Dear Friends,
I believe in the innate goodness of people. That weāre all Godās children just trying to make our way in this crazy world, and that if we could hold hands together, for just a minute, we could bridge our differences and make it all work. The future we all want is right in front of us. All we have to do is grab it.
LOL no.
Everything is terrible, and the only future weāre going to get is the future we deserve.
But people? They might be better than I usually suppose.
***
A year ago we launched Bulwark+ without knowing what to expect. I constructed low-, median-, and high-variant scenarios in my head about how many people would take the plunge and support us, but we blew through the high variant in 12 weeks. And the reason why kind of shocked me.
We have a weird model at The Bulwark. We keep most of what we do free. Thatās because our mission isnāt to make moneyāitās to save democracy.
We have *a lot* of what I callously refer to as products. Between the podcasts, newsletters, and the actual publication TheBulwark.com, weāre running a small media empire. But there are no ads and most of what we do goes live to the world for free. Because ideas are important. If weāre going to fight our way out of this mess, itāll be ideas that save us.
So why did so many people join Bulwark+? It wasnāt as a fee-for-service. They werenāt buying a subscription. They were supporting a cause. They joined precisely so that they could help keep everything else free for other people. So that they could help amplify the case for democracy.
They joined so that they could be part of the signal.
***
If youāre reading this youāre on the free list, which means that you get all of our free stuff and youāre not actually missing all that much.
Thatās by design.
As I said: Weāre not doing this to get rich.
So hereās my ask:
Help boost the signal.
If you value what weāre doing and you can afford it, consider joining Bulwark+. Help subsidize the folks who canāt afford it. Help keep most of it free.
Take the next 30 days to try a Bulwark+ membershipāFREE. And see how it feels.
***
Iād be remiss if I didnāt point out there are some goodies you get only as a member. The team works hard to put these out for you each week and they deserve our kudos.
The big one is Thursday Night Bulwark, our weekly livestream which is, objectively speaking, better than anything youāll ever see on cable news. We skip the slick production values and just do substantive conversations with our staffers and the occasional Famous Person guest, like Dr. Ashish Jah, Eric Edelman, or Ben Wittes. I donāt want to oversell the thing, but itāll make you smarter. Itās that good. You get to pop in every Thursday night (tonight even!) and hang out in the chat with other Bulwark+ members, or you can watch it (or listen to it as a podcast) at your leisure.
Thereās also the weekly Secret Show I do with Sarah Longwell. There are the newsletters Charlie and I write every morning. And Sonny does bonus episodes of his Across the Movie Aisle podcast just for members, too.
Each of these member-only benefits live over on the Bulwark+ side of the site and can be delivered to your inbox, or not. Itās up to you which ones you want to get or skipāyou can update your member preferences as often as you like. And each has its own little corner of the Bulwark+ site.
But truly the big thing you get from joining is that you become part of the solution. You go from being a consumer to a fighter.
When you join Bulwark+, you become the signal.
Iāve been shockedāreally, truly shockedāhow many people have stood up with us to try to save democracy.
I hope you will, too.
JVL
