Approaching 10,000 Subscribers

The best political writing and societal commentary on the internet is at The Political Prism

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

In addition to this newsletter, I am the editor of The Political Prism on Medium. We’ve been live for a little over a year with the mission of promoting diverse political perspectives and viewpoints.

As of this writing, our subscriber base is closing in on 10,000.

While this growth may not be astronomical by some standards, it’s meaningful to me because it proves one thing — even in today’s social media environment of hot takes and soundbites, people want nuanced, critical thinking. They want to read stories that don’t simply affirm their confirmation biases, but that challenge their perspectives.

They want to feel something. They want stories that move them.

That’s what we aim to achieve at The Political Prism. And given that I am only able to dedicate a few hours per week to growing the publication, I’m really happy to witness its growth.

It’s the ultimate testament that if we want to consume or experience something in the world that doesn’t currently exist, we should create it. People will come, provided we never lose our authenticity or passion for what drove us to create in the first place.

That’s not to say this journey has been without challenges. But like I said in a recent story about making sourdough bread:

The shortcuts may save us time and they may make life easier, but this is where my new philosophy on sourdough bread converges with my overall philosophy on life — great things in this world are hard. And that’s a good thing. Great things should require a little more effort and time than average. That’s what makes them great.

If it wasn’t hard editing The Political Prism, it probably wouldn’t be worth it. It would probably be a sign that I wasn’t giving enough effort.

I wrote about the main editorial challenge I’m having in this recent piece on Medium, Extreme Views Need Not Apply. In short, some writers have challenged simple requests to address counterarguments or cite quality sources (or any sources at all).

I guess it should not be at all surprising that some writers don’t want to challenge their preconceived beliefs. Or that some are too lazy to add source hyperlinks that support their points.

I summarized it here:

We must make a choice — take the path of least resistance and not challenge our preconceived notions; continue to allow extremist views that fail to address counterarguments to proliferate; or take the road that’s increasingly less traveled by — challenging not only our audiences but ourselves with ideas we may not like or agree with initially.

I’m committed to taking the road less traveled by at The Political Prism. It may not be the best short term strategy for growth given the reality that extreme views travel faster online. But I firmly believe that it’s the best strategy long term.

Many people want nuanced, critical perspectives, but there simply aren’t enough forums online that serve this desire. From social media to mainstream media, biases proliferate and views trend towards the extremes.

While I’m certainly not infallible, I’m willing to try. These efforts have led many authors to get boosted in The Political Prism in the past few weeks. You can find some of these stories below.

If you’re interested in becoming a writer and maybe even making a little money on Medium, let me know in the comments. Regardless, I hope you’ll join as a subscriber, whether that’s via The Political Prism or through this newsletter where I share many other stories and essays in addition to updates from the publication.

Let’s make critical thinking cool again.

Here are some recently boosted stories at The Political Prism:

• The Real Cost of Tech Billionaires’ Abetment of MAGA’s War on Science by Dick Dowdell

• He Is the Fortunate Son by Dick Dowdell

• Who Earns Social Outcry? On ICE and Relational Empathy by Hannah Heering

• The GOP’s Big Beautiful Betrayal: Why Republicans Are Jumping Ship by Dick Dowdell

• A Law Student Wrote a Paper Arguing That Only White Citizens Should Vote by Anne Spollen

• Liberation Day’s Lasting Impact: How Treasury Markets Check Executive Power by John Polonis

• The Line We Didn’t Wait In — Whiteness and Immigration in Los Angeles by Hannah Herring

• The LA Protests Didn’t Start With Rocks by

  Neela 🌶️

• Trump Isn’t the Problem: Our Defense of Academic Freedom Is by Adam Sitze

Thank you for reading.

---

For more from me, subscribe to my YouTube and Instagram!