100 Interviews

Three days ago, I thought I knew what the next step was.

I thought the answer was: Get more people in the room.

We held our first Truth Party rally. Four people showed up.

Four.

I’ve had bigger crowds accidentally gather behind me at the grocery store.

And yeah, that hurt.

I’d spent months working on this thing. Videos, flyers, posters, phone calls, press releases. I was talking to anybody who would listen.

And then something occurred to me:

Maybe I’ve been doing too much talking.

So I changed the plan.

Instead of asking people to come listen to me, I started going out and listening to them.

Complete strangers.

No political loyalty test. No argument. No trying to convince anybody.

Just four questions.

What worries you most about where the country is headed?

Why do you think ordinary people have stopped believing they can change anything?

What would make you willing to become actively involved—not just agree with us?

And finally:

What’s one thing a small group of ordinary citizens could actually accomplish in the next 30 days?

And something fascinating is happening.

The answers aren’t nearly as divided as you might expect.

People are worried.

They’re frustrated.

They don’t trust the system.

But more than anything, a lot of people seem to feel powerless.

And I’m beginning to think that may be the real problem.

Because we’ve been told for years that America is hopelessly divided.

Left versus right.

Red versus blue.

Republican versus Democrat.

But when you sit across from somebody—not on Facebook, not on cable television, not screaming at each other in a comment section—and actually ask:

“What are you worried about?”

Something changes.

You discover a human being sitting across from you.

And you start hearing the same things.

People want a government that works.

They want their kids to have opportunities.

They want to be able to afford a home.

They want safe communities.

They want honesty.

They want accountability.

And they want to feel like their voice actually matters.

So I’ve given myself a new goal.

One hundred conversations.

Not one hundred Democrats.

Not one hundred Republicans.

Not one hundred people who agree with me.

One hundred Americans.

And I’m going to listen.

Then we’re going to take those hundred conversations and ask:

What did we learn?

Where do people actually agree?

What problems keep coming up?

And most importantly:

What can ordinary citizens actually do about them?

Because maybe movements don’t start with thousands of people standing in a stadium.

Maybe they start with two people sitting across from each other.

One asking a question.

The other realizing somebody actually wants to hear the answer.

The Truth Party started with a pretty simple idea:

Turn spectators into citizens.

Well, I think I finally understand where that starts.

It starts by listening.

So I’m going to keep talking to strangers.

I’m going to get to one hundred.

And then we’re going to see what those hundred voices tell us.

Because somewhere underneath all this noise, I suspect there’s a country that agrees on a hell of a lot more than we’ve been led to believe.

And maybe it’s time somebody listened to it.