With a heavy heart, I have to tell you that after a long battle with cancer my husband Kevin Drum passed away on Friday, March 7, 2025.
No public memorial services are planned.
In lieu of flowers, please donate to the charity or political cause of your choice.
A Facebook page, 'In Memory of Kevin Drum', has been created as a place for friends and family to share memories of Kevin. I encourage you to post your thoughts and memories there.
Thank you to all the wonderful blog readers who supported, encouraged and challenged him through the years.
He will be greatly missed.
Marian
I am one of many who checked this blog several times a day hoping for a new post in the hope Kevin was recovering. So deeply sorry. Such a loving voice of clarity and reason in the service of truth and empathy. Like many readers, I felt close to this good man, I so enjoyed him testing accepted truisms and pointing out absurdities accepted by many. And the cats. I am just going to miss him.
Well written. I must have checked the blog 50 times over the last couple of days.
Dear Marion,
Although I never met Kevin I felt he was a dear friend and a constant source of common sense in a sometimes insane world. He will be greatly missed. I am hoping the best for you and your family. Kevin was a good man and the world is a little worse without him. Richard.
He said somewhere that he did not fear death. He did not believe in an afterlife. He supported the right to choose one's time of death. And yet, despite considerable suffering he prolonged his own life as long as he could, thereby prolonging the gift of his mind to the rest of us. Let's take courage from his example.
I have been a daily reader since Kevin's column at Mother Jones, where I first became aware of him. I will miss his insight, and his dry humor.
My deepest condolences, to Marian and to all Kevin's circle of love.
My heartfelt condolences you.
I've read Kevin's work daily for nearly a decade and learned so much.
May you find solace in knowing how positively he enriched our collective knowledge.
He will be dearly missed.
Marian, I am so sorry. Kevin was a bright spot of rationality and reason in a world where both are rare. I'm going to miss him a lot.
He made a difference. A good difference.
My heart goes out to you. Please be well.
I started reading Kevin's work with Washington Monthly, and have not missed a day since. As others have said, his work made a difference, and provided clarity in often murky times.
My deepest condolences go out to you and the rest of his family.
Marion, I am deeply sorry for your loss. I have read Kevin daily for over 20 years, and I have respected his intellect and identified with his viewpoint more than any other journalistic writer in my adult life. He will be missed.
We, his regular readers, will miss him greatly. America has lost a terrific voice for rationality and thinking based on facts instead of whims and biases.
So sorry for your loss.
❤️❤️ I know I will miss him, a lot. We CA natives were rightly proud of our fellow native. And he stayed here through thick and thin. Unexpectedly he become a part of my extended family. I'm not sure how that happened, but it did. I feel his loss deeply and am sadder then I would have thought possible.
I'm so sorry Marian. I've been ready Kevin's blog every day for probably 20 years. He will be greatly missed. He was so often a voice of calm reason in a messed up world.
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Dear Marion,
You have my heartfelt condolences. I've never met Kevin but have exchanged many emails with him, going back to his time at Mother Jones. I certainly have given him a hard time on many issues over the years, but I hope that I congratulated him as least as often. He was straightforward and blunt, sometimes very critical but never mean-spirited. And we did agree much more often than we disagreed. His charts were edifying, and I loved his insistence on adjusting all relevant values for inflation. What I particularly appreciated was his ability to find obscure statistics to back up his arguments and to present those arguments in ways that understandable to anyone with an open mind. I will miss him deeply.
Rich
KEVIN VIVE!!!!!!
Stolen from CR.
I'm so sorry. Kevin's posts were always a welcome light of sanity in the howling of the Internet, and I will miss them.
Best wishes to Marian and his other friends and family.
Thank you Marian for all your support and my deepest condolences. I too will deeply miss Kevin and my longtime daily read. He made a real difference in this world most of us will never come close to. Many times I saw an observation or a new idea for the first time from his blog, only to see it come to life that same day or week with the cable chattering class and sometimes onward to real change. I don't know yet who can fill his role. RIP Kevin.
I have followed Kevin for years; at Mother Jones, Washington Monthly, and then out on his own. He did a wonderful job of sharing his personal life (cats, photography, health struggles) within his insightful commentary on current events. His caring personality shined through all he shared. He also taught so many us how to read charts, data and statistics with a critical eye. He will be missed by so many of us, his followers.
Marion, may his memory be a blessing to you.
Kevin was a towering intellect and a calm rational writer, always. I've read his work regularly since he was Calpundit.
I just learned from Ben Dreyfuss that he declined being paid by Mother Jones in line with what he was bringing in to the business, for years and years he declined pay raises. He was the second biggest money maker for them (after David Corn). He always said to share the profits with the fellows (the young writers who badgered him and called him a racist) instead. I'm not surprised, it's in line with what I've seen of Kevin's character over the decades.
I'm going to miss Kevin's presence in my life and I'm very sorry we never met in person, just a few digital correspondences. May his memory be a blessing.
My heartfelt condolences to Marian, Kevin's family, and all of us who regularly showed up here for the wisdom, wit, levity, and beauty. It was the best kind of classroom. A wise and interesting teacher. Engaged students and learners.
I'm really sad. I found it hard to get anything done yesterday. Last night I deleted the FEEDLY app off of my phone. I didn't really use it anymore. Everyone is gone or moved to substack. But Kevin was there and now he's not. And maybe I'm sad about that too. It used to be so good, the whole internet thing. So much smarter and nicer.
He was obviously so sick but I just never thought that he wouldn't make it.
F_ck.
I am so sad to read this post. I have been dreading this outcome for a long time. MArian, please take care of yourself and take so comfort is the knowledgeat Kevin was loved by many and will be missed.
I have followed Kevin since I discovered him on Mother Jones and was taken aback when he posted on March 3 that everything was getting worse and then...nothing for days. He was dedicated to facts and I loved the charts. His voice will be deeply missed.
I love Kevin's blog. Whenever I didn't understand what the hell was going on, I knew I could get the answers I needed from him.
I knew this day was coming, but now that it's here, I'm not at all prepared.
To Marian and cats: You have my deepest sympathy. I loss both parents and a stepfather to cancer. Cancer sucks.
Best wishes. Take care of yourself and the cats.
My heartfelt condolences. Kevin was a great writer and his ethical compass and analytical skills were unmatched. I recommended this blog more than any other. I think he should have had influence everywhere. I'm deeply sorry to hear this news.
So very sad to read of Kevin's passing. I, like many others, kept checking back to the blog, to see if Kevin had popped back up with a new chart and insights. Kevin, you will be sorely missed by your legion of followers. Bon voyage, my friend!
Dear Marian,
My heartfelt condolences to you and your family. Kevin was that rare person - a voice of reason and rationality. I have learnt so much from reading his blog.
This is sad news, indeed. I feel like I have lost a friend. I will be much stupider without Kevin's daily missves. Rest in peace.
I did not know Kevin personally, but I have read his blog every day for the past 10 years. Hearing that he has passed feels like losing a friend.
In today's "post-truth" world, Kevin's blog was like a lone voice of sanity amid the chaos. More than any other blogger or journalist I know, Kevin's views were always based on factual data, clear analysis, and a keen understanding of historical context. He never gave in to outrage or despair, and I especially enjoyed the regular posts (impossible to find almost anywhere else) where Kevin reminded his readers that the world was perhaps not as bad as it seemed to be.
I can offer no higher praise in memory of any man than this: the world was a far better place when Kevin Drum was in it, and it is a worse place now that he is gone. He will be sorely missed, by me and by many others.
This is sad news, indeed. I feel like I have lost a friend. I will be much less well-informed without his daily missive, and definitley much stupider. Condolences to his family. Rest in peace, KD.
My condolences to you and cats. I read him for decades and appreciated his perspective even when I didn't agree. This and another comment here are the only political posts I've made since November because he was worth it.
I hope your memories of him stay bright and clear for many years to come.
Fairmindedness has lost its greatest exponent.
Dear Marian,
I would like to extend my sincere condolences for your loss.
I have been reading your husband's blogs for more than 20 years and admired his writing and intellect very much. Reading about the travels, cats, photography, astronomy, etc., was always very enjoyable and helped his audience get to know him a little more personally, not to mention the sharing of his battle with multiple myeloma that we were all hoping he would somehow win. He was a rare person of high integrity in the online world of political analysis and will be sorely missed.
Thinking of you and all those close to him at this sad time.