Adventures In Support-The-Newsletter-sitting

New options are available if you want to support my work.

If you don’t get the reference I both envy and pity you. Ask your grandparents.

OK my friends. It’s the end of the quarter, which is how often I come around and suggest that you might want to support The Reframe with a paid subscription. I’ll give the usual explanation for why you should do so in a few paragraphs, but first there’s some unfortunate business to address.

I’ll address it via the magic of songcraft, because nobody gets out of this newsletter without singing the blues:

♫♪I've got this little platform
It helps me every day
But its got a couple founders
Who think Nazis should get paid,
I’ve got the Substack-shitting blues (Substack Substack)
Oh yeah, I’ve got the Substack-shitting blues (Substack Substack)♫♪

So yeah, Substack’s founders have responded to a story about Nazis on their platform by announcing they’re going to go on monetizing Nazis, because (get this) they think doing so will somehow help defeat Nazis and that de-platforming them will somehow make Nazis more powerful than we could ever imagine, and if that sounds like a big steaming pile of poop in the middle of a nice clean carpet, you’re not alone. This position is so self-evidently foolish and dangerous, it suggests malign intention, and it makes a lot of people want to leave, including me. For my extended take, read about it in last week’s essay right here. Short version: there are reasons to stay, and reasons to go, but I’m leaning toward “go.” However, that might take some months, because I have no intention of doing this in a slapdash fashion, and the days still have the same number of hours. Good? Good.

But just as I resent Substack turning their problem into my problem, I also don’t want to make this your problem. I know that supporting newsletters on Substack is perhaps a challenge for you. I get it.

So while I’m sorting it all out, I’m providing everyone with an option to support my work without supporting Substack.

• If you want to do a one-time tip or just subscribe without Patreon, my Venmo is here and my Paypal is here. If you donate $150 (along with your shipping address, email, and name), I’ll count you as a Founding Member, which comes with a free signed copy of the book and your name will be listed in the acknowledgement section.

• If you are a current paid subscriber, I’d recommend holding tight for now rather than moving to one of these options. This is a practical consideration. Moving your subscription will be easier to do if you are still active, and if you do this, you won’t just be taking your money away from Substack, you’ll be giving it to a direct competitor. (If your subscription is annual, most of you will be able to wait some months before renewal anyway.) But, at the end of the day, I know you’re going to do what you need to for yourself, and I love ya.

• If you hate Substack’s nonsense but don’t see much point in leaving—a perspective I have heard many of you offer this week, and which I partially share—of course you can still subscribe the usual way.

OK that’s the unfortunate business out of the way.

Curious why anyone would pay for a 100% free newsletter?

Read on.

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My model is pay-what-you-want, which means that the discount I’m offering is 100%, and it is available year round. You can read the whole rationale here if you like. The short of it is, I really don’t want people to pay if they’re struggling to make ends meet, and I know that this unfortunately the case for many people out there. So if that’s you, I’m extraordinarily honored that you spend your time reading me, and don’t pay me anything, ever, and I mean it.

If you decide to pay, you’ll be supporting weekly essays just like these from the last few months:

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I kicked off October with an examination of the strange pageantry of the Republican Presidential “debates,” in which a bunch of fevered egos came together to pretend to run for president in a futile attempt to surpass the actual nominee in the realm of open fascism and supremacist corruption, because open fascism and supremacist corruption are the qualities Republican voters most value, and what that all means for those of us who still care about a functional society.

The Hyenas Gather

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Later on, I discussed the Christian fascists who have captured that party, the genocidal Armageddon they intend to bring about as an article of their twisted supremacist faith, and the appropriate reaction to this state of affairs, which is an observant anger that expects better.

An Appropriate Anger

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I continued the thought by contemplating the DARVO bully tactics of abusive narcissists, and pointing the way ahead for a new series about the same.

Bully Tactics

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And last month I published this satirical number poking pointed fun at the tendency of national opinion pieces to diagnose our problem as polarization without exhibiting any curiosity regarding the clear and present abuses we are polarized about.

Wives In Stepford Increasingly Don't Want To Be Replaced By Robots

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And there are lots of others, too. Check the archives if you doubt me.

A lot of you have taken the time to tell me that some of those words takes things you feel in your hearts and gives you language for it, and I really appreciate being told that—so much so that I even wrote an essay about why I think that’s a valuable thing, and maybe the most persuasive thing anyone can do.

So maybe you find that valuable, too, and you’ve got a spare buck or ten and some time to ball it up and chuck it in my direction.

Or maybe you’d like to upgrade to Founding level and support the publication of a book of these essays, titled Very Fine People.

If that’s you, feel free to mash the button and do the thing.

And if you’d like to pay less, you can get all the coupons here.

And if you’d like to pay nothing, then stay the course; you’re doing great.

Thanks again, and see you in 2024!

-Mox

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