And along comes Derek… to screw up the new town square by redirecting the conversation away from substantive issues, and towards superficial matters of apparel.

Bro, I don’t mind if you blog about clothing. Knock yourself out. But snarking about someone’s outfit as a substitute for responding to what they are saying (redirecting the conversation away from substantive issues) is exactly the sort of discourse coarsening that lead to the current sad state of the “town square” on X. The main reason Substack is a better town square than X is because it doesn’t have very many of your type of poaster yet. Look in the mirror, be honest with yourself—you’re a part of the problem.