March 19, 2024

About

Progressives need to reflect on our experiences that led us to our beliefs and refine what it means to be a Progressive. This will guide our work and allow us to the widest audience possible.

The world will not be changed through book reports on policy, but through appeals to the hopes every person holds. People act politically only when they trust the messenger, as well as believe the message. Trust is not rational, but an emotional connection. By looking at what we believe in and how we arrived at our beliefs, we can find the common emotional threads between progressives and those who can connect with our ideas.

This project is born out of my earlier work on campaign finance reform. With the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling, I saw something both dangerous for democracy and difficult to communicate to a national audience. That is why I ran my corporation for Congress, murrayhillincforcongress.com. I wanted to use humor to engage people in a conversations about corporations which most people, at best, are bored by, and at worst, are threatened by the economic message. Humor is a way to connect, but there are many other emotional connections to make that express our views and encourage others to act on them.

 

–Eric Hensal