Hello, everyone. I am reaching out to engage with folks on this platform, gauge where I fit on today's political spectrum, and connect with others who share a similar outlook.

I am a former democratic campaign consultant, union organizer, and active party member. I sat between the Blue Dog caucus and the Neoliberal wing of the party and called myself a moderate democrat for years.

Currently, I find myself politically homeless. I dislike the rise of socialism, populism, identity politics, and anti-Western attitudes that are rising behind groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I also faced a lot of unnecessary skepticism for being a white male in a Latino-majority area where I previously worked.

I mainly agree with the party on Law-and-order outside of mandatory minimum sentencing, which is an aberration of the powers of the judiciary and an unconstitutional imposition of the Legislature upon the judiciary.

On national security issues, I think Maduro's capture was phenomenal. It was a strategic strike, not a war. With the Iran War, it is blatantly unconstitutional without congressional approval. On issues like Ukraine or Israel, I strongly disagree with Netanyahu and somewhat disagree with Zelenskyy on some issues. Still, a nation's leadership does not define its entire people, and I find the isolationist narratives against Ukraine and the unconditional support for Netanyahu's government equally concerning.

On solving issues like homelessness, I totally agree with figures like Spencer Pratt. We cannot let our cities turn into slums and endanger young American children to such debauchery. However, I think the creation and maintenance of state-run rehabs and mental asylums would solve most of the issues surrounding homelessness.

In terms of trade, I would say that I am halfway between MAGA and old-school conservatives. I have worked on issues of international trade and see the utter disregard that many nations have toward our sanctions, unfair competition, and corporate espionage undertaken by firms in allied countries such as Taiwan, France, Israel, and South Korea. I don't think we can accept this. Ideally, we should work toward mutual reciprocity and not try to dominate the world either.

On immigration, we should enforce current laws as written. Yet we cannot do so unconstitutionally. I have seen multiple constitutional violations by ICE operations. That is not to say that those individual officers represent the organization as a whole, but it is concerning, nonetheless. Immigration should 1. Not allow any one group to dominate. 2. Prevent international felons and criminals from entering. 3. Deport criminal non-citizens. 4. Select those who want to assimilate to American and broader Western values and be solely loyal to the United States. We should also prohibit dual citizens from any roles requiring a top-secret security clearance or higher.

On energy, you cannot assign political labels to energy sources. In places like Arizona, Nevada, and California, solar energy saves ratepayers thousands of dollars through its efficiency. Sure, climate change is real, but proposals like the Green New Deal would destroy the global economy overnight. I believe in a regulated energy market that prohibits firms from pushing the cost of new developments, namely renewable energy projects, fully onto consumers. Energy must balance affordability, reliability, and sustainability. Instead of poor financing structures, we should give tax benefits for methods proven to work in a given area. On that same note, sometimes gas or coal is more costly than renewable sources, which is illogical for utilities to use in those cases.

Quite frankly, I don't believe identity should be a factor for or against anyone, unless an organization is explicitly made for a given race or gender (like Women in Business or the Black Lawyers Association). I see the point of the Civil Rights Act as freeing us from the labels and categorical prisms of identity politics, not entrenching us in the immutable characteristics of fellow Americans. That being said, I question joining the Republican Party with the rise in antisemitism and white identity politics supported by figures like Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson. Again, I think identity shouldn't matter, but we also shouldn't allow others to hire, fire, or conspire with others due to ethnic affinity and/or prejudice.

I am very pro-tech, pro-growth, and pro-abundance. I have lived abroad and in D.C., where I frequently used public transport, enjoyed urban greenery, and alleviated some of my health issues by having access to walkable neighborhoods. I know Moderate Democrats typically hold these stances, but I see them as a public good, like roads or public schools. I also think that by supporting these types of projects, we shouldn't also restrict the construction of highways and other car-based infrastructure. I think restricting someone's choice to drive by creating municipal or state policies that discourage frequent vehicle use also impedes their life, liberty, and happiness.

I am not religious and believe that the separation of church and state is an essential element of American values. Personally, I am a culturally Christian deist and probably hold the same views as Jefferson or Franklin regarding religion. In fact, I have no issue with any religion as long as people consider themselves American before any religion.

I am socially moderate. I don't believe any social agenda should be pushed down our throats, like BLM or teaching children about sexual preferences, but I also see no issue with Gay Marriage. I also fully support women's rights, but again, I do not support gender quotas or DEI.

In terms of business, I have a few complex views. I support collective bargaining labor unions but abhor and reject socialist unions of any kind. I see unions as a continuation of the right to assemble. I also think that corporate lobbying, corporate PACs, Citizens United, and excessive tax abatements for Fortune 500 companies are not examples of the free market, but rather of crony capitalism, as personal interests and backdoor deals have captured it. I wholeheartedly support small and regional businesses and see them as the bedrock of America and the vehicle behind the American Dream.

Following from my last point, I see monopolies as a distinct threat to the free market, the American Dream, and social order. The failure to regulate digital-age firms has resulted in egregious violations of the right to privacy, institutional capture by several of these firms, and a gateway for further social ills, like online gambling or OnlyFans, which should be explicitly outlawed without impunity.

Lastly, I see the current administration as personalist and poorly run. From the Epstein Files to the Iran War to the "pardon brokers," I find myself baffled at the open kleptocracy taking place. The acceptance of corruption within the party behind figures like Paxton or Trump is ridiculous to me. I like groups such as the Main Street Caucus or Conservative Labor, but I am neither anti-business nor anti-labor. I see both as a necessary check on the other.

I want to support a return to institutional integrity, constitutionalism, and rule of law over personalist regimes. As a deeply patriotic American who values Western civilization, I feel the Democratic Party has moved in a direction opposite to my core principles. I am interested in connecting with Moderate Republican groups outside of MAGA, but I am uncertain whether I fit within the party today. I would appreciate your perspective on where these views fall on the current spectrum and recommendations for organizations, caucuses, or communities I should explore.

This movement became unrecognizable.

This is truly chilling.

Republicans may be able to prevent Israel from lobbying and influencing U.S. policy among Republicans, but they cannot prevent an alliance between Islamists and Democrats.

I think that is exactly what Democrats want: A fracture in Republican party. They want that Republicans step back in the hope that Dems will play fair and square with American values. But the two-party political system naturally pushes political actors with values that are at odds with traditional American principles into alliances aimed at defeating Republicans.

For Republicans to govern without Israeli influence, while Democrats also play fair and avoid alliances with Islamist groups, they would need Western European allies to follow the same approach. But Europeans do not, because they have become heavily dependent on China, and their strategic interests are no longer fully aligned with the United States.

So while I do not support Israeli influence over U.S. policy, I also do not think there is any real political solution in simply crawling back from every military conflict and expecting the other side not to bring radical Islamists into the policy-making process because you know they do.

For example, around the time of the Syrian war, was it Republicans or Israel who started that conflict? No.

My point is that these conflicts are going to happen regardless, because Democrats can also benefit politically from that model and from consequences they believe they can manage within certain expectations: inflation, mass migration, instability, and the political shifts that follow.

So if this kind of conflict is ultimately inevitable, the question that remains is simply this: which side do you want US interests aligned with?

Did you know that incarceration rates and racial disparities in the prison population declined in the U.S. for the first two decades of the 21st century?

You’d have heard about it if the reverse were true, but mainstream media have little interest in highlighting racial progress when Republicans control the White House. Moreover, this trend undermines the left’s insistence that our criminal-justice system—from police officers to prosecutors to the sentencing guidelines—is stacked against black people.

Nevertheless, a study published last month in the academic journal Nature Human Behaviour, “Why America’s Prisons Are Shrinking and Racial Gaps Are Closing,” deserves more attention. The authors, Jason Robey of the University of Iowa and Michael Light of the University of Wisconsin, analyzed data on crimes, arrests and prison admissions between 2000 and 2019. The state imprisonment rate in 2019 was the lowest it had been since 1988, and it had shrunk by 20% since 2007.

As noteworthy, black-white gaps in arrests and imprisonment have narrowed due to significant decreases in black criminal behavior. “For violent and property offences, the reduction in prison admissions corresponds primarily with substantial declines in crime rates, not changes in policing or case processing,” the authors note. “This was particularly true for Black individuals, for whom the substantial reduction in violent prison admissions can be entirely attributed to a large reduction in violent crime.” From 2000 to 2019, the overall violent-crime rate fell 32%. The prison admission rate for violent offenses declined 20% among whites. For blacks, it decreased 43%, which was driven “exclusively” by a 47% reduction in black violent crime, according to the study.

The trends in drug arrests tell a similar story of narrowing racial inequality. In 2000, blacks were 12 times as likely as whites to go to prison for a drug offense. By 2019, that disparity had fallen to less than 3 to 1. “For Black individuals, the prison admission rate for drug offences declined by 75% from 2000 to 2019, whereas for White individuals, it declined only 13% from its peak in 2005,” Mr. Robey and Mr. Light report.

One of the few journalists to write about these findings is Charles Lane of the American Enterprise Institute, who concluded that the conventional “mass incarceration” narrative on the political left “needs to catch up with the facts.” Mr. Lane speculated that we may be “in the midst of a long-term shift toward both less violent crime and less incarceration,” which “very well might never have occurred if we really had defunded police or abolished prisons.”

Tuesday’s enforcement action, directed by the Vance-led White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, represents one of the largest administrative purges targeting individual insurance exchanges since the Trump administration’s crackdown on fraud began last year.

Vance and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, announced Tuesday that they are canceling subsidy payments for allegedly unauthorized and fraudulent enrollments in the ACA, also known as Obamacare, for 760,000 individual accounts. They say those cancellations would amount to saving an estimated $2.2 billion in taxpayer funds.

“We’re actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them, amazingly we weren’t doing that before,” Vance said.

A HHS report from earlier this year estimated that nearly half of new Obamacare sign-ups from 2021 to 2024 were likely improper, phantom or fraudulent. CMS estimates, for instance, that more than a million enrollees signed up for the benefit without providing a Social Security number.