It’s us versus the oligarchs and autocrats.
Hey fam, it’s JVL.
Let me tell you about some things that happened to the media in 2025:
Paramount paid Donald Trump $16 million to grease the skids for the company’s merger with David Ellison’s Skydance.
Disney paid Trump $15 million and temporarily suspended Jimmy Kimmel in response to thuggish threats from the FCC.
The Washington Post executed its pivot to “personal liberties and free markets,” sending subscribers and top-flight journalists running for the exits.
As part of the Skydance-Paramount merger, the Ellisons promised to put Bari Weiss—a reliable anti-anti Trumper—in charge of CBS News to make the division more amenable to Trump.
Donald Trump publicly called for CNN to come under new ownership just days before . . .
. . . Paramount and the Ellisons began attempting a hostile takeover of Warner Bros., the corporate parent of CNN.
This past Sunday Bari Weiss spiked a 60 Minutes story about CECOT because it wasn’t “fair” to Trump.
Here’s what didn’t happen: Traditional media companies rising to meet the authoritarian moment.
These old-school media companies are run by billionaires who are ready to use their networks and newspapers to curry favor with Trump so that their other businesses can get favors from the government. They don’t care if CBS or the Washington Post lose money so long as their mergers go through and their rocket companies get government contracts. This is how oligarchs and autocrats coexist.
The Bulwark was built different. We don’t have any billionaire owners or corporate contracts to protect. We don’t play angles, or tinge our coverage to please sources. We just tell you the truth, every day. The Bulwark team is made up of journalists and subject-matter experts from across the political spectrum and we’re united by one thing: the defense of American democracy in the face of illiberalism.
Next year is going to be critical for this country. In 2026, either we will begin to take back power from the autocrats, or the strongman will cement his dominance. Either way there will be more chaos. More boots on the ground in American cities, masked ICE agents, tariffs, late-night Truth Social rants, naked corruption, crony pardons, and congressional dysfunction. We may even get a war.
And we will be here to help you make sense of it all—no “both sides.” No fake balance. No studied neutrality or bs stories designed to flatter sources. We tell you where we stand and we stand where we are.
I can promise you that we’re going to do this because we’re supported by members who are just like us. The crazy thing about The Bulwark is that we’re a community of real people who care about democracy and want to save it from Trumpism.
This community—both us on the writing side and our members on the support side—is our strength. We all understand that we’re in this together. And that together is the only way through.
If you can, I hope you’ll join us and become a Bulwark+ member today. There’s no tote bag. You don’t even get all that much extra content. You just become a builder, with us, of the kind of media company healthy democracies need.
Come ride with us.
Jonathan V. Last
Editor, The Bulwark
P.S. – Each paid membership ensures we can give away paid access to anyone who wants to join up but can’t afford to do so. Membership ensure we can keep most of what we do free so it reaches the widest possible audience. If you can’t swing a membership but still want to join, reply to this email and we’ll work something out.