There was the time she wrote that 9/11 kicked off the Republican campaign to suppress voters. That Donald Trump, in 2016, won the White House partially by “asserting that white men should dominate women and people of color.” That Trump choosing JD as a running mate, in 2024, showed an ideology of rejecting democracy in favor of Christian nationalism had “taken over the Republican Party.” In September, she wrote that Charlie Kirk was shot by a right-wing, white man from a Republican, gun enthusiast family. And that MAGA’s outrage at the shooting was a prelude to an authoritarian takeover. Budget cuts? Those are a prelude to an authoritarian takeover. Recent Supreme Court decisions? A prelude to an authoritarian takeover. Deploying troops to DC, who, as part of their marching orders, picked up trash and spread mulch around the cherry trees? A prelude to an authoritarian takeover.

Who wrote these dispatches, you may ask? An obscure leftist blogger, tucked away on Bluesky, followed by a handful of Portlandia co-op members? Nope.

Heather Cox Richardson may not be a household name, but she’s one of the most influential voices in American media. From her home in Maine, the Boston College professor has built a following of 2.7 million subscribers — that’s 1 million more people than Jimmy Kimmel’s average audience size, and just shy of the left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker’s 3 million streaming followers — who treat reading her nightly Substack, “Letters from an American,” as an act of patriotism.