A Debt of Gratitude

Discourse and chip giant Nvidia have at least one thing in common: Both were birthed at greasy spoons. That being said, a few minor details of our respective creation stories differ. While the founders of the world’s most valuable company famously drew up their initial business plan on a napkin at a Denny’s near San Jose, CA, the Mercatus Center’s then-executive director Dan Rothschild and I began plotting the creation of Discourse on the other coast, at a Bob and Edith’s Diner in Arlington, VA. And, as I recall, no napkins were harmed in the making of our plan.

I wish I could tell you that I remember every word of our conversation that day. What I can say is that when we left that diner, we’d agreed that we would build a new online magazine committed to defending liberal values and that we’d accomplish this not only through advocacy and argument but also by way of example, namely by publishing different ideas and perspectives.

I also wish I could tell you that on that fateful day we’d settled on the name for the magazine. But, in fact, it took some months, and a bunch of names being bandied about—from Common Sense to Gesso (which means “primer” in Italian)—before we finally settled on Discourse.

Around the same time we were figuring out the magazine’s name, we also made another decision: I told Dan that I didn’t want Discourse to just publish pieces defending liberalism; I wanted the magazine to have a diverse content palette that included not only political and economics pieces, but cultural and other types of essays as well. He agreed.

Discourse launched on September 28, 2020, publishing two articles on that day. One of these pieces, entitled “A New Magazine for Turbulent Times,” was my attempt to introduce the magazine and its mission to readers:

We are launching Discourse, an online magazine, with the aim of providing (with apologies to Maimonides) a guide for the perplexed, a place where readers with different perspectives and from various walks of life can make better sense of our confused and restless times and find new ways to think about the problems they see threatening our freedoms and our prosperity. In other words, Discourse is first and foremost about discourse: the free exchange of ideas in the hope of getting to a productive truth.

The second essay we published that first day was a wonderful piece by Martin Gurri called “Where I Stand,” in which, in the wake of the George Floyd riots, he took to task those who were arguing that America was an irredeemably racist hell. In doing so, he also reminded readers why so many people from all corners of the earth had come to our shores (including Gurri himself, who came to this country from Cuba):

American freedom means an open path, a ramshackle adventure, a vast frontier across which you make your own way untrammeled by the dictates of political power or the humiliations imposed by bigotry. That holds true no matter who you are or where you come from. I arrived in this country as a child immigrant, not speaking a word of English. ... My earliest memories were an almost visual awareness of that astonishing frontier of freedom. There it was, far and wide. The direction was up to me.

And so, we were off ...

For me, the ensuing four-plus years have been their own kind of marvelous “ramshackle adventure.” On this journey, I’ve had the best editorial team anyone could hope for: Christina Behe, John Koppisch and Jennifer Tiedemann, who came aboard after John left in 2022. They have brought their talent, dedication and grit to work every day and have labored tirelessly to make the magazine what it is. These years at Discourse have been the best ones of my professional life, and that simply would not have been the case without having the opportunity to work alongside these amazing people.

Along the way, we’ve been joined by a group of truly wonderful and insightful writers and thinkers. This essay would run many thousands of words longer if I did justice to each and every one of them, but let me mention a few who have done so much to make the magazine what it is. I’ll start with Dan and Martin, who are both among the most agile thinkers and writers I know. Let me also mention Mercatus’ new executive director, Ben Klutsey, who just began his new job in June but has been contributing to Discourse since its launch—most notably with his terrific series of monthly conversations on liberalism, “Pluralist Points.” But there are also Michael Ard, Chuck Blahous, Garrett Brown, Robin Currie, Addison Del Mastro, Veronique de Rugy, Jon Gabriel, Nathan Goetting, Sahil Handa, Dan Kochis, James Lileks, John Mac Ghlionn, Christine McDaniel, Andrey Mir, Michael Puttré, Jack Salmon, Timothy Sandefur, Christian Schneider, Lyndi Schrecengost, Rob Tracinski and dozens of others who have helped us build the magazine on a foundation of great content.

We also owe a big debt to those who helped design Discourse, including Elisa Glass, Hana Higinbotham, Jeff Holmes and Ashleigh Webb; those who have helped us promote it, including Matt Boyer, Ben Brophy, Mike Hopper, Mariam Inam and Mollie Johnson; and those assisted us with editing, including Mary Horan, Mark Ingebretsen, Corrie Schwab and Amy Stern. A debt of gratitude is also owed to Mercatus communications director Kate De Lanoy, who’s overseen all of these efforts from the beginning and has proven again and again to be an enormous support to the work we do.

Finally, gentle reader, there is you. Frankly, none of what we do matters without you. I know I speak for the entire staff when I say that we feel truly blessed to have all of you along for the ride. But in addition to subscribing to and reading Discourse, we also need your support in other ways. So please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Discourse. As I’ve mentioned before, we don’t charge subscribers and we don’t advertise. Instead, we depend on the generosity of public-spirited donors like you to keep this enterprise going and growing.

And finally ... Beginning tomorrow, Discourse is taking a short holiday break. We’ll resume publishing again on Thursday, January 2. So let me take this opportunity to wish you and yours the very best of holidays. See you in 2025!

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