Welcome to Crayon Box Politics, a project devoted to coloring outside the normal political spectrum to create a new political landscape that represents those of us left behind by two-color politics.
Here, common sense, common decency and common courtesy are the foundation for every discussion and every debate.
Here, we’re building a landscape that brings people to the middle, encourages us to listen to one another, and helps us to find common ground.
Crayon Box Politics is built to help us all move away from the unquestioning party loyalty poisoning government at all levels.
News outlets on all sides tend to place Americansinto two political groups: liberal (Democrats) and conservatives (Republicans). You can even see it in the way politicians are identified on screen - always a D or always an R. Based on that one letter, we often pick a side before we’ve even heard what they have to say.
The dumbing down of politics over-simplifies our views and drowns out the basic truth We all want the same things: freedom, liberty, and justice.
So here’s *my* story.
Today - I’m a registered Republican.
But here’s the thing - I am not ashamed to say that many of my ideals align with Democrat lines of thought.
I’m also not embarrassed to say that many do not.
The end result is that I don't truly fit into either group.
I am not alone in this either, but too often we allow ourselves to be put into a box and refuse to budge - despite our ideals.
Too many of us feel forced to vote based on a political party, not on what we truly believe.
Our elected officials notoriously stick to passing laws that align merely with a party line rather than truly representing the needs of their constituents.
Political polarization is untenable. We, the American people, are the only ones who can change it.
That is why Crayon Box Politics exists; this project will stop sticking to Red and Blue. We’re going to go through all the colors and show that issues aren’t just two-sided. We're not restricted to the colors that the system tells us to use, and we are not going to stick to a picture that has already been drawn for us. Join us as we color the political pages of our future without regard for the two-color system and help us as we draw a new way to discuss the issues and search for solutions.
Over the next few months, we will open this project with a series on a major issue that our nation faces today: reproductive rights. The first episode will look at the history of reproductive rights in America; we will examine what reproductive rights looked like at the birth of our nation, how they changed over time and why those rights disappeared prior to the ruling in Roe v. Wade. Episode 2 will navigate the winding road that our nation walked following Roe v. Wade, examining the causes behind the anti-abortion movement, the laws established in each state and their impacts on the availability of abortion and the path that led to the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson. Finally, episode 3 will seek a way forward, we will examine the ramifications of the Dobbs decision, what the reproductive rights landscape looks like, its impact on all Americans capable of bearing a child, how all sides of the debate can find a middle ground, what that middle ground looks like and why we need to get there.
The blog will follow along with the podcast, think of it as the reader’s digest version of the podcast; a short, written piece that covers everything in the podcast but doesn’t take as long to get through. Some might ask why do both, well the short answer is because some people read, and some people prefer to listen so we found the middle ground, doing both!
