Warped Minds Press

01/01/2026

Closed Primaries Make Thomas Paines, Not James Madisons

12/31/2025

Putin or Bust? Could Bush’s Team Have Read Russia More Clearly Than Clinton

12/21/2025

Democrats are idiots? Republicans are stupid? In American politics, assuming the other side is an idiot or stupid is a reliable way to end up standing on an island of irrelevance.

History makes the case.

Barry Goldwater was principled, serious, and intellectually formidable. I admire him. Yet his 1964 campaign treated much of the electorate not as persuadable citizens, but as morally or intellectually lost. The result was clarity without coalition—and a landslide defeat.

George McGovern followed a different ideology but fell into a similar trap. Moral certainty replaced persuasion. Voters who disagreed were dismissed rather than engaged. The outcome was the same: isolation dressed up as righteousness.

The lesson cuts across parties.

In a two-party republic, you do not win by proving the other side foolish. You win by assembling majorities among people who disagree with you on something. Movements that confuse contempt for conviction may feel pure—but purity does not govern.

Politics rewards those who treat opponents as rational actors with different priorities, not as idiots to be written off.

Rhetorical satisfaction is easy. Governing relevance is harder.

12/21/2025

An important piece of advice.

12/17/2025

What Is a Republican?

12/16/2025

I have completed the first full draft of my next nonfiction book, More Republic, Less Cowbell.

The argument begins with a simple claim: America does not suffer from too much disagreement, but from too little republican structure to absorb it.

The Introduction explores how proximity, privacy, and institutional design once transformed democratic pressure into law—and how modern politics replaced mediation with performance.

The Introduction is free here:
https://bit.ly/4pOu9lq

Thoughtful feedback is welcome.

What happens when democracy grows louder, but governance grows weaker?The Introduction to More Republic, Less Cowbell begins far from cable news and social media—inside the muddy boardinghouses of early Washington, where members of Congress lived, ar...

12/05/2025

Check out the article on Substack: warpedminds.substack.com.

12/04/2025

Raising the Waterline: A Madisonian Case for Open Primaries

11/28/2025

Sneak Peek: Chapter 1 of More Republic, Less Cowbell

11/28/2025

Why Open Primaries Matter in Tennessee - https://mailchi.mp/warpedminds/free-ebook-download-53097

11/27/2025

Why Tennessee Republicans Need Open Primaries: A Working Dog, Not a Show Dog

11/22/2025

The Peacock Problem: Why Closed Primaries Create Beautiful Losers