• The Scarymander Series: Part 1

    Halloween is sixth months away as of yesterday, so I think it is a perfect time to share a truly scary vision of how gerrymandered districts might look when we reach the 2032 cycle. This will be approximately 3 parts and go over what gerrymandering is like today, and will be like in the future.…

  • Call (Time) Me Maybe

    How data analysis can take political programs to the next level Recently, I gave a presentation on one of my favorite projects from my last campaign. I’m quite proud of the work I did on this project so I wanted to share it here as well. I’ll add little explanations beneath each slide Call Time…

  • The progress we’ve made

    I’ve been working really hard on my campaign this Summer and accordingly have had a lot less time for blogging than I hoped. I have several drafts I haven’t had any time to polish but such is life. At the very least I have been doing really good work. For instance, check out what I…

  • Rewriting Rome: Who Owns Classics?

    The tragic shooting in Buffalo, NY was committed by a man fighting “the great replacement”, a conspiracy theory that has been floating around right wing spaces for the last decade. This conspiracy theory is a modern reskin of “white genocide” conspiracy theories in which a cabal of Jews in some way or another is responsible…

  • Data convenience matters

    Last quarter, I wrote a research paper on the political establishment. The political establishment is a murky concept and there is a lot to think about. However, surprisingly, the most difficult decisions during the project were on how to consider what data I should use to measure my variables. The problem put simply, is that…

  • Who is the ‘establishment’?

    Over the years I have grown far more appreciative of the political establishment. According to its supporters, the establishment acts as a lid on politics ideally preventing it from getting out of hand, and ensuring the legislative process works. At least, when the establishment is properly functioning. Many, myself included, see the rise of Donald…

  • Nuance is important

    The 1965 Voting Rights Act was good, actually Recently, I got into a debate with another student about the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). They tried to convince me that this bill was actually designed to suppress voters of color. Now on the face of it, this is a ridiculous statement. This bill was the…

  • Should we always be trying to win?

    Recently, like everyone else, I have been frustrated by congress. The Democrats won a trifecta! We should pass stuff! It would be really nice to get a big infrastructure package through and yet there seems to be some gum in the works. And when I say gum, I really mean two senators. Kyrsten Sinema and…

  • Why am I writing this blog?

    Around January of 2020 I did an interview with The Daily, a student newspaper at Northwestern. I was interviewed about my thoughts on COVID-19. At the time I was pretty confident it wouldn’t be a big deal. Every couple years there is a news cycle about the next pandemic and they generally amount to very…

  • Philosophy as Lenses

    I just finished reading “Justice” a book on philosophy by Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel. It was quite good! Sandel ran through many of the most common schools of ethical thought from Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, to Aristotle’s virtue ethics and provided examples where they succeeded and failed, before eventually providing his own explanation for how…