Battle of the Alternative Media

And why the MAGA world seems to be winning the war even if they lose a battle here or there.

The Bulwark battles against the Free Press and the Dispatch

This morning, I was glancing at the Substack app whilst I was walking my dog (he does stop to smell and pee - a LOT) and a note by Amy (@amylizwrites) caught my attention, because it triggered a foggy notion that has been swirling around my subconscious for a while now:

First, prior to seeing this, I saw that post by Mr. Sullivan, and I clicked on it because that is largely what I take away from the once a month or so when I dip a toe in at The Free Press, the newsletter, nay, Media company that is centered around Bari Weiss and her tantrum when she left her cushy perch at The New York Times, and was courted (and feted) by the founders of Substack in one of their “we need writers, we will pay you a fuck-ton to just develop an audience here, and we will game the algorithms to ensure that you win” waves.¹

While I didn’t dive into Mr. Sullivan’s page, I saw by his discourse in the comments that he isn’t really that upset about the abuses of the Trump administration, he would just prefer they were a wee bit less dickish about it.

So, I was expecting something similar to this by Amy and her back and forth, and this snippet caught me short:

Thomas captures it perfectly. Especially the quip about the Bulwark being better at supporting Democrats than the bulk of the left. At least if you are much closer to the center in the Democratic party. And that is fair. The left drives a lot of the loser messaging and culture war too far, alienating where we are as a society².

This led me to do some reflecting.

Last week, in the comment section of one of the Bulwark newsletters, I made a quip about the Anti-Anti bastion, The Dispatch, and someone replied that they have like what, 8 maybe 10 readers. I replied that they were about the same size and reach as The Bulwark, and that got pushback.

A’ight, during the interregnum betwixt the election and the swearing in in January, one of the Bulwark podcasts discussed how their original business plan was to get a couple hundred thousand subscribers, but that they had passed 500K in the aftermath of the election, and a new goal of one million subscribers, and perhaps 200K paid subscribers. But how big is The Dispatch?

The consensus is that they have about 600K subscribers, and 45K are paying (I am one of the paying ones as I like to keep an eye on the anti-anti orthodoxy).

So, the Never Trump bastion is about the same size as the Anti-Anti big dog.

And frankly that tells me that the anti-anti’s and the MAGA adjacent leanings of The Free Press (another 750K free and 100K paying subscribers) tells me that the forces fighting against Trump and Trumpism/MAGA is outgunned two to one.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

I will leave you with this outstanding post by The New Republic on the Billionaire influence in the media:

What’s the Matter with Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi?

1. One thing to keep in mind is that a LOT of the funding for Substack comes from internet curmudgeon Marc Andreesen, a crypto fawning VC who’s ego is only surpassed by Elon Musk

2. And where are we? The truth is that before the Overton window moved to Timbuktu, the overall populace of the USA was slightly right of center, and far more conservative than the lefties will ever admit.