Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Despite the reliability of election years’ October neurosis for Democrats, this year’s bout has triggered a flurry of stories on the phenomenon (heck, we did a entire podcast episode about it).
The warranted stressandanxiety, though, conflates the existing state of the race — close, unpredictable — with where we’ll end up.
We may not understand who wins till all the votes are counted since it’s so achingly close in the 6 or 7 states that get to choice the president. But if all of the fiercely objectedto swing states fall into the exactsame column, that’s about as close as we come to a landslide these days.
So it’s a double-layered stressandanxiety sandwich: The surveys stretch amenably to cover whatever from an electoral tie to a swing state shellacking — and, of course, they might be incorrect. Democrats, currently a twitchy type, haveactually been burned by differing levels of ballot mistake in the past 2 governmental elections, producing a doom loop of both consuming over and questioning the numbers in equivalent procedure. A coupleof vibrant experts likewise attempt to voice the all-but-ignored possibility that the surveys might be overstating Republican assistance this time, possibly an overcorrection from those previous missesouton.
People in my life typically ask me around this time what I believe will takeplace. I’ve been stating truthfully that I can’t keepinmind sensation so unpredictable on the eve of an election. But, as possibly a great lesson to keepinmind, certainty doesn’t mean a entire lot — numerous individuals’s 2020 certainty rested upon surveys revealing Joe Biden to have a wrongly pumpedup lead. Nearly every expert has had to atone for wrongheaded self-confidence in 2016.
Uncertainty is uneasy, especially when the stakes are so high. But that nervous sensation, in and of itself, isn’t actually an indication of anything beyond that you puton’t understand who will win, and you care a lot about who does.
— Kate Riga
Here’s What Else TPM Has On Tap This Weekend:
- Josh Kovensky provides an upgrade on Ben Swann, the conservative media figure who is open about at times taking cash from the Kremlin to produce videos that are friendly to Putin and his interests. This week, Swann provided an interview to the AP, declaring that his newest financing stream for a propaganda-like video was in reality rich Americans.
- Emine Yücel supplies an upgrade on her breaking protection of the claim submitted by advocates of the Amendment 4 abortion tally step in Florida this week: A federal judge purchased DeSantis administration authorities to stop threatening regional TELEVISION stations with criminal charges for airing a political advertisement in assistance of the step.
- Hunter Walker laysout the delusional roots of Donald Trump’s newest unhinged, anti-Harris conspiracy theory: They are coming for the cows.
- But he’s your “stupid” “narcissist”: Emine Yücel points out the paradox in Mitch McConnell’s newest Trump insults.
Let’s dig in.
— Nicole Lafond
Swann Song
Ben Swann has the difference of being a conservative media figure who is open about a reality that others in his position have justrecently tended to hide: he takes cash from the Russian federalgovernment in exchange for producing TELEVISION reveals friendly to the Kremlin.
Swann, as I reported with TPM’s Kate Riga late last year, made a name for himself throughout the Obama years as a libertarian regional news critic of the previous President’s before drifting into PizzaGate area around the time of Trump’s election. He worked for RT, Russia’s state-owned western-facing outlet, before producing reveals for the network after the intrusion of Ukraine.
Federal districtattorneys continue to takealookat RT and the level to which it’s utilized as a front for Russian intelligence and propaganda operations. You can appearance at Tenet Media, the conservative outlet that districtattorneys stated was a front for a Russian propaganda operation, as an example: per a September indictment, RT moneyed the business to the tune of $10 million.
So, what makes Swann fairly extraordinary is that he’s rather open about his work for RT (he’s not been implicated of any misdeed). He went on the record with the AP this week in a interesting story about how one documentary-like, anti-Ukraine function he produced – “Zelensky Unmasked” – was improved by conservative characters like Donald Trump Jr., Jenna Ellis, Andrew Giuliani, and others. Per the story, Swann associated financing for the business that developed “Zelensky Unmasked” not to Russia, however to unnamed, rich Americans who “own really big business.”
What’s so striking about Swann (and Tenet Media) is that he doesn’t feel the requirement to