Welcome to Xplisset Voice of America (Start Here)
Actual publish date 11-28-2025
If you landed here because of the Washington Post–Heather Cox Richardson mess, welcome. This is not a fan site, but I am a fan of people whose work gets erased while their face sells someone else’s clicks. On Thanksgiving, that one post turned my quiet little Substack into a Black Friday doorbuster, and I’ve been watching the numbers climb like somebody leaned on the gas pedal.
Before I go any further, I need to say something to the folks who’ve been here from the beginning: thank you. When some of you first hit subscribe, there were barely a few hundred or even a few dozen people in this room. In a matter of days after getting tagged Best Seller we blew past 1,000, then 1,500, then 1,800 subscribers. XVOA started showing up on the New Bestsellers board and Rising in Culture, and my inbox turned into controlled chaos. None of that happened because an algorithm woke up feeling generous. It happened because you opened, read, shared, commented, upgraded, and told your people, “You need to see this.”
That sudden elevation, this blow-up/glow-up, made this post necessary. A whole wave of new readers just crashed through the door, and the folks who’ve been rocking with me deserve to hear, clearly, that you did this. Substack is amplifying XVOA now because you proved there was something here worth amplifying.
Quick intro. I’m Xavier “Xplisset” Plisset: retired cop, Black progressive, Jungian-obsessed history nerd, former podcaster, and current Substack Bestseller who still triple-checks his Stripe dashboard because none of this feels quite real. I write from the place where race, law, empire, AI, sex, and music all crash into each other and then pretend they’re not related. Xplisset Voice of America (XVOA) is my attempt to put those pieces back into one story instead of fifty disjointed headlines.
Here’s what actually happens here:
Blackout Briefs – short dispatches on the stories they hope you miss, the ones hiding under “holiday travel” and celebrity gossip.
Spin Spectrum Dailies – how different outlets spin the same event, what that spin is doing to your nervous system, and why it matters that Fox, WaPo, and the “respectable” center all lie in different keys.
In-depth essays – blues-soaked, historically grounded, Jungian-tinged dives that explain why this moment feels the way it does: Reconstruction to Trump, Epstein to AI, Obama to the algorithm.
Occasional podcasts, livestreams, and breakdowns as this thing grows from newsletter into full broadcast.
XVOA is an unapologetically Black, progressive voice that’s inclusive of anybody who shows up in good faith. I center Black experience because that’s the only way America’s story makes sense; everybody else is absolutely welcome at the table. You will see me defend Dr. Heather Cox Richardson today and turn around tomorrow to talk about a Black columnist like Karen Attiah whose firing never made the front page. Same machine, different targets.
A word about money, since some of you met me in a post about erasure and paywalls. The full essays stay free so people on fixed incomes don’t have to choose between groceries and one yet another subscription. A paid subscription doesn’t unlock some VIP vault so much as it buys me time: time to read court filings, chase footnotes, make charts, and keep pulling curtains back and also to slowly step away from the gig work I’ve been going to supplement my retirement income toward doing this full-time. Long term, paid support is how I bring other people into this work too.
If you’re new and wondering where to start, here’s my suggestion:
If you haven’t already, read the HCR/WaPo piece people are talking about so you know what set this all off.
Then read one Blackout Brief, one Spin Spectrum Daily, and one big essay from the archives. Get a feel for the full instrument, not just the highest note.
If you find yourself nodding along thinking, “I’ve felt this, I just didn’t have the words,” hit subscribe.
If you already know you want this to keep going, hit paid and know you’re buying time for a Black, reader-funded newsroom they don’t own.
You’ll see me in other people’s comment sections from time to time….Heather, Reich, Meidas, smaller writers too because I still believe in being a reader first. But this little corner, Xplisset Voice of America, is home base. This is where we track the collapse and whatever comes after, without corporate spin, party-line fluff, or billionaire sedation.
If nobody’s coming to save us, then the least we can do is see the play clearly and tell the truth out loud. That’s what this place is for. Pull up a chair.
You made this happen Xavier, we just cheered you on and told our friends. Your unique voice, the sharp knife of your insight, and your perspective from the trenches rings loud and clear through the chaos and deception du jour. Congratulations!
I'm thrilled for you! Surprised? Not in the least. You know who you are. You know what you want to say. And you communicate musically and brilliantly, making your point without a baseball bat. I'm so glad I found you. Keep tellin' it!