Rick’s Note: I will probably never get this piece out of “draft” mode in my own mind. Some writings feel that way, never quite finished, never quite good enough. If you’ve ever had one of those, you’ll know the feeling. All I can ask is that you read this with that understanding and maybe a little compassion. What follows comes from a completely honest place, a desire to share something I think is good and worth your time.

The Problem, in Broad Strokes

Substack has become home to some of the sharpest, most independent voices we have: writers, political thinkers, investigative journalists, podcasters, people working across the whole spectrum of progressive and left politics. We’re a community inside a bigger community, layers of perspective and focus that actually move the ball forward instead of just shouting into the void.

But there is a structural flaw, and it sits with Substack’s leadership and the business model that keeps the lights on.

The flaw is simple: individual competition. The platform makes its money by pitting writers against writers and publications against publications. For those of us on the left, especially, that competition too often herds us into the same narrow lanes, restating the same opinions to the same readers. We end up fighting over slices of a finite pie instead of working together to bake a bigger one.

This is solvable. To explain how, I need to break the problem into pieces.

Creator Brand and Income Come First

Substack requires each of us to build a publication, a brand that gets stamped on every post, note, and podcast. My brand is Adverse Action. Nick Paro has Banner and Backbone. Ellie Leonard and Shane Yirak each bring something fierce and different to the table. The list could go on for pages. All of us add real value, but that value gets monetized across a limited pool of subscriber dollars. Readers are forced to choose who gets their ten or fifteen dollars a month and who doesn’t. The fact is, there are millions and millions (74M to put a point on it) who have eyeballs that aren't reading or viewing your hard work.

That puts everyone in a hard spot. Substack isn’t going to change its model anytime soon, and even if it did, the house would win, not the creators.

Any idea worth talking about has to live alongside our existing brands. It cannot restrict them, cannot erode the independence we need to grow, and absolutely cannot reduce anyone’s income. Whatever we build has to be additive, something that flows toward creators rather than away from them.

The 2026 Opening

November 4, 2025, told us a lot. People are exhausted with politics as usual. They are ready for something new, something bolder. The vote wasn’t simply an embrace of Trump; I think it was partly a rejection of the Democrats’ pandering. At the same time, huge numbers of voters made it clear they are not Republicans either. They want stability, fairness, accountability, and a politics that puts working families first.

Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City showed what is possible when a democratic socialist runs unapologetically on affordability, justice, and competence, and then somehow charms the very president who attacked him on the trail. We woke up on November 5 knowing that fresh leadership is not only possible but also popular.

But there is a disconnect. The corporate press has lost the country’s trust, and rightly so. When legacy media refuses to hold power to account, independent writers, journalists, and podcasters become the bridge. We are the ones who can explain what progressive candidates are actually fighting for and why it matters to everyday people.

The landscape for 2026 is wide open: every House seat, a third of the Senate, governorships, state legislatures, and city councils. Local democracy is where change starts, and people are hungry to hear about solutions that put working people over billionaires.

New Meets Old, We Meet the Moment

Yet the old divisions are still there: racism, misogyny, the trashing of DEI, the gutting of institutions, reckless foreign policy, tariff wars that hurt families here and abroad. And then there is Epstein, the files, the rot at the very top that is finally threatening to spill into daylight.

To meet this moment, we need independent creators bolted onto progressive and democratic-socialist campaigns, getting their work in front of audiences far beyond what any single Substack can reach. Syndication to the forty-plus-friendly outlets that still exist is part of the answer. Building direct lines from writers to campaigns is another.

Waiting for the Democratic Party to reform itself is not a plan. The party is still tangled in its own fights and entrenched leadership. The smarter path is the one Mamdani took: run alongside the Democrats when it makes sense, use their ballot line and infrastructure when it helps, but never wait for permission to fight for working people.

The Practical Hurdles

Time is short. The 2026 elections are less than a year away, and the current paths from writer to campaign to wider audience are slow and cluttered.

Creators also have to eat. Substack’s subscription competition is unreliable income for almost everyone. Only a tiny handful have the purple checkmark that signals real stability. For the rest of us it’s a gamble, hoping our publication is the one that finally breaks through.

There has to be a fairer, more predictable way.

The Idea I’ve Been Working On

Everything I suggest has to protect your independence and your existing income. It has to ride alongside what you already do, not replace it or take from it.

We need a lightweight backbone organization whose reason for being is to connect creators with campaigns, get good progressive content in front of vastly larger audiences, and then pay creators fairly and promptly for their work.

I’ve been working on that. It’s called Lift Up Democracy. The name is deliberately simple because the mission is simple: lift up democratic-socialist and progressive voices that fight for working people, do it cooperatively, and make sure creators are paid union-scale rates without giving up a single subscriber or a shred of ownership.

What We Actually Do

·       We provide a steady pipeline of pre-vetted story ideas and warm introductions to campaign communications directors. No more cold emails into the abyss.

·       We syndicate finished pieces into campaign newsletters, donor lists, movement lists, and friendly outlets, growing reach for both the creator and the candidate.

·       We supply fact-checked opposition research and rapid-response rebuttals when lies start flying.

·       We pay union-scale rates, half on assignment, half on delivery.

·       We set up a legal-defense fund so no billionaire can bankrupt a writer with a frivolous lawsuit.

·       Writers keep 100 percent ownership of their work, their brand, their subscriber list, and all revenue from their own publication. This is purely additive income.

Politics

We back the AOC/Bernie/Squad/Justice Democrats/DSA wing: pro-labor, anti-corporate, democratic-socialist friendly. The only litmus test for 2026 is “Can this candidate win and then fight like hell for working families?”

Money

Right now the goal is modest: raise at least $35,000 by December 31, 2025, so we can pay the first round of creators and open the doors in January. Some bootstrap costs (website hosting, basic legal setup) are already covered out of pocket.

The Ask

If you are one of the small handful of people receiving this note, it’s because I have watched your work closely and believe you belong in the first circle helping shape this thing. I’m inviting you to join the Management Committee that will guide Lift Up Democracy, or the Editorial Board that picks topics and green-lights pieces, or both if you want. You would still write under your own brand and keep every dollar your publication earns.

There is no thick contract, because nothing is being taken from you. My role is mostly to handle the boring business stuff so the rest of us can focus on the writing and the organizing.

I need your honest feedback, your questions, and your ideas for making this better. That is the whole point of these early conversations: to listen, to adjust, to build something that actually serves the people doing the work.  That’s a long-term goal of mine, and one I hope catches your interest.

You can reach me at:

rick.herbst@liftupdemocracy.org

Signal: @rickherbst.01

Substack DM or Adverse Action chat

The site is live right now (obviously, that’s where you’re reading this, duh!). Later this week, I’ll send each of you a personal Zoom invite so we can talk one-on-one. After those conversations, the public list of founding participants will be updated (four names plus Lisa working quietly behind the scenes with me).

This is still early, still imperfect, still very much in pencil. But it is built from the ground up to be cooperative, transparent, and focused on getting creators paid fairly while we help flip seats and change the country.

I hope you’ll consider it and come to our call ready to tell me what I got wrong and how we can get it right together.

Be well, please,

Rick Herbst

Manager, Lift Up Democracy LLC