Lura Forcum
Appearances
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Well, we're the same age, so I was not a professor when you were there. You weren't a professor there. This is true. No, I was a professor after you finished there. But I spent several years teaching marketing there, studying human behavior, psychology.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
So what we hear from our audience is like, we expect government to be effective, end of story. And, you know, When parties are instead just kind of obstructing and not working with the other side, that is not serving anybody but them, right? So it's really interesting. Obviously, we do a lot of research on our audience. We do serving and polling. We do some AI insights work.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And we do focus groups and one-on-one interviews. And one of the things that strikes me a lot is that independents are... excuse me, independents are like incredibly thoughtful people who understand that policy is really complex and there are trade-offs in policy, right? Like you think you're getting one thing, you end up with something else.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And so they're just aware that like, this is a complicated process and having these two super polarized parties is not going to get you the kind of good high quality policy that would make people's lives better.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Compromise means like, Oh, you gave in and you're weak. Yeah.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yes. You found common ground. Like that's, that's actually some strength because it's like you knew what was important to you. You understood what was important to the other side and you found an area where you could overlap.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah. I mean, some people describe this as politics where you're saying like the problem in politics is that my side doesn't have more power. And I think independents are saying, um, regardless of who has power, we expect you to govern. we expect the government to work. We expect some fiscal accountability. Like let's be sensible here with our spending.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And let's be sensible on the social side too. Like we can tolerate other people's behavior that doesn't impact us. And we see a lot of that. We see it in younger generations, especially are more likely to say that they're independent because they, they really don't see either side as totally representing who they are.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah. It's really more like a tribe than it is.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
It's very tribal.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yes, absolutely. And the other thing that comes from my research and some of the social psychology looking at human dynamics. So there's this work about in-groups and out-groups and out-groups over human history were like people you warred with. They were the other guys, the bad guys, right?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Oh, that's a long, that's a whole separate podcast.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And the problem I think in American politics is that we've gotten to this in-group out-group dynamic where the other side is the out-group. It's okay to take from them. It's okay to harm them. They don't count. They're not us. That's not how I think anybody wants us to be treating fellow Americans, right?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
We can have a politics that is about differing opinions, but at the end of the day, we're still citizens of the same country. These are not our enemies. We are not outgroups to one another.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yes. So I would say like the key motivation for everybody is their relationships and feeling connected to other people, the people around them. It's their family, it's their friends, it's neighbors and communities. Like we are inherently social animals and you can explain so much of human behavior by trying to like protect those relationships.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Right.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
So, I mean, this is absolutely what we are saying to people is that You don't need to vote for a third party to be an independent. You can be an independent and exercise your vote and vote for the candidates and the policies that you think are more successful.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I think what's really unhealthy is when people are dropping out of political participation because they don't feel attached to either party. So they're sort of saying, well, I'm apolitical. And what we want to say to independents is if neither of those parties are for you, that's fine. But like come in and express your opinion at the ballot box. They swing vote. Right. They split ticket.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
We saw tons of split ticket voting this last election. So somebody at the top is voting for Donald Trump. Lower down the ticket. They're voting for Democrats, for governors and senators and representatives. So like that's what an independent does. And that's awesome. We need that kind of political participation because they're saying what matters most is not my tribe.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
It's a government that actually works.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
They assume they know everything about you because they know about one policy you supported or one candidate, you know, this time around. No, these like blanket kind of assumptions about people, you know, people support the things they support and they value the things they value for all kinds of complicated reasons.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
But like when we assume that the other side votes the way they do because they are bigoted or snowflakes or whatever, we're just not understanding each other. We can't govern like that.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Oh, that's a great question. So, I mean, like I have three kids. My kids are I think like parenting them. Maybe this has been your experience, too. But parenting them has made me realize like it doesn't work the way I thought it would work. Like they don't follow orders.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Maybe you're parenting better than I am.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Okay, I parent the way you do. But it's like they they have their unique gifts. And I want them to be able to like flourish as human beings. And I want a world where they can flourish. And I feel like they have to trust them. to do the things that are important to them and that are who they are. And so I think that applies to like how we think about politics too, actually.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
It's like we have to trust people to pursue the things that are like deeply who they are, deeply meaningful to them. That makes their lives more meaningful. It makes the world a better place. But like it means you let go of a lot of control, right? Because I'm not going to dictate what is best for them. I'm going to have to like let them,
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
choose that find their way right and I try like for my kids my a big part of my energy is like how do I how do I help you find that and put the things in front of you that that will let you
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
People flourish when they're connected to other people. And they, like we know now that people who are socially isolated, just life is really hard for them. They have poor health outcomes. All kinds of things. So we are social creatures.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
express yourself yeah the version of you you'd like to be um and so i think like that's how we should be looking at public policy too it's like how do we help people flourish and be abundant and trust them to to make choices for themselves instead of saying well we're going to tell you what the answers are and how to live and how to run your life and what's okay and what's not okay
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Oh, it's really hard.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Um, it's funny because I just had the thought, like, maybe you were a kid. Like I was, I was a kid that like, you could not tell me anything.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Were you kind of like that?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah. I did not take any feedback or advice as a kid. Right. My oldest kid is like that. It is infuriating. Yeah.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yes. But yeah, like he's just going to have to figure it out. Right. And like, I need to stop him from doing things that have permanent consequences, but the rest of it is like, well, you're going to, you're going to figure this out. Eventually you'll realize like your mom knows one or two things.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
That might be it.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Oh, that is a great question. You know, we're really focused on being like bottom up. We're not trying to tell this audience of people what to do. We're concentrating on listening to them through our research and focus groups and polling, all this stuff. And we're trying to help them voice what is important to them and what they need and through the political process, right?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Like we want them to participate politically and in policy conversations. So we're in a lot of senses, like listening to them. So I would say our metric of success is like, can we get more people engaged in public policy conversations? Can we get more people
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
checked back into politics because you know where we are so polarized right like we can't get really extreme positions out of politics but we can add in more people who have more nuanced views and i think that's where there's a huge opportunity for us yeah i i think
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I think right now what people consider being politically engaged is not really in a way that's helpful to our policy debates because when they're, when they think they're doing politics, they're like seeing somebody else's behavior and they're being outraged by it. Right. So like they look at the other side's candidates and they're like, Oh, can you believe she said that?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Or can you believe they did that? Right. And like, that's just outrage. It actually has more in common with like, gossiping yes than anything else right so as long as we're doing that stuff we think we're doing we think we're politically engaged but we're not actually contributing to conversations about policy and solving our challenges so like
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
if we want to solve issues around regulation or immigration or, you know, entitlements, right? Like that's going to require us coming together and having conversations about what's important and what matters, right? And sorting out those areas of disagreement. And it's not going to be, we can't do it as long as we think of politics as being outraged by the other side.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Absolutely. I mean... So one of the relationships we have is with ourself, right? Like you could think of that as almost a social relationship and people buy things and ideas, right? And like relationships in some senses when it helps them feel more connected to themselves, like that's their identity, right? Like that is our relationship with ourself.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, exactly. I mean, obviously, it's entertaining to people.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, it's entertainment.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I mean, it probably should be kind of boring, right? Because a lot of the stuff is incredibly detailed and there are... you know, implications. Like if you look at insurance markets and how you respond to natural disasters, right? Like that's incredibly complex. I want experts. And we do have incredible experts that can, that are really well-versed in this. Right.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And like, they can tell you what makes a good policy, what makes bad policy. They're in government, they're in private sector, they're academics. Right. Like I, that's who I want talking about public policy and sorting it out. Right. With people's input. Right. But as long as we're just focused on what's being said on Twitter, as though that's politics, we're not going to solve these issues.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Well, so one thing that's just come out recently, we just did some polling here at the start of the Trump administration where we asked independents, Republicans and Democrats. We pulled them all and said, what are you expecting to see?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Like that's part of keeping any elected official accountable is like, what do voters expect? Right. And then later on, we'll pull again and say, like, Did you get what you were expecting?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah. And one of the things... Go figure.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
But one of the things that surprised me was that... Republicans, independents, everybody is looking for bipartisanship. And that's not what either of the parties are selling. Neither one of them are saying, hey, you know what we're planning to do? We're planning to work with the other side.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
So voters are expecting bipartisanship, I think, because they know that with small margins, you're going to have to work across the aisles to deal with our problems.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Right.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And I don't think anybody wants one mono party that's like going out there deciding everything, right? Like that's not going to get us good policy. So what we learned in the survey is that voters are looking for bipartisan behavior and, you know, we're going to go check back in a little, the end of the year and figure out, is that what we see? Is that, is that what voters saw?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Are they pleased with what they're getting? And, you know, like that's the other thing I want to say about the independent center's work. Like, Our feeling is you should let people choose what is right for them and what's best for them to the extent we can. We want to offer people choice at the ballot box. Right.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And we think that when you have more choices, you can get closer to the things that matter to you. Right. And like, that's very marketing centric thinking, right. It's like when consumers have more choices, they are better off because they get the product that matches what they want. And so like, why wouldn't we have that in politics too? Yeah.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
So whatever marketers can do to make it seem like their product helps you be more connected to yourself or to the other people in your life. Like that's such a motivating factor.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah. I mean, you know, younger generations, Gen Z millennials are actually like 52% independent.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, it's way higher. And across the board, people are now identifying themselves as independents at higher levels than ever. And so I think a shift is coming, maybe where people don't want to think in just these dualistic terms of like, I'm this side or that side. They're saying like, no, it's some of both. And so I think that...
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
having people with complex ways of thinking about policy and politics and kind of like you said, looking at this and being like, this is bullshit.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Right. Like that's who I want involved in politics. I think when you, when you look at one party and say like, everything you do is great. That's, that's not reasonable. Right. Like some of it is, some of it is better than others.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Right. But like we can do better.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, absolutely.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah. Reach out to us. We're at independentcenter.org. We have a weekly newsletter. We publish our surveys. If you have questions about like, what do people think about different policy issues? We have lots of survey work. We publish blog articles about what's going on in politics from an independent angle.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
So if you don't want to just hear like, what is the red side or the blue side on this stuff, if you want to hear like, Here's what matters for independence. Sign up for our newsletter. Come check us out online and reach out to us. We're always happy to talk and chat with people, get connected.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is great.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I have a very geeky American dream. And this is kind of what I have realized as my career has developed. But like, to me, what's really excited, exciting is when people are participating in public policy conversations, which I know, It's not for everybody, right? But I know it's important to you too.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And I think the thing that's really important is people making their voices known about what they need to live their lives the way they want, what they don't need. And that's how we make everybody better off. And I know that politics right now happens in a way that's very off-putting to people. A lot of people are checked out because they don't want to participate in
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
in the vitriol and divisiveness that you talked about. And so what I realized was I wanted to take my research expertise and like that background and translate it into like, can we make this better? Can we make it so that people want to participate in politics? It doesn't feel polarizing. It feels like something for everybody. So
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I look at policy as like, this is how we as different complex individuals sort out our values and what we need and like figure out how to make our lives better. And so that's, that's my American dream. We love the man on the street interviews that you guys did, because I think what they show is that like, instead of everybody having the same American dream, right? Like people have like,
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
very unique American dreams. But the thing that matters is you're pursuing what's important to you and that you can get those things through your own effort.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yes.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I think this is a terrible place to be in when it's like, I need to make sure you agree with me before we talk about politics.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
You know, how can we have conversations about how we want elected officials to behave or what kind of laws are right or what kind of programs are right if we need to know that we agree before we can even talk about it?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Oh, absolutely. I think that's a really interesting question too. And it's something we've seen in our research. Younger generations absolutely have an American dream. It just doesn't look like what older generations had.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Of course, we're different people. This is a really diverse country. It's okay to disagree, right? I think we're actually better by the fact that we like and value different things. That makes us stronger.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, absolutely. If you were only exposed to ideas and people you agreed with, your life would be impoverished.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I don't know. But I think what's accelerating it, one of the things accelerating it is, you know, algorithms and social media are just showing you the stuff that they can tell that you like, right. And so you just get more and more insulated from other points of view. And, you know, sometimes you hear somebody else's point of view, and you change your mind.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Sometimes you hear somebody else's point of view and you're just like, well, that's interesting, but no thanks. But I don't think that you are made worse off by hearing what other people think because sometimes they agree with you for a different reason.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And I think we benefit from being connected like this, even if we're not in total agreement.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Oh, absolutely. I think that's that's a really interesting question, too. And it's something we've seen in our research where like younger generations absolutely have an American dream. It just doesn't look like what older generations had as their American.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And like two point five kids or something. Right. Whatever that number is.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, I think sometimes like older generations think like, oh, I can't relate to the kids today. They don't even want the things we used to want. And like they do, it just looks a little bit different, right? Like they're more interested in younger generations are more interested in experiences rather than material things.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And I think that's there's actually a lot of research showing that people consuming experiences like really meaningful experiences.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And so I think it's really cool, the research you did too, the interviews, because it shows like, this is how different it can look, but it's all still the same overarching thing, which is we know who we are and we're pursuing the things that make our lives rich and meaningful.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And then the question for the IC, for the Independence Center is like, okay, well, what kind of policy environments and governing makes that easier for people to accomplish?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
As long as it doesn't hurt other people.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, so some previous research I conducted, what we looked at was instead of asking people, what's your political party? We asked them those same things that you just named. We asked them questions about, do you have the resources you need? How socially connected are you? Do you feel like you're part of a community?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And we asked them about harm, which is related to your idea of security. We asked them, what is harmful? What hurts other people? What should we do about harm? So we took those and we formed them into these segments The interesting thing about that is they're not political segments. Politics is not any one of those needs that you just named.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Somehow we put it on top of our lives and made this really destructive kind of argumentative polarizing conversation, like so important when really it's not any of those things that you just talked about.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, that's one of the things I've found about living in South Carolina. So I'm not originally from here. I'm a transplant. But one of the things I noticed is that, you know, the people around me may have voted really differently than I did, but we can still all get together and run our town in a way that is healthy and makes it a strong community.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Like we don't have to agree with each other in order to be good neighbors with each other.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Yeah, we're all Americans at the end of the day. And I think this political rhetoric that the other side is the enemy and has to be obstructed, this just pushes people out of politics. And I want to bring them in. That's what the IC is here to do, is bring people into political participation.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I think one of the really big things that we hear from our audience is about entrepreneurship, right? And I think that's something your audience is interested in as well. And so if you're trying to build a business, I think that has aspects of your relationship and your identity because it's about what are you really good at and what really excites you at the end of the day. And in
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
you can do in a way that nobody else can do, right? And so we know our audience is interested in entrepreneurship. And then the question is like, what are the policies that make it easier for you to succeed in growing a company or growing a business? And what kind of policies are going to make that hard? So it touches all kinds of things, right? And like really complex areas that...
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
you and I are not experts in finance and like all kinds of complicated stuff, right? Immigration policy. But the overarching question is sort of like, well, what are the things that we could do? And what is the legislation that could be enacted so that people can build their businesses and they prosper? And then they're making life better for all of us because I buy your products, right?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Hey, Ryan. Good to be here. Good. Thank you for having me.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I can use the services and things that are being created. Yeah.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Right.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Right. And, you know, if you have policies that make it hard for somebody to open a business, whether it's a coffee shop, a salon, right? Like if it's just impossible to build things and to offer your services to then that makes everybody worse off. It makes it hard for people to get their American dream.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
And so we need to... I think it's cool to see the extent to which people... I think this is part of the side hustle, right? That way of looking at work is sort of saying, well, what am I good at? And what does the market need? And then the independent center's angle is sort of like, okay... what else would make it so that you can pursue those things? Right. And what are the barriers?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Do we really need gatekeepers who are saying like, no, you can't open that business or no, you can't build that.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I know. I'm your neighbor.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
I'm down the road in Pendleton.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Empowering Independent Voters: The Keys to Ending Political Polarization with Lura Forcum
Our audience, when we're surveying them, we are absolutely hearing them say like, less gatekeepers, right? Like less regulation is probably the right way to go. They want government that is effective. And the problem with the polarization right now is that these are two parties that are just entrenched and doing their own thing instead of what's best for the American people.