Why Me, Why Now, and Why I (probably) Shouldn’t Do This
A little more about me, but then I'll be getting out of the way
As I mentioned in my first post, this writing project has been on my mind for over twenty years. I haven’t started until now for several reasons; perhaps chief among them is that I have close friends across the entire spectrum of political beliefs (with the exception being members of the Klan or literal Stalinists). Because I don’t really think within and tight, specific political frame, I always feared that writing about politics would risk the loss of some of these friendships be they liberal or conservative. And while that remains a risk for me personally and professionally, I don’t feel that I can just stand here silently as our politics continue running headlong into tragedy. This project we call America is too important to continue to sit by the sidelines while history unfolds before me.
And no, I’m not delusional and thinking that I alone can change the sweep or course of history. It’s much simpler than that; I care about America, freedom, and the earth as a living, amazing place full of love, life, and jaw dropping nature. Silently standing by, while a few elites, wannabe intellectuals, and downright crazies keep the reins of power, will only lead me to an old age regret that I should have said something more, using the talents I have to say it.
I should be clear, however, that I have not spent my entire life on the sidelines. While I was raised in a conservative environment, and was really conservative until my late teens, I’ve been an activist as well as a messaging and campaign consultant for mostly liberal causes. I co-founded a non-profit called Vote 18. Vote 18 was a non-partisan voter education and registration organization that brought a uniquely engaging civics lesson to high school seniors around the country between 2006 and 2012. Vote 18 was an interactive teaching method based on role-play, discovery, deduction and self-interest (what your vote actually means) to connect young people to the power and relevance of their vote as a part of their voice in their community. Our goal wasn’t merely to register young people to vote but create active citizens and life-long voters. When we were active we traveled to high schools around the country, often in partnership with the League of Women Voters, and reached thousands of young people. Our program was eventually adopted by Rock the Vote for their Democracy Class program and we disbanded the non-profit in about 2011. You can see my TedX talk about our program here: (Not my best freeze frame but whachagonnado?)
Before that, in the early aughts, I cut my teeth as a billionaire, or, rather, a “Billionaire” (more on that in a future post) and I’ve used my skills as an advertising and messaging maestro to advise policy campaigns over the years. I’ve never worked for a candidate, choosing issues over individuals, because the truth is, so few candidates have impressed me. I’m also not a believer in “The One True Candidate” fallacy that some elected, no matter how impressive, is going to be “The Solution” to our many problems.
I’m also one of the founders of a movement called The Other 98%. My history with the group, which we founded as The Other 95%, is too long for this post, but I haven’t been involved since it went from an organizing platform that speaks to the vast majority of Americans (the other 95%) who are neither hard left or hard right, care about politics, but mostly just want to live their lives in peace and prosperity to more of vehicle for lefty content. I may do a longer post on my experience with the Other 98% one day, but for now, suffice it to that I quit my involvement with the group because I wanted to put my time into reaching people who weren’t already singing in the choir. While I know that connecting with and inspiring believers is important often vital work, I feel that my highest and best use is trying to approach politics from a more unique frame of reference. My goal with this blog is to stand outside of predictable takes and positions on politics. So yes, since leaving home and traveling the world at 18, I’ve become more liberal and progressive in many ways, but I am an optimistic realist and fervent pragmatist when it comes to policy.
I’m also not writing this to some day run for office. God no. While I may sometimes talk about candidates and even support or denounce them, I don’t plan to use this page on behalf of any political party, candidate, or cause. I’m also not writing in the hopes of becoming another talking boob on any 24 hour news channel.
I am writing this in the hopes that there are people out there, like me, who care deeply about this country, know in their gut that it’s slipping away from what it can truly be. The goals is to engage those that feel left out by all the elitists and talking heads, politicos and parties who seem only to want to perpetuate the problem, or fire up the base for their own fundraising, power, and profiles.
What I hope to achieve with these posts
I am starting this blog without many fixed goals or objectives. For now, I’m writing with the following topics and types in mind:
To write about experiences from my life and apply those life lessons (and some fun stories) to how they may inform age-old, entrenched debates.
To describe and decipher various political and media techniques elites use to keep us angry, afraid, and against each other instead of united against the problems we face.
To write about the many problems America is struggling with, and explore how some are interconnected to larger issues, share insights that may inform how we might tackle these in new and practical ways free from the “fixes” already prescribed by ideological structures and institutions. The caveat here is that some institutions may already have very good, practical, most-likely-to-be impactful ideas to solve certain problems. I’m not going to cast off ideas just because they may come from a “right” or “left” source. I’ll do my best to either find and write about them or remain open to learning more about their strengths and debate their weaknesses and blind spots.
To selectively respond to the news cycles if my experience, background, frame of reference and ideas can either inform the debate or call out the debate or talking heads when necessary.
Highlight the many ways we can make our democracy stronger, our government more responsive, more effective, our quality of life better, and our judicial system more just. I want to cast a light on the ways that politics, elections, and lesser-known institutional structures and organization play an outsized role in everyone’s life, even if most people have never heard of them. I’ll use many examples from my current home state of Arizona to make the case that we need more, active, engaged voters, show readers why, and then describe ways we can make voting safer AND more accessible to everyone.
Keep these short! Definitely shorter than these first two posts.
Keep these fun, or at least interesting. These first few posts are sort of primers for the project, stay tuned for more stories, laughs, and the like.
I hope this blog can find an audience that, though may not agree with every word, enjoys the journey and perspective. And, in time, I do hope that this may ultimately serve as a useful resource for policy makers and politicos who share my frustration and fears about the direction of this great country, and maybe take away a few crumbs from time to time to inform their own approaches and assumptions about audiences, voters, issues, and solutions.
I hope that my unique experience in the world: as a first generation, patriotic American, business owner, independent thinker, cynical optimist, can inform the conversation, engage more people that aren’t politically obsessed or off the deep end of the ideological spectrum, so that more of us can speak up, inform the debate and ultimately policy, not just for the good of the new, but the common good of the country, and not just for the next news and election cycle, but for generations to come.