A Confession, and Some Good Questions

On politics, and the politics of content creation, while under water

Hello, readers:

So let me start with a confession: I am finding it very difficult these days to keep track of all the horror of this regime– to stay present to it without being sickened, and to engender the capacity to write about it on top of that.

The last month in particular, as we have watched ICE brutalize protestors in Chicago, drop into apartment buildings like they’re in a war zone to rip children from parents in the dark of night and ziptie toddlers, and the bombing of fisherman in the Caribbean to create social media snuff films for the regime, has been a lot to take in.

I know many of you feel the same.

And while I consider myself to have a high bandwidth and a big container for traumatic things– my own traumatic history has sadly given me that– my personal limit, perhaps for the first time ever, is quite close to being breached now.

On top of that, individualized commentary is flooding the media zone with more opinions than we need (in my opinion), and more information than we can ever process in real time. Here on Substack, where I first began writing all the way back in 2019 when it felt like a ghost town, certain newsletters have now morphed into whole massive media platforms, with editors, staff, guest writers, and five to ten posts a day. My own inbox is filled to the brim with their notifications.

To someone like me, who writes and works in politics and political action all day long, writing here now feels sometimes like spitting into the wind.

And while I know that the quality of what I provide– here, on YouTube, with our activism training videos, and on my podcast– is on par with, if not better than, what is produced by some of the larger platforms, I am not backed by hundreds of thousands of subscribers (and/or Substack’s paid support for bigger names) to pay for the staff that I would need to compete with their volume.

That’s depressing. On top of all the fascism. It’s really all very, very depressing.

And that, in short, is why you haven’t seen me here over the past month. I’ve been struggling to cover it all, to hold it all, and I’ve been struggling to feel adequate to write about it all.

(As usual, I am also struggling with the fact that many of the most successful platforms are owned and run by white men, many of whom have partners and household staff at home who raise the kids, do the dishes and the laundry, and cook meals while they work all day— none of which are in the realm of remote possibility for me.)

And that’s leaving aside the never-discussed-among-journalists mental health challenges of having to read and digest and hold all the horror, on a 24/7 basis, just to feel like I can do my job.

And that’s on top of all the fascism. Again.

So what am I to do about that? What are we all to do about the flood of it all?

That’s a good question.

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All of this overwhelm is of course by design. The regime wants us beaten down and feeling like our individual voices don’t matter. I know this consciously even as my brain battles with itself to put my voice in a place where it does.

Writing longform pieces weekly on the regime is difficult for even the most capable content creators (who aren’t simultaneously raising a family without help, and running a business).

And yet, I am more upset than ever by hot take culture that just simply jacks the central nervous systems of viewers and subscribers without offering real, effective solutions that all of us need to be engaged in creating right now. I do my best to counter that every time.

BUT

My content production already includes five livestreams a week, one recorded educational video a week on activism, and roughly 25 hours a week of strategy calls and Zooms with our clients to help them effectively create change where they live on top of that content, on top of all the administrative work of keeping my small business alive. And then there’s all the local activism I do here where I live that no one knows about.

To be quite blunt about it, I find myself burning out.

And I also find myself wondering if platforms like mine can survive here, in all this commentariat noise, if I show up only when I have the bandwidth, or write only when I am really capable and inspired to do so.

Because it seems to me that the Substack capitalist churn has gotten faster and ever more demanding since January 20th, 2025, and that no one is enough here any longer if you’re not churning content at least once a day.

Will my subscribers continue to support this work even if it’s not on a regular schedule? Will they continue to support this work if I have to prioritize my own well-being and that of my children over yet another piece of content in a given week?

Will you?

These are among the questions that keep me awake at night— when I’m not having nightmares about middle-of-the-night ICE raids, because that’s happening way too often these days.

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It seems to me right now that the most effective political content creators (not the talking heads, not the ones constantly on TV, and not the ones making $500k a month in ad revenue, but the ones who REALLY CARE about the future more than their own pocketbooks) and the most effective organizers and activists (like those on the ground at Broadview Detention Center in Chicago) are just a few breaths away from collapse these days.

I am afraid of all of us collapsing at once.

I am afraid of what happens to all those who rely on us for hope, and perspective, and motivation to act, and good advice on how to do it, if we all collapse at once.

I can’t make more content if it breaks me. Because what is the point of that? What good does that do?

And so I think for now, my commitment to all my readers here is that I will show up when I can, and not when I can’t.

And I will hope that by saying this out loud– all of this, which I know other small political content creators are saying behind closed doors all the time– that you won’t abandon me here, and particularly won’t abandon your paid subscriptions, which help me to quite literally feed my family.

And perhaps by saying all this out loud, I can lead in a different way, on top of the ways I already do.

Perhaps I can model that when you are actually doing the work– daily, weekly– to move the needle and create real change for humanity, it is ok to say when it’s too much. It’s ok to say: “what I am doing right now is all I can do.” It’s ok to say that I will show up when I am able to do so, and to say that I will not stop caring even when I can’t do more than what I am doing right now.

Mariame Kaba wrote this on Bluesky last week, and it’s good advice for all of us who are actually out here doing the work.

I hope you’ll all stick with me.

I’ll be here when I can be.

And I will not stop caring.

I hope you won’t either.

See you soon,

ECM