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Thanks for reading, and here’s to the next five years.
Today marks five years of Public Notice, and I want to begin by thanking you, our dear readers. It is because of you that this newsletter has grown from a solo project I started from scratch to a Substack Best Seller featuring contributions from a team of brilliant journalists.
I am proud that Public Notice has become a bastion of sanity amidst an ocean of sanewashing, a place left-of-center readers can reliably turn to for deep understanding of what’s happening in the American right. Leaving Vox to go independent was a big risk, but it turned out to be the best career decision I ever made.
Thank you for helping make this newsletter such a success.
I’m going to get to some broader reflections about five years of Public Notice, but first, let me encourage free subscribers to take advantage of our five year special offer and sign up for a discounted paid subscription. Though we have over 270,000 subscribers total (thank you!), only about 5 percent of them support our work financially, and upping that percentage is essential for keeping Public Notice thriving and free for everyone.
In addition to perks like having access to all of our coverage (including Thor Benson’s interviews) and commenting privileges, paid subscribers will be able to ask me questions during my new monthly Q&As on Substack Live, the first of which will take place later this month. Paid subscribers are also the reason PN will be able to beef up our coverage with new staff members in the months to come (stay tuned for an announcement on that before the end of the year).
We’ll never bend the knee
Anniversaries are a time for reflection, and with the grim Trump Reality Show seemingly on the brink of cancelation, it’s fitting to think back on the state of the country when this newsletter launched. On October 5, 2021, I hit “publish” on a debut edition that served as a warning.
“Suffice it to say that if 2020 highlighted the grave danger confronting American democracy, 2021 made clear that even after Trump was defeated, that fight is far from over,” I wrote.
Indeed, the political winds were shifting that fall. The January 6 coup attempt that initially seemed to be the end of the road for Trump was already fading from public consciousness, as was Joe Biden’s remarkable effort that year to vaccinate the country and pull the economy out of the ditch.
As the 2022 cycle loomed on the horizon, the delta wave was souring the public mood, and right-wing media was relentlessly using culture war slop like “DEI” and “wokeness” to hammer the administration (remember Glenn Youngkin?). We didn’t know it then, but Biden’s numbers, which had started sliding about two months earlier, would never recover. And meanwhile, Trump was emerging from his brief sojourn in the political wilderness.
“Even as Trump’s political platform is reduced to little more than bald-faced lies about the 2020 election being stolen for him, his hold on the Republican Party is stronger than ever,” wrote yours truly.
Public Notice has spent the five years since that first edition chronicling the United States’ slide into madness. It obviously isn’t a rosy topic to cover — I’ve more than once wondered if I made a mistake not getting into sports journalism or becoming a teacher — but in all seriousness it’s the most important political story of my lifetime, and I wake up every morning feeling grateful to do this for a living.
Part of the reason I left Vox to launch Public Notice in the fall of 2021 was because despite editorial direction from higher-ups there to treat Trump as yesterday’s news, I believed he was far from a spent force, and I wanted to cover his efforts to remain atop the GOP on my own terms. Reflecting on the 1,282 editions I’ve published so far, I think we’ve delivered on that aspiration and then some. And now, with the president and his party facing what could be a historic rebuke at the polls next month, I’m eager to chronicle the next chapter in the uncompromising way that has become our calling card.
This moment feels a lot more like January 2021, when Trump’s fortunes were at a low ebb, than it does October 2021, when the forces of MAGA were regrouping. In addition to this year marking five years of Public Notice, however, it also marks 10 years of me covering Trump and Trumpism, and one thing I’ve learned over that time is never to count him out or underestimate what he’ll do to cling to power.
But Trump’s second term is already a failed presidency, and at this late date I think it’s extremely unlikely his approval numbers will ever see 40 percent again. So November 4 will mark a new and exciting era — one in which an extremely unpopular Trump is a lame duck. Next year is shaping up to be one of accountability, including the possibility of impeachment proceedings against the president and/or his underlings. And 2028 will be a monumental year featuring two presidential primaries that will shape the first years of the post-Trump era.
I can’t wait to cover this transition here in Public Notice from one of the darkest periods in our history to hopefully better days, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride. Trump 2.0 taught us that the media and tech elites will happily bend the knee to fascism if they think it will help them make money and protect them from retribution, but we never will. Independent media is vital as a check not only on political power but on the CBSs and ABCs of the world, and I’m proud of the work we’ve done over five years to establish PN as a leading liberal voice.
If you also value our work and aren’t already a supporter, please consider clicking the button and becoming one. Paid subscribers not only make it possible for me to continue working with the brilliant contributors whose work you know and love, but will help us take the next step from a daily newsletter into a full-fledged virtual newsroom.
Thank you for an amazing half-decade. Onward.
Cheers,
Aaron
That’s it for today
We’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. If you appreciate PN, please do your part to keep us free by signing up for a paid subscription.
Thanks for reading.
Many thanks for your devoted work.
I’m so happy to know that I’ve been here for most of the ride, if not the whole thing! I started following you on Twitter because I couldn’t stand the sound of Trumps voice and you were quoting him in a succinct and accurate way. Then, to Substack! Thanks for making this patently insane part of American history more tolerable and understandable. I really can’t thank you enough! Please start a SuperPAC. (Only partly kidding about that.)