Introducing Commonplace: a Magazine About What Matters in America

A new intellectual home for the New Right, from American Compass

As a self-described media critic, I wanted to be the first to share with you a new publication, Commonplace, an online magazine about the political, economic, and social concerns of ordinary Americans. It launched yesterday, and it’s brought to you by the think tank American Compass.

I’ll be the managing editor, so I wanted to provide my very-not-biased take about what it is and why you should subscribe to it (which you can do here). Also, I hope this news helps somewhat explain my inattentiveness to my usual lane of media criticism: launching a magazine is no small feat! But new pieces for Holden Court are in drafting.

First, the question you’re all pondering: another magazine? Really? I get it, really, I do. The internet is saturated with takes. Why do we need more takes? Why do we need a new place to offer them?

Putting on my media critic hat: the short answer is that there is, at present, no intellectual home for the new right-of-center—for folks in the vanguard of the new Republican Party (as your humble author likes to think of himself as being). Sure, there are Republican publications, many of them with storied histories (and I’ve written for many of them, forgive the outdated byline). But there isn’t a publication with the convening power (and/or the interest in convening anything—to be clear, not every magazine does or should see itself in this way) that the movement requires.

Part of the problem is the Old Guard of the Republican Party, often are trapped in the amber of the 1980s, convicted by only low taxes, curious about foreign adventurism, and not all that interested in understanding why 77 million Americans pulled the lever for Donald Trump, someone whose politics are—whatever else—far more complicated than that.

Every political movement needs an intellectual home. Commonplace will be that for today’s right-of-center, serving as the place for the debates that need to be had to figure out where conservatism needs to go, and why. As publisher Oren Cass explains in yesterday’s welcome piece:

The Commonplace mission, ultimately, is the same as American Compass’s: to restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity. The most important word there—perhaps by an order of magnitude—is consensus. Any functional political coalition, and more so any durable governing majority, must settle upon an understanding of the nation, its problems and priorities, and the roles for private action and public policy in response.

We’ve got a bunch of great pieces online now, from National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty on youth sports to author Fred Bauer on ditching the grind metality. As a sneak peek, I’ve got a piece going up tomorrow about a topic near and dear to my heart (and this Substack): social media content moderation, and why we should wish good riddance to the old way of doing it (abandoned last week by Facebook). Stay tuned!

Personally, I’m unbelievably excited about where this magazine can and hopefully will go. I encourage you all to sign up for Commonplace’s newsletter (link here) and follow us on social media (@commonplc on X, “Commonplace Magazine” on LinkedIn and Facebook). And if you’re interested in contributing to this effort, please feel free to comment here, message me directly (on here or on X), or go to our “Submit a Piece” page: https://commonplace.org/submit-a-piece/

That invite isn’t just for folks who agree with American Compass, to be clear. Again: the goal of the magazine is to house the debate, so please feel free to avail me of that debate! One of our founding pieces was a compelling argument about the value the libertarian camp brings to the New Right coalition. Long-time followers surely know my thoughts about libertarianism, and even I was struck by how thoughtful and cogent the argument is.

Thank you all for your interest in me and, hopefully by extension, Commonplace, and for your patience with me as I try to find the time to balance the former with the latter. As I mention above, more pieces from Holden Court coming soon.