Let's talk about political issues in the US

About a couple weeks ago I launched US Political Issues. Let's very briefly talk about why, it's goals, and the approach I take to reach those goals.

Why I created the US Political Issues single-page site

Look: Politics is complicated, divisive, and an absolute mess right now, and sifting through all the noise to find honest, unbiased information is.. Hard.

So, I sought to create a really basic primer on just a handful of the most important issues that are likely to sway undecided voters. Something that is easily digested.

There aren't many undecided types of folks, but the likelihood of reaching the hard-right extremists and changing their mind are going to take a much different approach that I honestly can't fathom.

Anyway, that's the why. Let's move on to the goals.

My goal with political influence

I don't harbor any illusions as to being super successful, but I would consider my goal accomplished if I convince just a couple of people to vote blue in 2024.. Even if I convince someone who was going to vote for VP Kamala to also vote blue down the ticket, I'd be content here.

I'm not someone who's great at in-person debate; my brain runs a mile-a-minute, and when I'm communicating a point I tend to follow 2 paths: Overexplaining, which loses the person I'm trying to convince in short order, or failing to point out crucial connections that are obvious and known to me, but maybe not known to the person I'm debating.

So, a landing page with 3 key points and sources cited.. Which leads into the approach.

How I hope to convince folks to vote blue

With those 3 issues I mentioned, I wanted to ensure that I didn't get deep into the weeds. I could do deep-dive analysis on everything, but plenty of other folks have already done that. Not everybody has the time or even wants to spend the time trying to grasp every facet of an issue, which is why memes and reductionist arguments are so popular online.

So, I wrote a really brief headline, with some hopefully convincing (and non-confrontational) language, followed by a handful of sources related to the issue for folks who wanted to explore the details.

AP was a common source, but for the 2025 issue I actually cited the Project 2025 website (because seriously, it just reads fucking evil), and for the authoritarianism issue I cited Legal Eagle (a YouTuber who did a great analysis and is entertaining at the same time).

Let's hope it works!