The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell on Why Republicans Won the Attention War

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Business News, News, Tv & Film, Technology

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In some ways, the Bulwark feels like other small publishers in 2025: it’s found growth and profit by pushing itself out on any platform it can find. But that wasn’t the plan when the company started in 2018. Back then, it was a non-profit cofounded by Republicans who couldn’t stand their party’s embrace of Donald Trump, and wanted a place to organize, debate and push back. Over the years the site turned itself into a for-profit, and found success selling Substack subscriptions — it’s currently on pace to do more than $12 million a year from those alone, says CEO Sarah Longwell. But it has really caught fire in recent years by embracing YouTube. “The thing that made the biggest difference was when we decided to turn the cameras on,” she says. I talked to Longwell this week about the Bulwark’s evolution, and the tension between running a mission-driven company and one that wants to make money. And since Longwell still does political consulting and focus group work, I also talked to her about the state of the art when it comes to political media — and why she thinks Republicans are so much better at it then Democrats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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1:41.2	From the V-A-Media Podcast Network, this is Channels with Peter Kafka.
1:50.1	That is me.
1:51.2	I'm also chief correspondent at Business Insider.
1:54.5	Happy post-election day to all those who celebrate.
1:58.3	We've been jumping around on this show lately.
2:00.5	We have been showing you how people run media companies of all types and sizes,
2:04.7	from Emily Sundberg and her Buzzy Substack to Mark Thompson and CNN.
2:09.7	And today we've got an interesting hybrid.
2:11.5	The Bullwork is an anti-Trump mission-driven for-profit site that first relied on donations
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