We Actually Give A F*ck
Sometimes I get the sense that people in my life who aren’t fully bought in on The Bulwark community don’t quite understand why it matters so much to me. As with anything else in life they project their own attitudes, actions, and biases onto what we do here. Some see it as just a journalism job. Or as a different part of the same political game.
And I get it. Because that’s what most political outfits are. Just another part of the game.
I reflected on this a lot for my upcoming book -- sorry, you knew there’d be a book plug. One of the original title concepts I considered was: The Game, because I wanted to focus on all the ways in which the political game corrupts. How it's easy when you are in the middle of everything to sublimate doing the right thing in favor of doing what’s best for your team, or what will attract more cash, or, in the media world, what will get the most clicks.
What I find so soul-nourishing about The Bulwark is that we fundamentally refuse to do that. It isn’t in our DNA. In part, that’s because most of us have already been rejected from our team and so don’t have any other master to serve.
But the other reason is actually more meaningful than that. It’s because - to a person - everyone at The Bulwark actually gives a fuck about what happens to people and what happens to our country. This has been on display more than ever over the past two weeks.
Like most Americans we were all horrified, maddened, frustrated by the mass killings in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, and more. This raw sense that we should do something (which is a good impulse by the way, Ben Shapiro) was palpable on the podcasts and the livestreams and in our writing.
For some, it led to despair. For others, a call to action. For others, it demanded blood curdling fury. For me, it was a bit from every column, depending on which story my rage scrolling landed on last.
But we talked about it all live, together, and in the end The Bulwark, in various ways, is providing tangible, practical solutions that might actually make a difference—if the politicians reading (and trust me they are reading) actually had the balls, the smarts, and the courage to do it.
We may not always get it right, in fact I’m sure we won’t. But you will always know that the content you are getting is passionate, honest, and delivered by people who want what’s best for everyone, not just ourselves. Because the only skin we have in The Game is the fact that we all genuinely care about the result.
It’s thanks to Bulwark+ members that we can do this—have this spirited, ongoing dialogue about the things that really matter in this country.
It has been the most gratifying thing I have ever been a part of and I’ll always be grateful to those of you who have pitched in to ensure we can have this communal space.
For everyone else, I hope you would consider joining Bulwark+ so we can keep this conversation going—and keep adding new voices that will help us broaden it to more corners of our country—there is no doubt that is needed.
—Tim
