Two Months Of Growth: Thanks To You, We're Making An Impact

In the first two months of this newsletter's life, we've already reached over 600,000 views on social media and hundreds of subscribers. Thank you so much for supporting this work!

This newsletter is now two months old, and it’s off to a great start. This Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for subscribing, especially everyone who is a paid member! You make this work possible. Independent journalism is more needed than ever, and I respect all of you who are actively supporting the kind of content you want to see in the world.

I also wanted to give you all some details and numbers to showcase the growth you’re empowering.

I started this newsletter because I believe the media needs more pro-democracy voices contributing to the conversation. When I finished documenting every day of Trump’s presidency in January 2021, I had to take a break from the daily content grind. That column tested my sanity, and the burnout was real. I still had my column in The Independent these past four years, but recently, I started to get eager to write more consistently again, especially given the authoritarian threats America faces.

So I launched this newsletter in mid-September, and 2 to 3 times a week, I’ve been doing analysis articles, op-eds, and long-form deep dives seeking to make sense of the political noise and look at the bigger picture.

So far, it’s been going really well. Thanks to you all, my articles are getting a lot of traction, and I hope it’s making an impact on the discourse.

I’ve published 21 articles so far. I’m happy to say in just these first two months, this newsletter has garnered over 600,000 views on social media and around 20,000 link clicks. This is cool to see, especially for a new custom domain (ahmedbaba.news) instead of a Substack URL. Those numbers don’t even include the views on my other social media posts, just posts linking to this newsletter. If I include those, then the views/impressions are in the millions.

My most popular article was my long-form analysis of Project 2025, which got 136k views on social media. I wrote that earlier this month when Trump’s second-term plans still weren’t getting enough media attention.

In recent days, we’ve seen a surge in coverage of Trump’s fascist plans from across the mainstream media - which I wrote about in my most recent newsletter piece.

This is the kind of work I like to do. I like to put a spotlight on important issues that might not be getting enough attention and cover political news with a more analytical approach, discerning the signal from the noise. I like to explain the what, the how, and the why. Thank you all for supporting my efforts. I hope we’re making a difference.

You’ve all helped this newsletter grow so much in such a short period of time. We’re already at 422 subscribers and growing. In the past three weeks alone, we’ve gained over 200 subs. So, momentum has been faster in month two than in month one. Let’s keep it going!

I appreciate all of you who have subscribed for free and those who have become paid members. If you’re not a subscriber yet, please consider joining the community.

Free subscribers get 2-3 analysis pieces in their inbox, but paid subscribers get those articles plus the ability to comment on posts and engage in chats with me and other members. The subscriber chat is cool because it’s where we’ve come up with some cool ideas, like the Project 2025 article. I don’t want to paywall my content, so becoming a paid member will go a long way to supporting this work. Feel free to sign up for free or paid. It’s as simple as putting your email address in here:

In some personal news, it’s a big week for me. My parents are coming up to New York to spend the holiday with me and meet my girlfriend’s family for the first time. So, this will be the only newsletter edition I send out this week while I take some family time and decompress. I’m also going to hang with my writing buddy Otis a bit more too. As much as he loves watching me type, I think he likes belly rubs and long walks more.

I hope you all have some time to relax and hang with your families, too. We all deserve a break.

See you all next week!

-Ahmed