ANALYSIS: liberal writers have taken over Substack

Writers who support the authorized narratives are experiencing dramatic growth on Substack. ‘Covid Contrarians’ might be losing our beachhead.

Liberal historian Heather Cox Richardson is the Queen of Substack with more than 2.6 million (!) subscribers -… That’s more than the population of 15 U.S. states.

Introduction:

On November 5, 2024, Donald Trump was elected president for the second time, an event that transformed the American political landscape, providing hope for tens of millions of citizens who have grown increasingly alarmed about totalitarian trends which became conspicuous with the Covid lockdowns.

In the first five months of his second term, President Trump and members of his administration have indeed implemented many reforms that have scuttled or threaten many policies enacted by world leaders between 2020 and 2024.

However, a second notable trend has, perhaps, gone under the radar in the first 150 days of President Trump’s second term, a trend with potentially seismic implications in the world of media and journalism. This trend can be characterized as the re-positioning or re-branding of Substack, an Internet platform created in the fall of 2017 to support independent writers and content creators.

Beginning in the spring of 2020, Substack experienced rapid growth with its key subscriber metics increasing at least six fold, according to company CEO Chris Best. The spike was primarily explained by an influx of “contrarian” citizen journalists who flocked to the site as a work-around to ever-expanding censorship which, beginning in 2020, suddenly became pervasive in the mainstream media and social media.

(Substack’s growth can best be explained by the founders’ admirable advocacy of the principle of free speech.)

Significantly, “Covid contrarians” also attacked numerous other tenets of accepted conventional wisdom.

However, since the election of Donald Trump, the ideological bent of Substack authors and users (now numbering from 35 to 50 million) has changed dramatically.

A site once best-known as the writing home of “Covid Contrarians” is now clearly dominated by content providers and users with a Statist or globalist world view, as well as an undeniable distaste for Donald Trump and his legions of supporters and voters.

The purpose of this article is to document this stark and dramatic change.

If Substack - formerly known as the writing home to growing numbers of skeptics - is now dominated by defenders of the Status Quo, this change could and should qualify as a significant trend.

While “contrarian” or “dissident writers” are still posting daily stories on Substack and many writers boast significant numbers of readers (see examples below), Substack is no longer perceived as the swelling beachhead of a growing army of dissident or maverick journalists - writers often characterized as “disinformation super spreaders,” “conspiracy theorists,” dangerous “extremists” or “kooks.”

Over a period of less than a year, Substack has rapidly become the “go-to” place for writers and readers who produce the same “narrative-supporting” content long associated with a mainstream media many citizens view as ultra biased and “captured.”

Identifying one significant trend/change …

In this deep dive into Substack subscriber metrics, I present data that reveal the most popular Substack newsletters - as well as newsletters growing the fastest - are almost exclusively “anti-Trump” or liberal writers.

For purposes of comparison, I also provide data that reveals the subscriber growth of “Covid Contrarian” newsletter authors (or authors skeptical of official narratives) has either stalled or pales in comparison to the rapidly-growing subscription numbers of liberal writers.

13 liberal or statist authors or newsletters that have experienced eye-opening subscriber growth in the past 4 months …

Per my analysis, Robert Reich’s total subscribers grew from 518,900 on January 7 to 978,000 on May 7th, an increase of 459,100 subscribers (+ 88.5 percent) in four months.

According to my own article, Former NY Times economics columnist Paul Krugman had 119,000 subscribers on January 23 and, as of a week ago, had 369,900, an increase of 250,900 total subscribers in 3 1/2 months (+ 211 percent).

When I began tracking his numbers in late January, Dan Rather had 407,000 total subscribers. Rather now has 518,000, an increase of 111,000 subscribers (+ 27.3 percent) in the past four months.

(Note: I’m still banned at Rather’s pro-democracy, free-speech newsletter “Steady.”)

I also continue to monitor the subscription totals of Katelyn Jetelina (“Your Local Epidemiologist”) who continues to be Substack’s No. 1 “Science” writer with more than 369,000 subscribers.

On November 15, 2023, when I wrote my first article warning readers about this usually wrong “menace,” America’s Local Epidemiologist had 211,000 subscribers. In 17 months, she’s grown her total subscribers by 169,000 readers (+ 80.1 percent).

Ms. Jetlina had 130,000 subscribers in May 2022, meaning her total subscribers have almost tripled in the past 36 months.

Most well-known “Covid Contrarian” authors already had established Substacks by May 2022. However, none of these “dissident” writers have experienced subscription growth anywhere close to an epidemiologist whose pronouncements always jibe with those of the public health establishment.

Note: For context, Ms. Jetilana has more than seven times as many subscribers as Dr. Meryl Nass and, like all of the above writers, has “tens of thousands” of paid subscribers.

On January 9, 2025, ultra-liberal documentary film-maker Michael Moore had 736,000 subscribers. In four months, Moore’s added another 90,000 subscribers (+ 12.2 percent) and now has 826,000 (more than ten-fold greater than the the population of Moore’s hometown of Flint, Mich). Moore also has “tens of thousands of paid subscribers.”

Another liberal titan who almost immediately surpassed 300,000 total subscribers and acquired a purple badge indicating he has “tens of thousands” of paid subscribers is former CNN anchor Jim Acosta.

According to Newsweek, Acosta hadn’t even heard of Substack when he was forced to leave CNN around early February of 2025. He soon learned of the site (and, no doubt, was heavily recruited by Substack) and, in four months has 307,000 subscribers (26 percent more subscribers than Alex Berenson’s newsletter has generated in approximately 48 months).

***

Fellow “contrarian” Substack author “Yuri Bezmenov” performed a similar analysis in late January and, from subscription figures he reported at the time, I can chart the rapid growth of many other liberal titans, all of whom Mr. Bezmenov says suffer from extreme “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).”

For example …

Bill Kristol, believe it or not, was once considered a “conservative.” Several years ago he co-founded the liberal, Trump-bashing Substack The Bulwark, which now has more than 820,000 subscribers.

The Bulwark, a neocon, Trump-bashing site co-founded by Bill Kristol, has grown from 530,000 subscribers on January 21 to 825,000 this morning, an increase of 295,000 subscribers (+ 55.7 percent) in less than four months.

Joyce Vance’s liberal Substack newsletter grew from 480,000 subscribers to 638,000 in 3 1/2 months, an increase of 158,000 or 33 percent.

Andy Horowitz grew his subscribers by 102,000 in 105 days (from 520,000 to 622,000, an increase of 19.6 percent)

Scott Dworkin’s total subscribers grew from 149,000 to 216,00 (+ 67,000 or 45 percent) in the same 3-plus months.

The Queen of Substack …

In examining all 30 of Substack’s 30 “leaderboards,” I was surprised to learn that Robert Reich isn’t anywhere close to being the king of Substack. The royalty of Substack is actually a queen, a lady by the name of Heather Cox Richardson, who produces the “Letters from an American” newsletter and podcast.

Amazingly (to myself), this liberal historian has 2.6 million (!) subscribers.

Richardson shows no signs of leaving her throne as the Queen of Substack as she added 600,000 subscribers in a recent span of 3 1/2 months - a 30-percent spike in total subscriptions.

‘The Free Press’ is Substack’s top revenue producer …

It should also be noted that the No. 1 Substack newsletter as gauged by “revenue produced” is apparently a newsletter called The Free Press, which was created by former New York Times journalist and editor Bari Weiss in 2021. (The site was re-branded “The Free Press” on Substack in 2022.)

According to a New York Times’ feature story published in August of last year, The Free Press:

“… has more than 750,000 subscribers on Substack … in July (2024). A subset of subscribers — more than 100,000 … pay $8 a month or $80 a year for full access to the site’s offerings …”

If correct, this data would mean the Free Press had at least 100,000 paid subscribers approximately 10 months ago.

At an average of $80/annual subscription, the Free Press is producing at least $8 million/year in subscription revenue from Substack. (The company has several spin-offs which produce revenue, including hosting paid events and symposiums).

Unlike 99 percent of Substack newsletters, total subscription numbers for The Free Press are not revealed when you click on the site’s name … thus, it is unknown how many total subscribers this site currently has.

Still, the Free Press is rated No. 1 in Substack’s “U.S. Politics” category or “leaderboard.” (Heather Cox Richardson’s site was ranked No. 2 in this category but, as of this morning, is ranked No. 3 behind The Bulwark).

An aside that offers context …

It’s worth noting that 2.6 million total subscribers is far more subscribers than the top 25 newspapers in America combined (gauged by print circulation, not digital subscriptions).

From The Press Gazette: “Collectively the 25 papers in this analysis circulated 1.97 million issues per day on average in the six months to September (2024), down from 2.26 million in 2023.”

For more context, 2.6 million subscribers is more people than the entire population of 15 American states.

For further context, in approximately four months, Ms. Richardson added more than two times the number of new subscribers (600,000) as Steve Kirsch has developed in the approximately 48 months he’s been publishing a newsletter (260,000 total subscribers in four years).

In the same four month-period Ms. Richardson added 600,000 subscribers, Kirsch added 1,000 new subscribers.

Key Take-away: The above 13 examples clearly support the view that Substack has become the “go-to” sanctuary for statist writers and content creators in the past six to 12+ months.

My list of Substack’s Top 25 Newsletters …

Substack publishes leaderboards in 30 different categories. Rankings are based on “total revenue” or “paid subscribers” (not based on total subscribers, which would include both free and paid subscribers).

With most authors, readers can easily ascertain the number of total subscribers an author has by simply clicking on the author’s name. Colored “badges” or “check marks” next to the author’s name provide broad parameters of the number of paid subscribers an author has.

• Purple badges signify “tens of thousands of paid” subscribers.

• Orange badges signify either “thousands paid” or “hundreds paid.”

In recent days, I spent many hours perusing “leaderboards” in almost all 30 categories.

The most-popular categories, based on total subscribers, are “U.S. Politics” and “News.” Most of the “Covid Contrarians”can be found in the category “Health Politics.”

Each leaderboard ranks 100 newsletters. As no author is listed in two categories, the 30 leaderboards collectively list 3,000 different newsletters (30 leaderboards, each with the Top 100 newsletters = 3,000 newsletters).

If Substack hosts newsletters created by 50,00 authors, the 3,000 authors listed in these leaderboards would represent 1.5 percent of all Substack newsletters.

The first list is my effort to rank the most popular Substack newsletters from all 30 categories (“leaderboards.”) My ranking is based on total subscribers (not paid subscribers as the paid subscriber figures for individual authors - except for broad parameters - is unknown).

I only ranked newsletters where the total subscriber numbers were provided. (This means I didn’t list “The Free Press,” which is actually ranked No. 1 in the category “U.S. Politics” and, as mentioned above, is presumably the No. 1 “revenue producer” on Substack.)

Top Substack Newsletters based on total subscribers …

Note: Authors are listed in the Substack category “U.S. Politics” unless otherwise noted. Subscriber numbers came from the past 1 to 7 days and might not be current through today’s date.

1. Heather Cox Richardson - 2.6 million total subscribers.

2. Lenny Rachitsky: 1.1 million (Business)

3. Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer): 1 million (Technology)

4. Robert Reich: 978,000

5. Michael Moore: 826,000

6. The Bulwark: 825,000

7. Meidas: 658,000

8. Joyce Vance: 638,000

9, Andy Borowitz: 622,000

10. The Contrarian: 564,000

11. Matt Taibbi: 542,000

12. Dan Rather (Steady): 518,000

13. Jessica Reed Kraus (House Inhabit): 497,000 (Culture)

14. Caroline Chambers (What to Cook when you don’t feel like cooking): 493,000 (Food & Drink)

15. Aaron Parnas: 451,000 (News)

16. Medhi Hasan (Zeteo): 395,000

17. Noah Smith: 382,000 (Business)

18. Bill Bishop: 377,000 (News). Note: Bishop, who primarily writes about subjects related to China, became the first notable Substack author in October 2017.

19. Timothy Snyder: 375,000 (World Politics)

20. Paul Krugman: 369,000

21. Katelyn Jetilina (Your Local Epidemiologist): 369,000 (Science)

22. Dr. Robert Malone: 358,000 (Health Politics)

23. Dr. Mercola’s Censored Library: 353,000 (Health Politics)

24. Alison Roman: 342,000 (Food & Dining)

25. Jim Acosta: 307,000

Comments:

Note that only two of the current top 25 would be “Covid Contrarian” writers (Doctors Malone and Mercola) … or three if Matt Taibbi’s newsletter is included in this “narrative-challenging” cohort of newsletters.

As of January 2025, “The Top 10 accounts collectively earn $40 million a year (Source: The Wall Street Journal as also reported by The Press Gazette). According to Substack CEO Chris Best in a podcast interview I wrote about a couple of days ago, Substack has “considerably” more than 50 newsletters that make at least $500,000/year in subscription revenue.

Comparing the subscription numbers of these ascendant liberal writers to popular “Covid Contrarian” authors ….

To provide context of interest to myself, I was curious to see how the subscription numbers of the so-called “Covid Contrarians” have fared in the same time period.

(As noted again in today’s introduction text, it was this maverick group of independent or citizen journalists who, arguably, put Substack on the media map in the months and years after the Covid lockdowns.)

Per my analysis, no writer in my my list of “Top 144 Substack Contrarian authors” has experienced subscription spikes of a similar scale. (My list, which I will soon update and revise, includes approximately 151 newsletters, but seven popular newsletters don’t publish total subscriber numbers.)

Counting raw subscription numbers, only three writers on my “Contrarian” list (not counting Matt Taibbi) saw subscription growth of more than 20,000 in the last four months.

Every liberal or Democratic-supporting writer mentioned above (and numerous liberal writers not listed) grew their Subscriber numbers by 67,000 to 600,000 in four months or less.

How did the best-known “Covid Contrarian” Substack All-Stars perform in the same 4 months?

Per my analysis of approximately 150 “Covid Contrarian” writers, only two have more than 300,000 total subscribers.

This section shows the changes in subscription numbers of 13 well-known authors in Substack’s dissident category (most of these writers show up in Substack’s leaderboard “Health Politics.”)

Note: Again, for this analysis, I’m not counting Matt Taibbi, who had 542,000 total subscribers as of this week. However, Taibbi rarely writes about Covid topics, while the authors listed below constantly publish “Covid” articles.

The richest (or most successful) Substack authors aren’t getting that much richer

Note: Subscription numbers were updated through May 7th to 9th.

Dr. Robert Malone - 347,000 total subscribers to 358,000 (+ 11,000 or + 3.17 percent).

Joseph Mercola - 392,900 subscribers to 353,000 (a decrease of 39,900 or - 10.15 percent)

Steve Kirsch: 256,900 to 260,000 (+ 3,100 or + 1.2 percent)

Alex Berenson: 244,000 to 244,000 (unchanged).

Comment: Combined, the Top Four “Covid Contrarian’s” on my Top-150 list lost 24,900 subscribers in the past four months - a stark difference when compared to the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” cohort of Substack authors.

A Sample of other well-known Covid Contrarians …

Other well-known “Covid Contrarians” who experienced small growth or no growth in the past four months …

Dr. McCullough (Courageous Discourse) - 129,900 to 135,000 (+5,100 or + 3.9 percent)

Dr. Meryl Nass - 47,900 to 51,000 (+3,100 or + 6.47 percent)

El gata malo - 52,900 to 56,000 (+ 3,100 or + 5.86 percent)

Eugyppius - 62,900 to 65,000 (+ 2,100 or + 3.2 percent)

Toby Rogers - 37,900 to 40,000 (+ 2,100 or + 5.54 percent)

Mark Crispin Miller - 46,900 to 49,000 (+2,100 or + 4.47 percent)

Emerald Robinson - 63,900 to 65,000 (+ 1,100 or + 1.7 percent)

Dr. Paul Alexander - 41,900 to 43,000 (+ 1,100 or + 2.63 percent)

Maryanne Demasi - 24,900 to 26,000 (+ 1,100 or + 4.4 percent)

Celia Farber - 29,900 to 31,000 (+ 1,100 or + 3.7 percent)

Jessica Rose - 78,900 to 79,000 (+ 100 or + 0.126 percent)

Dr. Philip McMillan - 11,900 to 12,000 (+ 100 or + 0.84 percent)

Jon Rappoport - 66,900 to 66,000 (- 900 or - 1.35 percent).

Comments:

The range of subscriber growth from this above sample of 13 “Covid Contrarian” authors is negative 1.35 percent to + 6.47 percent.

On average, these 13 newsletter authors added 1,138 subscribers in the past four months (an average of 285 new subscribers every month).

Note: See below for a list of 16 “Covid Contrarians” who have experienced notable subscriber growth in the past four months.

About 10 percent of my “150 Contrarians” experienced significant growth, although none approached the growth numbers of the liberal authors noted elsewhere in this document.

Substack Contrarians who experienced significant growth in the prior four months …

Note: Figures show changes in total subscriber numbers from January 9th to May 7th-10th - ranked by total subscribers added.

A Midwestern Doctor - 162,900 to 215,000 (+52,010 or + 31.9 percent)

Dr. William Makis - 73,000 to 111,000 (+ 38,000 or + 52.1 percent)

Jeff Childers - 162,900 to 184,000 (+ 21,100 or + 12.9 percent)

Dr. Pierre Kory - 99,900 to 114,000 (+14,100 or + 14.2 percent)

Dr. Naomi Wolfe - 108,900 to 120,000 (+ 11,100 or + 10.2 percent)

Ranked by percentage growth …

Catherine Austin Fitts - 2,100 to 9,100 (+ 7,000 or + 333 percent)

Debbie Lerman: 2,690 to 5,900 (+ 3,210 or + 120 percent)

Dan Fournier - 5,600 to 8,800 (+ 3,200 or + 57.1 percent)

Clotastrophe (Laura Kasner) - 2,048 to 2,800 (+ 752 or 36.7 percent)

Excess Deaths AU - 5,043 to 6,500 (+ 1,457 or + 28.9 percent)

Doc Malik - 10,900 to 14,000 (+ 3,100 or + 28.4 percent)

Jenna McCarthy - 6,500 to 7,900 (+ 1,400 or + 21.5 percent)

James Howard Kunstler - 24,900 to 30,000 (+ 5,100 or + 20.5 percent)

Conspiracy Sarah - 6,700 to 7,900 (+ 1,200 or + 17.9 percent)

Rebekah Barnett - 11,900 to 14,000 (+2,100 or + 17.6 percent)

Sasha Latypova - 51,000 to 57, 000 (+ 6,000 or + 11.76 percent)

The face of a contrarian or dissident newsletter author.

A few recent Bill Rice, Jr. metrics …

… I don’t know how to put any lipstick on this pig …

Note: Substack provides a metric that tells authors how many new subscribers each story produced - free, paid and total.)

From April 1 through April 29, I posted 14 new stories, which produced a cumulative 13 new subscribers (all but one free).

I recently analyzed how many new subscribers I produced in an identical 29-day period 22 months ago (eight months after I’d started my Substack). In this 30-day period (June 18 through July 17, 2023), my stories produced 267 new subscribers.

In the early summer of 2023, my articles, on average, were producing 12.7 new subscribers.

In the first 29 days of April, a typical article produced, on average, 0.82 new subscribers.

My metric “new-subscribers-per-month” decreased by 93.5 percent.

Of the 14 articles I published between April 1-29, half (seven) produced no new subscribers (free or paid).

From an analysis of 21 articles I published 22 months ago, no stories produced zero subscribers.

Five of the 21 articles I analyzed from the summer of 2023 produced at least 15 new subscribers and two articles produced more than 40 subscribers. (In the summer of 2022, two different stories produced more than three times as many subscribers as I produced with 14 combined stories in April 2025.)

From March 17 through April 29 - comprising approximately 24 articles over six weeks - I published only one article that produced more than three total new subscribers (5).

***

My total paid subscribers peaked at 310 on August 23, 2024 and is now at 276, a decrease of 34 paid subscribers or 11 percent in 8 1/2 months.

On August 23, 2024, my “paid subscriber” ratio was 4.74 percent. Today, the same ratio is 3.66 percent - a decrease of 22.8 percent.

If the rate I am losing paid subscribers continues to accelerate as rapidly as it has in recent weeks and months, I will likely have fewer than 250 paid subscribers by the of this year - a decline of 60 paid subscribers (20 percent) in 16 months.

Conclusion …

Several of my readers have counseled me to ignore subscription metics and just continue to research, write and publish stories I think are important. I will continue to follow this sage advice.

The purpose of today’s article was simply to show that writers who think the exact opposite of myself are doing fantastic on Substack.

While, once upon a time, I was among the group of writers who was experiencing note-worthy growth in subscribers and readers, those days, it seems, are now gone with the left-blowing wind.

If something did change on Substack, that “something” wasn’t a positive development for “Contrarian” Substack authors like myself.

***

NOTE: As I often do, I will add more information of possible interest to readers in today’s Reader Comments’ section. I should note that another “metric change” I’ve noticed is that far fewer people now make posts or read my Reader Comments compared to early periods of this Substack. I’m also not sure what to make of this “trend change.”

*** (600,000 readers hit this button for Heather Cox Richardson in the past four months. Thirteen readers hit it for me after reading the 14 original stories I published in April.) ***

Writer gratuities via Ko-Fi.