This is some real bubble-fueled shit thinking *substack* is the platform that will bring them votes. Bitch, it's obviously TikTok and Instagram if anything. Substack is for dorks who pay super close attention to everything and the dems have those voters in their pocket already. This is SO dumb.
Substack is more akin to what Twitter used to be, and what Twitter used to be was also the wrong platform for dems to use to gain traction with voters in the first place.
I have no idea how a big law firm like this works. Is having a hand full of partners leave a big deal? Don't people leave all the time? Don't they just bop over to Harvard or Yale and grab a few new ones?
James Carville used to say you could get anyone to say anything by running through a trailer park waving a twenty dollar bill. My guess is, you throw out a big enough salary and someone over at Harvard is going to bite. Principles are nice and all, but gotta pay the rent, am I right?
Another worthless article by Laura Egan. Chris Murphy is a prolific substacker? His last post was two months ago. Rahm Emanuel’s substack consists of one post containing a few paragraphs that he wrote on April 18.
This was a very well written article. So interesting. I guess if you think you are the leading social media company you better not relax. There is a better idea around the corner.
How do we find a particular comment or writer on Substack? I often receive a notice coming across my IPhone but can't find it when I go to my Substack app.
“ “One more point on the real danger posed by the system of seniority politics,” said DNC vice chair David Hogg. “It’s really sad that this happened, but the feelings of any particular member don’t take precedence over the millions of Americans who are going to be impacted by these bills.”
True. Now, there are some older Senators who are very active. Elizabeth Warren comes to mind. But if you are becoming increasingly feeble, or have a life-threatening illness, please let someone younger run.
Lauren, I'm curious why you chose to include Aaron Parnas's controversial father in noting Aaron as a journalist/reporter on Substack? Aaron is doing a great service for liberal independent reporting and he's receiving death threats and direct attacks by Trump. Why would you throw shade on a fellow soldier in this battle?
Really interesting article and I will definitely look up several of the Dems who are in here. I am however, assuming that elected Dems content would be free? I have paid subscriptions to a bunch of Substack writers and the costs quickly add up. If I got paid subscriptions to all the writers I would like, it could easily cost around $1,000 a year. However I would definitely be interested in getting long form content from Dems that isn’t a plea for more money.
I have strong doubts that Dem communication problems will be solved by many of them now running to Substack.
First, everyone still has only 24 hours in a day and only so much time he or she can devote to reading/ consuming substack content. How many people can any one person follow? So all these new Dem substack authors and podcasters will be competing for the attention of the same group of people, which will never be a large group since few people these days seem interested in reading longer pieces of writing or even listening to a serious discussion of a serious issue.
Second, we have been told many times now that Trump won in 2024 because he and MAGA activists managed to get very low propensity, low info voters to the polls (apparently, significant numbers only voted for Trump and left the rest of the ballot blank) with the help of cultural influencers (or whatever they are called) like Joe Rogan and Theo Von who primarily discuss sports and other stuff men find interesting and then toss in a bit of unsophisticated political talk here and there. The ideology of the influencers is effortlessly absorbed by these low info types, and with nothing else to base their vote on, they act on it. So Joe Rogan endorsing Trump last year likely had a real impact. These voters are not readers, they are more listeners and viewers, so substack authors are unlikely to reach them. And even podcasts, if they are primarily about policy or threats to democracy, are unlikely to be able to draw their attention and interest. It takes effort to digest what you read, but also what you hear, unless it is pretty mindless material.
As a septuagenarian I totally agree on setting an age limit for federal offices across the branches, executive, legislative and judicial at 75. We set age minimums why not maximums? I would be draconian enough to say that either anyone who turns 76 during their term has to resign or forbid running for office if their 76th birthday will arrive during the term of the office for which they are running. So a candidate for Senate could only be 68, for Congress 74, and President 72 and all limited to a single term.
I wonder how many of the Pew numbers on antisocial media users account for users who use multiple platforms. Personally I only use Facebook. I only use it as a method of staying up to date with family and what I call legacy relationships like old classmates and coworkers. The Facebook groups to which I belong are also nonpolitical with limited memberships. I post political content to which my Facebook peers may or may not agree. Almost everyone from my high school days are MAGA or MAGA adjacent but we try to keep our interactions civil
A while back someone complained that The Bulwark required too much reading. My complaint is that too much of The Bulwark content is now digital. Text allows engagement on a deeper level whereas talk just has to be entertaining and as with most conversations skips across the surfaces to keep the conversation moving. I am sure if I were younger with a more active lifestyle I would probably see it differently.
As more politcos of both parties migrate to Substack, I wonder how long before Republicans complain about how they're being censored or shadowbanned by the platform because a popular media site is not putting its thumb on any algorithms, and as a result, their hate content isn't reaching as large a percentage of the audience as it does on Facebook and Twitter. They worked the refs into Zuck changing Facebook's stances on moderation, and Elon bought Twitter and doesn't even care that it's obvious he's completely tipped the scales for Republicans there, but they're not going to have these advantages here, one would hope.
I am concerned about the fragmentation of news sources and delivery.
For all their many faults, legacy media has professional journalists who (mostly) follow a code of ethics to report facts, cite sources, and clearly label opinions. They have fact checkers (I make a monthly donation to Politifact). They have always functioned as a clearinghouse for ascertaining objective truth, and that function is more important than ever in the age of MAGA cultism.
The current fragmentation into multiple platforms and substacks may merely send more citizens into personal and tribal silos of information that conforms to their biases, with low-information, poorly educated voters sinking further and further into their imaginary world where fascism is great.
I think an alternative viewpoint to concern about fragmentation of news sources/delivery is that many people, increasingly, are obtaining their news from a growing range of sources. Legacy (corporate) media generally requires a paid subscription while most Substack writers allow one to read post even though a non-subscriber can't comment.
Regarding your last paragraph, that is already the reality. There will always be those who prefer narrower perspectives but there also are, I believe, increasing numbers of Americans who are becoming aware of the threats of dictatorship we are facing. I don't believe more people will retreat to personal or silos of information just because there are increased ways to get news and opinions. Much depends on an individual's ability/desire/choices to understand beyond those silos, and we Substack readers are already here.
I believe others will continue to join us to read Substack writers especially as we share our preferred Substack writers with others as I do. The only social media I'm on is FB but I post A LOT of the writers I follow, often with excerpts to catch initial attention. I have little way of knowing how many of my FB Friends read what I post or share it on. But that's true of any media source be it traditional or new digital formats like Substack, BlueSky, TikTok, and Instagram. Each has its own audience even when there's overlap. We need all of them available.
I'm skeptical Substack will make much of a difference, because the low information voters that now seem to decide presidential elections probably will not be consumers of long form Substack discussions (maybe some younger voters will but I fear it will then degenerate into endless grievance sharing).
Elections have probably always been decided by low information voters. The difference is that they are not only uninformed they are radically misinformed.
Okay, but….here’s a quote from your NYT link on the partners leaving Paul Weiss:
“Ms. Dunn was supportive of the decision to strike a deal with Mr. Trump and was part of the firm’s leadership team that worked with Mr. Karp in getting other partners’ support, two people briefed on the matter said.
Ms. Dunn, aided by Ms. Rhee and Mr. Isaacson, led Google’s trial defense last year in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit over its advertising technology business. The judge overseeing the case ruled last month that Google had illegally monopolized parts of the industry, but dismissed a section of the government’s case.
This month, after Paul Weiss reached the deal with the Trump administration, Ms. Dunn and Ms. Rhee represented the company in court as the judge began the process of determining how to address the monopoly identified by her ruling.”
SO….why was Ms Dunn “supportive” of the decision to make a deal with Trump? Why did she help negotiate the deal? Why did she wait until now to leave the firm? Was it just so that she and her team could buy the time necessary to finish the Google trial they were working on?
Seems like their actions were “hypocritical adjacent” to me.
To be fair to Dunn et al., they had ethical responsibilities to their client Google to continue representation given they were in mid-trial in a complex antitrust case. It's more than just about "buying time." As far as Dunn "being supportive" of the Paul Weiss-Trump deal, it does make me taste a little vomit, but she was a partner of Paul Weiss at the time and had a fiduciary duty to the firm and an ethical duty to her client (Google) and may have seen "being supportive" as her only option as not "being supportive" may have futher prejudiced her client against Trump's DOJ. The fact that they are resigning now is a good thing.
I understand that, but she “was part of the firm’s leadership team that worked with Mr. Karp in getting other partners’ support”. She actively made the deal happen, and now she’s leaving? It’s a little too stomach churning for me.
If you missed the point of Parks and Rec: I shall just pick 3 (5) random amazing quotes about, people, democracy, opinions and listening and non-listening skills.
1) No Twilight! Yes Twilight!
2) All I can tell you is that all the parks are closed. It's not a competition, but if it were, I would win.
3) I have no idea what I am saying.
4) Have you ever thought not eating that for breakfast?
When I hear people yelling at me, I hear people caring ALOT.
Substack doesn't strike me as the kind of place to attract the type of voters who pushed Trump over the top. But maybe he won't be on the ballot next time, and those voters will disappear back into the woodwork from whence they came. Or not - if voting's become a habit.
As for the age thing, most 50 or 60 yos are simply more energetic than most 70 or 80 yos. (I developed orthostatic hypotension in just the past few months, and brother was that a kick in the head for a once agile tango dancer.) That said, I would never vote for a twerp like Hogg just because he's still in kindergarten.
I don’t think you attract low-info voters on Substack. But you can talk to very engaged, high info ones here, and those are the people who donate money and volunteer on campaigns. And that’s worth a lot.
This is some real bubble-fueled shit thinking *substack* is the platform that will bring them votes. Bitch, it's obviously TikTok and Instagram if anything. Substack is for dorks who pay super close attention to everything and the dems have those voters in their pocket already. This is SO dumb.
Substack is more akin to what Twitter used to be, and what Twitter used to be was also the wrong platform for dems to use to gain traction with voters in the first place.
Re: "Paul Weiss"
Okay... So now what happens?
I have no idea how a big law firm like this works. Is having a hand full of partners leave a big deal? Don't people leave all the time? Don't they just bop over to Harvard or Yale and grab a few new ones?
James Carville used to say you could get anyone to say anything by running through a trailer park waving a twenty dollar bill. My guess is, you throw out a big enough salary and someone over at Harvard is going to bite. Principles are nice and all, but gotta pay the rent, am I right?
Another worthless article by Laura Egan. Chris Murphy is a prolific substacker? His last post was two months ago. Rahm Emanuel’s substack consists of one post containing a few paragraphs that he wrote on April 18.
This was a very well written article. So interesting. I guess if you think you are the leading social media company you better not relax. There is a better idea around the corner.
How do we find a particular comment or writer on Substack? I often receive a notice coming across my IPhone but can't find it when I go to my Substack app.
“ “One more point on the real danger posed by the system of seniority politics,” said DNC vice chair David Hogg. “It’s really sad that this happened, but the feelings of any particular member don’t take precedence over the millions of Americans who are going to be impacted by these bills.”
True. Now, there are some older Senators who are very active. Elizabeth Warren comes to mind. But if you are becoming increasingly feeble, or have a life-threatening illness, please let someone younger run.
Lauren, I'm curious why you chose to include Aaron Parnas's controversial father in noting Aaron as a journalist/reporter on Substack? Aaron is doing a great service for liberal independent reporting and he's receiving death threats and direct attacks by Trump. Why would you throw shade on a fellow soldier in this battle?
Really interesting article and I will definitely look up several of the Dems who are in here. I am however, assuming that elected Dems content would be free? I have paid subscriptions to a bunch of Substack writers and the costs quickly add up. If I got paid subscriptions to all the writers I would like, it could easily cost around $1,000 a year. However I would definitely be interested in getting long form content from Dems that isn’t a plea for more money.
I have strong doubts that Dem communication problems will be solved by many of them now running to Substack.
First, everyone still has only 24 hours in a day and only so much time he or she can devote to reading/ consuming substack content. How many people can any one person follow? So all these new Dem substack authors and podcasters will be competing for the attention of the same group of people, which will never be a large group since few people these days seem interested in reading longer pieces of writing or even listening to a serious discussion of a serious issue.
Second, we have been told many times now that Trump won in 2024 because he and MAGA activists managed to get very low propensity, low info voters to the polls (apparently, significant numbers only voted for Trump and left the rest of the ballot blank) with the help of cultural influencers (or whatever they are called) like Joe Rogan and Theo Von who primarily discuss sports and other stuff men find interesting and then toss in a bit of unsophisticated political talk here and there. The ideology of the influencers is effortlessly absorbed by these low info types, and with nothing else to base their vote on, they act on it. So Joe Rogan endorsing Trump last year likely had a real impact. These voters are not readers, they are more listeners and viewers, so substack authors are unlikely to reach them. And even podcasts, if they are primarily about policy or threats to democracy, are unlikely to be able to draw their attention and interest. It takes effort to digest what you read, but also what you hear, unless it is pretty mindless material.
As a septuagenarian I totally agree on setting an age limit for federal offices across the branches, executive, legislative and judicial at 75. We set age minimums why not maximums? I would be draconian enough to say that either anyone who turns 76 during their term has to resign or forbid running for office if their 76th birthday will arrive during the term of the office for which they are running. So a candidate for Senate could only be 68, for Congress 74, and President 72 and all limited to a single term.
I wonder how many of the Pew numbers on antisocial media users account for users who use multiple platforms. Personally I only use Facebook. I only use it as a method of staying up to date with family and what I call legacy relationships like old classmates and coworkers. The Facebook groups to which I belong are also nonpolitical with limited memberships. I post political content to which my Facebook peers may or may not agree. Almost everyone from my high school days are MAGA or MAGA adjacent but we try to keep our interactions civil
A while back someone complained that The Bulwark required too much reading. My complaint is that too much of The Bulwark content is now digital. Text allows engagement on a deeper level whereas talk just has to be entertaining and as with most conversations skips across the surfaces to keep the conversation moving. I am sure if I were younger with a more active lifestyle I would probably see it differently.
As more politcos of both parties migrate to Substack, I wonder how long before Republicans complain about how they're being censored or shadowbanned by the platform because a popular media site is not putting its thumb on any algorithms, and as a result, their hate content isn't reaching as large a percentage of the audience as it does on Facebook and Twitter. They worked the refs into Zuck changing Facebook's stances on moderation, and Elon bought Twitter and doesn't even care that it's obvious he's completely tipped the scales for Republicans there, but they're not going to have these advantages here, one would hope.
I am concerned about the fragmentation of news sources and delivery.
For all their many faults, legacy media has professional journalists who (mostly) follow a code of ethics to report facts, cite sources, and clearly label opinions. They have fact checkers (I make a monthly donation to Politifact). They have always functioned as a clearinghouse for ascertaining objective truth, and that function is more important than ever in the age of MAGA cultism.
The current fragmentation into multiple platforms and substacks may merely send more citizens into personal and tribal silos of information that conforms to their biases, with low-information, poorly educated voters sinking further and further into their imaginary world where fascism is great.
I think an alternative viewpoint to concern about fragmentation of news sources/delivery is that many people, increasingly, are obtaining their news from a growing range of sources. Legacy (corporate) media generally requires a paid subscription while most Substack writers allow one to read post even though a non-subscriber can't comment.
Regarding your last paragraph, that is already the reality. There will always be those who prefer narrower perspectives but there also are, I believe, increasing numbers of Americans who are becoming aware of the threats of dictatorship we are facing. I don't believe more people will retreat to personal or silos of information just because there are increased ways to get news and opinions. Much depends on an individual's ability/desire/choices to understand beyond those silos, and we Substack readers are already here.
I believe others will continue to join us to read Substack writers especially as we share our preferred Substack writers with others as I do. The only social media I'm on is FB but I post A LOT of the writers I follow, often with excerpts to catch initial attention. I have little way of knowing how many of my FB Friends read what I post or share it on. But that's true of any media source be it traditional or new digital formats like Substack, BlueSky, TikTok, and Instagram. Each has its own audience even when there's overlap. We need all of them available.
I'm skeptical Substack will make much of a difference, because the low information voters that now seem to decide presidential elections probably will not be consumers of long form Substack discussions (maybe some younger voters will but I fear it will then degenerate into endless grievance sharing).
Elections have probably always been decided by low information voters. The difference is that they are not only uninformed they are radically misinformed.
Okay, but….here’s a quote from your NYT link on the partners leaving Paul Weiss:
“Ms. Dunn was supportive of the decision to strike a deal with Mr. Trump and was part of the firm’s leadership team that worked with Mr. Karp in getting other partners’ support, two people briefed on the matter said.
Ms. Dunn, aided by Ms. Rhee and Mr. Isaacson, led Google’s trial defense last year in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit over its advertising technology business. The judge overseeing the case ruled last month that Google had illegally monopolized parts of the industry, but dismissed a section of the government’s case.
This month, after Paul Weiss reached the deal with the Trump administration, Ms. Dunn and Ms. Rhee represented the company in court as the judge began the process of determining how to address the monopoly identified by her ruling.”
SO….why was Ms Dunn “supportive” of the decision to make a deal with Trump? Why did she help negotiate the deal? Why did she wait until now to leave the firm? Was it just so that she and her team could buy the time necessary to finish the Google trial they were working on?
Seems like their actions were “hypocritical adjacent” to me.
To be fair to Dunn et al., they had ethical responsibilities to their client Google to continue representation given they were in mid-trial in a complex antitrust case. It's more than just about "buying time." As far as Dunn "being supportive" of the Paul Weiss-Trump deal, it does make me taste a little vomit, but she was a partner of Paul Weiss at the time and had a fiduciary duty to the firm and an ethical duty to her client (Google) and may have seen "being supportive" as her only option as not "being supportive" may have futher prejudiced her client against Trump's DOJ. The fact that they are resigning now is a good thing.
I understand that, but she “was part of the firm’s leadership team that worked with Mr. Karp in getting other partners’ support”. She actively made the deal happen, and now she’s leaving? It’s a little too stomach churning for me.
If you missed the point of Parks and Rec: I shall just pick 3 (5) random amazing quotes about, people, democracy, opinions and listening and non-listening skills.
1) No Twilight! Yes Twilight!
2) All I can tell you is that all the parks are closed. It's not a competition, but if it were, I would win.
3) I have no idea what I am saying.
4) Have you ever thought not eating that for breakfast?
When I hear people yelling at me, I hear people caring ALOT.
Substack doesn't strike me as the kind of place to attract the type of voters who pushed Trump over the top. But maybe he won't be on the ballot next time, and those voters will disappear back into the woodwork from whence they came. Or not - if voting's become a habit.
As for the age thing, most 50 or 60 yos are simply more energetic than most 70 or 80 yos. (I developed orthostatic hypotension in just the past few months, and brother was that a kick in the head for a once agile tango dancer.) That said, I would never vote for a twerp like Hogg just because he's still in kindergarten.
I don’t think you attract low-info voters on Substack. But you can talk to very engaged, high info ones here, and those are the people who donate money and volunteer on campaigns. And that’s worth a lot.