I am exhausted by the sheer number of meetings I am in where Democrats ask for data-backed messaging work, sign contracts, receive that work, and then dismiss it out of hand because "That's not what we expected."

Yeah! Obviously! That's why you got blown out! Party leaders can continue to think they have the voter approval or credibility to be a "moderating influence" on the political landscape, but they don't. They are imagining a reputation with voters they simply do not have in real life.

There are two emerging narratives on why Democrats lost, coming from very different parts of the party:

1. Democrats lost because the right wing media network dwarfs any Dem effort in size and influence. Dems have no answer to Fox News, Rogan, alt-right YouTube

1/ 2. Democrats lost because they got "too woke" and focused on social issues instead of kitchen table economic issues. The unspoken argument here is that social politics also drove Hispanic voters to the Trump.

2/

There's a beauty to watching democracy actually happen before your eyes. That's one of the great things about our system: it all happens right in front of you.

You go see people line up. You see the votes being counted. And there are candidates who would take that from us. We've always disagreed about what this republic should be. And I think this Election Day is as good a time as any to share some thoughts from our Founders -- all of them, in the full diversity of their beliefs about the country we are.

It's easy to see why America feels like two completely different realities right now. The Millennial experience has been watching progress finally happen- on gay rights, on the environment, on poverty eradication -- only to be rolled back so effortlessly by reactionary forces. I talk to people who tell me this election cycle makes them feel like they've spent their entire lives misunderstanding the country they love. They don't see how so many Americans could gleefully line up to tear down the fundamental pillars of our own democracy.

Here are just a few of the nightmares contained in Project 2025, the @GOP's far-right extremist vision for a second Trump presidency: Kevin Roberts’ foreword to Project 2025 calls for the president to use undefined “emergency powers” to prosecute companies involved in the production and sale of pornography.

I really can't overstate the number of contract/job conversations I've had in the past 60 days where I've been directly told all Communications Department hiring is canceled because they are transitioning to AI.

Departments that previously had 5-10 people are now down to one. There's really no way around it, either. Those jobs aren't coming back any more than the hand-loom linen industry did. From language translation to strategic communications to scientific research, AI is hollowing out whole sections of the economy at breakneck speed.

The @GOP primary debate opens with a round of boos for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- ominous! We made it two minutes into the debate before Fox moderators name checked "Rich Men North of Richmond," the new @GOP anthem.

It's no coincidence that Ken Paxton was impeached, Trump indicted, Santos indicted, all in what feels like the blink of an eye.

The @GOP is a deeply rotted and hollowed-out party. It coasted on institutional inertia for as long as it could. Now it's crumbling. @GOP Looking back, 2016 probably marked the high water mark for this version of the @GOP -- a total surrender to the raging id of Trumpism, and its constant grievance campaigning and score-settling politics.

Much of the four years to follow were simply delaying a reckoning.

Few men did as much to toxify and weaponize the Christian faith as Pat Robertson.

His cynicism and political ambitions turned American churches into hyperconservative battlegrounds. His callousness drove whole generations of Americans to view faith as an instrument of hate. Robertson's view of Christianity was exclusionary, repressive, superstitious and an offense to a millennia of theological scholarship. He hollowed out the moral purpose of Christ and replaced it with the small and divisive pursuit of earthy power and celebrity.

Has anyone confirmed The Independent's earlier scoop that Mark Meadows pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the DOJ's Trump investigation? I see a whole lot of Mark Meadows chatter, but what I haven't seen -- or have missed -- is a second media outlet confirming that the story is accurate.

It's now been several hours. I have to assume of The Independent has it, at least one other reporter does, too.

"The Founding Fathers" are portrayed as one single mass of marble, a mighty oracle from which a unified American political theory emerged.

But the question of what our Constitution is - and what it should be - raged as hard then as it does now. Here are their words: "In framing a government, we should consider a century to come as but a day, and leave the least possible for postrity to mend. Errors sanctioned by long usage are not easily relinquished."

Philadelphia Freeman's Journal, 9/27/87

American media is busy covering the big policy issues that shape our nation and our collective future.

Like this piece about Joe Biden's age: nytimes.com/2023/06/04/us/… Or this piece about Joe Biden's age: vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/p…

Biden carrying his statesmanship message through the negotiations and now into his speech to the nation.

Biden won't rub a victory in the faces of his counterparts. He'd rather have the win than the credit.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1664775634977955841

A lot of Democrats wanted this speech to be a real spiking-the-football moment, but Biden aimed for a higher and -- I think -- more effective message.

Biden bet big on asking voters to remember what good government was like. Now he's delivering that.

NEW from me for The Third Degree:

Twitter's shock jock CEO @elonmusk is racking up even more costly lawsuits. Investors are starting to panic.
maxburns.substack.com/p/elon-musk-ca… "In Germany...users allege that Musk charged them for a Twitter Blue subscription before immediately suspending their accounts. They argue that Musk went ahead and billed their credit cards even after they were suspended."

maxburns.substack.com/p/elon-musk-ca…

The past few days:

- Allen, TX shooting
- 4 Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy
- Trump found liable for sexual abuse, battery and defamation
- George Santos charged with 13 fed crimes
- CNN Town Hall
- Elon Musk resigns as Twitter CEO
- Daniel Penny charged in NYC - Sen. Dianne Feinstein Returns to Congress
- U.S. prepares for debt ceiling default
- Possible third E. Jean Carroll/Trump defamation lawsuit
- Title 42 expires
- Sen. Tommy Tuberville calls on Biden to recruit white nationalists into the U.S. military

It seems like Chris Licht's decision has once again shown everyone that news executives simply do not believe what reporters do -- reporting the news -- is enough. Licht asked Kaitlan Collins to go out and create news moments, which she did. But creating those moments without resolving them just leaves festering wounds in the public discourse.

Trump Criminal Empire Question!

"I had every right to [take classified documents] under the Presidential Records Act. I took what I took, and it gets declassified."

Trump repeats a debunked rumor that Biden hid boxes of classified documents "in Chinatown." Kaitlin Collins says the Presidential Record Act doesn't empower a president to negotiate taking classified documents with him.

"I took the documents, I'm allowed to. You know who else took 'em? Obama took 'em. Nixon took 'em."

Ukraine question! Oh lord.

"We're giving away so much equipment, we don't have ammunition for ourselves right now...if I were president, this would have never happened. Putin knew it would have never happened." Trump says Europe isn't bearing its fair share of supporting Ukraine's defense.

"I have a very good relationship with President Zelensky, because as you know he backed me up with the phony impeachment."

Title 42/immigration question!

"Tomorrow is gonna be a day of infamy," Trump says. "You're gonna have tens of thousand of people pouring into our country...you're going to have millions of people pouring into our country at a level no one has ever seen before." "If people are sick and have infectious diseases and other problems, we don't want them in our country," Trump tells Collins. "Our country is being destroyed."

Abortion question! Trump calls SCOTUS overturning abortion rights "a great decision."

"Getting rid of Roe v Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life, because it gave pro-life something to negotiate with."

He's talking about women's bodies. "Deals are going to be made" for the amount of freedom women can enjoy over their own reproductive health.

"I was very honored to [overturn Roe]."

"If they're not going to give you massive cuts, you're going to have to do a default."

Yep, a former American president is calling on the United States to default on its debt and devastate the global economy. "You can do it now or do it later," Trump says of a national default -- which should give you some pause since this guy wants to be president again.