Announcing The Ettingermentum Mailbag

Answering your questions directly.

Dear readers,

With the nominations for both parties being effectively decided, we have quietly and unofficially reached the beginning of the general election campaign. Over the next nine months, we will slog through the longest general election campaign in recent history, watching two of America’s most washed-up politicians as they struggle to win over a country that hates both of them, and this newsletter will be there the entire way. It may not be the most inspiring matchup, but how it goes will tell us a lot about this country and its future. While I still fully intend to write the articles (and lists!) about history and foreign policy that have become this newsletter’s hallmark, the election is invariably going to be the biggest story any given week. As such, it’s going to take up the lion’s share of my attention going forward.

I’ve thought a lot about how to approach this, and it’s led me to realize some things about my job as the writer of this newsletter. This is that my greatest challenge, far more than the writing itself, is figuring out what to write about. There are countless new stories any given week, which can sometimes make it hard to figure out which topics may be the most interesting to people. While I think I do a good job at this most of the time, nobody can be perfect by themselves. This fact, along with the high activity I’ve seen in this newsletter’s chat, helped me come to a realization. The best way to solve this problem is simply asking my readers what they’re interested in hearing me talk about.

To do this, I’ve decided to start a mailbag series. During the course of this election, I’ll make periodic posts to my chat page that will serve as post boards for readers to ask whatever questions they want. I expect most of these to be related to politics and the ongoing campaign, but don’t feel limited here: you can ask me about pretty much anything. After about a day or so, I’ll take the best ones and answer them together in an article—although it’s entirely likely that some questions may be warrant entire articles by themselves!

I plan to post the first post board thread on my chat right after publishing this, so make sure to go there if you have anything you’re interested in asking. If you haven’t used the chat already, subscribers (both free and paid) can find it by clicking the link here. You can reach it on the banner of my front page, right between the “Notes” and “The Art of Losing” sections. I’ve found that the best way to stay updates with what gets posted there is to download the substack app on my phone, although it’s entirely possible to participate on it on desktop. Feel free to ask questions in the replies here, too, although I won’t make a post like this for every mailbag in the future. I’m looking forward to see what questions you all have!

— Ettingermentum