Let’s set Substack’s “Nazi problem” aside for a moment. What if the bigger issue is being stranded on a collapsing platform... with a bunch of Nazis? Substack's content woes are bound up with its shaky business model in ways that are bad for all of us.

It's Substacks All the Way Down

Last week, Terry Moran announced that he’d be the latest high-profile journalist to take his brand to Substack, following his dismissal from ABC due to having the correct opinion of Stephen Miller. His Real Patriotism now has over 113k subscribers and about a dozen posts.

Quinn Dombrowski

I’m trying to get out of the habit of guessing what my life looks like from the outside. I’ve just been proven wrong too many times. I’ve always tried to be honest about it but I also know what I try to say and what you believe are not quite the same thing. So I don’t know what you—dear newsletter reader—think my life is like. I don’t know if you think I’m as lazy as I am in the habit of telling myself.

Anyway, here’s a peek at my process as a workaholic in recovery.

This newsletter has been somewhat stop-start, because my life has been stop-start. And for the past year and a half or so, I have leaned into accepting that I cannot work the way I used to work.

The other day, I ran into someone who told me about a friend who used to be a daily, high-functioning ketamine user (now in recovery).

I’ve taken ketamine under a doctor’s supervision for treatment-resistant depression, and from that limited experience, I’m floored by the idea of being remotely functional on ketamine. Yes, the dose in a clinic is high, but even in the tail end I can feel how distorted my thinking is. In the middle of it, I can barely tell my body exists. The few times I’ve tried to write while it’s still in my system, I’ve produced near-gibberish. (It was very effective in treating my depression; a story for another time.)

So, for no reason related to current events, I asked to connect with the former daily ketamine user and ask a few questions.

Last week, I had the honor of speaking at a fundraiser for the DFL Senate primary campaign of Peggy Flanagan, now the lieutenant governor of Minnesota. My friend Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl introduced Peggy and made a somewhat glancing reference to how we are currently struggling with an evil empire, stormtroopers dragging people away, rebellions crushed—and, Dara told the crowd, “You can’t put a rebellion on a Visa,” so pay up to Peggy.

Peggy picked up the thread: “Well, if we are in a rebellion,” she said, “you know what rebellions are built on?”

“Hope!” I shouted—that quote from Rogue One had been planted in Andor just the night before.

When it was my turn to speak, I circled back to Dara’s point: you can’t put the rebellion on a credit card. I admitted I wanted to call Peggy our own Mon Mothma—but added that it shouldn’t have to come to that.

Some things sit on the edge of your desk—or on your conscience—until it’s almost too late. Past Due is a show about those things.

It launches today.

I’m co-hosting it with Open Mike Eagle, and our first episode is a conversation with Paul F. Tompkins about the difference between “success” and “stability,” the shifting ground in Hollywood, and why he continues to do comedy even when it means contemplating a Station-11-style troubadour life. It’s the perfect conversation to kick off the show, because it was born from the same frustrations and contradictions so many of us carry—but don’t always say out loud.

My idea for Past Due came from loving what I do—but being haunted by the sense that it doesn’t love me back.

Hey friends,

I wrote earlier this week about my piece in The New Republic on how the radical right captured mass culture. As I said, the piece took time and support.

What it feels like to be in the middle of a big piece like that (trudging up a mud mountain in a thunderstorm) is one reason I built The Slow Burn, a workshop for writers who want to keep creating while the world is on fire.

We start this Saturday, May 3. If you’ve been thinking about it, there’s still time to join.(You can sign up here.)

What makes something so bad it's good is usually some level of humanity... [T]here's never gonna be a "Waterworld" made by AI. There's never gonna be something that's just a huge swing and a miss. Like, "Waterworld" and "Battlefield Earth" were both made out of one person's ego, which makes them kind of beautiful disasters. Should anyone have the power and influence to make movies that bad? I don't know, but they're human movies.

That's from my interview with Parker Malloy last week about my piece in The New Republic called How the Radical Right Captured the Culture.

You can read that interview here.

The piece is about the influence conservatives have had on mass culture and, more than that, about the collapse of the systems that once made pop culture more resilient and occasionally revolutionary.

It was time.

Just a quick note to say I’m now writing from Buttondown, not Substack.

I’ve been meaning to move for a while. Recent events caused me to rethink my own complicity in supporting a platform that shares profits with Nazis and transphobes… and, as a result, I’ve taken action.

I’ll share more soon, but for now: Thank you for reading. It means a lot to be in a space that feels more aligned with my values and I hope with yours, too.

I often try to take what I’ve learned in addiction recovery and stretch it out to you earthlings. I want so badly to offer the ideas and practices that have pulled me through the worst times. But today, I need to make it about me.

The thought of taking a drink has been close by lately. She’s a visitor who’s never really left me in the thirteen years and 350 days I’ve been sober. Today, she’s so close. Just standing there. Just reminding me of the sweet astringent feel of a gin martini and the briny bite of an olive after. Luxurious smoky caramel swallows of bourbon. A sudsy, cool, throat-rinsing sip of beer.

Writing that makes my mouth water. She’s good at this.

I hosted my recovery-writing workshop last night and we finally got around to Didion’s The White Album, which I still love despite all the white lady cliches.1 I use it as an example of how lack of transitions doesn’t really detract from the reading experience, and can even be an intentional reflection of a fragmented time (and all memoirs are fragmented, unless they’re lying).

I read The White Album in my twenties and it gave me direction. I wanted be her. Now, I recognize her coolness as the result of enormous effort and great personal cost. In her later work, she wrote about this exchange more directly, life having forced her into what cannot be turned into distant events: loss, aging. But grief and loss and uncertainty have been with her the whole time.

Just like they have been for me, despite my efforts to smooth things into an acceptable shape.

I’ve been thinking about the things I used to believe were necessary—small luxuries, certain assurances, the way the world was supposed to work. Some of them I gave up willingly. Some I had to let go.

I may yet write an essay about this, but a poem came out first.

The opposite of "prestige television" is cable news.

I say this as both a consumer and a participant. For many of us, it's like delivery food, cigarettes, or driving a gas-guzzling car: convenient, kind of fun, kind of bad for you/the world, sometimes worth it, a little addictive, and something you might not admit to indulging in too much. Something you keep saying you’ll quit. In the righteousness of early sobriety, I sometimes asked people to avoid the phrase "news junkie." I’m less offended by its accuracy these days.

For decades, cable news’ main selling point was immediacy. When Americans wanted to know what was happening right now, cable news offered a glimpse into the scene. That is still when it’s at its best—when world events unfold too fast to even develop an intellectual framework for them. When they just turn the cameras on. Anchors reacting in real-time to tragedy or awe—no matter what worldview they bring—can help us develop our national flash-memory for catastrophe. The humanity of someone seeing what we’re seeing and trying to process it can make us feel less alone.

Trump’s not-State of the Union went so long that I was bumped off the network that booked me for commentary, which is good, actually. I don’t have much more to say about it beyond what I put on BlueSky:

• This is all gross and I hate it.

• Glad they're chanting "USA! USA!", I have genuinely forgotten what country I'm living in lately.

• I want to do violence.

Like many lefties, I’m mostly just disappointed in the Democrats. Trump did Trump shit, absolutely nothing more remarkable than what’s already happening. Contra Ardle McMegan, this was not “a pretty normal State of the Union speech,”1 it was just a speech in keeping with the absolute apocalypse already in progress.

I think I would like it if my writing about recovery overlapped less with my writing about politics, but here we are.

I’m a survivor of too many things to list here. As I have said before: I’m an expert on hopelessness. That makes me an expert on hope.

The last month has been body blow after body blow. The actions we can take matter, but whatever victories we can manage feel a long way off. The news is a rolling series of cuts—the bleeding never stops. Most of the blood is metaphorical. Mostly. But only, we fear, for now.

Jeff Bezos reached into the heart of the Washington Post opinion page and crushed whatever was left of its life today in a letter that deserves a close read but that I frankly don’t have time to do.

One reason I don’t post much here is that I’ve still been trying to put together a living doing what I’ve done for over twenty years now: writing opinion pieces for outlets that give a shit enough to develop them, to be somewhat choosy about the quality, to value the back-and-forth of an edit.

You may know me as someone who’s battered against established journalism from the outside. I became famous as an outsider to the Washington scene. I’ve long worked at independent or upstart outlets. But I mocked the institutions from a position of wanting them to be better. I grew up loving The New York Times, the Washington Post, and, yes, Rolling Stone and The Nation—because they all took democracy seriously enough to support critical journalism of power.

While I scraped together a living writing from the outside, I appreciated and even envied those who could count on the luxury of a newsroom and health insurance to do similar work. When I got positions that offered that, I believe I took full advantage of them. The hustle of independence is actually a pretty bad position to create from—at least for me.

The Blu-ray case for Alex Garland’s Civil War lies. It identifies the name of the movie, the director, and the cast correctly. But the picture on the cover is a scene that isn’t in the movie.

Two helicopters sweep toward the Statue of Liberty. More fill the smoky sky, the skylines of Manhattan and New Jersey barely visible behind them. The Hudson, however, is clearly visible. The ribbon of water snakes to the center of the horizon. The bay and the river reflect back a bloated orange sun clothed in more smoke and dark wispy clouds. The entire case is cast in this bruised hue, a stark contrast to the lime-green letters spelling out the title.

I’m not even sure the scene is geographically possible, but it looks a lot like the poster for Apocalypse Now, which this movie resembles in only the most superficial of ways. You could call Civil War a journey to the heart of darkness, maybe, if Washington, D.C. counts as the heart of darkness. For a lot of people on both the left and right these days, it does.

I ran into a friend I know from recovery circles this morning. We sat on a bench in the perfect morning light and he told me he had relapsed a couple of months ago. He hadn’t told anyone but he was telling people now. He was drinking and doing drugs every night. He lost his job and needed to sell his truck. His brother was crashing with him and the house was a dump and he hated it but didn’t see the point in keeping it clean.

But the worst part, he said, was feeling so alone. “And I’m doing everything wrong. I know I’m doing it wrong. I keep using but I don’t want to use. But I can’t stop. I don’t know if I want to be sober.”

My friend is young, maybe mid-20s. His two girls live with their mom and he brags about them constantly. He has a rough Texas accent and wears wire spectacles and cowboy boots.

I decided not to do Christmas this year.1 I suspected that giving up the hassle of gifts and dropped fir needles would give me some breathing room—but I prepared for it to be accompanied by wistful self-pity. Yet, this month has turned out to be one of the sweetest holidays I’ve ever had.

After my Thanksgiving Day leak was resolved and the water reclamation company removed their dehumidifiers and fans, it was already December 14. In my living room, shoved-aside furniture exposed a six-by-six-foot square of concrete where they’d ripped out my hardwood floor. Christmas decor would only draw attention to the chaos, I thought. It would only remind me of how low and alone I’d felt, even if I didn’t feel that way anymore.

When I was growing up, we brought out the Christmas decorations and put up the tree on my mom’s birthday, December 13. I tried to restart that particular tradition during my first post-divorce holidays and discovered that mid-December comes much earlier than it used to. By then, only the saddest Charlie Brown trees remain at the lots, the lush live wreaths are gone, and the decor that’s left is picked over and grimy with many hands. I resolved that it was both pointless and too late to make Christmas happen.

If you read my melancholy-yet-forward-looking, hopeless-yet-hopeful Foundations essay and thought, “Yeah, I wanna do that!” may I suggest you check out my recovery writing workshops?

I have two coming up:

• The Holi-taint Happy Hour, Dec. 26-Jan. 1: Designed for reflection and reframing during the weirdest time of the year. Writing prompts, community, quiet. Find out more here, register here. Suggested donation for the mini-workshop of $50 (PayPal me here), but whatever you can afford is great, even if that’s nothing. Times are tight.

• The Third Story Workshop, Jan. 21-April 8: This is my premiere offering, conducted twice a year. Much more about it here. It’s my main source of income beyond freelance writing and it’s the most fulfilling professional experience I’ve ever had — so, you know, check it out! Full price is $1,500 but it’s $1,200 for another two weeks. That said… I’m a softie and no one will be turned away because they can’t afford it. Send me an email via my contact form and we’ll work something out.

  • If you are an alum of the course (and you should hear from me directly soon), I’ve decided to include in the price the ability to audit the course for free whenever it’s taught and applying that backwards to all. You won’t get one-on-one feedback, but you can come to class and participate in the group sessions. Contact me either the website or the email you have from previous sessions if the email doesn’t come through. Hey, that’s another good reason to take the course if you haven’t already!

I’ll have a few more updates before the end of the year.

This essay is an expanded (very expanded) version of a long BlueSky thread. If you prefer a serialized and much shorter form, the thread starts here.

The whole post will be available to non-paid subscribers on Wednesday.

On Thanksgiving, I noticed a creeping water stain under the paneling of my breakfast bar. I was vacuuming—three pets mean I chase their hair tumbleweeds almost daily. The stain hadn’t been there before.

We’re going to make it through the next four years—if we make it—through a commitment to mutual aid. I suspect I’ll be writing about this a lot more. There’s a long history and a few definitions of exactly what mutual aid means (start here). My personal conception is likely not original, but at least it’s short: a group of people passing around the same five dollars to whoever needs it most.

In that spirit, I’ll be celebrating my first $1,000 in annual subscription money (that’s 14 people! Thank you!) by contributing $100 to Assigned Media, a publication dedicated to covering and debunking anti-trans propaganda. You can make your own donation here.

I will pay forward 10 percent of whatever this newsletter brings in to other journalists and projects also working to create a vibrant media ecosystem outside the siloed and captured outlets that helped create the Trump era. Suggestions welcome!

It feels like the end of the world today. Somewhere, there’s someone (more than one, I’d guess) deciding whether the future is bleak enough to justify a drink.

You can find addiction and alcoholism all over speculative fiction, sometimes in slightly metaphorical forms—characters addicted to VR, “jacking in,” or vampires addicted to blood. There are drugs or procedures designed to make you forget or help you revisit the past. Sometimes a new drug, supposedly even more potent and addictive than what’s currently available (the idea of “Tetrameth” in Altered Carbon will never not be funny to me). As an addict/alcoholic, I find these tweaks on the existing pharmacopoeia amusing or, at the very least, unnecessary. None of these fictional drugs or stand-ins are that different from what’s already out there or why people use them today.

So it takes a lot for me to find these diversions especially compelling. An author doesn’t break new ground when presenting revisiting good memories or erasing bad ones as a form of drug-like escapism. Becoming an alcoholic as a reaction to trauma? Sure. Trying to stay sober and failing because the pressure is too much? Been there.

There aren’t many stories from the perspective of the alcoholic themselves. An exception: The Shining’s Jack Torrance, portrayed with poignancy and sensitivity in the book more than the movie. I find more of myself in Jack than in any other character in the novel, which is why it terrifies me. It’s also why I root for him even though he loses every time.

Urgent news first: I’ll be hosting an election-free Election Eve writing group at 7 p.m. CT. Register here.

Here’s the idea: to focus on the thoughts and feelings we’re experiencing without centering on the cause of our distress at this moment. The source of our anxiety is not Trump himself but what he represents. This is a space to reflect on your own journey rather than let the election define how you’re feeling.

From my description in the registration:

A 60-minute writing session split into two 20-minute chunks, with time at the end to discuss your piece or your writing process. Banned words: Trump, Harris, Vance, Walz, polls, electoral college, popular vote, couch. 

Very much allowed: Discussion of fear, anxiety, recovery, community, personal exploration, healing journeys, oppression, and freedom. The goal isn’t to avoid discussing feelings but to refrain from giving power to the superficial triggers.

This newsletter is now the home of all things AMC. I’m moving over/consolidating subscribers from my various platforms over the next few days. I’ve resisted going all-in on Substack for several years now; even civilwars.substack.com (which, hm, may become a bigger part of all of our lives soon) was self-consciously half-hearted. I have thought lately, however, that I would like a foothold in the world that I can hang onto with my whole self.

Like all of us, I found my life ripped apart at the seams four years ago and I’ve been unfocused and unbound ever since. Part of knitting myself back together has been letting go of what my new shape my look like.

I want to be done with trying to partition off my selves and my interests. This newsletter is all my, all the time. Imperfect, unfinished, started before I know how I’ll finish, the only promise I can make is that it will definitely be me.