What is this thing

This is a blog about American politics and maybe a little culture stuff too.

Who writes this thing

I am Marc Novicoff. I’m currently an intern at the Washington Monthly, and I’ve also interned at Politico (on the Magazine team) and Slow Boring. I went to Dartmouth College and studied history and economics. I’m from Los Angeles. I really like to play and watch sports.

Some other stuff I have done for money: worked in DC for Rep. Henry Cuellar, did part-time academic research in history (of Scots-Irish in 18th century America) and economics (of developing countries), worked on securing rent assistance for Afghan refugees in Sacramento, camp counselor-ed a ton of kids in Los Angeles.

Is there any sorta focus or specific political topic you are going to write about

Nah.

As far as within politics, I hope to be a generalist. I think being the-data-guy or the-econ-guy or the-covid-guy or the-wokeism-guy is cool—I have no problem with it. But I don’t think it’s for me. If that means I get less expertise in any one thing, that seems fair, but I want to be able to write about a number of things, and I don’t want to be pigeonholed into any specific issue category.

Relatedly, I am not gonna write on issues where I think I wouldn’t make a contribution. If I find someone else’s writing really persuasive, maybe I’ll share it, maybe I’ll link to it in a future post. But I am not going to mimic it. And I am not going to make an argument you can easily find elsewhere. Because then you should just find it elsewhere! That doesn’t mean I am always going to be heterodox or counter-narrative or whatever, but it does mean that if I feel the discourse is doing fine on its own, I am not going to write a post about that topic. This could potentially make me seem more heterodox than I am. So be it. I am only going to write where I think a point is being missed that I should make; otherwise I think it’s pretty much a waste of time.

What’s the goal

The bare minimum goal is to create writing that is interesting to read. If I don’t do that for anyone, then I have really failed. If you aren’t convinced that I am right about a particular issue, that’s fine, whatever, you can’t win ‘em all. If you are convinced, great.

Bigger goals? Maybe I’ll get a cool job or writing opportunity out of this blog. Maybe I’ll get so much traction that writing this blog becomes my job (wouldn’t that be cool!).

Why Subscribe

Subscribe to get an email when I post!

If you’re at all interested in reading this blog, you should subscribe because realistically, you’re never going to think to yourself “I wonder if Marc posted” and then go into your browser and type the address of this blog (marcstake.substack.com). It’s way better to get the posts in your email when they’re published.

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Join the crew

Be part of a community of people who share your interests. Be active in the comments if you’d like (I certainly would!), but be kind to each other—I will ban you if you are not. If you’re unkind to me, that’s fine, but I guess I’d prefer if you weren’t.

Contact me

If you want to send me praise, hate mail, job offers, freelance offers, blog post ideas, or other things, feel free to do so in an email to marcnovicoff@gmail.com