The American Society for Personally Questioning Political Questions

Steve was one of the first people I talked with at the beginning of the 2012 edition of the project. He is a retired lawyer, and he coaches a very successful high school constitutional debate team in Portland. He has never been someone whose perspectives cleave to party lines though he still identifies at least…

I reconnected with Pat this summer over the phone after several failed attempts. He had moved from Texas to Hawaii to continue working as a civilian for the US military. Back in 2012 he’d been concerned with the United States’ reputation on the world stage during the Obama years. He thought that Obama’s approach to…

When we talked in 2012 Robert shared an interesting explanation for why so many Americans don’t participate much in our political process: from a Libertarian perspective there isn’t a clear enough connection between our actions – such as voting, and any noticeable political impact, so because we can’t sense a direct cause and effect many…

In our earlier conversation Angel had told me he was more of a Libertarian than a full-on Republican, but that he strategically votes with the Republicans to have a chance of getting a president who will implement more market-based policies. So I asked him whether he felt like getting Trump elected in 2016 had been…

Taylor had agreed to talk with me in 2012 because his childhood friend asked him to participate in my conversation project. Back then he had just finished college at a Christian school. Both then and now he really didn’t want to engage in the divisiveness of politics, and yet he was willing to thoughtfully converse…

Xander was one of the people who first came to mind when I decided to reach out to the conservative people I had spoken with a decade ago. Back then he was very actively involved with the Oregon Republican party and he had such an interesting and unexpected combination of beliefs and identities. I really…