My approach to politics
I believe in purple politics, finding the space between red and blue where real solutions live. But purple does not mean passive. I reject the idea that being nonpartisan means treating every issue like both sides are equally right or equally wrong. Some things are factually accurate and some are not. Some policies help people and some hurt them. My job is to do the research, present it honestly, and give you my honest take. Your job is to decide whether you agree.
As of September 2026, every position on this page is tied to a written framework: my Political Principles. If you want to know why I land where I do, start there.
I am not here for the outrage machine. I am here for nuance.
How to read this page
Confidence levels. Every position carries one of three labels, because pretending I hold all of these with equal certainty would be dishonest. Settled means I have done the work and I am not moving without new evidence. Working position means this is where I have landed and I can be moved. Open question means I do not have a firm view and I am telling you so rather than faking one.
This page is just what I think. How a policy actually works lives on the What People Get Wrong page. The fix and the evidence behind it live on the Solutions page. Where the background lives is noted at the end of each entry.
Everything here was reviewed in September 2026. Where a position or its underlying facts changed, the entry says so.
FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES
Everything on this page follows from one question: does this help a person become the best version of themselves? I believe in three human rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and in a government whose job is to protect that floor, build people's capacity to succeed, and then let them choose. Above the floor, I want equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. Nobody is above the law. When an entry below says a policy passes or fails, that is the test it is being held to.
The cycle of hatred
Confidence: Settled.
The pervasive cycle of hatred and violence in our world devastates lives across every community and nation. To move forward, we must embrace forgiveness and actively seek solutions. Breaking the cycle does not mean forgetting. It means choosing a different path.
The influence of minorities
Confidence: Settled.
The minority, an often underestimated segment of any population, holds outsized importance. Despite appearing small, their influence, active participation, and conviction often lead the charge for change, while the majority typically follows only after being swayed. Never underestimate what a committed few can accomplish.
The Deep State
Confidence: Settled.
I do not subscribe to the belief in a sinister, all powerful organization secretly manipulating society. But governments have committed wrongful acts throughout history, and the substantial influence the wealthy wield in shaping society cannot be overlooked. The decline of the middle class alongside growing inequality demands attention and accountability. Uncovering truths is essential. Resorting to violence or surrendering is not.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong.
Freedom versus safety
Confidence: Settled. Previously an open question.
I used to call this a paradox. I do not anymore. Safety, in the sense that matters most, is protection of life, and liberty is its own right. Both belong to the floor. When they collide, liberty gives way only to stop a concrete, identifiable harm, and the burden of proof sits with whoever wants to restrict it. "It might make things safer" is not enough. "This stops this specific harm to these specific people" can be. Technology will keep offering more safety at the price of more surveillance, and each trade has to pass that test on its own.
CIVIC FOUNDATIONS
Civic education and direct participation
Confidence: Settled.
Democracy only works when the people actually participate in it, and right now most Americans are not equipped to, not because they are incapable, but because the system has never prepared them.
Embed civic education into every stage of learning so young people grow up understanding how local government works, who represents them, and how decisions about their taxes, schools, and neighborhoods actually get made. That includes getting students out of classrooms and into the city halls where those decisions happen.
Then build direct digital feedback systems at the local level, so when a city council proposes a budget change, every resident gets clear communication and a real mechanism to weigh in, rather than digging through buried government websites or taking a day off work for a Tuesday afternoon meeting. National government works best through representatives who use real judgment. Local government is where citizens can and should have a more direct voice.
Together these build the practical civic knowledge Plato argued was essential to citizenship while removing the friction that keeps people on the sidelines. America built the greatest democratic experiment in human history. The work now is preparing people to be participants in it rather than spectators watching it fall apart.
Information access and civic tech
Confidence: Settled.
Civic engagement starts with access to information, and right now that access is broken. Public government data is technically public and practically hidden, scattered across fifty one state systems and buried in unusable federal databases.
That gap is one of the biggest threats to a functioning democracy, because voters cannot hold politicians accountable for records they cannot see, and cannot show up for local elections when they do not know who represents them.
Going into the 2026 midterms and beyond we need more civic tech that treats voters like adults who deserve real data, publicly supported nonpartisan local news that translates what government does into something people can follow, more politicians who operate with radical transparency, and a culture that expects public information to actually be public in practice rather than in theory.
The fix and the evidence: see Solutions.
Government transparency
Confidence: Settled. Previously an open question.
Government used to run on implied trust. Social media ended that, and legitimacy now has to be proven in the open. So transparency is the default. Secrecy is allowed only where disclosure would cause a concrete harm to national security or to individuals, and even then it must be earned: overseen by someone outside the agency keeping the secret, time limited, and eventually disclosed. Discretion that answers to no one is not security. It is power without accountability.
DEMOCRACY, THE CONSTITUTION, AND EXECUTIVE POWER
Executive power and democratic norms
Confidence: Settled.
I take threats to democratic institutions seriously. When a president deploys military style force into American cities against the will of governors and mayors, that raises serious constitutional questions, including Posse Comitatus implications, and I will call it out regardless of party.
Updated September 2026: the Supreme Court agreed. In December 2025 it ruled 6 to 3 in Trump v. Illinois that the National Guard deployments to Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago were unlawful because no statute exempting them from Posse Comitatus had been invoked. A judge this president appointed called the Portland justification untethered to facts. Troops were withdrawn.
If your foreign policy or your domestic policy is just whatever the president tells you, that does not demonstrate the individuality or backbone this country needs. Politicians who stay silent because they do not want to offend the person in power are failing their constituents.
The Insurrection Act
Confidence: Settled.
A law this powerful, with this little oversight, was always going to be abused eventually. The question now is whether Congress has the spine to close the loophole before it becomes a routine tool of executive overreach. I support the bipartisan reform. Anyone serious about constitutional government should.
Updated September 2026: in January 2026 the administration threatened to invoke the Act in Minnesota to support immigration enforcement, which would be an unprecedented use against a state over a policy disagreement rather than an actual insurrection. It has never been used for immigration enforcement in American history, and the administration's own joint report, required by its January 2025 executive order, recommended against invoking it.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong. The reform bill and its limits: see Solutions.
Presidential pardon power
Confidence: Settled.
George Mason was right. The pardon power as written is a loophole large enough to drive a presidency through, and Hamilton's faith in a single executive's mercy has not survived contact with the modern presidency. I support Cohen's amendment and the Protecting Our Democracy Act. Pardons for self, family, and administration officials should be off the table by constitutional text, not by convention.
Updated September 2026: more than 1,800 pardons this term against 237 in the entire first term, including roughly 1,600 January 6 defendants on day one, the Binance founder whose company works with the president's family crypto business, and a former Honduran president convicted of drug trafficking, pardoned while this administration justified lethal boat strikes as anti drug operations.
How it works, including the two things almost nobody knows: see What People Get Wrong. The reform proposals: see Solutions.
Holding public officials accountable
Confidence: Settled. New in September 2026.
Anyone who holds power should be tested and exposed like everyone else. For appointed officials, that means an applied knowledge exam, public confirmation hearings with questions sourced from citizens, independent financial audits, and a public interview. Term limits keep power from settling into the same hands. And rhetoric alone should never be policed, but when an official acts on anti-democratic rhetoric, the consequences should be public and permanent, with no pardon to erase them.
Supreme Court reform
Confidence: Settled on term limits and ethics. Working position on expansion.
Term limits with staggered appointments is the cleanest fix. Ethics reform is the most achievable. Start with what you can pass, build the case for what you cannot, and stop pretending nine lifetime appointments with no enforceable code of conduct is a defensible system in 2026.
Updated September 2026: the Court has since expanded presidential removal power over independent agencies in Trump v. Slaughter, after which the administration removed the remaining bipartisan members of the Election Assistance Commission, and blocked the attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook by a single vote, 5 to 4. Whatever you think of the outcomes, a Court deciding this much this fast with no binding ethics code is not a stable arrangement.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong. The reform paths: see Solutions.
Impeachment and the 25th Amendment
Confidence: Settled.
Impeachment without a clear path to 67 Senate votes is symbolism, and symbolism without conviction often hardens the base it was meant to discipline. That does not mean the tool should never be used. It means it should be used when the constitutional case is overwhelming and the country has been brought along. We are in a moment where the conduct keeps escalating and the political math keeps not adding up, and neither party seems to know what to do with that gap.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong.
Voting reform and STAR voting
Confidence: Working position.
STAR voting could align candidates more closely with what voters actually want, give third parties real influence, and raise participation. I have worked directly in this space as an Outreach Coordinator for STAR Voting because I believe in it. The incentives that produce a two party system come from our election rules, so if we want more choice, reforming the rules comes first.
Updated September 2026, and this one is on me. I moved this from Settled to Working position after looking hard at the record. STAR voting has never been used in a binding government election anywhere in the United States. Eugene rejected it 67 to 33 in May 2024. Oakridge came within 99 votes that November. I still think the math is right. But I have been describing something as proven that has not been tried, and if I am going to demand receipts from everyone else, I have to hold my own advocacy to it.
The full evidence, including what it does not fix: see Solutions.
The SAVE Act and election administration
Confidence: Settled.
When a policy solves a problem that does not statistically exist and creates barriers for 21 million citizens who do, the framing of election integrity is doing political work. Call it what it is.
This sits inside a broader effort: the DOGE and Social Security voter data agreement with True the Vote, nine states leaving the bipartisan ERIC voter roll system including Ohio, the dismantling of CISA election security infrastructure including elimination of the Election Day situation room for the first time in its history, and two dozen Justice Department lawsuits targeting state election procedures. Taken together that is a coordinated campaign to reshape who votes and who counts, ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Updated September 2026: the Senate voted 51 to 48 to open debate but the bill still needs 60. It was then used as leverage, holding up FISA Section 702, which lapsed in June, and the bipartisan housing bill, which became law in July without a presidential signature. Voters who cared about either had no way to know their outcome was tied to a voter ID fight. Separately, the Justice Department's voter roll demands lost 17 federal rulings, eight of them from judges this president appointed.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong.
DOJ weaponization and political retribution
Confidence: Settled.
The Department of Justice should not be a tool of presidential revenge. When the DOJ pursues indictments against political opponents using a prosecutor with no trial experience who was previously the president's personal attorney, and a federal judge throws out the cases as unlawfully brought, that is not justice. That is retribution.
I have covered the cases against James Comey, Letitia James, and others, and the pattern is troubling regardless of how you feel about those individuals. The DOJ was directed to align litigation with the president's agenda. That should alarm everyone, because the next president might aim that weapon at people you support.
Press freedom
Confidence: Settled.
When the government requires reporters to agree not to publish information that has not been pre approved, when the FBI raids a journalist's home over a story, and when the Attorney General rescinds protections that kept the DOJ from pursuing reporters' phone records, we have a press freedom problem. Independent journalism is how democracies hold power accountable. A free press is not a partisan issue. It is a foundational one.
Project 2025 and Schedule F
Confidence: Settled.
Project 2025 is no longer a think tank talking point. It is policy. At a certain point the question shifts from is this Project 2025 to what parts are not.
Schedule F is the structural cornerstone, reclassifying an estimated 50,000 policy influencing federal employees as at will. Ninety four percent of more than 40,000 public comments opposed it. Whether you call it accountability or a return to the 19th century spoils system, the executive branch now has unprecedented unilateral control over its workforce. That should concern everyone regardless of party, because the next president might not be yours.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong.
Government shutdowns and fiscal responsibility
Confidence: Settled.
Three shutdowns in recent months, including the longest in American history at 43 days. These are not political theater. TSA workers went without pay, SNAP benefits were cut for 42 million Americans, flights were canceled, economic data was permanently lost, and the economy lost an estimated $14 billion a week.
Using food assistance for one in eight Americans as leverage is unconscionable. Access to food is part of the floor, and the system that provides it should never be a bargaining chip. Federal workers should not face eviction because politicians cannot do their jobs. I do not care which party is responsible on any given shutdown. If you are willing to let Americans suffer to score points, you have failed your constituents.
How it works: see What People Get Wrong.
Congressional accountability
Informed by Joe Patterson, Director of Seven Ten
Confidence: Settled.
After sitting down with Joe Patterson I walked away more frustrated with Congress than I have ever been, and I cover Congress every week.
Seven Ten identified ten issues where 70 percent or more of Americans agree, then scored every sitting member on them. Out of 540 representatives, one cleared the bar. Even more damning, bills pass at roughly the same rate whether they have 30 percent public support or 70 percent. Your opinion as a voter is statistically irrelevant to legislative outcomes.
Joe's analogy stuck with me. If the group is lost in the woods and half want to go east and half want west, but everyone agrees on south, just go south. Get out of the woods first.
The mechanisms and the objection: see Solutions.
Protest rights and civic advocacy
Informed by Adam Swart, Founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand
Confidence: Working position.
Your right to protest is one of the most fundamental protections in the Constitution, and most Americans do not fully understand what it actually covers. You can protest on public property without a permit in most cases. You have the right to film police. You do not have to disperse just because someone in uniform says so unless a lawful order has been issued. With those rights come responsibilities: blocking streets, vandalizing property, and violence always hurt your cause.
Peaceful civil disobedience has its place. When there is a clear, demonstrable rights violation, disruptive and visible protest is legitimate. Rioting and destroying property never are. I also support a framework that holds demonstrators and law enforcement accountable, including mandatory de escalation training for police.
Updated September 2026: I have found my answer to NAACP v. Alabama, and it changes the proposal. Freedom of association is part of liberty, and I protect it close to absolutely, so no one's membership in a movement should ever be disclosed. But a company that is paid to supply a crowd is not associating. It is selling a service. So the disclosure I support is narrow: when a vendor is paid to produce or staff a demonstration, the payment and who made it should be public, the same way we treat paid political advertising. Grassroots organizers and their members stay private. I am keeping this a working position until I see a statute that draws that line cleanly.
The proposals and the constitutional problem: see Solutions.
Winning the infrastructure war
Confidence: Working position. Retitled from Rebuilding the Democratic coalition.
The side with the better ecosystem wins, whatever its ideas. The right spent more than a decade building a pipeline from viral content to ground game: voter registration, canvassing and fundraising. That model moved the youth vote nine points toward Republicans. The left is roughly ten years behind, and so is almost every independent and third party movement.
Any movement that wants to compete, whether that is Democrats, moderates, or a new independent force, needs three things: simple messaging built around what people feel every month (gas, groceries, rent); an organizing pipeline, not just content; and real community. Young people are not joining conservative movements mainly because of ideology. Those spaces offer belonging, access and purpose that other spaces have failed to create. Whoever builds that wins the next generation.
Populism
Confidence: Settled.
Populism, the distrust of government and elites exploiting the populace, reflects a legitimate caution toward those in power. Being mindful of authority is not inherently negative. But adopting a pessimistic view that condemns the entire system does not foster progress. In extreme cases it leads to regression, as we saw on January 6th.
Where populism goes wrong is when it cannot tell the difference between people who captured power illegitimately and people who earned success through genuine work. Both can end up in the same tax bracket. Treating them as one enemy is unjust, and it drives away exactly the capable people a country needs.
Free speech and social media
Confidence: Settled.
I firmly support free speech as a fundamental American right. It does not protect violence, incitement, or obscenity, which unequivocally warrant bans.
Slurs, hate speech, and harassment are more intricate. Everyone should have freedom to express ideas in the marketplace of thoughts, but we must collectively establish reasonable standards for what is harmful. I do not advocate immediate bans for every offense, but transparent consequences, with a process the public can actually see so people understand the rules.
One distinction matters here. Platforms can and should set standards for their own spaces. The government cannot punish speech itself. What the law can reach is conduct: incitement, threats, and action taken on the back of that rhetoric.
The Trump and Epstein relationship
Confidence: Settled.
The files exist. The public has been told they exist. Release them, redacted appropriately for victims, and let the evidence speak. The selective drip is doing more damage to trust in institutions than the full record could. This is not about partisanship. It is about whether powerful men get a different standard of accountability than everyone else.
Updated September 2026. Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act 427 to 1 in the House and the president signed it. The Justice Department missed the deadline. Officials claimed hundreds of thousands of pages had been released; NBC News counted under 10,000. At least 16 files were removed from the department's website including a photograph of Trump with Epstein, then restored. The bulk arrived January 30, 2026: three million pages, over a month late, roughly half of the six million pages the department itself identified as potentially relevant. In March 2026 the Republican led House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena the Attorney General over the handling.
Documents show he flew on Epstein's plane at least eight times, which corrects the seven I previously cited. In March 2026 the department released FBI notes from a woman alleging an assault by Trump in the 1980s when she was a minor. That allegation is uncorroborated and I treat it as such, the same standard I would apply to anyone.
No documented evidence has emerged tying either Trump or Bill Clinton to Epstein's crimes. That was true when I first wrote this and it is still true. Appearing in a file is not evidence of a crime, and I have held that line consistently even when the pressure ran the other way.
DOMESTIC POLICY
Immigration and the American border
Informed by David Rozas, Founding Partner of Rozas Law Firm
Confidence: Settled.
Unchecked illegal immigration is fundamentally flawed as a concept. Allowing people in without proper vetting is not wise. But there is a strong argument for simplifying legal immigration so more people can come the right way, while fortifying protections against unauthorized entry.
What frustrates me about MAGA's stance is that they want to do something about illegal immigration and refuse to fix the actual problem: the asylum process. People in Miami wait eight to nine years for an initial interview. Not a resolution. An interview. No resources, no real policy to improve it.
On enforcement: I believe in enforcing immigration law and I believe in accountability. When agents operate in communities in paramilitary gear and face virtually no consequences for misconduct, that should concern everyone. Body cameras should be mandatory. Use of force policy should be codified into law. Sensitive locations, meaning schools, churches, hospitals, and courthouses, should be protected so people are not afraid to send their kids to school or seek medical care. You can enforce the law and still treat people with humanity.
Updated September 2026: four United States citizens have now been killed in immigration enforcement incidents since March 2025. As of April 2026 no charges had been filed in either of the two Minneapolis killings, and federal authorities had seized evidence, withheld personnel files, and blocked state investigators from a scene. Meanwhile the share of ICE arrests involving people with no criminal conviction and no pending charge rose from about 22 percent early in the term to roughly 43 percent by January 2026. The promise was the worst of the worst. The data describes something else.
David is not an open borders advocate. He is a conservative from Louisiana who served in Army intelligence and believes deeply in borders. He also believes in due process and in actually fixing the system rather than using immigrants as props every cycle.
How the systems work: see What People Get Wrong. The fixes: see Solutions.
Work visas and the American economy
Confidence: Settled.
This is the channel to expand and clean up, not the one to crush with prohibitive fees while ignoring the broken systems beneath it.
Corporations benefit from the current arrangement, because undocumented labor means no taxes, no Social Security contributions, no workers' compensation, and no accountability. Bring those workers into the legal system and employers have to pay fair wages and follow rules, which protects American workers instead of scapegoating immigrants.
The proposed $100,000 H-1B fee would price smaller companies and startups out of hiring specialty workers while creating no additional American workers in fields that already have shortages.
How the programs work: see What People Get Wrong. The expansion case and the wage objection: see Solutions.
Immigration and jobs
Confidence: Settled.
The immigrants are stealing our jobs narrative is emotionally satisfying and empirically hollow. If we want better outcomes for American workers the conversation should be education and training pipelines, wage policies that ensure living wages, corporate accountability for job creation, and expanding pathways into growing sectors. The wealth gap keeps widening. That is not an immigrant problem. It is a policy problem.
The evidence and its limits: see What People Get Wrong.
Welfare
Confidence: Working position.
Welfare holds real value. Food and shelter are not rights any single person owes you, but a government's job is to keep a reliable system that puts them within reach of everyone, because without them the rights that do matter mean very little. That is the standard I hold welfare to, and I have serious doubts about how well the current system meets it.
I advocate transitioning these programs to the state level for better management. Benefits should be equitable regardless of family structure and should not inadvertently encourage any particular one.
The real question when politicians propose things like work requirements is intent. Are they providing an actual path toward upward mobility, or just making it harder for people to save money while not caring if they suffer? A program should build people up so they need it less over time, not push them off the floor.
Updated September 2026: more than four million people left SNAP between July 2025 and April 2026, from 42 million recipients to 37 million, as the 2025 budget law extended work requirements to veterans, homeless people, young adults aging out of foster care, parents of teenagers, and adults 55 to 64, and ended federal food aid for refugees and trafficking victims. The Agriculture Secretary attributed the decline to a better economy and to people on the program who should not have been. Unemployment was flat and food prices were rising. Those two explanations do not fit together.
How it works, including the fraud numbers and the history: see What People Get Wrong.
Healthcare
Confidence: Settled.
I do not call healthcare a human right. I call it something more precise: one of the systems that makes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness possible, which means government has a real obligation to keep it within everyone's reach. That standard is what drives my positions. I believe in expanding access to affordable healthcare through a public option and much heavier investment in preventive care. Capping insulin at $35 and expanding ACA coverage are meaningful steps. A Medicare buy in for people 55 and older makes sense as a bridge. Any politician who opposes Medicaid expansion without offering a real alternative is prioritizing ideology over people's lives.
I will say the work requirement conversation is not as unreasonable as it sounds on the surface. Programs should help people in need while pushing them forward so they do not need the program forever. But it comes down to intent and design.
Updated September 2026: the design question now has an answer. Arkansas ran the real test. More than 18,000 adults were disenrolled in four months, uninsurance rose among the targeted group, and the effect on employment was, in the researchers' words, negative, small, and statistically insignificant. Nearly everyone who can work already does, and most people who lost coverage lost it over paperwork. That does not make the goal wrong. It makes this mechanism a failure at the thing it claims to do.
Meanwhile the Congressional Budget Office scored the 2025 budget law's Medicaid provisions at $793 billion less federal spending over ten years and 7.8 million more uninsured by 2034, about 16 million once the marketplace changes and expiring premium tax credits are counted. Benchmark premiums rose nearly 26 percent year over year.
The honest version of the work requirement debate: see What People Get Wrong. The coverage proposals and their tradeoffs: see Solutions.
Housing affordability and the homeownership gap
Informed by Ashley Thomas III, National President of NAREB
Confidence: Settled on the problem. Working position on the fix.
Housing is not a partisan issue. It is an American issue, and the homeownership crisis is one of the most underreported policy failures in this country.
The qualification system is broken for everyone. Student loans on deferment still count against your mortgage application even though you are making no payments. Credit utilization penalties punish people who have never missed a payment just for using the credit limit they were given. In nine community property states a spouse's debt counts against you but their income does not.
The racial gap is real and it was built deliberately, from redlining to the exclusion of Black veterans from GI Bill housing benefits. Closing it will require equal intentionality.
Updated September 2026, two corrections and one change of mind. First, the numbers. The National Association of Realtors, on 2023 data, has white homeownership at 72.4 percent and Black at 44.7 percent, a gap of about 28 points that has widened since 2013. The mortgage denial figures make the same point and are harder to dispute: Black applicants are denied at 21 percent and Hispanic applicants at 17 percent, against 11 percent for white applicants.
Second, the shortage number. I have cited four million homes short. Published estimates actually range from roughly zero to 40 million depending on method. I am not citing a single figure anymore.
Third, a change of position. I previously listed restricting institutional investor purchases as a fix. I have come to think that is the wrong villain. Institutional investors own a small share of the housing stock, and the binding constraint is what we allow to be built and how long it takes to get permission. Zoning and permitting are the real fight: rules that add burden without stopping any real harm. That is a harder argument to make because the villain is a process rather than a company, but I would rather be right than satisfying.
The qualification fixes and the 2008 objection: see Solutions. Why the shortage number is unknowable: see What People Get Wrong.
Education, college, and school vouchers
Confidence: Settled.
Education is one of the systems that makes the pursuit of happiness real, so I want it within reach for everyone. College is primarily imperative for specialized fields. For those who are uncertain, taking time to explore is crucial, and online courses and hands on experience are viable alternatives. I believe in free access to community colleges. Too many people are going into debt or taking careers that have nothing to do with their degree, and we need to be honest about that.
On vouchers I have serious concerns. In Ohio the EdChoice program was ruled unconstitutional by a judge who found it diverted over $700 million from public schools. More than half of students receiving vouchers never attended public school in the first place. When voucher expansion drains billions with zero accountability for where the money goes, and local property taxes rise because districts have to make up the difference, that is not school choice. That is defunding public education through the back door.
I believe in fully and constitutionally funding public schools. If we are going to have vouchers there needs to be complete transparency, accountability standards, and proof the money improves outcomes rather than subsidizing families already in private school. The public education system has not been meaningfully updated in over a century, and that is a design problem we should fix rather than abandon.
Abortion
Confidence: Settled. Changed September 2026.
I believe the right to life begins at sentience: the point where the brain has formed the connections that make it possible to perceive and feel anything at all. The science puts that at around 24 weeks. I support access to abortion up to that point, and I oppose it after that point except in a medical emergency.
I chose that line on purpose. It rests on evidence, not faith and not convenience, and it marks the moment there is someone with a stake in their own future. It lands near the viability standard, but for a different reason: not whether the fetus could survive outside the womb, but whether there is anyone there to experience it. I also find dehumanizing a fetus to rationalize the act morally unacceptable, before or after that line.
What still gets me is inconsistency. Anyone who calls themselves pro life should extend the same care to children once they are born: kids in foster care, kids waiting for adoption, and immigrant children in federal custody.
Updated September 2026, and this is a change of position. I previously supported access to about 12 weeks, when distinct human characteristics begin to emerge. When I rebuilt my principles from the ground up, I could not defend that line as the point where a right attaches. Appearance is not experience. Sentience is.
Guns and mass shootings
Confidence: Settled on background checks and safe storage. Working position on a national registry.
I am not particularly pro gun. I shot rifles plenty during my time in the Marine Corps, but the cultural fascination does not appeal to me. If you want to exercise your Second Amendment right, that is fine, but can we have regulation?
In a permitless carry environment we need enhanced security in public spaces, comprehensive gun education, and universal background checks for both public and private purchases, because each one stops a specific, identifiable harm. I have supported a national registry, and I still lean that way, but I hold it more loosely: the evidence that it prevents deaths is thinner than for background checks, and it carries a real liberty cost. It has to earn its place. The argument that assault weapons bans do not make sense because more people die from handguns is the same logic as saying more people die from pistols than grenades, so why can I not have a grenade. It does not hold up.
Guns in airports, police buildings, and daycares? I would be extremely uncomfortable if some guy rolls into a daycare strapped. That said, if you are pro gun and disagree with me, I would genuinely love to have you on the podcast.
On mass shootings specifically, I believe the core issue is mental health, and routine mental health assessments can help mitigate risk, alongside robust security in schools.
Updated September 2026: in 2024 there were 44,447 gun deaths in America and 62 percent of them were suicides, a record high, while gun murders fell 27 percent from their 2021 peak. That does not change my position on regulation. It does mean the majority of gun deaths in this country are barely discussed by either side, and waiting periods, safe storage, and crisis intervention orders are aimed squarely at them.
The full data: see What People Get Wrong.
Police reform and criminal justice
Confidence: Settled on the goal. Working position on the mechanism.
I believe in police accountability that protects both citizens and good officers. The role deserves respect. Individual conduct still has to earn it. Body cam footage should be uploaded to neutral third party systems in real time, not held, edited, or redacted by the same departments under scrutiny. We need federally standardized probable cause and scientifically validated sobriety testing. Community based policing that builds trust is the path forward.
This is not a defund the police position. It is a pro accountability position. You can support police and demand accountability at the same time. The prison labor system also needs scrutiny; in states like Alabama it may be suppressing wages for workers who have never been arrested.
Updated September 2026: the largest randomized trial ever run on body cameras, covering 2,224 officers in Washington DC, found no statistically significant effect on use of force or complaints. That study tested cameras, not neutral custody of the footage, which is what I actually favor and which has not been tested anywhere. I still think chain of custody is the real issue. But I am labeling this a working position because the closest evidence we have did not deliver.
The evidence and the objection: see Solutions.
Drug policy
Confidence: Settled.
The ban on hemp derived THC products, pushed through as a last minute provision in a spending bill, effectively destroys a $28 billion industry employing 300,000 people. The child safety concerns are legitimate; the solution is regulation, not prohibition. Setting the THC limit so low that CBD products for pain and anxiety lose effectiveness, while overriding state regulations in nearly half the country, is overkill.
History tells us prohibition drives sales underground rather than eliminating them, and California's failed menthol ban is a recent example. If we want to protect kids from unregulated products sold in gas stations, the answer is comprehensive regulation, not destroying an industry and the farmers and small businesses that depend on it.
Mental health and medication
Confidence: Working position.
Medication is essential for many people, and nobody should feel ashamed of using it. My concern is when it becomes the only answer. Relationships, purpose, community and stability are the foundation of mental wellbeing, and a system that prescribes without investing in those is treating symptoms while the causes keep growing.
THE ECONOMY
Trade and tariffs
Confidence: Settled.
I am not reflexively pro or anti tariff. It depends on the strategy and whether it actually helps workers. What I oppose is blind tariff loyalty that crushes the people it claims to protect. Ohio farmers lost 85 percent of their Chinese soybean exports. A Grove City manufacturer lost $4 million in six months. Then the government offers farmers a bailout funded by tariff revenue collected from the consumers those same farmers sell to. It is a circle of pain dressed up as a solution.
When politicians defend every tariff simply because their party leader imposed it, that is not economic policy. That is loyalty performance.
Updated September 2026: the Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2026, 6 to 3, holding the emergency tariffs unlawful from inception. Roughly $166 billion collected from more than 330,000 importers is owed back, and the refunds go to importers rather than to the consumers who actually paid the higher prices. The administration replaced the tariffs within days under a different statute, then again under a third, now covering nearly all imports.
Two numbers settle the argument about who pays. The Kiel Institute studied more than 25 million shipment records and found Americans bore 96 percent of the cost. The Yale Budget Lab puts the current burden at roughly $1,100 per household per year.
Who actually pays a tariff: see What People Get Wrong.
Taxation
Confidence: Settled, except where noted.
I am strongly in favor of progressive taxation. There is no example in history where taxing the poor more and the rich less benefits the economy or the people. I use Florida constantly: zero income tax sounds great until you realize everything runs on sales tax, which hits poor people disproportionately harder while the wealthy invest their surplus and are taxed at a far lower effective rate.
Progressive taxation only works if people trust it. Countries with higher tax rates and higher public satisfaction have one thing in common: people can see what they get back. So I want every major tax dollar traceable to what it funds, and real consequences when public money is misused. Funding a stadium while schools go underfunded is exactly how a tax system loses the public.
The 2017 GOP tax bill objectively helped the rich and hurt the poor when you look at the details. I support the child tax credit and I am generally pro union on labor issues. The framing that America subsidizes people to stay home and that our work ethic is broken rubs me the wrong way.
On the minimum wage, confidence: Working position. A wage floor fits my principles, because work should keep people above the floor. What I am less sure of is the number: a single national figure hits a small town in Ohio very differently from San Francisco. I lean toward a floor indexed to regional cost of living, and I am open to evidence on where it should sit.
Billionaires and wealth inequality
Confidence: Settled.
I am not against wealth, and I do not think there is a number past which success becomes wrong. What I care about is whether the door at the bottom is open. Big success at the top is fine as long as there is a real, visible, reachable pathway for people at the bottom to benefit from it: jobs, public investment, and a path upward. The decline of the middle class tells me that pathway is closing, and that is one of the most pressing problems in this country.
The other line I draw is between earning success and buying power. When billionaires fund campaigns, bankroll think tanks and purchase policy outcomes, that is not capitalism. It is oligarchy, and nobody gets to use money to get above the rules everyone else lives under. Success earned honestly deserves respect. Power bought or abused deserves accountability.
Unions
Confidence: Settled.
Unions serve as a necessary check on large corporations and play a vital role in this country. It is also important for unions to maintain a broader perspective and consider the national interest in their decisions.
Understanding socialism and economic systems
Confidence: Settled.
I am not advocating for socialism. I am advocating for honest conversation.
Dismissing any government program as socialism shuts down productive policy debate. Understanding the actual spectrum between free market capitalism and state controlled economies lets voters evaluate proposals on their merits rather than their labels. Whether elements of the Nordic model could work here depends on cultural trust, scale, and whether we are willing to have adult conversations about tradeoffs instead of using that is socialism as a magic word that ends all discussion.
The actual definitions and what America already does: see What People Get Wrong.
AI and technology policy
Confidence: Working position.
Technology is how humanity moves forward, and it should be regulated only enough that it does not harm the people it is meant to help. AI presents both tremendous opportunity and real displacement risk. When Anthropic's CEO warns AI could eliminate half of entry level white collar jobs and Nvidia's CEO says it will create more jobs than it destroys, the honest answer is probably somewhere in between, and we need to prepare for both. Job market adaptation requires proactive planning, worker retraining, and honest conversation about what is coming rather than pretending everything will be fine.
The deeper question I have not answered yet is this: if work disappears for a lot of people, where does purpose come from? That is the one piece of this I am still working through.
I am also skeptical of the administration's contradictory approach: the highest tariffs since the 1930s on most industries while carving out massive exemptions for AI companies. That selective protectionism tells you who this administration actually serves.
Climate change
Confidence: Settled on the science. Working position on the approach.
Climate change is real. That is undeniable. But I reject the idea that progress and the planet are enemies. Technology can shrink the footprint technology created. I believe in practical solutions that integrate into daily life without requiring unrealistic lifestyle changes. There are people developing things like paint embedded with harmless algae that naturally absorbs CO2. That is the kind of creative, practical thinking we need.
Updated September 2026: the EPA has formally rescinded the endangerment finding, the 2009 determination underpinning all federal greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. That does not repeal the rules one by one. It removes the legal authority they rest on, which is a much bigger deal than the coverage suggested.
Global supply chains and human rights
Informed by Etelle Higonnet, Founder and Director of Coffee Watch
Confidence: Settled.
Most Americans have no idea their morning coffee has roughly a 50 percent chance of being tied to extreme poverty, child labor, or modern slavery conditions.
Here is the part that connects to the immigration debate: when coffee farming communities are destroyed by exploitation and deforestation, those displaced families migrate north. The same practices that keep your cup cheap contribute to the migration patterns that dominate American politics. If we are serious about root causes rather than just militarizing the border, reforming commodity supply chains is a concrete starting point.
The cost to fix the entire coffee industry is estimated at two to three cents more per cup. That is it. Slavery is one of the few abuses where I believe nations should act, not just speak, and a price tag this small leaves no excuse.
The three levers and the certification objection: see Solutions.
Solutions for the Latino community
Confidence: Working position.
Provide increased resources, especially better access to credit, to open a real path toward prosperity. Facilitate more dialogue within the community to strengthen identity, foster belonging, and reshape perceptions of what it means to be Latino while pursuing the American Dream.
FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Human rights abroad
Confidence: Settled. New in September 2026.
I believe in human rights everywhere, and I hold them absolutely here at home. Abroad, I separate advocacy from action. We should speak up for fair trials, free expression, freedom of religion, and dignity everywhere. But action, meaning sanctions, pressure and, in the most extreme cases, force, should be reserved for provable slavery, torture and genocide, and taken together with other nations. The more direct, provable, severe and state driven the abuse, the stronger the case for acting. That standard applies to allies and adversaries alike.
National security
Confidence: Working position. Previously an open question.
I believe in peace through strength. That means a military that is modern and efficient rather than simply larger, serious investment in cybersecurity, and secure borders paired with a working legal immigration system. Abroad, we lead by example and act together with allies. Strength is what keeps the peace. Alliances are what make strength last.
Russia and Ukraine
Confidence: Settled.
We should not allow a precedent of invading sovereign nations, especially by Russia, which could potentially move against US allies in the Baltics. Failing to respond also emboldens China regarding Taiwan. The cost of inaction is far higher than the cost of support.
Updated September 2026: the United States has shifted from supplier to mediator, having paused military assistance in March 2025. Competing peace frameworks in late 2025 went nowhere and a May 2026 ceasefire collapsed within days. Fighting continues across a 750 mile front and Russia holds roughly 20 percent of Ukraine.
Greenland, NATO, and international alliances
Confidence: Settled.
Threatening to acquire Greenland through tariffs and military posturing while confusing it with Iceland does not project strength. It projects recklessness. Bipartisan senators including Republicans have said there is no need for a hostile takeover when our Danish and Greenlandic allies are willing to work with us on Arctic security and critical minerals through existing treaties. This rhetoric helps adversaries like Putin and Xi who want NATO divided.
That said, Denmark's failure to follow through on its own defense spending pledges for Greenland is a legitimate criticism. Allies need to carry their weight. But the answer is diplomacy and accountability, not threats against partners who have stood with us for decades.
Updated September 2026: in January 2026 the administration threatened 25 percent tariffs on eight European allies over Greenland and declined to rule out military force. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and France sent troops. Greenland held the largest protest in its history. The threats were withdrawn at Davos on January 21 and the claim was reasserted at the NATO summit in July. Meanwhile Canada, our closest ally, now views the United States as a reliable partner at 35 percent, down from 83 percent in 2022.
Israel and Palestine
Confidence: Working position.
It is a complicated situation with a complicated history. Hamas is evil, and extreme right wing Israelis are evil. I cover this by presenting the full humanitarian picture alongside the diplomatic dynamics, including Palestinian civilian casualties, the famine crisis, and the growing international consensus around Palestinian statehood.
My standard for international action is the same everywhere, including here: when there is clear proof of slavery, torture or genocide, nations have grounds to act together. Below that line, the United States should advocate, not intervene. I apply that standard to every party in this conflict equally, and I will say where the evidence meets it and where it does not.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
Citizenship and belonging
Confidence: Settled. New in September 2026.
Being American is not about ethnicity. It is about shared ideals. Citizenship itself is a legal status: you are born here, or you come through a real process that teaches you those ideals and shows you came with purpose. Believing in American values is something I hope every citizen does, but it is not a requirement. A citizen who is angry at this country, or disillusioned with it, is still a citizen. The only thing that should cost someone their citizenship is outright betrayal, never disagreement.
Tradition and family
Confidence: Settled. New in September 2026.
I keep the traditions that still do their job: self-reliance, meaning taking responsibility for your own growth in a society that makes growth possible; the family as an anchor; voluntary, local community; respect for people who serve, earned by how they serve; and love of country without blind loyalty. I would rather honor these than mock them, while protecting every person's freedom to live differently.
DEI
Confidence: Settled on the definitions. Working position on the evidence.
DEI is one of the most misunderstood concepts in American politics. Diversity means people from different backgrounds are present. Inclusion means their voices are actually heard. Equity is the one I define carefully: it means bringing people up to the same starting floor, removing barriers tied to things they cannot change, like race or sex, so everyone has a genuine shot. Above that floor, the goal is equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. And when it comes to hiring and leadership, the standard should be fit: competence, the ability to work with others, and the ability to serve people who are not like you. That is a broader and better standard than a single test score, and it is not a quota.
The problem is that many programs became performative checkbox exercises focused on optics rather than systemic change. Calling DEI illegal and immoral discrimination, as this administration has, is a mischaracterization designed to score political points rather than address real inequities. The solution to bad implementation is better implementation, not abandonment.
Updated September 2026, and this is a correction to my own work. I previously cited statistics showing diverse companies capture more markets, generate 2.3 times higher cash flow, and produce 19 percent higher innovation revenue. Those trace to McKinsey's Diversity Matters research. In March 2024, Green and Hand published a replication attempt in Econ Journal Watch using McKinsey's own method and could not reproduce it; 37 of 40 test statistics came back insignificant. Worse, McKinsey measured financial performance in a window largely preceding the diversity measurement, which if anything supports the reverse reading.
I am not using those numbers anymore. The business case for DEI has been oversold by its own advocates. I would rather make a smaller claim I can defend than a bigger one I cannot. The strongest example was never a corporate study anyway. It is the United States military, whose integration remains one of the largest and most successful efforts of this kind in American history.
The definitions, the law, and the replication problem: see What People Get Wrong.
Systemic racism
Confidence: Working position.
The roots of systemic racism stem from historical prejudices and animosity toward Black individuals, and those attitudes persist in some people within the system. I do not believe current institutions are inherently anti Black or systematically designed to be racist, but I do acknowledge that perceptions and stereotypes about Black people subtly influence biased attitudes within these systems. Any barrier tied to race blocks the pursuit of happiness, so it matters wherever it shows up. The problem is real, even if it is not as simple as either side wants to claim.
Religion, faith, and morality
Confidence: Settled.
I am agnostic. I grew up Christian. My uncle is a pastor, my grandmother is devoutly religious, but I do not share those beliefs anymore. I do respect them deeply, and I have found real common ground with people of faith on the show.
Values matter more than where they come from. You can build a strong moral framework without religion. The founders took values from Christianity, meaning equality, liberty, and human dignity, without making Christianity the law. That distinction matters. I do not believe American values and Christian values are the same thing, but they share common principles most Americans agree on regardless of faith.
I do believe the family is one of the strongest anchors a person can have, and I would rather honor that than mock it. What I will not do is pretend there is only one acceptable shape for it. What I care about is whether people treat each other with compassion, raise their kids with critical thinking, and contribute to their communities.
Faith and political power
Confidence: Settled. Retitled from Reclaiming Christianity from political hijacking.
Christianity does not belong to any political party. When a faith becomes a party's tool, it is the faith that pays for it.
The core of the tradition is love of neighbor, forgiveness, and grace extended to everyone. When John 3:16 says whosoever believes, there is no asterisk excluding gay people, immigrants or political opponents. Jesus fed the hungry without qualifying questions and told the accusers to put their stones down. A version of the faith narrowed to two wedge issues, while tolerating cruelty toward immigrants and the poor, has drifted a long way from that.
I am agnostic, but I respect what faith communities do: they pass moral values across generations, and they give people belonging and purpose. Those are exactly the things this country is short on. Generosity, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and honoring free will are not left or right values. I want a politics where people of faith and people of no faith build that community together, and where no party gets to claim God as a member.
The American divide
Confidence: Working position.
As traditional family values seem to diminish, it becomes imperative to rebuild connection through community involvement, cultural and religious engagement, and broadening perspectives via diverse interactions. Schools should incentivize meaningful conversations and mutual understanding. Social media platforms should aspire to be virtual public squares that prioritize nuanced discourse.
The most effective approach to bridging conflict is seeking common ground even amid differences. Most people have good intentions. Pause and reflect before reacting impulsively.
Social media and youth
Confidence: Working position.
The generation of parents who grew up with social media has a nuanced understanding of its impacts, and we are equipped to steer younger generations toward balanced use. Specifically: categorizing adult content separately, establishing clear parody account rules, and creating age appropriate versions of platforms for children and teens.
Content creator responsibility
Confidence: Working position.
Content creators are role models whether they like it or not, and their influence on young audiences is real. I want platforms to enforce clear, public standards, sponsors and brands to hold creators accountable, and audiences to reward the people making things worth watching. What I do not support is requiring creators to hire lawyers or PR teams: that is a burden with no specific harm it prevents, and it would shut out small creators while protecting the biggest ones. The focus should be on condemning harmful content and elevating good work, not on licensing speech.
Masculinity and the red pill
Confidence: Settled. Retitled from The red pill movement.
The red pill movement sells young men contempt and calls it purpose. It is hypocritical, and much of it is a business model built on their loneliness. But it is growing because it answers a real question nobody else is answering: what is a man for?
I think there is a better answer. Two things are simply true: women can bear children, and men are on average physically stronger. Neither fact dictates anyone's role, and everyone is free to live however they choose. But we can celebrate what healthy masculinity looks like: courage, and the willingness to push through hardship to protect and provide. Those are not just virtues to feel proud of. They are the tools a man uses to build the family and community he wants. That is purpose without contempt, and it does not require looking down on anyone.
Slurs
Confidence: Settled.
Slurs hold minimal to no significance and offer little constructive value. Using cultural shifts within poorer communities to justify these words is a weak argument. It underscores shock value without contributing to meaningful discourse. We should guide people toward letting go of words laden with painful history and encourage them to expand their vocabulary.
Role of parents
Confidence: Settled.
Parenting amid modern complexity is challenging, and many parents struggle to define values outside specific cultural or religious frameworks. For those who choose it, having children can be one of the deepest sources of identity and purpose. Foundational principles: fostering critical thinking, exposing children to diverse experiences and cultures, encouraging engagement with society, and instilling compassion and kindness as core virtues.
A NOTE ON CHANGING MY MIND
This page has now been through two reviews in September 2026, and I want every change listed in one place rather than buried.
The September 10 review. I downgraded STAR voting from settled to a working position after confronting how thin its real world record is. I downgraded body cameras after reading the largest trial ever run on them. I dropped the DEI business statistics after they failed replication. And I changed my mind on institutional investors in housing, moving to zoning and permitting as the real constraint. I also reopened court expansion as a working position, while keeping it last among the Court reforms and being clear that it is my position rather than a popular one.
The September 30 review. After I rebuilt my political principles from the ground up, I held every entry on this page up against them.
- Abortion changed. I moved my line from about 12 weeks to sentience, around 24 weeks, because I could no longer defend appearance as the point where a right begins.
- Four open questions closed. Freedom versus safety, government transparency, and protest disclosure now have answers, and national security moved to a working position.
- Some language changed to match the principles. I no longer say there is a moral limit to wealth; I say the door at the bottom has to stay open and money cannot buy policy. I retitled two entries that read like advice to one party, because this page is nonpartisan even when it is not neutral. And I replaced a flat dismissal of the red pill movement with the answer I think young men actually deserve.
- Four entries are new: holding public officials accountable, human rights abroad, citizenship and belonging, and tradition and family.
Most of the September 10 changes moved against positions I liked. That is the point. If a page like this never changes, it is not a record of what I think. It is marketing.
These are my positions as of September 2026. I am always open to new information, new perspectives, and good faith debate. If you disagree with anything here, come on the show. I will bring the receipts. You bring yours.
Radell Lewis, Purple Political Breakdown, Alive Podcast Network