Building the future of democratic media

The road ahead for this newsletter -- and much more beyond that.

Live from New York, it’s Monday morning. Time to crank out some writing for y’all!

This newsletter began as an experiment earlier this year — a way to extend the experience of the Taking Down Trump book, to cover the legal cases and the political case against Donald Trump on an ongoing basis in ways that a book of course cannot.

It has become much more than that — although, sadly, much less as well.

We were on the cusp of the most pivotal prosecutions in American history, on the cusp of affirming the rule of law in triumphant fashion, affirming that it could be applied even against one of the most powerful men in the country, stopping that former president from becoming a future king.

That dream is dead for now, and instead of an affirmation of our system, it was a repudiation. In America in 2024, we cannot say that no one is above the law, because it is simply not true. It will be again someday — but not now.

Yet there are signs of vitality, if you know where to look: the election was one of the closest in our history, with a margin of 1.5%, far from any kind of mandate. We should not be looking to detonate Democratic politics, because it was a close loss, not a landslide.¹

And perhaps even more encouragingly, there has been an outpouring of support for new forms of pro-democracy media — including on Bluesky, as well as here on Substack.

Including this newsletter, which has suddenly grown much faster since the election, up over 32% in just a month (!!!).

What does this mean for the future — and how can we hasten its arrival?

It has been apparent for years and years now that the pro-democracy coalition needed to do more to embrace digital media, the way that the alt-right has since 2013 — with such diabolical success that the alt-right is now simply the mainstream right. Along with its strongholds in legacy media (Fox News, Sinclair), the right-wing media ecosystem has become the loudest propaganda machine in America, now far exceeding the volume of the legacy mainstream media (which continues to cling to an outmoded centrism the same way it clings to its dwindling audience). And the real story behind that is how far-right billionaires have spent at least a billion dollars in the last decade to make that happen, resulting in Turning Point, CPAC, Prager, InfoWars, and the Daily Wire, among others.

The pro-democracy coalition has done nothing of the sort so far. Our next generation of content creators — podcasters, social media influencers, newsletter writers, and other digital commentators — are almost entirely self-funded, building themselves up brick by brick through crowdfunding.

The good news is that this crowdfunding is working — because wonderful readers and activists like you are stepping up — and I believe the silver lining from the election is that it is serving as a spark for the formation of new alliances, new projects, new ventures, which will accelerate the creation of a truly modern pro-democracy media in the US.

But we’re running out of time. It has usually taken two to three years for a new digital media project to become self-sustaining — and we need to move much faster than that now. Our democracy, our freedoms, and our planet are all at stake.

So now, today, I ask for your support to help me build our future even faster.

To be clear, this 100% voluntary. This newsletter will not go behind a paywall. The new paradigm in our community here is a wonderful one: information will be free for everyone, and those who can afford to support it step up to do so.

Your support will allow me to produce more content here, to spend more time with you (while still getting to see my family!) — and also to build the larger content engine that a number of us have started working on together, which will amplify and raise up even more voices, more shows, more newsletter content, and more community, along with live shows and events.

To support this even more, I also invite you to become a Co-Founder — giving more on behalf of those who are not able to give, to help make sure that this effort not only continues but thrives.

I will continue to stand with you, to serve you, and to support you, every way I can — and I hope that now, you will stand with me as well.

I am enormously thankful for your generosity and your kind encouragement, and I firmly believe in our ability to achieve great victories — together.

Onward and upward,

Tristan

1. This does not mean we should not be looking to improve Democratic politics, because we absolutely should. But that’s a tale for another time.