Repova’s experience spans across various sectors including finance, tech, media and politics. She is currently the California State Lead of the Forward Alliance and host of the Think with Lucie podcast.
According to the latest PPIC survey, fewer than half of Californians are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the United States. I am one of them. Our political system has significantly deviated from the vision of our founding fathers who advocated for a representative form of government that empowered the people to decide their representation through free and fair elections. Instead of serving the people, our elected officials are serving themselves, their political party and special interests.
We cannot force people to be selfless, but we can change the incentives that guide our political decision making, shifting power from party and special interest leadership to the general public. In order to repair our democracy, we need a new kind of party that will address the issues at its core through a set of electoral, legislative and campaign finance reforms. I understand these changes may seem less exciting to most people than healthcare or education reforms, but I can assure you that the former is required to implement the latter. In other words, once we fix the political system and remove the excessive influence of special interests, the solutions we’ve all been waiting for can finally become reality.
You may be asking what this new kind of party we are building looks like, how it is different from the existing ones and what our agenda is. So let me explain in the next few paragraphs.
The Common Sense Party was founded in 2019 by Tom Campbell, a former U.S. congressman. In January of this year, we joined forces with the Forward Party, a nationwide movement that aims to get on the ballot in 12 states by 2024. Since California is one of the battleground states, it made sense to work together through our shared commitment to democracy reforms and bipartisan collaboration.
The way we are led and organized distinguishes us from the rest. We believe the diversity and size of our state and country requires a bottoms-up leadership approach where every local community chooses the policies that suit them best. Not top-down, dictatorial rule where a select few leaders of a political party decide the fate of the majority. But instead, a small group of local leaders who understand their communities and who are able to choose what problems they want to address and how to solve them in the most effective way.
Additionally, each state leadership within the Forward Party alliance determines their priorities for each election season, emphasizing a holistic approach to their state’s needs. The national team determines shared values that guide every leader within the organization regardless of location or position, and the system reforms that will create opportunities for our candidates to succeed.
Specific to California, becoming a new party will give our independent-thinking candidates the necessary financial leverage needed to get on a level-playing field with the duopoly. Current campaign finance laws limit the amount individuals can donate to independent candidates, giving candidates in an official party an overwhelming nine-to-one advantage. We are aiming to leverage party status, not only to support our own candidates, but to endorse other like-minded ones, too. We see democracy as a win-win, not a zero sum game. We want to collaborate and unite, not fight and divide. We endorse independent-thinking candidates who represent their constituents, not the leadership of a party or special interests.
Once we have candidates in office, we fully trust them to address the issues of their community; asking that they adopt our values and work with us to change the system from within.
Improving our voting system to give voters more choice is a priority for California. Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is an example of a system that can help moderate candidates advance in primaries and allow voters to select their favorite one without wasting their vote. This voting method will also encourage the candidate pool to appeal to a large base of voters, hence promoting positive campaigning and collaboration. Contrary to popular belief, the voting reforms we propose result in significant cost savings as they eliminate the need for run-offs or second rounds and allow a jurisdiction to get the advantage of two rounds of voting in a single election. The removal of the second round increases turnout and leads to a more diverse voter base.
Electoral reforms need to be complemented by campaign finance reforms to improve the chances of candidates who are devoted to serving their constituents and who reject support from special interests, and to give voice to everyday Americans. We believe that there is no one-size fits all and that different states will require different variations of public financing reform. One such system, called democracy vouchers, that has proved to work in various cities across the country, enables the government to give every city resident vouchers which they can donate to candidates of their choice. Candidates can opt in the program by consenting to certain rules like disclosure requirements or public debates. In Seattle, the democracy vouchers program has increased citizen participation, diversified donor class, and helped new candidates run for office.
None of this will be possible without the support of the people. 68 percent of Californians want a third party, and we are building it. Together, we can end the Democrat supermajority that has ruled over California for decades and create a more prosperous state that people thrive in. The future is in our hands and it is up to us to create the communities we want to live in.
We’re looking for volunteers who can help us achieve our voter registration goal of 73,000 by organizing events, running social media campaigns, spreading the word in their local community and helping with fundraising. If that’s you, please reach out to the lead of your local chapter or me at lrepova@cacommonsense.org.
Not right. Not left. Forward with Common Sense!
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.