My Substack List

It seems like everyone has started blogging on the Substack platform over the last few years. Apparently, it's a better way to engage with readers and make a living than other forms of blogging, and I do take advantage of the convenience of high-quality articles landing in my email inbox. If I lose interest in a particular substack, it's a breeze to find a new substack (or five) I might find more interesting. If you haven't taken a plunge into this wide-ranging, opinionated world, give it a shot! Free subscriptions are enough to give you a flavor of a person's writing, so you don't need to spend a dime. I only recently started paying for a couple subscriptions I wanted to support, and they generally run at a relatively affordable $50-$150 / year. 

To get you started, below is my current top-10 list, with brief descriptions of each. Who knows, maybe one day I'll finally abandon this old Blogger platform and become a full-fledged Substacker myself!

1. Noahpinion by Noah Smith- the most insightful economic and political writing I've ever come across. Has particularly advanced my thinking vis-a-vis trade policy and geopolitics.
2. Slow Boring by Matthew Yglesias- extremely informed political commentary. Has informed my thoughts on housing policy and center-left political strategy.
3. Persuasion by Yascha Mounk- the most cogent and wide-ranging articulation of classical liberalism in our current political moment.
4. Silver Bulletin by Nate Silver- highly analytical takes on politics, sports, and more, by the best election forecaster in the business.
5. The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak- gritty, boots-on-the-ground, humanistic journalism from war-torn Ukraine.
6. After Babel by Jonathan Haidt- social, cultural, and developmental psychology that has lately been focused on the toxic effect of the phone-based childhood. It also focuses on societal solutions to it, including phone-free schools, which is a movement that has really taken off over the past year.
7. Sam Harris- if you don't already follow Sam and subscribe to his podcast Making Sense, you should stop what you're doing and do that right now. His explorations of wide-ranging philosophical and political topics always leave you smarter than when you started.
8. DYING BREED by Brett and Kate McKay- I've followed their Art of Manliness blog since the early 2010's, and just last month they became the newest substack converts. DYING BREED explores broader topics than the Art of Manliness, applicable to people of all genders, no just men.
9. Open Letters by Anne Appelbaum- I recently stumbled upon Appelbaum as a guest on the Making Sense podcast, and have found her writing on various political issues to be particularly thoughtful.
10. Nonzero Newsletter by Robert Wright- I think it's important to keep a few inputs in your information diet that you tend to disagree with, as long as they are thoughtful and interesting. Robert Wright is that source for me.

This list only scratches the surface of the thousands of substacks out there. If you have any recommendations that should be on this list, let me know... you could probably even DM me on Substack ;-)

Biden ~ Carter

If you're like me, you've read a lot of post-election analysis, think-pieces, and hot takes. But one comparison I haven't seen that is particularly relevant in this moment of national mourning is that of Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter. I don't actually know that much about Carter, so my analysis is not going to be very long or detailed or perhaps even that accurate. But I am on a presidential biography kick, so maybe I'll post an update to this post once I've read up some more. For now, here is my very own sizzling post-Biden administration take.

Biden and Carter both rode into office on the heels of turbulent decades and corrupt previous administrations, promising stability, moderation, honesty, and compassion. And although both achieved certain goals-- Biden reinvigorated industrial capacity, Carter created robust energy policy-- their administrations were generally seen as failures to address many of the crises they were handed.

Inflation dragged both administrations down. But they also bumbled international crises with Iran, the USSR / Russia, and Afghanistan. Their China policies were more successful, though in opposite directions: Carter opened up China to trade, while Biden intensified Trump's efforts to stymie China's ascendance. But despite these foreign policy successes, they were succeeded by fiery and charismatic right-wing Republicans who successfully portrayed their administrations as ineffectual.

Of course, Carter was a 50-something whippersnapper during his term, while Biden is an octogenerian relic of a bygone age. Furthermore, Biden's final year was tainted by a cover-up of his cognitive decline and his reason-defying attempt at reelection, while Carter was beset by external difficulties like the Iran hostage crisis and the primary challenge from Ted Kennedy. Carter front-loaded his career with the presidency, and kept on working for almost half a century afterwards, while Biden did the inverse. And while Carter succeeded in his negotiations with Israel, Biden failed to resolve the crisis in Gaza despite numerous attempts to do so. He also poorly dealt with an immigration crisis the likes of which Carter never had to confront.

Despite these tangible differences, the tragic resonance between the two men is that they were succeeded by conservatives who vowed to undo not just the damage they did, but even the good things they accomplished. That's at least what Donald Trump is going about right now. And how well he accomplishes that will determine the kind of wreckage we will be salvaging for decades to come, long after he and Biden have gone the way of Mr. Carter.