Going Paid

A new chapter for Regime Critic

For the last several months my posting here on Substack has fallen off. There are good reasons for this: I was unbanned on X (finally) and my audience there has taken off. I’ve also been working on my dissertation.

It is almost complete. A new chapter in my life after 5 years of working on this project opens up before me.

Substack is part of that plan. I believe that Substack matters; it has a meaningful and unique place in the wider media ecosystem. It offers a place for longer, more thoughtful analysis and better, high-quality dialogue than can be found on X, TruthSocial, or Gab.

The audience interaction here is very good, and it is time I tended to it again.

New Media—the online communities existing on the two major free speech platforms of X and Substack—are the future. There are enormous possibilities here not only for financial success but for the cultivation a new audience for conservative thought outside the older gatekept world of Fox News, conservative publications, and talk radio.

A recent trip to DC drove this point home for me: the young staffers and advisors in the Trump administration and on the Hill are online. They are here, in these spaces. They were raised in them. This is where they turn for ideas, inspiration, research, and political community.

It is my job as a citizen, scholar, researcher, writer, and thinker to provide value and assistance to my president and to those who work for him. Social media is the primary vehicle I have to make that happen.

It is my job to provide value to my fellow Americans. I can do that by making cogent arguments about the right way forward on issues of crucial national importance.

So I am returning to Substack with a renewed sense of purpose and drive. I intend to publish on a more consistent basis, to dramatically ramp up the quantity of my work here. Lots of daily smaller posts 350-500 words on the issues of the day. I also plan on writing longer, high quality pieces as well. With the dissertation to be soon off of my plate, I intend to fill that time with work here and on X.

I will especially focus on geopolitics, foreign affairs, diplomacy, and war. If there was one thing that I took away from the “12 Day War” between Iran and Israel, it is that there are not enough intelligent and compelling non-interventionist (or realist) voices in the media space. The warhawks and crusaders still have a powerful rhetorical advantage. That needs to change.

In line with this renewed commitment to this platform, I have decided to turn on paid subscriptions. I believe the work here I do is valuable and worthwhile. If you share that view, then I ask you to consider subscribing.

There is a TON of money in America for political work. Conservative non-profits are a dime a dozen with millions of dollars flowing into their coffers from patriotic Americans all over the country. Yet, so often in my experience these organizations simply do not deliver on their promises. They talk a big game but don’t have the results to show for it.

Substack allows for a better, more populist model—lots of small dollar donors able to divert resources to individuals who offer a direct link to research and writing that speaks to the issues of the day. For my part, I think the older generation of conservative thinktanks is too hidebound and ossified to really keep up with the emerging trends in our national life.

Americans want less migration, law and order, and an end to pointless foreign wars. They went their country back and they are tired of the lies, bullshit, and euphemisms that characterize our public life. Americans want honesty, good humor, and cutting edge analysis.

This populist wave is a good thing. I am grateful to be a part of it. But I want to go further. Every dollar you give to my work here is a step on the way toward total financial independence. That freedom is crucial, in my mind, to the kind of honest and hard-hitting analysis that we need right now.

Call me sub, the way I stack this money.

The one voice policy of places like Heritage and others can stultify new voices. It can serve as a brake for better, more compelling ideas. I believe agility and competition are the best ways to find new ideas. Substack and X provide that.

But the two platforms reach very different audiences. X tends to be younger, funnier, and faster-moving. The short form style, memes, inside jokes, and heightened emotional tenor give it a very different style than here.

Substack is better for analysis, sustained engagement, and audience interaction. It generates lower but higher-quality numbers. X is filled with patriots but it also has an ocean of third-worlders, spambots, and porn accounts floating around too.

These differences are important. As a writer and thinker, I need to be in both places.

So here I am.

As I convert to a paid model, I plan on placing certain regular articles behind a paywall. These posts will be oriented toward showing “research in process.” They will be a window into my thought process and an invitation to collaboration. I want to hear from those of you who wish to participate directly in making my overall political project successful.

My aim is to secure peace and prosperity for myself and my children and my countrymen. I want to help President Trump. I want to help his advisors and subordinates.

Trump can’t do this alone and neither can I. I need you, the audience. I am grateful for everything you do. Without you reading, engaging, commenting, and subscribing, I would not have the reach that I do.

I am not in this alone, and you are not simply a passive “consumer” of content. You and I are bound together. We need each other. So let us get to our work with cheerfulness and energy. There is much to do.