I subscribed to Dunning's site after Substack emailed me that glowing feature story on him. What I really wanted to do was monitor the growth of this particular Substack.
If I remember correctly, he had approximately K5 total subscribers eight months ago. That is, his growth in total subscribers is as anemic as mine has been in the same time span. However, he still has "thousands of paid subscribers."
My (I think) logical extrapolation is that almost all of these (alleged) paid subscribers must have poured in in a matter of weeks. That is, his site hasn't grown much if at all in the ensuing six to eight months.
This lack of growth is not surprising when you read a few of his columns and count the number of "likes" his pieces are generating.
In contrast, the growth of liberal Substacks like Robert Reich continue to explode. In just about five days, Reich added approximately 6K subscribers. Reich added almost more subscribers in one week than I have reached in 28 MONTHS.
I've now had months where I only added 30 or so total subscribers. I just looked back through my metrics. Early on, I had a few 1-week spans where I added 500 to 800 subscribers in one week.
As noted elsewhere, in one week, my paid subscribers numbers (net) plummeted by about 12. I'm now at 289 (up from 288), but I had 304 paid subscribers about 1 1/2 months ago.
I know some people must be tired of all these "Subscriber metric" stories, but I still think these trends are important ... and are trying to tell us something.
What gnaws at me is I think "something" nefarious is happening, but I can't "prove" it or don't know how this is happening.
The fact that Tom Haviland was unsubscribed from my substack to which he is a co-author seven times within a couple of days tells me something is going on that truly is nefarious.
On Jan. 7, Mr. Dunning penned an article with this headline and sub-headline:
How does the Davis City Council plan to deal with MAGA Mania?
Council hatches novel plan in emergency closed session to deal with the crisis
Excerpt:
“So, with less than two weeks before Donald Trump puts his right hand on the $59.99 Trump Bible and solemnly swears not to entirely destroy the United States Constitution before Valentine's Day, the Davis City Council met Monday night in emergency session behind closed doors to discuss our town's options.”
My fourth pithy essay submission:
Lockdowns, censorship and “vaccine” mandates entirely destroyed the United States Constitution.
Hi Bandit. I have a bit of snark about it, here’s how I understand it: Section 702 of FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - allows the intelligence community (mainly F B I) - to scoop up all communications by American citizens if they even inadvertently come into contact with a foreign national who is a target, or associate of a target, of investigation. 702s are rubber stamped by the secret (unless leaked by DOJ) FISA court - run by the same corrupted federal judges that are sentencing 65+ y/o retirees for misdemeanors for walking around the nation’s capital.
Former DOJ attorney Kevin Kleinsmith lied on a FISA application submitted to the FISA court, to collect info on Carter Page, and got a slap on the wrist for his lie.
What’s even more nefarious about the 702, if I happened to know Carter Page or anyone in his sphere, my communications could all have been scooped up.
… and allow that, I guess, it’s possible that someone like Mr. Dunning could “instantly” get at least 1,600 to 2,000+ paid subscribers.
For this to be true, a very large percentage of his previous readers at his small community newspaper must have wanted to show their support for their favorite (fired) columnist and plopped down $70 for annual subscriptions.
Another claim Mr. Dunning makes is that he already has more subscribers than his former newspaper.
Since we know Mr. Dunning has approximately 5,500 total subscribers, we know the Davis Enterprise had fewer than 5,500 subscribers when this newspaper terminated the employment of their veteran staffer.
One scenario that might explain Mr. Dunning’s 1571+ “paid subscribers" ... Apparently, or perhaps, approximately 30 percent of the David Enterprise’s paid subscribers, in unison, bought a year’s subscription to his Substack.
I speculate that most of this massive influx of paid subscribers bought a pre-paid year’s subscription because it’s hard for me to believe monthly subscribers would continue to pay him $8 month based on the lame stories and commentaries I’ve read.
Also, FWIW, I’m a well-known newspaper man in a smaller college town like he is. I also recently started a local Substack (The Troy Citizen). In two months, that effort generated me 70 new paid subscribers - which is a record for me … but 1,530 fewer paid subscribers than Mr. Dunning got in the same amount of time.
The feature story on Mr. Dunning notes that he made his first post about being fired on his Facebook account. He then turned that post into his first Substack dispatch, the one that presumably caused thousands of local citizens to instantly buy paid subscriptions to his newsletter.
I allow this could have happened and might be my explanation for how he became such a Substack anomaly (very few total subscribers but a massive number of paid subscribers). If this scenario explains the key to his success, it's probably because he reached large numbers of his fans on his Facebook account.
I'd simply note that when he did this I was banned from my Facebook account.
Dunning writes often about how Trump is going to steal our Constitutional rights. However, people like me are the citizens who were censored by hugely-important social media companies like Facebook.
Somehow I don't think Dunning has ever written a story criticizing Facebook for banning millions of writers and citizens.
His heroes Biden and Kamala Harris never criticized this either.
In my opinion, a recent Dunning article went a tad overboard heaping praise on the late Jimmy Carter. Headline and sub-headline:
“The Day Jimmy Carter came to address the masses at UC Davis
A seemingly ordinary man who did extraordinary things”
Excerpt:
“While he was not the most popular president in American history while he was in office, it seems that everyone loved what Jimmy Carter did with the last 44 years of his life after leaving the White House. Then again, there were a number of us who also liked who he was when he was president.
“I always regarded him as a good and decent man, one you would trust to babysit your kids, which is the ultimate test in my book.”
Note: Excluding his debut column, this seems to be the most popular article Dunning has written in the last 8 months as this piece generated 45 “likes.” However, only one other author cross-posted it and only 13 subscribers (not counting himself) took the time to add a reader comment.
Two11-word essays in response:
‘Swell babysitter’ Carter was a disaster as president, insignificant as ex-president.
Permanently lowering flag to honor bozos of peanut stature is twisted.
Bill, I share your concerns. I posted your article into the "Substack Bestsellers" chat group which is run by Substack editors, and asked them to address your concerns. We will all benefit from more transparency from Substack on this matter.
Thanks for the support, Sasha. I've also gone after Robert Reich (526K subscribers) and posted a link to my "Covid Contrarian" list at his Substack.
At least I can make a post at Reich's site. I was banned in about three minutes from Dan Rather's site ... and also the site of one of Mr. Dunning's buddies, a columnist and cartoonist for The San Francisco Chronicle. (Dunning "recommends" this man's Substack).
A few months ago, I wrote about that experience. That column produced a record-number of "likes" (more than 1,000) and "cross-posts - 111. This response tells me many other Substackers share my concerns/suspicions that "something" nefarious might be going on at Substack.
I think you are spot on. We know for a fact that the current administration spends tons of our tax money on trying to obliterate our first amendment by forcing their narratives onto as many as possible and suppressing any dissent. Cost is not a concern because it is easy to spend money when it isn't your own. There are many dirty tricks they have used and continue to use. You can be sure they are using multiple against certain authors while promoting others using opposite dirty tricks.
That's my bottom-line theory as well, Bobby. It would be way out of character for these people and organizations to NOT try to rig or neutralize a perceived "threat" to their still-unfinished programs.
They do this because they KNOW they can do this ... and won't be exposed or face any negative consequences. (Thanks again, "watchdog" MSM).
For sure. And after seeing what they have been blatantly doing, it is clear that anyone who would do this unpatriotic, undemocratic undermining of the constitution has no morals and would also be very willing to try to steal an election. While people might have previously thought that was unthinkable conspiracy theory, after seeing what they are capable of, they need to rethink that.
Another Substacker recently opined that he's found out what's happening (he didn't have a lot of hard details though).
If I understand his theory, He thinks bots are immittating real people and becoming "subscribers." This causes real subscribers to not get our stories without us knowing we have lost subscribers/readers.
These bots can later cancel their subs. It seems the key end result is our subscriber growth slows ... and we're not aware of how this happened. Something like that might be happening.
He gets few responses & few likes to his posts. Some leftist group is "pretend" subscribing just to give him money so he can boost his posts so they are seen more than opposing accounts. They just sign up, not actually follow, just so he gets paid for what he posts.
I always look at what people subscribe to or post and right before the election, there were a lot of people that were new on SubStack. I wondered how many dropped out after the election, because you just don’t see as many progressives commenting. I figure someone paid them to comment. Rent a progressive mob! All you need is a cell phone and you’re hired. I don’t see them now commenting on Trump.
Yes - this is what I was going to write. Tens to hundreds of millions of USD$ a year are sloshing around what passes for the Left, NGOs and all sorts of operators who pop up espousing wokism and get a few hundred thousand dollars for their troubles from Soros or by one of the larger organizations he funds.
It would be straightforward for a Soros-cashed-up outfit to pay some third-world operator to generate a few thousand bot accounts on Substack and use these to subscribe to writers who the Soros org favors. Paid subscriptions are a relatively inexpensive way of promoting, supporting and encouraging the efforts of writers who promote wokism, DEI, etc. etc.
A few of my long-time subscribers might remember that about 10 months ago (?) I held a one-week "subscription telethon." My audacious goal was to get 1,000 (!) new paid subscribers in one week.
I, of course, knew I wouldn't come close to achieving this goal. However, what I really wanted to do was for one "contrarian" Substacker to PROVE this was possible. I thought with maybe one million "contrarians" visiting Substack, this wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Now that I think about it, Bob Dunning proved this is, indeed possible. But Bob Dunning is NOT a "Covid Contrarian." (Point made?)
P.S. I think I ended up with about 30 new net paid subscribers, which was a life-saver at the time.
Here’s an example of Dunning’s enthusiastic coverage of the Cal State Aggies’ sports teams (from Jan. 10):
Headline: 'Sabel, Norris lead Aggie women to rout of Cal State Fullerton'
My comment: This article generated 3 “likes,” zero reader comments and zero cross posts.
I will allow I’m a fan of journalists who, in an era of deceased sports journalism, give neglected teams a little coverage. However, I noted that at least half of Mr. Dunning’s articles bring attention to Aggie sports teams.
Since few of these articles generate more than five "likes," I still can’t help but wonder where the 1,600 to 2,000 paid subscribers came from. Judging from reader response, I don’t think they came from rabid Aggie fans.
You may be onto something! It could well be that many of his subscribers are proxies for the left and way of funding and broadcasting leftist views via Substack! Suppression of conservative views may also be transpiring and it’s a double edge sword to keep left few view points on top!
Definitely gamed. Not sure if is the way you're describing. Those ratios and engagement numbers don't add up to just algorithm boosting, suppression.
My spider instincts tell me it's dark money-inspired. Soros/Koch/Columbia/UPenn/Alphabet Agency funding bot account subscriptions, like how D big money is laundered through small donor/dead people names without their knowledge. Chaff diversion and distraction writers for the powerful to drown out real writers exposing the misdeeds and crimes of the powerful.
I'm not quite sure of the why behind it. But common sense says real people don't pay to read unoriginal writing that parrots free MSM stories, and to not even engage with comments and likes. Defies common sense. Which means following the money will lead to truth.
If I had the bandwidth I'd click every one of his 1,500-2,000 subscribers profiles, see which other writers they follow, who follows them, view their Likes and Posts if public and try to spot a pattern that is common sensical.
I think you may be on to something with the idea of chaff. When I first came to Substack, everything was contrarian, but now if you come here without logging in, the front page looks like a Sunday magazine with lots of mildly interesting but unimportant content.
Or maybe we are just being colonized by these boring lefty types.
Another case that the powers that be will do anything, suppress anyone, from thinking outside their "cackling, latte, capucchino swilling" box. Pathetic how they will try to ruin free speech, free thinking again and again...
To quote a great movie line " I will not take this anymore." I will stand up and shout this out.
Examples of Bob Dunning’s liberal bonafides (one of several column Addendums):
Two recent stories by Mr. Dunning promote an essay contest he’s sponsoring where readers are invited to submit “11-word essays.”
Mr. Dunning gives readers “A few examples to get your juices flowing …”
One of Dunning’s sample essays:
”If Donald Trump goes after journalists I am moving to Manitoba.”
My (rebuttal) submission in 11 words:
Name the president who “went after” journalists the last 4 years.
Manitoba!!
A Dunning cheap shot:
“Entries are due by the stroke of midnight on the federal holiday that honors the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.”
“Makes me wonder how Donald Trump will feel about sharing his glorious Inauguration Day with such a beloved American hero.”
My rebuttal essay in 11 words:
Donald Trump feels perfectly fine being inaugurated on Reverend MLK Day.
Note: Dunning’s article announcing the 11-word essay contest generated 14 “likes” and 12 reader comments (four from Mr. Dunning)
My third submission in the 11-word essay contest:
Dunning allegedly has thousands of paid subscribers and, occasionally, 14 “likes.”
There is NO WAY he has that many paid subs.
If it looks like a duck.....
I subscribed to Dunning's site after Substack emailed me that glowing feature story on him. What I really wanted to do was monitor the growth of this particular Substack.
If I remember correctly, he had approximately K5 total subscribers eight months ago. That is, his growth in total subscribers is as anemic as mine has been in the same time span. However, he still has "thousands of paid subscribers."
My (I think) logical extrapolation is that almost all of these (alleged) paid subscribers must have poured in in a matter of weeks. That is, his site hasn't grown much if at all in the ensuing six to eight months.
This lack of growth is not surprising when you read a few of his columns and count the number of "likes" his pieces are generating.
In contrast, the growth of liberal Substacks like Robert Reich continue to explode. In just about five days, Reich added approximately 6K subscribers. Reich added almost more subscribers in one week than I have reached in 28 MONTHS.
I've now had months where I only added 30 or so total subscribers. I just looked back through my metrics. Early on, I had a few 1-week spans where I added 500 to 800 subscribers in one week.
As noted elsewhere, in one week, my paid subscribers numbers (net) plummeted by about 12. I'm now at 289 (up from 288), but I had 304 paid subscribers about 1 1/2 months ago.
I know some people must be tired of all these "Subscriber metric" stories, but I still think these trends are important ... and are trying to tell us something.
What gnaws at me is I think "something" nefarious is happening, but I can't "prove" it or don't know how this is happening.
The fact that Tom Haviland was unsubscribed from my substack to which he is a co-author seven times within a couple of days tells me something is going on that truly is nefarious.
Maybe Bob's Mom subscribed several hundred times using different email addresses . . .
lmao
my 11 word essay: have dunning and mercola ever been seen in same room together?
On Jan. 7, Mr. Dunning penned an article with this headline and sub-headline:
How does the Davis City Council plan to deal with MAGA Mania?
Council hatches novel plan in emergency closed session to deal with the crisis
Excerpt:
“So, with less than two weeks before Donald Trump puts his right hand on the $59.99 Trump Bible and solemnly swears not to entirely destroy the United States Constitution before Valentine's Day, the Davis City Council met Monday night in emergency session behind closed doors to discuss our town's options.”
My fourth pithy essay submission:
Lockdowns, censorship and “vaccine” mandates entirely destroyed the United States Constitution.
Rending literally everything, Nancy proved TDS more powerful than the sword
And the Fourth Amendment was destroyed by the Patriot Act, as well as with every 702 renewal since then.
Please, what is "702?" I don't remember seeing any substack talking about what this is. I could definitely have forgotten though.
Hi Bandit. I have a bit of snark about it, here’s how I understand it: Section 702 of FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - allows the intelligence community (mainly F B I) - to scoop up all communications by American citizens if they even inadvertently come into contact with a foreign national who is a target, or associate of a target, of investigation. 702s are rubber stamped by the secret (unless leaked by DOJ) FISA court - run by the same corrupted federal judges that are sentencing 65+ y/o retirees for misdemeanors for walking around the nation’s capital.
Former DOJ attorney Kevin Kleinsmith lied on a FISA application submitted to the FISA court, to collect info on Carter Page, and got a slap on the wrist for his lie.
What’s even more nefarious about the 702, if I happened to know Carter Page or anyone in his sphere, my communications could all have been scooped up.
It’s unlimited power: information and secrecy.
I better cover my fanny ...
… and allow that, I guess, it’s possible that someone like Mr. Dunning could “instantly” get at least 1,600 to 2,000+ paid subscribers.
For this to be true, a very large percentage of his previous readers at his small community newspaper must have wanted to show their support for their favorite (fired) columnist and plopped down $70 for annual subscriptions.
Another claim Mr. Dunning makes is that he already has more subscribers than his former newspaper.
Since we know Mr. Dunning has approximately 5,500 total subscribers, we know the Davis Enterprise had fewer than 5,500 subscribers when this newspaper terminated the employment of their veteran staffer.
One scenario that might explain Mr. Dunning’s 1571+ “paid subscribers" ... Apparently, or perhaps, approximately 30 percent of the David Enterprise’s paid subscribers, in unison, bought a year’s subscription to his Substack.
I speculate that most of this massive influx of paid subscribers bought a pre-paid year’s subscription because it’s hard for me to believe monthly subscribers would continue to pay him $8 month based on the lame stories and commentaries I’ve read.
Also, FWIW, I’m a well-known newspaper man in a smaller college town like he is. I also recently started a local Substack (The Troy Citizen). In two months, that effort generated me 70 new paid subscribers - which is a record for me … but 1,530 fewer paid subscribers than Mr. Dunning got in the same amount of time.
The feature story on Mr. Dunning notes that he made his first post about being fired on his Facebook account. He then turned that post into his first Substack dispatch, the one that presumably caused thousands of local citizens to instantly buy paid subscriptions to his newsletter.
I allow this could have happened and might be my explanation for how he became such a Substack anomaly (very few total subscribers but a massive number of paid subscribers). If this scenario explains the key to his success, it's probably because he reached large numbers of his fans on his Facebook account.
I'd simply note that when he did this I was banned from my Facebook account.
Dunning writes often about how Trump is going to steal our Constitutional rights. However, people like me are the citizens who were censored by hugely-important social media companies like Facebook.
Somehow I don't think Dunning has ever written a story criticizing Facebook for banning millions of writers and citizens.
His heroes Biden and Kamala Harris never criticized this either.
In my opinion, a recent Dunning article went a tad overboard heaping praise on the late Jimmy Carter. Headline and sub-headline:
“The Day Jimmy Carter came to address the masses at UC Davis
A seemingly ordinary man who did extraordinary things”
Excerpt:
“While he was not the most popular president in American history while he was in office, it seems that everyone loved what Jimmy Carter did with the last 44 years of his life after leaving the White House. Then again, there were a number of us who also liked who he was when he was president.
“I always regarded him as a good and decent man, one you would trust to babysit your kids, which is the ultimate test in my book.”
Note: Excluding his debut column, this seems to be the most popular article Dunning has written in the last 8 months as this piece generated 45 “likes.” However, only one other author cross-posted it and only 13 subscribers (not counting himself) took the time to add a reader comment.
Two11-word essays in response:
‘Swell babysitter’ Carter was a disaster as president, insignificant as ex-president.
Permanently lowering flag to honor bozos of peanut stature is twisted.
Peanut farmer fiddles with housing while accelerating destruction of steel industry
Bill, I share your concerns. I posted your article into the "Substack Bestsellers" chat group which is run by Substack editors, and asked them to address your concerns. We will all benefit from more transparency from Substack on this matter.
Thanks for the support, Sasha. I've also gone after Robert Reich (526K subscribers) and posted a link to my "Covid Contrarian" list at his Substack.
At least I can make a post at Reich's site. I was banned in about three minutes from Dan Rather's site ... and also the site of one of Mr. Dunning's buddies, a columnist and cartoonist for The San Francisco Chronicle. (Dunning "recommends" this man's Substack).
A few months ago, I wrote about that experience. That column produced a record-number of "likes" (more than 1,000) and "cross-posts - 111. This response tells me many other Substackers share my concerns/suspicions that "something" nefarious might be going on at Substack.
I think you are spot on. We know for a fact that the current administration spends tons of our tax money on trying to obliterate our first amendment by forcing their narratives onto as many as possible and suppressing any dissent. Cost is not a concern because it is easy to spend money when it isn't your own. There are many dirty tricks they have used and continue to use. You can be sure they are using multiple against certain authors while promoting others using opposite dirty tricks.
That's my bottom-line theory as well, Bobby. It would be way out of character for these people and organizations to NOT try to rig or neutralize a perceived "threat" to their still-unfinished programs.
They do this because they KNOW they can do this ... and won't be exposed or face any negative consequences. (Thanks again, "watchdog" MSM).
For sure. And after seeing what they have been blatantly doing, it is clear that anyone who would do this unpatriotic, undemocratic undermining of the constitution has no morals and would also be very willing to try to steal an election. While people might have previously thought that was unthinkable conspiracy theory, after seeing what they are capable of, they need to rethink that.
I'll quit now. How much joy!
Thank you Bill, for the 11 word challenge in these comments.
That is to say, I'm proud to subscribe to your news, a vastly more entertaining source of information and reflection on any number of topics.
I am spit-balling here:
Emails used for those liberal subscribers are bot generated, perhaps funded yearly to inflate those approved statists.
¿No?
Another Substacker recently opined that he's found out what's happening (he didn't have a lot of hard details though).
If I understand his theory, He thinks bots are immittating real people and becoming "subscribers." This causes real subscribers to not get our stories without us knowing we have lost subscribers/readers.
These bots can later cancel their subs. It seems the key end result is our subscriber growth slows ... and we're not aware of how this happened. Something like that might be happening.
He gets few responses & few likes to his posts. Some leftist group is "pretend" subscribing just to give him money so he can boost his posts so they are seen more than opposing accounts. They just sign up, not actually follow, just so he gets paid for what he posts.
I always look at what people subscribe to or post and right before the election, there were a lot of people that were new on SubStack. I wondered how many dropped out after the election, because you just don’t see as many progressives commenting. I figure someone paid them to comment. Rent a progressive mob! All you need is a cell phone and you’re hired. I don’t see them now commenting on Trump.
Trump won. Maybe they commited suicide. 😉
some group or some thing like soros, act blue or some other nefarious actor is financing people like reich, rather and this guy.
This is a 5th GW conflict. Making the leftist/communist/progressive viewpoint appear popular is one of the ways this manifests.
Yes - this is what I was going to write. Tens to hundreds of millions of USD$ a year are sloshing around what passes for the Left, NGOs and all sorts of operators who pop up espousing wokism and get a few hundred thousand dollars for their troubles from Soros or by one of the larger organizations he funds.
It would be straightforward for a Soros-cashed-up outfit to pay some third-world operator to generate a few thousand bot accounts on Substack and use these to subscribe to writers who the Soros org favors. Paid subscriptions are a relatively inexpensive way of promoting, supporting and encouraging the efforts of writers who promote wokism, DEI, etc. etc.
Exactly.
A few of my long-time subscribers might remember that about 10 months ago (?) I held a one-week "subscription telethon." My audacious goal was to get 1,000 (!) new paid subscribers in one week.
I, of course, knew I wouldn't come close to achieving this goal. However, what I really wanted to do was for one "contrarian" Substacker to PROVE this was possible. I thought with maybe one million "contrarians" visiting Substack, this wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Now that I think about it, Bob Dunning proved this is, indeed possible. But Bob Dunning is NOT a "Covid Contrarian." (Point made?)
P.S. I think I ended up with about 30 new net paid subscribers, which was a life-saver at the time.
Here’s an example of Dunning’s enthusiastic coverage of the Cal State Aggies’ sports teams (from Jan. 10):
Headline: 'Sabel, Norris lead Aggie women to rout of Cal State Fullerton'
My comment: This article generated 3 “likes,” zero reader comments and zero cross posts.
I will allow I’m a fan of journalists who, in an era of deceased sports journalism, give neglected teams a little coverage. However, I noted that at least half of Mr. Dunning’s articles bring attention to Aggie sports teams.
Since few of these articles generate more than five "likes," I still can’t help but wonder where the 1,600 to 2,000 paid subscribers came from. Judging from reader response, I don’t think they came from rabid Aggie fans.
There's something rotten in the State of Substack!
You may be onto something! It could well be that many of his subscribers are proxies for the left and way of funding and broadcasting leftist views via Substack! Suppression of conservative views may also be transpiring and it’s a double edge sword to keep left few view points on top!
In Silico, Dunning bats 1000 while Substack umps rig the Game
The winner! Send it to him.
Definitely gamed. Not sure if is the way you're describing. Those ratios and engagement numbers don't add up to just algorithm boosting, suppression.
My spider instincts tell me it's dark money-inspired. Soros/Koch/Columbia/UPenn/Alphabet Agency funding bot account subscriptions, like how D big money is laundered through small donor/dead people names without their knowledge. Chaff diversion and distraction writers for the powerful to drown out real writers exposing the misdeeds and crimes of the powerful.
I'm not quite sure of the why behind it. But common sense says real people don't pay to read unoriginal writing that parrots free MSM stories, and to not even engage with comments and likes. Defies common sense. Which means following the money will lead to truth.
If I had the bandwidth I'd click every one of his 1,500-2,000 subscribers profiles, see which other writers they follow, who follows them, view their Likes and Posts if public and try to spot a pattern that is common sensical.
I think you may be on to something with the idea of chaff. When I first came to Substack, everything was contrarian, but now if you come here without logging in, the front page looks like a Sunday magazine with lots of mildly interesting but unimportant content.
Or maybe we are just being colonized by these boring lefty types.
Another case that the powers that be will do anything, suppress anyone, from thinking outside their "cackling, latte, capucchino swilling" box. Pathetic how they will try to ruin free speech, free thinking again and again...
To quote a great movie line " I will not take this anymore." I will stand up and shout this out.
Respectfully.
I think that line is the most famous line from "Network."
"I'm mad as hell ... and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
The character who spoke that line was assassinated on live TV in the film's final scene (and everyone just shrugged).
"Network" is high on my list of "Movies for our New Abnormal Times."
It was prescient.
I've gotten more likes than that in a single comment on a single article.
🙌