Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

If we don’t stop single-issue advocacy, we risk losing democracy altogether

Climate protest

Climate activists participate in a demonstration in New York against a recent Supreme Court ruling that limited the EPA's authority.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Conte is co-chair of No Labels for the state of California.

My friends have it wrong. I recently reached out to many of them about an effort to combat the intentional efforts by “Big Lie” candidates to take over nonpartisan election positions in key states where, had they been in place, the 2020 election may have gone to Donald Trump. Many of them were “too busy” or responded that they only invest in specific issues like “climate crisis” or “reproductive rights” these days.

I responded: “I doubt it will go very well for climate action if Trump wins in 2024.” Their answer: crickets. And that, in a nutshell, is why we’re in trouble.


The problem isn’t whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. It isn’t whether you disagree with your neighbors, or share the same beliefs. The real problem at hand is that we are all doubling down with aggressive tribalism on our policy silos, or even our political party, and funneling money and time and our deepest passions to them like a hoard of fiddlers on a hill while the pillars of democracy burn. Without unity and collective compromise, we risk being outwitted by those who seek to divide us. Make no mistake: This exact strategy of fanning the flames of minor differences between protesting forces has been used by dictators and authoritarians for centuries. We cannot and must not fall to it now.

We all need to step outside of our echo chamber long enough to notice that democratic norms are under threat. And lest you think it’s just Donald Trump and his Trumpians attacking the notion of the rule of law and legitimacy of democracy, we San Franciscans, engaging deeply in the redistricting process these last couple of months, saw an equally heinous political power-grab by the entrenched ultra-progressives. They behaved like Trump and his “Stop the Steal” cronies when they didn't like the outcome of representative democracy in the agreed-upon process (such as the new maps created by the redistricting task force).

We are at the point when working with the other party on comprise solutions to our nation’s most enduring challenges has regularly become cause for a slew of death threats. Whether it’s a secretary of state in Ohio, a U.S. senator in Maine, a House member in New Jersey or a redistricting task force member in San Francisco, good people are now afraid to work in government or become civic volunteers. This has to stop! We need to listen more, and threaten less. Each side in this battle of the extremes has taken a tiny nugget of truth and turned it into a full-blown conspiracy theory with life-or-death consequences. The real life-and-death threat is the partisan battle itself.

A new brand of politics, one that supports the rule of law and institutions that resurrect the fundamental principle of any successful democracy, is the only way to move forward. And bipartisanship is the only way to do that — even if that may be the ultra-blue compromising with the slightly less blue in a city like San Francisco. Compromise and slow change are the tenets of our government and it is through compromise that the big ideas of tomorrow are born. However, these ideas ought to be socialized and reformed into the center over time, ushered gently into broad acceptance as people see the inescapable validity of their goals and processes — like ending child labor or the right to clean water — the very shared goals we all adhere to, whether red, blue or independent.

Stop the single-issues advocacy, lobbying or direct-to-candidate funding. Funneling any money through either party is the problem, not the solution. Over the last two decades we’ve become lulled into believing that our party can single-handedly deliver on our wish list of policies, and inured to the fact that both parties continuously fail to deliver — not one comprehensive solution to gun safety, our immigration crisis, our strained health care system, our failure to educate our next generation effectively and efficiently, and so much more.

Give money to candidates who are actively working across the aisle to formulate legislation that has a snowball-in-hell’s chance of passing. You can find and support organizations that are actively working to restore bipartisanship and sustain democracy, like No Labels, Unite America, An America United, Mainstream Democrat PAC and others.

Democracy is not a given and needs to be actively nurtured to survive and thrive. Only once our political system has returned to civility and unfettered bipartisan debate about the goals we most often commonly share, with our only real differences on how best to solve them, can we go back to our relative complacency for a short time and focus again on our pet issues. We now know that we can’t afford to take our eye off of it for long without risking that autocrats, whether from the right or left, will try to sneak by and steal it from us. Engage in the change you hope to see, avoid starting sentences with “Republicans ..." or “Democrats ...” Ordinary people from either party are not monoliths and the moment they hear these accusations and demonizations, they shut down.

There are Republicans, like me, who support choice, climate and LGBTQ+ rights. And same goes for Democrats who may support gun rights or energy independence. We are out there — engage us and let’s move forward together.

Read More

Trump Was Told He’s in Epstein Files

A billboard in Times Square calls for the release of the Epstein files on July 23, 2025 in New York City.

(Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)

Trump Was Told He’s in Epstein Files

In May 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly informed President Donald Trump that his name appeared multiple times in the government’s files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier convicted of sex trafficking. The revelation, confirmed by sources cited in The Wall Street Journal and CNN, has reignited public scrutiny over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case and its broader implications for democratic transparency.

The new reports contradict an account given earlier this month by the president, who responded "no, no" when asked by a reporter whether Bondi had told him that his name appeared in the files.

Keep ReadingShow less
Shifting the Spotlight: Trump’s Epstein Strategy Echoes His 2016 Playbook

A photograph of US President Donald Trump and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is displayed after being unofficially installed in a bus shelter on July 17, 2025 in London, England.

(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Shifting the Spotlight: Trump’s Epstein Strategy Echoes His 2016 Playbook

This morning, many of us awoke to a jarring juxtaposition of headlines: The Wall Street Journal published a column revealing that Jeffrey Epstein received a birthday album filled with bawdy letters—including one from President Donald Trump. And shortly thereafter, news broke that Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury transcripts related to Epstein, citing mounting political pressure and intensifying public scrutiny.

Late last night, Trump took to Truth Social, posting that he had requested Bondi release “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” framing the controversy as a “SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats.”

Keep ReadingShow less
American flag, megaphone

In confronting the Trump administration's discriminatory treatment toward specific states, all of us need to be inventive and courageous.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov/pexels.com

To Stand Up for Constitutional Democracy, It’s Time for State Officials To Take Drastic Action

Sometimes, it turns out that two wrongs do make a right. In politics, a steadfast commitment to doing the morally right thing disadvantages the victims of lawlessness and injustice.

The famous Italian political thinker, Niccolo Machiavelli, captured this political imperative in 1532, when he explained that “a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Therefore, if a Prince wants to maintain his rule, he must be prepared not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to need.”

Keep ReadingShow less
MAGA Tension Over Why Hasn’t Trump Released the Epstein Files

U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, Washington, DC.

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

MAGA Tension Over Why Hasn’t Trump Released the Epstein Files

Despite repeated calls from the public and some political figures for the complete release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, including those containing a rumored "client list," the Donald Trump administration refuses to release all such documents fully.

Trump Defends Administration Amid Epstein Files Controversy, Blames Predecessors

Trump addressed internal tensions within his administration regarding the Epstein files in a lengthy rant on Truth Social Saturday, defending Attorney General Pam Bondi and urging his supporters to focus on the MAGA agenda.

Keep ReadingShow less