Talking Points Memo

In November, we celebrated TPM's 25th anniversary. We published a big series on the last 25 years of digital media to mark the occasion. We had our biggest event ever, a two-day affair celebrating the growth and success of what began as the blog Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshall. In many ways, 2025 felt like the year of TPM.

But if you set aside the anniversary and the history of digital media and instead look at the most important stories of the day, it's really 2026 that feels like the year of TPM. Let me briefly explain why.

It feels to many that things are coming to a head. The years-long campaign to destroy the Voting Rights Act has come to fruition. Every day brings a fresh insult from the Justice Department to those who respect the rule of law. Trans rights are under attack. The anti-choice movement, unsatisfied with its win in Dobbs, will stop at nothing to ban Mifepristone. The United States has been treating its friends and allies so poorly, that they are developing novel courses of retribution, such as this Mexican night club charging $300 to Americans but under $20 for everyone else.

TPM has been covering all of these stories for, literally, years. These are all ideas and schemes that were hatched in the minds of the right-wing fringe. As much of the media dismissed these characters as inconsequential, TPM rightly pointed out that they are in fact quite consequential. (Ok — admittedly, we weren't on the Mexican nightclub beat. But we do heatseek the absurd in political culture, so I'm including it.)

Which brings us to this November. Rather than celebrating our 26th anniversary, we'll be covering the midterms, one of the most important elections of our lifetime. The issues at stake are the ones TPM's been reporting on and analyzing for, in some cases, a quarter century. So that's why this feels like the Year of TPM: for better or worse, the things and the people we cover are more mainstream than ever.