After The Revolution

As it became clear that my company, Revolution Messaging, was out of options, I couldn’t stop thinking about John Kerry. The 2004 election was a formative experience for me. I’ll never forget elating over the leaked “exit polling” data that spread across the Internet like wildfire—or how my hopes came crashing down as the first actual vote tallies started coming in from Florida.

The week after that election, I was eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant on Capitol Hill when Senator Kerry and some staffers walked in and sat down. You could feel people distancing themselves, avoiding sitting next to him or even approaching him. This was a man we thought would be the president just a week earlier. Suddenly, no one wanted to be seen with him.

Fear of that kind of fate came crashing over me as I realized that relaunching my political agency, now a distressed asset, would be impossible. What came next was the worst and best thing that ever happened to me—and it’s why this magazine is in your hands today.

Before we go any further: The story I’m about to tell is about mental health and suicidal ideation. If you might find that triggering, head to the end of my story, which focuses on the future.

Do you ever feel disoriented while driving out of the airport garage after a long flight? Do you know the sensation of exiting the highway after a long drive, and how it takes a minute to adjust to the lower speed of everything around you? That was the first feeling to hit me when I realized I couldn’t save my company. For 10 years, it had been an intense, seven-day-a-week commitment, and my colleagues and I believed that if we worked hard enough, we could turn it around. We came close, until the landlord filed judgment in court and emptied our bank account.

Sitting alone in our cold, cavernous office, I assessed the company’s electronics and furniture. What could I sell quickly to cover payroll and keep the lights on just a little longer? Then, an urge hit me like a ton of bricks. My body told me to throw a chair through the window and jump out. Instead, I drank a White Claw and lay on one of our more comfortable couches in the fetal position, wondering what I would say to my wife when I went home.

My grandfather, Charles Houston Goudiss Jr., died when my father was just 12. For most of my early life, I was told he had died of a heart attack, just like his father had. It wasn’t until my 20s that I learned he’d jumped out of his Manhattan office after the family publishing business went bust.

I internalized this revelation as family shame. We were not supposed to talk about why he died, so I shouldn’t speak with anyone about having similar feelings. And as I struggled with my temptation to fall on my sword, I felt ashamed to ask for help.

For two years, I suffered. There were some good days when I felt like I’d turned the corner and could feel a spark of belief in myself and my future. But the bad days piled on top of them. Unknown to me then, many of my actions were a cry for help.

One fall day, I sat alone in my house. I started drinking to try and get the usual thoughts out of my head. “I’m a failure. No one wants to be near me. My wife loves her new job more than me. I’m an awful father. Everyone I love will abandon me regardless of what I do. I’m a burden. I shouldn’t have bothered to save Rev—it cost me too many close friends.” While drinking, I figured out what pills in my house would be enough to unalive myself. I came to the not-sober conclusion that I had taken enough of my Wellbutrin and other medicine in the house to be lethal, and that I should walk into the woods near my home to die surrounded by nature.

Walking to the trail, I had the most profound experience. A voice inside me shouted,

I’ve always had an internal monologue, but this was different. It was as though my brain had accessed another plane of reality, and someone or something was waking me up. I listened to it. In shock, and suddenly feeling much more sober, I walked home and called my wife. She implored me to call 911, which I did.

In the hours and days that followed, I met many people who shared personal and sometimes tragic stories about suicide—and the message that life would get better. One of the EMTs had tried to take his own life a few years earlier. The nurse in the ER, whose hand I clutched while experiencing seizures for the first time, told me she had lost her husband to suicide and that she was proud of me for getting help. As I was being wheeled away to the ICU, I saw her working on another patient and mustered a “thank you” for saving my life. She yelled back, “I love you.”

After spending a couple of weeks in a psych ward, going through an intensive outpatient program, doing some DNA testing, and finding the right psychiatrist and therapist, I’m proud to say I have a firm grasp on my mental health. I learned that I was (and am) bipolar and had been relying way too much on self-medication. Part of my treatment has been religiously engaging in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). It involves tracking my emotions and daily events that might prompt different feelings, and it’s made me more attuned to myself and my surroundings. Through that practice, I realized I needed to learn more about why my grandfather jumped out of a window and what legacy fell with him.

This is a question I will likely never be able to answer. But it led me to learn more. I got into genealogical research (thank you, Mormons, for your diligent record-keeping). C. Houston Goudiss, a doctor who had emigrated from then-Russia as a child, shortened his surname from Hudissman to Goudiss. While starting a new life in Philadelphia, he met my great-grandmother, Alberta Moorehouse, president of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association. Together, they published The Forecast.

Judging by the first issues of The Forecast, published in 1910, my great-grandparents were pioneers of native advertising. They published ads that integrated seamlessly into the editorial content, making a case for patriotic sacrifices that would empower Americans to “can the Kaiser.” They promoted cooking classes and other get-togethers. They published books that inspired Americans to change their diets in support of the Great War. They built wealth from nothing with their publishing business. It’s a classic story of the American Dream.

I am relaunching The Forecast in 2025 because I firmly believe we don't have to sit idly by while the robber barons of the 21st century decimate the American Dream in their quest to build modern feudalism. Through The Forecast, I hope to promote new leadership in progressive politics and new tactics for building a just and sustainable future. I envision a movement that integrates print and digital media, based on my research and experience supporting and observing several cultural movements in my professional life. I’m publishing this issue the old-fashioned way not just because that was how my great-grandparents did it, but because I want to build a community that’s not overly reliant on social media. (At least today, those platforms are run by people who appear to favor technofeudalism.)

You are a part of this burgeoning movement.

During treatment, a few truths lodged in my mind:

We’re going to face a lot of hard news in the coming years. But I believe that with every act of cruelty or collapse, there will be people like us—resisting, imagining, rebuilding.

The Forecast exists for that reaction. For the dreamers, organizers, and artists who dare to shape something better. For those speaking truth through grief, and finding courage in each other’s stories.

This isn’t just a magazine. It’s the beginning of a new kind of media community—one grounded in print, voice, healing, and action.

If this speaks to you, I hope you’ll stay with us.

Join as a free subscriber, or become a supporter if you’re able.
Read. Share. Respond. One day, I hope you’ll tell your story too.

Like my life, this is a work in progress—and I’m honored to take the next steps with you.