The Realignment: Launching the Paid Substack Newsletter, Iraq War Anniversary Reading Group, New Podcast Plans, and More
You can now subscribe to The Realignment's paid Substack
Welcome Back to The Realignment
Thanks for checking out The Realignment’s Substack newsletter.
If you’re new, hit subscribe to get future issues in your inbox every *Friday*.
If you’ve already subscribed, you can now upgrade to the newsletter’s new paidedition. More information below:
Aside from the free interviews we publish three times per week, below are the two ways you can subscribe to The Realignment’s exclusive content:
Substack: Subscribe to this Substack if you want to delve deeper into the topics the show covers and participate in virtual/live events.
I’ll write about this more in the coming weeks, but I see this Substack as an avenue to build out on my interviews without being constrained by Saagar’s schedule, which has limited the Supercast to a certain extent.
Next week’s first paid post will cover our first virtual event on the Iraq War/War on Terror since next month is the 20th anniversary of the invasion. There will also be an attached reading list that we can all work through together. Comment below or email me at realignmentpod@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Supercast: Subscribe to our Supercast if you’d like to support and fund the show’s production and get access to Saagar and me together. As we mentioned, we’re upping the Q&A/ask-me-anything publication cadence. We’re also going to put discussion episodes behind the paywall.
Be sure to check out next week’s Q&A episode. You can see the questions we’ll answer here.
Saagar will continue to occasionally join free interviews (we’re taping one later today). Still, the reality is that hosting, producing, and running the Breaking Points business is too much of a time commitment to also do The Realignment circa 2019-2021. I explained this in an email to a listener inquiring about Saagar’s absence, but the truth is that if we tried to stick to the original format, the show would have died.
You can subscribe to the Supercast below:
A note on pricing: I was initially going to charge $10 a month for The Realignment’s Supercast instead of the $5 a month I settled on. I avoided doing so in case I decided to monetize the Substack.
So now the monthly option of $5 or $50 a year for the Substack means that the total cost of an all-out Realignment subscription is $100 a year.
If you are a have extenuating circumstances and genuinely can’t afford a subscription, reach out and we can discuss.
What’s Driving My Thinking
Since the start of the year and the wrapping of our DC conference, I’ve been telegraphing that I’m working on the next steps for my career/The Realignment. Four events helped me *finally* solidify the plan.
Substack has an awesome feature called “Pledge.” Per Axios:
Substack is launching a new "pledge" feature that will allow users to submit their credit card information to writers who currently publish their content for free, Axios has learned.
The Realignment was part of the feature’s trial before the official launch this month. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of people pledge to donate out of nowhere. Since we’ve been running the Supercast for almost a year, it’s fair to say that the pledgers already knew about that option when it came to supporting the show.
A Prominent Republican Shouted-Out The Realignment at the Republican Senate Retreat at the Library of Congress
Word on the street is that a prominent Republican told the entire GOP Senate conference that they need to start listening to the show. My clout-chasing aside, hearing the rumor validated my thoughts about the show’s direction.
The Realignment is basically a “think tank” policy and politics show for people who are trying to understand a profoundly complicated world. The prominence of Breaking Points distracted me from what I should be trying to do here. Last year, I had a conversation with Saagar about my goals for the show. I told him “100,000” listeners per episode. That was a mistake.
Obviously 100,000 listeners would be great, and there is still plenty of room to grow, but the best goal isn’t numerical. It’s for The Realignment to be the show that Republican and Democrat decision-makers use to help them do their jobs better or imagine alternate paths out of what feels like a broken/stagnating political system.
My actual goal is to use the podcast and this newsletter to reimagine what a policy/politics think tank/organization can do as people, especially younger listeners, avoid legacy institutions. This isn’t an excuse not to be topical and entertaining, or to let production quality stagnate (I just was told I need to change the bookshelf, so that glossy book covers don’t cause glare on YouTube). Each episode must be the conversation someone needs on the given topic. When I first came to DC, Yuval Levin (who spoke at our conference) said that his goal with his publication National Affairs was to build a library for policymakers to utilize when thinking about a specific issue. Ideally, one could go back and read a piece on the Child-Tax-Credit and still gain something even if it were a few years old. That is what I want to do here.
Also, I hope some advises Democratic Senators/politicians to listen to the show.
Following up on our live Realignment/Breaking Points events
Unfortunately, we’re likely not running any more live events for either show this year. That is too bad because A) I love meeting people who’re as obsessed with this stuff as I am, and B) Live is probably my best format.
So as I’ll discuss below, one of the features of this paid Substack will be the live sessions with subscribers on a pre-set topic/editorial focus. I’ll also explore what in-person events will look like as well.
The $50-a-year subscription price is the cost of a ticket to “The Realignment Live!” and the Breaking Points live shows we ran in Atlanta, Chicago, NYC, Boston, and Austin, so it is more than fair.
The TLDR is that I make a serious effort to meet up with listeners whenever I’m in a new city/as I’ve moved to Austin. I’m always blown away by how substantive people’s comments/ideas are, so I’d like to professionalize the effort via this subscription.
I was pitched a podcast guest on a topic that barely fit The Realignment’s editorial, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it
This week, I received a pitch for recent Joe Rogan guest Mike Glover’s upcoming book about “prepping.” Obviously, I could do a ssttttrreeeccchhh of an episode on The Realignment’s feed that focused on the political aspects of prepping/survivalist culture. But, actually, I just want to talk with Mike about his book without the need to get political about things.
This isn’t unique, but I just started watching The Last of Us on HBO, and couldn’t help but notice the first episode takes place near where I live in South Austin. What makes the show so great is how moody and atmospheric it is. You think, “man, would I survive this?” Answer: Almost certainly no.
The plan then is for me to launch a non-political podcast about culture and society where it would make sense to have a fun and compelling conversation about survival without needing to fit it into this show’s serious format. Another topic I’d like to discuss is suits. It’s funny, whenever I meet people, especially (and unsurprisingly) young men, they want to talk about Saagar and my takes about suits. A not too small number of people even wore suits to the Breaking Points show in Austin. I’d love to podcast about the rise and fall (and maybe rise) of the suit in American culture.
This unnamed podcast won’t release for several months. Comment below with topics, books, and ideas I should cover. I’ll also note that the show will hit a political issue now and then. It’s more that I’m trying to avoid falling into the limiting nature of the “realignment” topic.
This Week’s Free Episodes
341 | The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America with Philip Bump
340 | Is a "Bill of Obligations" the Answer to America's Turmoil? with Richard Haass
339 | The Realignment x Moment of Zen: Silicon Valley & DC, Trump vs DeSantis, and the future of media & politics
The Realignment Bookshop
We’ve created a Realignment Bookshop affiliate store showcasing books by guests, what we’re actively reading this year, and deeper dives into the featured topic of an episode.
If you purchase a book using our link, the show gets a 10% commission, a local, independent bookseller gets support, and you get an awesome book!
What We’re Reading: 2023 Edition
If you’ve made it this far, you really should subscribe to support our show : )
Let us know what you think about this or any other week’s episodes. Please share The Realignment with anyone who’d enjoy the podcast.
Great ideas and big fan, but I hope that you do figure out a way to do more live events. Reboot was phenomenal and I would love to catch more shows like that.
Subscribed. Keeping doing your thing bro.