Every year, we celebrate. Families travel across the county or the country to be together. Friends assemble and recipes are dusted off. We rush to stores and dig through our pantries to get the perfect ingredients. And for one long day, we give thanks. This is Thanksgiving.
Of all of the American cultural traditions, Thanksgiving stands alone. It is a modern remembrance of a harvest festival from exactly 400 years ago. The story about that event is one we all learned in grade school: a group of the first European settlers arrived the year before at Plymouth Rock, endured a harsh winter, but survived through the generosity of the local indigenous people. As a symbol of gratitude, those who survived hosted a feast of friendship. And ever since then, we Americans have done the same.
Not much of that story is true. The Pilgrims arrived on the continent four centuries after the Vikings and ninety years after the first British colonists. That winter was mild. And the Wampanoags were far more strategic in their engagement with the Pilgrims, as their community had already spent the last twenty years dealing with the annual landing of English ships. Also, we didn’t really start celebrating Thanksgiving as Americans until after the Civil War.
The real history, albeit fascinating, is not what matters. Today we are doing something which we admittedly should always be doing. Reconnecting, relaxing, and most importantly: giving thanks.
Thanks that today, we are able to be with each other.
Thanks that while we could always have more, today we have enough.
Thanks that we have a past to study, and a future to create.
And thanks that what we do not need for ourselves, we can choose to pass along to others.
Cops and lawyers fill the airwaves. CSI. Law and Order. Perry Mason. NYPD Blue. These programs have been a staple of American media culture for as long as we’ve had television. Before that there were police radio dramas, and now there are murder podcasts. We love stories about crime.
But the actual, real-world machinery of the legal system does not make for good TV. Attorneys spend most of their time doing research. Detectives write reports and deal with paperwork. Most cases are resolved long before they ever get to court [1] . This isn’t dramatic; it’s tedious. And if you’re the plaintiff or the defendant, most of what you do is wait. And wait. And wait.
In legal matters, boring is a good thing. We want justice to be balanced, fair, and cautious. We want the professionals to follow the rules precisely and without prejudice. And if a judge and jury must make a decision, it should be sober and methodical.
But when courtrooms go on television lawyers and witnesses inevitably become performers. They know that millions of viewers will hear their words and see their faces. They are no longer working to convince twelve jurors, but to win over the public. TV trials are always a circus. Those of us watching at home cannot possibly make a truly informed decision, but that’s what the coverage is guiding us to do.
As I write these words, a murder trial is blanketing our screens. Countless Americans have already decided if the accused is guilty or innocent, even though none of us are on the jury. Whatever the verdict, there will be outrage and vindication. There will be protests and celebration. And there will be condemnation again and again until the media frenzy returns for the the next trial of the century.
Certainly, lawmakers and judges could ban cameras from courtrooms. Indeed, the Supreme Court has resisted any kind of broadcast, only permitting live audio streaming due to the pandemic [2]. But the best answer may not be one of legal restraint, but of self-restraint. Instead of obsessing over a developing trial which we cannot possibly influence, we could choose to do something else. We can turn off our screens and talk to each other.
This is not a football game, where amateur commentary is fun and mostly harmless. Where the losing team still gets paid. This is justice. This is real people whose lives and freedoms are at stake. What is right and wrong is unlikely to be discerned if they are playing for the cameras. The legal process, imperfect as it is, must be humbly followed.
I’m sitting in a local cafe doing some writing for the campaign. In front of me is a glass door to the outside. It’s a side entrance for patrons, used mainly to reach the patio but also for those who are coming from that end of the parking lot.
Today, this door is locked. Which means on over fifteen separate occasions in the last two hours, I’ve seen someone walk up to it and pull the handle—only to discover that they cannot enter this way. Each one of them correctly deduces that the restaurant is in fact open, and they walk around to the main entrance at the front of the building.
The likely reason for this problem is that the person capable of fixing the issue is not one of the people affected by it. And that individual (who is probably the manager) is not paying enough attention to unlock the door.
Institutions of all sizes have locked doors, from the Federal government to your own employer down to this small business. A locked door, in this case, simply a pathway that should be open, but isn’t. Often it is because the person who has the keys isn’t paying attention. They aren’t trying to make it easy for everyone who needs access.
As a candidate, one of my driving principles is to be accessible. If people ask me questions, I try and respond. If they make comments on my Facebook page, I try to reply. I am not going to lock the door.
Speaking of which, last week I released a 45-second campaign video and posted it on Facebook. It was about the recent accusations made against Dr. Anthony Fauci [1]. My message was that we should pursue the truth, but we should not spread rumors.
If you click that link, you’ll see hundreds of comments. Many were personal attacks and horrific insults. But I tried to respond to as many as I could, because I will do everything I can to not lock the door. No matter what people say, I will try to respond. Because to me being a public servant means being accessible to the public.
I’m here for all the people, not just the people who agree with me.
[1] Dr. Fauci was accused of being connected to animal cruelty in medical experiments. So far this comes from one source that got a lot of the details wrong.
As part of this campaign I am visiting local towns throughout the district. These are tiny municipalities. Tipton has 5,000 residents. Sheridan has 3,000 people. Arcadia has 1,500.
The people in these places have needs for their communities. They want clean parks, good schools, and the potholes to be filled in. This is what I hear when I talk to everyday people.
In Cicero, it’s the pool at Red Bridge Park that is the current hot topic. It was built in the 1980s, and fell into disrepair over time. Like many similar facilities across the country, maintenance costs continued to increase, and eventually between these problems and the pandemic, the pool was closed for a season.
Replacing a 30-year old pool is like replacing any structure of a similar age. It’s going to cost more than it did, because modern projects do more than they used to do. Filtration and security systems are more advanced, materials and design considerations make pools safer than they used to be, and the amenities we want in 2021 are not the same we wanted back in 1985. When the town council made calls to get estimates, they found price tags that pushed into six and seven digits. For a town whose budget is about $8 million a year [1], that’s just not something many councilors feel they can focus on right now.
And so, they ordered the pool to be torn down. And if you ask the residents who have been swarming these meetings and talking on the various local Facebook groups, that decision was made hastily, without enough input or sufficient transparency.
Thankfully, temperatures have fallen a bit. Residents who want a new pool are working to create a non-profit foundation and conduct a survey. But the point remains: small towns have big needs. And one of the greatest needs is for people who care about the community to show up.
As a member of Congress, I will not be able to attend as many town councils as I have been. But meeting and connecting with local leaders is absolutely essential. And understanding how Federal resources can and should be used to help communities is, to me, a critical part of this role.
Because even small towns have big needs. And their biggest need of all is to have people who care.
Many people ask me why I’m not running with one of the main political parties. They want me to be a Republican, a Democrat, or perhaps a Libertarian.
I am not. And answering this question is like working your way through a buffet. You might not like the taste of every morsel, but each is sufficient to satisfy your hunger. And you know this. You know this because every time you hear about something in politics, you can’t help but think about political parties. You wonder about private meetings and secret alliances. You know that every official who is a member of a party is being pressured by that party.
It’s happening in the news right now. The Democrats are pushing a couple of their own senators to get in line on spending bills. The Republicans are pushing their own members on the topic of the 2020 election. Federal elected officials don’t just represent voters, they represent their party. You know this.
You know that parties are a huge problem because bills have to be labeled “bipartisan.” We can’t assume they are a good idea. We have to be told that both parties are working together on these proposed laws.
You know that parties are a huge problem because research organizations have to be labeled “nonpartisan.” We can’t trust groups to do honest work without that extra adjective.
None other than George Washington thought that parties were such a terrible idea that he warned about them in his farewell address:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
George Washington, 1796
Doesn’t that sound like what’s happening today? Each election cycle is the “alternate domination”of one party “sharpened by the spirit of revenge.” That many “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual.” This is what Republicans and Democrats seem to do.
I’m an independent because I’m not looking for any of those things. I don’t want to dominate. I am not out for revenge. And I certainly don’t think we need to centralize more power in elected officials.
I’m an independent because we are all, in our hearts, independents. We were created as a nation of independents when we first broke away from England, and we’ve been coming up with independent ideas and new ways of thinking ever since.
And I get that a lot of people affiliate (or even register) with a political party, but that’s not what the polls say [1]. In fact at present there are more independent voters (44%) than there are Democrat (30%) or Republican (25%).
There is no problem in our political system more pernicious than money. This is what politicians do more than anything else: ask for donations. According a slide deck from the Democratic National Campaign Committee [1], freshman members of Congress should expect to spend four hours on the phone every weekday—dialing for dollars. Plus another hour at fundraising events in person.
This a real PowerPoint slide. Seriously:
It’s no wonder Congress doesn’t get much done any more. Members are spending much of their time asking people for money. And for the most part, they ask the same people for money over and over again.
It’s also getting worse because the limits of how much a person can donate keep going up and up, and because of a wide variety of campaign finance vehicles [2] that allow money to be raised and spent without much transparency.
But the main problem with money in politics is that it does a great job of keeping people out of politics. Yes, that’s right. You can’t get much access to candidates or elected officials if you haven’t spent a ton of money supporting them. Which means that most people will never donate to a political campaign, which means that most of the political process is about focusing on people who (a) have money and also (b) are willing to give it to politicians and political parties.
That doesn’t sound like democracy. Politicians should be responsive to everyone, not only donors.
And that’s one of the main reasons I’m not accepting campaign donations. I want to be available to everyone. No matter the size of your bank account.
I’m not raising money or spending oodles of my own money.
I’m promoting my campaign by word-of-mouth.
It’s working.
Why do I know I’m getting traction? Lots of reasons. But first my favorite, which is data. Here’s a quick snapshot from the dashboard of my campaign website:
Ten thousands views is solid. Over three hundred visitors is solid too. And its not just here. Take a look at something from my campaign Facebook page:
And it’s not only online. I’m going to lots of community events and people recognize me from the last community event. Simply by showing up at town council meetings, for example, I’m doing something that other candidates aren’t doing.
Slow and steady progress is appealing. What I need next is to get the message out to more people in huge waves. Being retweeted by someone who has a few more followers than I do. Getting more coverage in the media. Finding a way to get exposure.
Obviously, everybody is trying to do this. If you work for a company or a non-profit, part of the budget goes to marketing. Zillions of dollars are dedicated to advertising, including roughly $10 billion per cycle on political campaigns [1]. Lots of people spend their entire working life trying to promote brands, products, or services to the general public. It’s not easy to do, and it’s definitely not easy to get a “big win” and “go viral.”
But I think I have an advantage over someone who is trying to sell a gadget or get people to listen to their podcast. I think I even have an advantage over all of those other candidates who are members of big political parties. Because I’m doing what all of us want: telling the truth. And I am not asking for your money, but only that you spread the word.
Which again, seems to be working. So pass this along to someone you know. “Regular guy running for Congress as an Independent, not raising money, not pushing a partisan agenda, who isn’t lying all the time.”
Bigger moves are coming. And I need from you is to keep spreading the word.
Earlier this week I went down to the Indiana Statehouse to speak out on redistricting. This was the third hearing I had attended in person and in each case the experience was the same. Every single member of the public who got up expressed serious concerns about the proposal. If there was the opportunity for the minority party to speak, they did the same thing.
But there were no delays, no compromises, and seemingly no interest in feedback. The vote was held on Friday and it followed party lines almost exactly.
As I said in person, this doesn’t feel like democracy. Watch for yourself:
Is it worth explaining the intricacies of why the district lines are unfair and why the process is less than transparent? Maybe. But chances are if you care about that kind of thing, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
And if you don’t care about the details, it’s only yet-another-example of corruption in our government.
The result is apathy. Most people have decided that politicians are corrupt and there’s nothing they can do about it. The redistricting hearings show that government is broken: no matter what people said, the party in power drew maps that keep them in power.
(Maps they drew behind closed doors, released and voted on within two weeks, for which underlying technical data was not immediately made available—and which will define the next ten years of districts for the state.)
How do I plan to get people to care about politics?
I don’t. I plan to talk to them as people, and work to earn their trust as a person.
Because you can’t be apathetic if you trust someone. You’re focused on them being the person they promised to be.
Most of the issues that are mentioned in political discussions are extremely contentious. That’s usually what you see presented on the news or in fiery comment threads online. It’s what you see when protestors and counter-protestors clash in public. It’s what you see when current officeholders release messages: scorched earth commentary all controversy and almost zero substance.
But it turns out that there are a handful of issues that almost everyone supports except for politicians. And all of these issues are about power and trust. For example:
Term Limits – A whopping 80% of Americans support the idea of preventing politicians from keeping the same office forever [1]. A few states have managed to do this for a few positions, but usually through citizen initiatives and not via the elected representatives. And as I’ve said before, support for term limits shows how much we distrust elected officials.
Personal Internet Privacy – Almost everyone in America feels the same way. We think that “social media companies should be regulated to protect the privacy of personal data.” And this isn’t a partisan issue: 87% of Democrats, 87% of Republicans and 86% of Independents agree with this statement [2]. Yet, we haven’t seen much lately on this topic. Which is probably because of the massive political campaign donations from tech companies [3].
Special Interest Groups – Pretty much all of us (76%) agree that the government is run by a few big organizations and wealthy individuals looking out for themselves—not by representatives and bureaucrats serving the people [4]. But since 1998, total spending on lobbying has more than doubled and shows no sign of slowing down [5].
Redistricting – This is the topic of the moment (which I’ve also talked about before) because states are required by the U.S. Constitution to redraw their lines every ten years following the Census. If you ask average people, most of them don’t think politicians should be responsible for drawing their own districts [6]. But that’s what’s happening. And if you go to the hearings (as I’ve been doing) you’ll hear citizen after citizen standing up to express concern—but no one standing up to say that they support the proposed maps.
These examples should not exist. Politicians should be talking about controversial topics, debating and studying them, listening to voters. But if an issue is one where almost everyone feels the same way, why aren’t we passing a law and moving on?
Because in many ways, the politicians aren’t here for us. They are here for themselves.
If you want to understand politics in 2021, you’ve got to understand memes. These are images but it’s best to think of them as viruses. They spread from person to person and cause mental infections. And while the ideas usually have perhaps a grain of truth almost always the meme is designed to get you to believe something uncritically.
Memes are so dangerous, it’s not often wise to release them into the wild without a safe container. So here’s one I’ve seen floating around, and I’ve carefully removed the hazardous edges to explain how it works.
This class of meme, if it had a Latin name, might be Announceious Single-Reasonum. That is, the person sharing the image is telling everyone what they believe and giving one major rationale they think is good enough all on its own.
It gets worse. This particular meme uses something beloved by English teachers everywhere: parallel construction.
I can’t show you the actual verb employed in the meme because it gives away the topic. That’s how utterly toxic these viruses are. But there is power in using the same word. It ties together the first and second half of the meme, giving the argument weight.
More context; read carefully.
Now the meme is starting to feel bulletproof. The two things are clearly connected. Or at least, the things are the same. One was already done, the other should be done. Right?
Okay. It’s time to descend into the biohazard lab. Put on your gloves and goggles. To make sure no one gets hurt, I’ve hidden the next image behind a link. Take a deep breath. And when you’re ready, take a look.
This is an enormous area of policy discussion, and really there are almost no serious proposals for a complete cancellation of all federal student loans [1] and the experts don’t anticipate that happening anyway [2]. Plus if you think about it what happens to all of the students who are currently in college and incurring debt? And what prevents colleges from increasing the cost of education further, since they know the government will pay it?
Obviously these details can be discussed and maybe even worked out, but the meme makes a blanket statement proposing “cancellation.” And this is the first way that memes cause injury. They make assertions as if they were true and complete. But they often aren’t. A total cancellation of all student loan debt is not a feasible idea. That’s not what you want to hear if you’re one of those 45 million people, but it is the truth.
At this point, the right thing to do is to stop reading the meme. Any image that mentions a policy idea which is unworkable is not worth your time. But that’s not how our brains work. We can’t stop. We have to keep going.
Responding now is like trying to get spilled milk back into the jug. The word cancelled is obviously wrong. Nobody took a look at a bunch of specific tax returns and then decided to throw them out. But in any case, if someone got away with not paying taxes, shouldn’t we go after them and make them pay their taxes? What does other people’s student loan bills have to do with any of that?
If you carefully take it apart, the meme doesn’t make any sense. Yes: we do have problems with the cost of education and student loan debt. Yes: our tax code has problems too, especially with regard to the ultra wealthy.
But these facts are not connected. They are two very real issues, but they don’t have anything to do with each other [3]. And yet, this meme insists that they do.
And like all viruses, the host is infected. And chances are that this virus will be shared with others.
There is no other choice. All we can do is to implore one another: think carefully before you click.
