Can writers like me prosper once interest in Covid wanes?

I think so, because Covid was just Act I in a riveting drama to come.

Will Substackers run out of eompelling or important stories to write about in the future? I don’t think so. This article lists a few already-emerging stories that might be bigger than Covid.

My recent article (which highlighted key observations after being a Substack author for six months) generated many excellent and provocative reader comments.

Today, I want to expound on a point made by reader “SteelJ,” who pointed out my assumption that subscription trends from the past 180 days might not hold in the future. Wrote SteelJ:

“…Projecting the future from historical trends only works when the future mirrors the past. Usually it tends to. But the COVID insanity fuels a lot of SubStack interest, and these aren't typical times. It's still powerful, but I feel it easing a bit. As it wanes, I doubt anything can match it for generating outrage, not even global warming or corrupt economic policies.”

SteelJ and I proceeded to engage in a friendly dialogue on this topic, which is an example of why I’m such a fan of Substack’s Reader Comment section. I also thought SteelJ’s point was worth a stand-alone story on the same topic.

Specifically, can Substack authors like myself expect readership levels to continue to grow in the future?

The honest answer is we/I can’t know since we don’t know the future.

However, my guess - which I’m literally banking on - is that interest in Covid stories is not going to wane dramatically in the next year or two. 

I also think other issues - just as potentially calamitous or important - are going to increasingly reveal themselves and engage the interests of the same readers who’ve been so interested in Covid stories.

It’s not just Covid stories that will determine our futures …

Here are some of the issues that have the potential to transform our world:

Covid stories - Here I note that 100 percent of the key Covid truths have yet to be revealed - at least to the “mainstream public.” This is because mainstream journalists follow the pack and investigating such stories is taboo in their newsrooms.

Still, thousands of real journalists and “citizen journalists” at Substack and the alternative media are NOT going to stop trying to break these stories.

I think tens of millions of people around the world are going to continue to be pulling for such truth-seekers and are so agitated by our captured Status Quo institutions and “leaders” they will continue to have great interest in the stories that do get us closer to the real truths about Covid and the response to same.

This said, it’s definitely true that other big stories could knock Covid from “top of mind.” But even if this happens, the public is going to have great interest in these others stories.

What are some of these  potentially seismic stories?

Possible war(s) - The one event that would be worse for “public health” than Covid is a major war. We just spent a couple of decades living with “minor” wars, which most of us largely tuned out because we or our children weren’t in direct harm’s way.

However, the threat of war today seems to be a proxy war with Ukraine, where the real adversary is nuclear powerhouse Russia. On top of that, Russia seems to be moving towards a closer alliance with China, a totalitarian nation with a population of 1.4 billion people that makes most of the important products in the world.

My personal belief is that even the Davos and WEF crowd doesn’t want a potential global world war that could go nuclear as this would leave them “controlling” only an apocalyptic, dystopian landscape.

Still, the “threat” of such a war is apparently good for the Military Industrial Complex and it’s likely all the big geopolitical bears will keep poking one another. 

Sometimes (think WWI) one domino tipping over leads to all the dominos falling and - perhaps by accident -  we could end up with a modern-day version of WWI or WWII. 

Economic disruptions can also lead to wars if for no other reason than to take the masses’ minds off soup lines or hyper inflation or whatever. Which leads me to …

Economic realities - I don’t want to come across as another seller of “doom porn” … except I happen to think the writers who have been trying to warn us about the terrifying real tenets of our global economy … have been right. 

Yes, the doom they’ve been predicting for years hasn’t resulted in hyperinflation and/or a Great Depression yet.  But this is probably only because the Masters of the Universe are Machiavellian geniuses when it comes to kicking the can and concealing economic truths (just like they so ably concealed Covid truths).

Speaking for myself, I’ll be stunned if a Great Economic Reckoning/Correction can be avoided for another, say, five years. 

If such an event happens, I’m probably toast as a Substack writer as 1) Nobody wants to read bad news and 2) If hyperinflation and a Recession happen, few people would want to keep spending money for Substack subscriptions. (Then again, intelligent contrarian writers who understood what happened and why - and what the best solutions are going forward - will be more important than ever).

But before we get to a Great Depression or Weimar-style hyper inflation, we’re going to have to deal with our rulers’ solutions to delay this inevitable result. On deck …

Digital currency - This “reform” of our rulers has been on my personal radar longer than my belief that the novel coronavirus was spreading months before the lockdowns. 

Just like our rulers apparently spent years preparing for the roll-out of pandemic responses, they’ve no doubt spent years moving the chess board pieces for the day when they can make currency “digital.” 

And put me in the group who believes “digital currency” is Orwellian and false branding for an effort to ban all or most cash transactions.

Some combination of another “crisis” - and some appetizing “carrots” - will probably make most Americans go along with this freedom-killing initiative. (In my opinion, this has to happen as it will make it much easier for governments and central banks to take more of “our” money … and they need a lot more of that money with unfunded liabilities and total public and private debt now reaching into the quadrillions).

I don’t know if this will happen without a big fight or not. But if there is a big fight, the people fighting on the right side will be found on Substack (not the mainstream media, which I’m certain will sign-off on these life-saving measures … to “protect” the people).

Other issues:

Climate change … carbon taxes … smart cities, banning more gas stoves and light bulbs, etc.

Election fraud and suspect ballot counting (in the minds of millions). 

Speaking of elections, the U.S. presidential election of 2024 might be the most important and compelling in U.S. history. Will it be Trump or DeSantis on the Republican side and is Joe Biden - who doesn’t know where he is some of the time - really going to run for four more years? 

Is RFK, Jr. going to run and, if so, is he going to make dismantling the corrupt science/medical complex the key plank of his campaign? 

Whatever unfolds in the political arena, the best Substack correspondents should have no trouble penning articles that draw large numbers of readers.

I know we now live in a Woke World but - trust me here - some people aren’t amused by our new pronouns and these people will want to opine and mobilize wherever they can … which will probably increasingly be Substack newsletters.

Censorship has been re-branded as a life-saving necessity and Big Brother will probably get more of it … but not without Big Pushback … Which will come from Substack and some other noble alternative media websites. 

Besides “the vaccines are unsafe and not effective,” the biggest elephant in the room in my opinion is the s-word - secession. 

For now, I think most Americans are content to see what happens in the 2024 elections, but if those results are another victory for the Blue states (actually all the Blue big cities), I won’t be surprised if a few brave would-be Thomas Paine’s start lobbying for an amicable national divorce.

And this is just a small list of the issues that might come to the forefront in coming months and years.

The coming battle …

If “free speech” still matters - and democracy still exists - I think millions of people will be very interested in presenting their own point of view, or will be interested in reading the works of authors who are not stenographers of the Powers that Be.

I think a battle is coming. The battle is between good and evil or perhaps the smart and the incompetent. 

The outcome of this war over ideas will probably be decided by who carries the day - “the resistance” on Substack and a few other influential alternative media sites - or the Status-Quo defenders who control mass communication at the corporate or establishment outlets.

Some people will want to sit the war out or just deal with whatever comes. But my bet is that even in our apathetic times, tens of millions of citizens are going to be very engaged. After all, it’s only their own future and the future of their children and grandchildren at stake.

That is, I think Covid was only Act I in a drama that’s going to be too riveting and important not to write about.