What I'm Doing Here
I got involved in politics in late 2017. The election of Donald Trump was my primary motivating factor. I found myself horrified at the “new normal” he was bringing to political discourse and couldn’t watch from the sidelines any longer.
Five years later it’s pretty obvious to me that as a society we’ve collectively doubled down on populism. I guess I didn’t become an unstoppable force in politics.
As I wind down some of my political entanglements and look to explore other things I’ve decided to write about my experience as well as topics related (directly or tangentially) to politics.
I don’t know exactly what this thing will end up being. Just to let you know where my head’s at, the first topics I intend to write about are artificial intelligence, voting systems and Take Back Alberta. I’ve chosen these topics because I have some direct knowledge in each and they all seem to have occupied some space in current public discourse.
There are two promises I will try to stick to:
I won’t pander to an audience so they like me. If you find other writing by me on the Internet, there’s a lot of pandering in it. As great as it feels to be temporarily appreciated by progressives for saying I don’t like Trump, I’m fully getting out of that business.
I’m not going to write media criticism. It’s pretty easy to find something shitty that someone else wrote and talk about why it’s shitty. I’m going to try to make this space a place where ideas are explored and not a place to simply criticize the ideas of others.
From the awesome play-on-words in the title you may have guessed that I identify as “conservative”. (I’ll pause for a minute while you appreciate the double entendre of the word “right”. I know what you’re thinking - you’re correct, it’s pretty great.) I won’t say more than that. I’m currently a member at the provincial and federal level of the related conservative parties and my experiences in both will hopefully provide some interesting context for some of the topics I choose to write about.
Thanks for hanging out with me while I explore this space and figure out what I’m doing, and I hope it becomes a place you enjoy coming to.