Hey all, it’s been a while! Since I’ve sort of disappeared from the pages of this site, I thought it was time to give you an update on what’s kept me from writing more. In short, I’ve been crazy busy both being a “CEO” and a movement person.
Since the election, I’ve been to at least four post-mortems—gatherings of the professional left—trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to move forward. Some of these events have been more useful than others, but all suffer from the same defect: a need to come up with the message, with the strategy that will make everything all right. Too many people at these events are more obsessed with trying to win back rural whites stuck in fake-news land than they are about working to goose turnout among our core demographics—young voters, people of color, and single women.
I’ll give you an example—at a messaging “breakout session,” the participants decided that reclaiming the flag was important. And yes, it is! But the messaging from the mostly white participants was that Trump doesn’t represent “our America.” And sure, he might not represent white people’s America. But he sure has underscored the real America, one in which immigrant families are torn apart by ICE agents, and in which black youth bleed in the streets. It’s been interesting seeing white folks suddenly experience mild discomfort when communities of color and women have had to deal with much worse for … forever.
That’s not to say these events are not useful. They’re great networking events, and yes, when I speak up at sessions talking about “our America” and the need to be aspirational instead of looking back to a perfect America that never was, hopefully that resonates with some people. But there is always a sense that we’re fighting the same battle over and over again, and no, no breakout session will ever come up with THE MESSAGE because we’re liberals, and we all have our message.
And it doesn’t even matter! Conservatives have their message, right? Less taxes, family values, and a strong national security. Simple! And then they nominated a reprobate who might literally have the worst family values in the entire nation and is a tool of Russian intelligence and/or the mob. Our message will be our 2020 nominee’s message, for better or for worse.
But I digress…
So I’ve been going to those meetings. I’ve also been going to infrastructure-building meetings, and these are much cooler. Most of these include many of the new resistance groups, so they’re tapping into the new energy in our grassroots, and I’ve dedicated myself not just to attending such meetings and speaking whenever asked (something I never did pre-Trump), but also being a mentor to many of these groups’ founders. I’ve been where they are, so if I can help in the slightest way, I’m happy to do so. In fact, I LOVE doing so, but of course, that’s time I no longer have to write.
Then there’s Daily Kos …
So big Democratic donors are suddenly interested in funding shit. Where were they years ago, as we lost state legislatures and governorships and the House and the Senate? Who the fuck knows, but at least now they’re opening up their wallets. So after the election, we decided we were going to go out and raise a big round, millions of dollars, to fund a massive expansion of Daily Kos. Our traffic has doubled since the election, and has reached 20 million monthly unique visitors at its peak. Our email list has blown past 3 million strong. Our engagement numbers are all up.
We’ve always had a dire need for more tech resources so we can build the tools we need faster, while also dealing with the pressures of scaling (managing crazy traffic growth without having the site explode), and locking down our security in the age of Russian interference, WikiLeaks, and god knows what other nefarious actors. Our tech team has been understaffed and under-resourced since the beginning, when it was just me. So, by raising some money, we could staff that up, we could beef up our activism team, we could hire more writers, build stronger internal business infrastructure (accounting, HR, etc.) to support the new staff, etc.
So yeah, the plan was to go out and raise big money to grow bigger, but then a funny thing happened—between all the extra traffic and extraordinary ongoing community support (your donations), it turns out we didn’t have to go out and raise that cash. It was a scary decision—what if these numbers don’t hold up? What if people stop visiting, stop participating, stop donating? So without a big chunk of change in the bank, we have to be more cautious. But, still, we have enough to embark on a massive expansion of the company.
In short, we have the resources to grow to 80 employees by the end of the year. We started the year at 50. That kind of growth is incredibly difficult to manage. You have to find the right people, which in itself is never easy. You have to support and train them. You have to make sure the company’s culture is protected as new faces stream in. You have to make sure you hire in the right places, with the right strategy in place. All this takes and incredible amount of time and energy. It’s the sort of thing that every CEO does as a matter of course, but which I could avoid when we were smaller, and when growth wasn’t as aggressive.
Furthermore, with increased resources come increased opportunities. We now have a chance to expand on the work we do, to better fill the underdeveloped infrastructure needs of the Left. I’ve been in meetings almost nonstop this year, and I hate meetings. But the opportunity is there to forge the relationships, partnerships, and strategies that will further bolster Daily Kos as the premier progressive media and activism platform on the Left.
Oh, and I’m co-writing a book on the best ways to resist Trump, out in several months. We’re starting work on a major redesign of the Daily Kos homepage (goodbye blog!) that’ll better feature the shit-ton of content that otherwise gets buried on the site. We’re starting up a nonprofit organization to fund some cool additional work. And let’s not forget, I’m also a father and husband.
All that shit means less time to write on the site, but it does mean I’ve never been busier in my life. I don’t think I’ve had a single full day off since the inauguration. As someone who religiously preaches the benefits of work-life balance to my staff, I’m failing to lead by example. But like I said above, this is a historic opportunity, and while four years of Trump may seem like an eternity to any sane, empathetic, and rational human being, four years is not a lot of time to build the infrastructure we should’ve had all along. So that’s my focus and obsession.
I hope to be back writing sometime soon, but as long as I’m not, it’s because I’m cooking up the Daily Kos of the future.
p.s. Have you tried the “email response to me” feature in the comments? Oh man, I love it!