After notching huge victories in last week’s off-year elections, Senate Democrats were overcome by a failure of nerve, and agreed to reopen the government without restoring anyone’s health insurance or securing any legal mechanism to rein in Donald Trump’s lawlessness

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What the fuck?

* Why did the standoff end the way it did?

* How could the eight capitulators plus Chuck Schumer have engineered a better outcome, whether it brought the shutdown to an end or not?

Then, for paid subscribers, how will the recriminations play out inside the party? Could it feed a constructive conversation about what a better opposition party might look like? Will they put up any resistance at all when the next deadline looms at the end of January? Are memories long enough that the cave might have an impact on the 2026 midterms? Will Trump interpret this as a mandate to use the infliction of pain to bend Democrats? Or will we all move on when the House votes to release the Epstein files?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian has 16 thoughts on the surrender.

* Matt only has 13.

* Chris Murphy’s interview with Punchbowl.

It was a night of blowout victories in elections for Democrats and Democratic causes across the country, significantly surpassing the party’s most optimistic expectations. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What, if anything, do the margins, and the nature of the sweep, tell us about the politics today;

* How compatible are these results with a Democratic Senate victory in 2026?

* Why “Democrats should moderate” and “Democrats need to fight harder” takesters both had good nights.

Then, for paid subscribers, will frontline Democrats really continue to be afraid of fighting Trump after tonight’s results? Didn’t the revived resistance widen the party’s margins? Shouldn’t this help Democrats across the board? And if so, why do news reports suggest Senate Democrats might yield in the government-shutdown fight, even though they appear to be winning it?

Further reading:

* Matt writes there’s more to politics than what happens in the four-corners of a campaign.

* Brian on why the Democrats’ biggest liability has been the scourge of wimpiness.

* Brian’s July piece asking what Democrats intend to do if they win the midterms?

Even some of Donald Trump’s own voters were shocked to see he summarily demolished part of the White House, surprising many Democrats who had convinced themselves Trump is teflon and people don’t care about his corruption or vulgarity. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* The long history of politicians not doing stuff like this, fearing political backlash;

* Whether this episode suggests swing voters can be moved by symbols and appeals to American greatness, or whether this, too, is a distraction from the issues that really matter;

* What other corruption scandals Democrats might drag into the partisan fray, now that the middle of the country is wising up to Trump’s let-them-eat-cake greed, at the expense of normal citizens.

Then, for paid subscribers, if Trump’s recent political troubles stem from shocking images of the East Wing reduced to rubble, what else in politics is an artifact of media effects? Are Democrats lucky that Trump is so venal and lawless, because Americans would otherwise be highly supportive of how he governs? Or does he mostly get a pass on corruption (because Democrats want to focus on issues) while Republicans invest billions of dollars to define Democrats as out-of-touch wackos?

Further reading:

* Brian on a Democratic-friendly way to make Trump pay for his corruption, now that it’s breaking through.

* Matt: It’s all about policy, including (maybe particularly?) immigration.

* A nerd-off between Biden alums who think their biggest mistake was not creating enough winning ideological conflict and outside strategists who think Democrats earned their toxic unpopularity fair and square.

More than seven million Americans marched peacefully in the streets. Republicans are palpably spooked about it. And courage is proving contagious: In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How Trump’s king-like abuses are, for the first time in a decade, becoming hard to distinguish from kitchen-table issues;

* Whether, given the galvanizing power of No Kings, Democrats should pivot to the theme (away from health care) and make a national scandal of Trump’s demolition of the White House to build a palace ballroom;

* The importance of message amplification in getting people to care about anything when their day-to-day lives are unaffected by political scandal.

Then, the Democratic establishment comes for Graham Platner with…some pretty explosive opposition research. How much grace does he deserve? What does he need to do to earn it? And how is it that people make decisions about what is sincere and insincere when it comes out of the mouth of a politician. All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Halina Bennet’s report from No Kings DC.

* Brian’s piece, from December 6, 2024: The New Gilded Age Will Be Streamed.

* Seth Masket on the political class’s over-interpretation of gaffes.

* Graham Platner responds to the oppo dump on Crooked Media.

The government shutdown just crossed the two-week mark. If you take Donald Trump and his people at their word, it doesn’t seem like it’s about to reopen. But they are also huge bluffers. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Has Trump hit upon a (legally dubious) way to keep the government “shut down” indefinitely?

* Which signs suggest he’s digging in and which suggest he’s bluffing?

* Are we about to test, once and for all, whether anti-authoritarian politics are more compelling and more galvanizing than cost-of-living politics?

Then, Republicans are desperate to shrink down and smear No Kings protesters en masse. Can this be interpreted as a sign of weakness? Is it a cunning, if ill-intended attempt to tip the country into civil unrest? How close to 1.000 does a non-violent resistance movement have to bat to keep the majority of the public on its side?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian on the median experience of tyranny.

* Matt argues the authoritarian menace has arrived.

* Brian makes the case that if the current equilibrium devolves into violence, we’ve seen enough to blame Trump.

* Erica Chenoweth on civil resistance.

As anticipated in last week’s episode, the government did indeed shut down, and as of this recording Congress remains at an impasse. At the same time Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are trying harder than ever to foment street violence in blue cities and maybe even martial law. In this episode, Brian and Matt discuss:

* How the GOP’s ongoing Epstein coverup is prolonging the shutdown and making it likelier that they “lose.”

* The esoteric Beltway metaphysics of who gets blamed for government shutdowns.

* Why Democrats are winning the battle of public opinion despite Beltway consensus that they are to blame.

Then, would it really be “winning” the shutdown to force Republicans to renew Affordable Care Act subsidies, without securing any new constraints on Trump’s abuses of power? Would Democrats shut down the government again to have another fight centered more closely on Trump’s authoritarian abuses? Is the dictatorial overreach bad enough now that Democrats should simply withhold their votes under any feasible set of concessions? And which prominent Democrats are doing resistance politics most effectively.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt argues that “authentic” politicians are mostly just acting.

* Brian argues that “non-sequitur politics” are a bad basis for fighting fascism.

* Bharat Ramamurti imagines how Democrats could force Trump closer to compliance with constitutional rule.

Donald Trump has crossed an important redline: He ordered his administration to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, fired the prosecutor who told him he had no case, and installed a lackey who did as ordered. In this episode:

* What distinguishes the (weak, losing) Comey indictment from past abuses of prosecutorial power?

* Why Comey shouldn’t try to get the charges dismissed on selective prosecution grounds, and should instead demand a speedy trial.

* If Trump thinks his revenge tour was “litigated in the election, might a humiliating defeat at the Comey trial be the beginning of the DOJ’s new role as tip of the spear of Trump’s retribution campaign?

Then, on the eve of the government shutdown, Brian and Matt look ahead to likely end games. Has the Democrats’ confused posture in the standoff doomed them, or can they reorient everyone in the party to make arguments they can really commit to long-term? Will the public’s presumptive sense that Republicans are to blame for government shutdowns insulate Democrats from backlash? And, as long as they’re keeping the House shuttered to prevent votes on releasing the Epstein files, will Republicans be able to exploit their advantages in this fight?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian argues that if Democrats want a big fight over health care, there are ways to engineer one without shoving it into a fight over the annual budget.

* Matt argues Hillary Clinton should have demanded here day in court during Trump 1.0 because the email scandal was bullshit.

* Brendan Nyhan on the Comey prosecution precedent.

* Josh Marshall on the power dynamics of the shutdown fight.

With the firing (and then unfiring) of Jimmy Kimmel, the right-wing crackdown in the name of Charlie Kirk seems to have bumped up against real limits.

In light of the week’s developments, we discuss:

* The schisms within MAGA that were on display at the Kirk memorial;

* How those schisms fused with resistance backlash, forcing ABC and Disney to rethink their decision to take Kimmel off the air;

* Whether this is a sign that society as a whole has reached the limits of authoritarian abuses it’s willing to tolerate.

Then, Brian and Matt zoom out to ask whether public rejection of a free-speech crackdown can help form the basis of big-tent Democratic unity, from Zohran Mamdani in New York through (maybe!) Geoff Duncan in Georgia. Is Duncan the best candidate in the Georgia Dem gubernatorial primary? Should Democrats back him for the abstract value of proving the party welcomes heterodox voices? And what does progressive uneasiness with Duncan, like establishment Dem uneasiness with Mamdani, tell us about the meaning of solidarity?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian thinks the Kirk crackdown moved Democrats closer to an appropriate fighting posture.

* Matt on the crackdown as classic overreach;

* Jessica Valenti on why abortion represents the least productive grounds on which Democrats might moderate.

* Geoff Duncan explains his conversion to Greg Sargent.

Donald Trump and several of his top officials have promised to unleash a partisan crackdown in Charlie Kirk’s honor, even as the notion that Kirk’s assassin was in league with the institutional left becomes more far fetched.

In light of the week’s developments, we discuss:

* Our personal reactions to the Kirk murder, and the contours of the overall public response;

* What we know about the GOP plan to use it as a pretext to crack down on political dissent;

* The differences between using free speech and believing in free speech; the related differences between good-faith debate and propaganda.

Then, is MAGA’s seamless fusion of partisan propaganda with state functions actually a source of political power for the GOP? Between Trump’s sinking poll numbers on issue after issue, public rejection of his immigration crackdown, and spiraling, trollish foreign policy, is there any reason to believe Americans won’t reject a speech crackdown, too? And if the administration is embarking on a losing abuse of power (even if only to generate yet more propaganda) is there any good reason why Democrats shouldn’t fight them by seizing the mantle of free speech?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt’s extremely conflicted take on the looming government shutdown.

* Brian on the GOP’s recursive cycle of abusing power to generate propaganda to justify further abuses of power, and how to respond;

* The extensive fallout of the propaganda-driven Hyundai factory raid.

Another government shutdown looms, and, thus, so do more angsty struggle sessions over what Democrats should do, and what effective opposition looks like. In this episode, we discuss:

* How does mounting bad news for Donald Trump—bad jobs numbers, defeats in court, and revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein—affect the politics of a shutdown?

* Who’s got the better bead on how Democrats should proceed, Matt, Brian, or Ezra Klein?

* Why there’s a hidden danger in Democrats’ inclination to demand extraneous concessions—like renewed funding for Obamacare.

Then, how might the lessons of a [knocks on wood] successful shutdown fight help ameliorate ongoing fight between different factions of the Democratic Party, including progressives and abundists? Can they find common ground over their shared interest in making the Democratic Party more responsive and faster moving? Or are progressives too suspicious of strange bedfellows to ever support policy-making coalitions with Republicans and business interests?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian’s shutdown piece.

* Ezra’s shutdown piece

* Matt’s shutdown piece.

* Brian’s response to both.

* How to understand recent data revisions.

* Brian’s abundance flowchart for an intra-Democratic truce

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