Hi subscribers and happy weekend!

I send this Saturday’s post in the spirit of”working with the garage door open” — ie, letting y’all see how I’m thinking through problems similar to how 1960s-era tech inventors worked in their suburban California garages with open doors, where passersby could interact with the worker and they could get feedback and iterate designs. (NB: Please forgive the Silicon Valley speak, which I know is exhausting; I find the phrase useful regardless.)

As I continue to play around with new formats for this blog, one idea I keep coming back to is to have readers send in questions that I answer in a weekly post. Perhaps that’s on Friday or Saturday, when I typically send the subscribers-only content, or in the Sunday version which goes out to everyone. The way I see it, the latter option gives more people the opportunity to have a question answered, and could spur a more community feel, while the former offers subscribers more value for their monthly fee. Readers could leave questions either via email or in the comments section on Substack’s website. The way I envision this working is, for each edition, answer some questions from last week and solicit new ones for the next week. Older blogs used to do this and called it a “mailbag,” which I find sort of annoying but you get the idea.

I imagine this would be especially useful in election years. As the 2022 elections approach, for example, readers are bound to hear conflicting or disagreeable narratives online or from cable news and I believe I can provide a useful antidote to that noise — but only if readers alert me to what they’re hearing!

So, let me know what you think. And if you think it’s a great idea, leave a comment with a question below - or email me if you want it kept private. (Of course, I always keep your questions semi-anonymous by default, as I don’t use last names when I say “a reader named bob asks x…”.)

Otherwise, here is a poll published this week that I think you should read. Quoting now from the Monmouth University press release:

A majority of the public (55%) feels it is more important for American democracy to establish national guidelines for election rules and voting rights than it is to preserve traditional legislative processes like the filibuster (37% think the latter is more important). At the same time, 44% of Americans support allowing the filibuster to be used to stop bills on election rules and voting rights, while 46% oppose this – a result that is practically identical to a Monmouth poll taken last April (46% support and 46% oppose).

And here is the corresponding chart of results:

That’s it for now. Have a happy Sunday and look for the weekly edition to arrive in your inboxes tomorrow.

Elliott