Hey guys, it’s Tim.

From the very outset of The Bulwark, most of us didn’t really expect that this little enterprise was going to turn into anything like this. We just started writing, turned on our mics, then eventually our cameras, and let it rip.

There was no reason to perform outrage because a) we didn’t have anyone to perform for and b) there was so much to be genuinely outraged about! Along the way we found out there were many more people than we could’ve imagined who were right there along with us—even if they didn’t agree on every little thing.

Thanks to this accidental origin story—and my background as a comms guy not a content man—I don’t really sit around that often and think about the business. I didn’t go to business school, to my dad’s chagrin. I don’t know “media executives.”

So I really appreciated getting the opportunity to reflect on everything we’ve built recently when I got a call from a reporter down here in New Orleans who happens to cover the business of media. Over a few glasses of Vinho Verde on a hot-as-balls summer afternoon here in the Big Easy, we got to chatting about what it is that makes this enterprise of ours work.

Here’s what he had to say about us:

What began as a Never Trump passion project has become a fast-growing media company with more than 140,000 paid subscribers.

“It’s not a put-on,” Miller told me when we met in New Orleans, and the audience responds to that. “The casual nature of it, the no-bullshit nature of it. It’s what people want right now.”

This is what I want you to come away with: This isn’t a successful media company because we had the best business plan at the start.

Or because some media execs manufactured a market niche. Or because a gazillionaire nepo-baby used daddy’s money to pay nine figures to a regime suckup.

It happened because we decided to tell the truth as we saw it—unvarnished. Without fear of ruffling feathers. And it turned out that’s exactly what many of you needed when there’s so much bullshit and gaslighting and sanewashing everywhere else.

And I couldn’t be more appreciative that you’ve been along for the ride with us.

So here’s my ask for you: If you want to help us keep this momentum going, and if this seems like the kind of community you’d like to be part of, do me a solid—become a Bulwark+ member today.

Our members make everything we do possible. They get to mix it up in the comments, have access to all of our premium content, and they don’t have to sit through ads. More than that, though, they get to be part of the biggest, best community of pro-democracy Americans anywhere.

Now’s the time. Let’s do it.

Peace,
Tim