wrote for the Times, you can click right here.)

How can we, the American people, build a better, stronger polity? 

The sitting president remains in office. He's now decided to elevate Stephen Miller. How might we the people of Blue America build better outreach to our millions of neighbors and friends? 

How can we build that more durable outreach? The late Kevin Drum left this life at the age of 66. He'd typed and typed and typed and typed. That question remains unanswered today.   

We've been thinking of Kevin this week. We assume that he would have loved what happened on Tuesday night. We assume that he would have liked the messaging which had emerged from a lot of emerging talent. 

The leading authority offers its bio of Kevin right here. The authority starts by saying this:   

"Kevin Drum (October 19, 1958 – March 7, 2025) was an American journalist."