RIP Kevin Drum, nonpareil blogger on public policy, 1958-2025

Well-known to followers of the blogosphere and seekers of intelligent, percipient commentary on public policy, Kevin Drum passed away Friday after a long battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.

The affliction is incurable, but Kevin treated his audience to detailed accountings of his treatments and of the status of his health, often with good humor, after he was first diagnosed in 2014.

For the longest time he seemed to have held the condition at bay, but earlier this year he reported on his blog, jabberwocking.com, that he was failing. Some of his fellow bloggers took note and wished him well online. On Feb. 12 he wrote, “Fading fast. Pneumonia worse. Ventilator next. Not looking good. Take care of Donald Trump for me.”

His friends and followers, myself included, noticed with a sinking feeling that after a post dated March 4 — a health update in which he reported, “Everything is getting worse ... and I feel terrible” — his site went silent.

In my experience, Drum was unique. His quest for empirical truths and his distaste for the misuse of statistics was forthright and unparalleled online, the product, at least in part, of the two years he studied at Caltech before transferring to Cal State Long Beach and pursuing his interest in journalism. Anyone trying to snow the public with bogus math felt his sting and earned his contempt.

Among his favored topics was the social effect of lead poisoning from environmental sources such as leaded gasoline. His thesis, which has been supported by a good amount of research, was that social pathologies including violent crime and mental illness could be tied to lead, and their decline in recent decades to measures such as a ban on leaded gas.

Kevin was a Southern Californian, born in Long Beach and a longtime resident of Irvine, in a home he shared with his wife Marian and a succession of cats that got their pictures on his blog every Friday.

He first made his mark online in 2003 with a personal blog titled “Calpundit,” and moved the following year to the Washington Monthly, where he took over its “Political Animal” blog, moved to Mother Jones in 2008 and reverted to independent blogging in 2021.

Marian reported his passing on his website Monday. She asked that in lieu of flowers well-wishers “please donate to the charity or political cause of your choice.”

Kevin and I corresponded regularly about each others’ work as friends, and shared a companionable lunch or two after his diagnoses. On most issues, though not all, we were largely on the same page; certainly I never read a single post by him that didn’t warrant close attention or, in some way or another, earn my respect and admiration. He changed my mind a lot more often than I think I changed his, which only testifies to the authority of his intellectual gifts.

This one hurts. The battle against misinformation and disinformation has lost a well-weaponed warrior. He will be missed.