The Purple Principle Fluent Knowledge

“I’m still in it to hold a mirror up to my GOP colleagues,” former RNC Chair Michael Steele tells us in this episode. “To show them how unLincolnlike they have become.”

Michael Steele has borne painful witness to that transformation over the past two-plus decades as the first African American Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, then RNC Chair in 2009-2011, as well as US Senate Candidate. 

Steele may have been one of the first prominent Republicans to push back on the populist redirection of the party back in 2009 when he tussled with popular right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh over who led the Republican party. 

“It did say a lot about a base that had become very animated and defensively protective,” Steele recalls of the pushback from that episode, including a drop in RNC fundraising.
 
Steele reexamines that moment in recent GOP history and reflects on a GOP today that, in his view, has turned its back on conservative principles of personal liberty and freedom, and also long-held Republican positions on US foreign policy. 

“Reagan is probably looking at their dance with Putin, Orban and others, going: who are these people?”

Join us for an informed, concerned discussion with Michael Steele, now an MSNBC host and commentator, on why Americans need to stay civically engaged despite the political theatrics of this 2024 election year and our current political era. 

The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production; original music by Ryan Adair Rooney. 

SHOW NOTES
Our Guest
Micheal Steele, MSNCB Political Analyst, Former RNC Chairman, and Former Lt. Gov, (Maryland). Twitter.
 
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“I'm the only candidate that was Head of the DEA, that was in charge of border security in the Bush administration, governor for eight years,” says our featured guest, Asa Hutchinson. 

Yet despite possessing perhaps the most impressive resume among GOP presidential candidates, Hutchinson failed to receive substantial media attention or garner significant support from  Iowa caucus goers.

There's just so much happening in his world that you have to say is newsworthy,” says Hutchinson of Trumpian media attention.  It's hard to get any other message out.”

Hutchinson also speaks to the possibility of a significant third-party candidacy for president in 2024, such as from the bipartisan group, No Labels. 

“Right now you’ve got two major parties that are giving Americans what they don't want– “They don't want another Biden Trump rematch,” says  Hutchinson. “So  I think there is a potential for a third-party candidacy this year”.

Full episode are available on our website (purpeprinciple.com), on YouTube with video highlights, and on all major streaming apps. 

The Purple Principle is Fluent Knowledge Production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney. 

SHOW NOTES
Our Guest
Asa Hutchinson,  2024 POTUS Candidate, Gov. Arkansas (2015-2023), US House Rep. (R-AK) 2001-2003. Hutchinson’s Twitter.

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“I had been a conservative critic of mainstream media bias for many years,” says author and MSNBC columnist, Charlie Sykes, a “contrarian conservative” and our featured guest. “It  suddenly occurred to me that we had succeeded in not just critiquing the liberal bias, but in destroying  the credibility of  fact-based media altogether.”

Sykes is the author of the notable 2017 book, How the Right Lost Its Mind. Within our interview, as in the book, he is unsparing of himself and other traditional conservatives for paving the way for MAGA populism. Yet he emphasizes there is still some degree of factionalism within the GOP. 

A  sizable number of these more traditionally conservative Republicans were in attendance at the 2024 Principles First Summit in Washington DC, where we spoke with Sykes. Held the same weekend as the feverishly pro-Trump CPAC event a few miles away, this year’s Summit included appearances by  Adam Kinzinger, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Cassady Hutchinson.
 
There are more than 700 people,” Sykes observes.” And you look at the panels, the people who are speaking, they represent some of the most prominent conservatives, influential conservatives of just the past few decades.”

Join us for this conversation with contrarian conservative, Charlie Sykes, author of How the Right Lost Its Mind and MSNBC columnist.  

The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney. 

SHOW NOTES
Our Guest
Charlie Sykes, MSNBC Columnist. Author of How The Right Lost Its Mind. Sykes’s book, and Twitter.

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“My goal in this book isn't just to diagnose the problem,” explains Nick Troiano, Executive Director of Unite America. “But to give people a solution that is viable and can happen right there in their own states.”

That book is “The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes,” published this week by Simon & Schuster in time for another polarizing primary season. Yet Nick notes in the book, as in our interview, that a record number of 2024 state level efforts to reform primary elections may soon shift the US Congress from gridlock to governance. 

“This will be the most robust year for election reform that we've seen in the modern era,” says Troiano who ran for Congress a decade ago in his mid twenties as an independent in Pennsylvania. “The people do agree that every voter should have the right to vote for any candidate in every election, and that elected officials have to win a majority of votes to get elected.”

Troiano also details the importance of Alaska’s Final Four electoral reforms, passed in 2020 and utilized in the 2022 election, as proof of concept for other state and city efforts. 

“At the end of the day, we all have one vote,” says Troiano. “There's nothing so wrong with the state of our democracy that we can't fix with the tools that our democracy gives us to do so.” 

Tune in to learn how as few as 6 state level initiatives could motivate Congress to tackle such long standing chronic issues as the fiscal deficit, gun violence and immigration reform. 

The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.

SHOW NOTES

Our Guest
Nick Troiano: Bio, X (Twitter)
Executive Director, Unite America

Additional Resources
Nicks Book Information
Primary Elections 
Alaska Case Study by Unite America 
Problem Solving Caucus 
Nevada and Open Primaries 

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“Every time I talk to someone about running for office, the first thing they say is, Eric, you have to pick a team,” confides Navy veteran Eric Bronner, COO of the non-partisan group Veterans for All Voters. 

“And something didn't sit right with me. So the pump was primed, as my parents would say, for some kind of awakening.”

That awakening occurred  listening to a Freakonomics podcast episode with former Purple Principle  guest Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry. In that episode, as in our own 2021 interview, Gehl  highlighted the lack of incentives our elected officials have to govern effectively.  

To tackle that  problem, Eric and his co-founders are forming a nationwide network of veterans to volunteer on behalf of state level election reform initiatives like opening primaries to the large percentage of registered independent or unaffiliated veterans unable to vote in primary elections and also to advance Final Four or Five voting as detailed in The Politics Industry. 

“The last thing we need is more partisanship,” says Bronner who now works full time coordinating  hundreds of volunteers in forty states and counting. “We can have differences of opinion, right? But the system itself is broken.”

Tune in to meet three other veterans behind this effort and find out how Bronner and Veterans For All Voters hope to mend the system in this 2024 election cycle and beyond. The Purple Principle is Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.  

SHOW NOTES

Our Guests
Eric Bronner: Bio, X (Twitter)
Co-founder and COO of Veterans for All Voters

Additional Resources
Show Me Integrity 
Freakonomics: America’s Hidden Duopoly
The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy by Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter

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“I know that I would not be in this position if we didn't have the Final Four system,” Representative Mary Peltola (D-AK) tells us in this first Purple Principle episode of season four. “Because I would not have made it through a partisan primary.” 
A native Alaskan, Representative Peltola gained re-election to the US House on the third ballot of the nation’s first Final Four election in 2022. Final Four Voting combines a unified open primary with a ranked choice general election. The intended goal is to replace the current system of polarizing party-led primaries.
Final Four Voting Across Party Lines
Peltola’s election to the US House may seem surprising from a vast, largely rural state with twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats. But the majority of Alaskan voters are registered as non-partisan or unaffiliated. 
Final Four: Lessons for the Lower 48?
Prior to US House election, Peltola was a member of the bipartisan “Bush Caucus" within the Alaska House of Representatives. Now, after moving to what feels like a foreign country, she continues to work across the aisle in Washington, DC. 
“I have had very few opportunities just to eat with Republicans and I am very eager to meet and collaborate with as many Republicans as I can,” she explains. “I'm a member of the Western Caucus, which right now is 106 Republicans and me.”
Peltola is hopeful US House polarization can be overcome yet clear-eyed about the current gridlock. “The entrenchment is so deep,” she tells us. 
Does this vast, frontier state and it's current Rep. hold lessons for our divided nation? Tune in to learn more about Mary Peltola’s bipartisan efforts in the US House and the distinctive culture of her native Alaska. 
The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney. 
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