Following a long day of remote learning, two high school students — 17-year old Elena Ashburn of Broward and 16-year-old Dariel Cruz Rodriguez of Orlando — shared their experiences as founders of Students for Open Primaries. The group is campaigning for adoption of a ballot measure that could remake politics in the most populous purple state — by opening Florida's legislative and other state primaries to all voters, regardless of party, and advancing the top two vote-getters, also regardless of party, to the general election. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Fahey: How did you become involved in the open primary movement?
Ashburn: We both learned about Open Primaries, the group at the forefront of the campaign, through Civics Unplugged, which empowers Gen Z leaders with the tools needed to advance democracy.
Cruz Rodriguez: We're a small group of volunteers. We've been calling and texting newly registered voters under 22. Other organizations have solicited these people to register and we're following up by saying, "Did you know independents can't vote?"
Ashburn: We're students and we want to get the word out to other students because Gen Zers and millennials are becoming increasingly less dependent on parties. A recent poll showed 44 percent of millennials nationwide are not registered Democrats or Republicans. So a huge voting bloc is being shut out of primaries in closed states like ours.
Fahey: Do you identify as independents?
Cruz Rodriguez: Yes, we've both pre-registered as NPAs, or No Party Affiliates, meaning we'll automatically be placed into the rolls when we turn 18.
Ashburn: We were like, "We've been fighting for the last few weeks for open primaries, but we're not even registered." So we got on a Zoom call and preregistered together.
Fahey: Why are you passionate about open primaries?
Ashburn: I was drawn to this idea because I'm not in love with either of the two major parties. I'd rather hold onto my values and be without a party than compromise my values by registering with one.
Cruz Rodriguez: A lot of people from my school were telling me to register, but independents simply can't vote in primaries. It's more productive to change the system to let all voters vote than to get more people into one of the major parties.
Fahey: You need 60 percent of the vote to win. What's your strategy?
Cruz Rodriguez: Independents are already on board, so we're targeting mainly Democrats and Republicans. The two parties are sending out lots of misleading information and we're trying to combat that with correct information.
Ashburn: We're also trying to show the wide support we've got. We've been endorsed by almost every major newspaper in Florida, people like Magic Johnson and reform groups such as Independent Voting.
Fahey: Have you met each other in person? If not, what has it been like to work together virtually?
Ashburn: We are super close friends but we've never met in person. It's really weird. With the coronavirus our whole campaign has been online. It's not a major hindrance to do most of our work this way.
Cruz Rodriguez: We will be featured in "The Young Vote," a documentary on Gen Zers in electoral politics. We have this grand plan that, for the post-election results, we'll do an in-person interview together.
Fahey: What is the role of independents in today's political system?
Cruz Rodriguez: We are often a moderating force as the main parties become increasingly more radicalized. Finding common ground is the only way this country can move forward, and independents are the bridge.
Ashburn: And we will continue to play a crucial role as more and more young people identify as independent.
Fahey: What's the role of young people in our politics?
Ashburn: We're going to change the world! That's a nonnegotiable statement. From March for Our Lives to Black Lives Matter, this year the world has seen that Gen-Zers are going to better our democracy. We've all grown up in this very polarized, very partisan atmosphere, and honestly we're sick of it. We know we need to work together to use our power and speak up for what we believe in.
Cruz Rodriguez: Young people have been active in politics for a long time, but they're just now getting attention. Whether it be local, like how my school district finally changed our dress code, or national, such as March for Our Lives, issues that affect youth are finally in the spotlight, and so is our activism.
Fahey: Have you felt pushback or skepticism due to your age?
Ashburn: Oh yeah. I've been told by adults, "Your views will change when you get older," or "You don't really know what you're talking about, you can't even vote yet." I've done my research, I know what my values are and I align my political beliefs to match those values.
Cruz Rodriguez: People actually thought we were paid actors being used by political operatives. We received a lot of pushback campaigning on social media or on the phone with voters. Just because we're kids doesn't mean that we can't spark impactful change.
Fahey: What is the most fun you've had on this campaign?
Ashburn: Without this experience, I never would have gotten to know Dariel as well as I do. Now, we host the "Mission Control 2030 Podcast" and do so many other projects together. I can't imagine doing any of those things without him.
Cruz Rodriguez: And also, taking on all the outrageous online arguments from the opposition. I'm a person who challenges people's ideas, and this experience has really brought that out in me.
Fahey: Finally, what does being an American mean to you?
Cruz Rodriguez: It means being able to exercise the right to critique our government, from the founders who dumped tea into Boston Harbor to the young people protesting in the streets today.
Ashburn: Loving your country, and being willing to do whatever it takes to change it for the better.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.