Deval Patrick Talks Governing: These Not So United States (MA Part One)
September 14, 2022 | The former Massachusetts Governor on his improbable American journey
“There are all kinds of ways in which we, as a community, enable the American story,” says Deval Patrick, implying that too often these success stories, even his own, emphasize only the individual.
A former two-term Democratic Governor of Massachusetts, Patrick was and is a different kind of politician with a gift for communicating directly with citizens through stories, remarks and unscripted responses.
His own American story is a remarkable one, starting in a tough, yet nurturing, South Chicago neighborhood, journeying to a planet called boarding school as a teenager, then onto Harvard, Harvard Law, and a distinguished legal career, before winning the Governorship on his first run for office.
This TPP episode features Guest Host Valerie Wencis, regularly our co-host on the Fluent Knowledge podcast My Body Odyssey. In the interview, Patrick recounts how then Senator Barack Obama was initially quizzical, but supportive, of his seemingly long shot run for office. Patrick also underscores the unusual nature of politics in the Bay State, which has more unenrolled or independent voters than both parties combined and, in his view, a Democratic legislature that prefers a GOP Governor, at least historically, to enhance their own political power.
“These are human dynamics,” says Patrick, “not so much partisan dynamics.”
But politics in Massachusetts is changing and polarizing, as throughout the nation.
Patrick addresses the failure of language to adequately describe these changes, where once-centrist figures like former MA GOP Senator Ed Brooke now seem like liberals, outright radicals claim to be conservatives, and behavior once deemed anti-social is rewarded online and at the polls.
Listen in for a wide-ranging, clear-eyed, all-American discussion of politics state and national with Deval Patrick, former Governor and 2020 White House aspirant, now teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the first in our two-part series on Massachusetts politics.
SHOW NOTES
Our Guest
Deval Patrick: Former two-term Governor of Massachusetts, 2020 Presidential candidate, and Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him on Twitter @DevalPatrick.
Additional Resources:
Books by Deval Patrick
A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life (2011)
Faith in the Dream: A Call to the Nation to Reclaim American Values (2012)
More About Deval Patrick
Overcame Difficult Circumstances During His Upbringing in Chicago
Former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights
Co-Director, Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School
Co-Chair of Future of Tech Commission
Co-Chair of COVID Collaborative
Source Notes:
On Massachusetts’ Political Landscape:
More unenrolled independents in Massachusetts than registered Republicans or Democrats
Current party control of Massachusetts’ State Government
Historical party control in Massachusetts’ State House
Historical party control of Massachusetts’ State Senate
Former Governors of Massachusetts
Massachusetts’ Presidential Voting Record: Blue since Reagan
On Romneycare:
Former Gov. Mitt Romney signs “Romneycare” into law in April of 2006
Study shows Romneycare was template for Obamacare
Gov. Deval Patrick praises Romneycare
Gov. Deval Patrick signs new healthcare cost measure into law in 2012
Survey shows just 2.4% of Massachusetts residents uninsured in 2021
Statistics show Massachusetts has the lowest uninsured rate in the U.S.
On Government Response to Covid-19 Pandemic:
2020 Piece on Trump White House’s response to Covid-19 Pandemic
2021 Piece on trend of Republican Governors downplaying the Covid-19 Pandemic
On Trifecta States:
Democrat Maura Healey favored to win Governor’s Seat, making MA a trifecta state
Party control of California’s State Government
Party control of Texas’ State Government
Polling on Referenced Issues:
2022 poll shows most Americans think some police reform is needed
2022 poll shows most Americans still worried about illegal immigration
2022 poll shows most Americans dissatisfied with level of immigration
Join Us for Premium Content
Follow us online!
Twitter: @purpleprincipl
Facebook: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast
Instagram: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast
-
Deval Patrick:
There are more unenrolled independents in Massachusetts than there are registered Democrats and registered Republicans combined… I think an awful lot of people feel like politics and government isn't about them anymore and they're not all wrong. And I think they occupy both parties or no party.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Deval Patrick was and is a different kind of politician. More thoughtful, less partisan and less scripted during his two successful campaigns for the Governor’s office in Massachusetts.
Deval Patrick:
Um, I was approaching it more as a citizen and less as a perennial candidate.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
There was less political posturing from Deval Patrick, more consistency, and more candid communication as on this Daily Show appearance with Jon Stewart:
[Archival, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart]
Deval Patrick:
I think, I think that the way I’ve tried to run, and like I said I’ve only done this, I’ve only run twice. But I got in because I wanted to show that you could run being willing to lose, that you can put on the table exactly what you believe and trust the American people to have an adult conversation and either take it or leave it.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
And there was always a lot of humor as there was during our interview sound check:
Deval Patrick:
Well, here's the question, Kevin, can you, can you dub in for me the voice of James Earl Jones? [laughter]
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
On the advice of counsel, we’re unable to honor that particular request on this episode of The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization–I’m Robert Pease. But we are going to hear Deval Patrick’s own voice on the surprisingly indie-minded Massachusetts voter. And his own insights into the broader American story from this 2020 presidential aspirant, now teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Deval Patrick:
My point is that there are all kinds of ways in which we, as a community, invested in the things that enabled that American story.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
But let’s start off with Deval Patrick’s own American story from an interview I conducted with Senior Reporter Valerie Wencis. She’s watched and covered Mass politics as a citizen and a journalist. Patrick describes this story in his best selling memoir A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life. Winning the Governor's seat in his very first run for office… that’s certainly improbable. So is the story of a teenager from the south side of Chicago who ends up going to high school on what seemed like a different planet.
[Enter Interview Part One]
Deval Patrick:
Yes. Yes. Well, I, you know, Milton academy was for me at age 14 in 1970 another planet because of the planet I had come from, which was the south side of Chicago, where I grew up with my grandparents and mother and sister and various other relatives in, uh, our grandparents’, two bedroom tenement, a lot of that time on public assistance. And, you know, in general, um, in, you know, in a, in a, in a tough neighborhood. A neighborhood that had a strong sense of community, but a still economically tough neighborhood at the time. And I landed at Milton Milton academy the night before classes began, they had a dress code in those days and the boys wore jackets and ties to classes. So my grandparents splurged on a new jacket for me, um, to bring, uh, and wear to class, but a jacket on the south side of Chicago was a windbreaker. So, uh, first day of, uh, class, all these other boys are putting on their, you know, blue blazers and twin coats. And I had my, my windbreaker. So yeah, there was a lot to learn.
Valerie Wencis (Reporter):
And are these improbable journeys, you know, that you describe, are they still possible in the U.S. today?
Deval Patrick:
You know, my story I've often said and observed is, is like a lot of other peoples’ story in this country. Not being defined by our circumstances or place of birth, it's a fundamentally American story, but I am deeply concerned that that story is becoming less and less.. you know, was never told often enough in this country, but it's been told more often this in this country than any other place on earth. And I am concerned that it's been slipping away. And I'll say what I mean. I, I think, you know, one hears a lot about the importance of personal responsibility and grit and determination and ambition and family. And I was blessed to have all that. But I also had great teachers in those broken public schools on the south side of Chicago, right. I had grants and college loans that I could afford. And in the telling sometimes I think we forget that part of it and we've walked away from that part of it I think, as a policy matter, if you will, in a whole host of ways over a long period of time now.
Valerie Wencis (Reporter):
Yeah. In Reasons to Believe you also relate an interesting conversation you had with Barack Obama about your decision to run for governor…
Deval Patrick:
Well. So I, I had known Barack for, I don't know, 15 years before he ran for anything back when he was doing voting rights, uh, legal work in Chicago. And I was in the Justice Department as head of the civil rights division. And so, and I'm, you know, I was a friend and a fan, uh, very excited about his running for, um, state Senate in Illinois and then for the United States Senate. And when he won his U.S. Senate race, I went to see him and, you know, there are boxes being unpacked in this basement office for a junior Senator who was already a celebrity politically speaking. And, uh, I remember we went into his office, he closed the door, he said, “what's up?” And I said, you know what, Barack I've decided that I'm gonna run for Governor. And he said, “huh?” [laugh] He said, “You got any money?” I said, “Nope.” He said, “You got any people?” I said, “Nope.” He said, “What's your name recognition?” I said, “You know, on the days when we bragged 2%, but it's probably 1%.” And he said, “Well, I'm in.” [laugh]. And, uh, and he was terrifically, uh, helpful.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Well, Governor, you were the first African American governor in Massachusetts, but Massachusetts did elect the first African American Senator since Reconstruction in Edward Brooke. Did that play at all into your consideration of, you know, this is a state that might give me some serious consideration?
Deval Patrick:
You know, it's interesting. The direct answer is no, in the same way that the relatively small proportion of our population who are black, didn't really play in my calculation. It wasn't how I thought about the opportunity. I will say that one of the first notes I got after I won was from Ed Brooke. And we had a, we got on the phone, had a long conversation and he couldn't have been more lovely, his expression of pride and of aspiration, and aspiration, not just in me, but in his home state of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Yeah. We've been struck by, um, how little mention is made of him…
Deval Patrick:
There, not enough in my view, given, uh, his historic role and, uh, and, and just how much good he did first as Attorney General. And then, uh, and, and then as, uh, as United States Senator, but I think it's also true that the, in a way that I, and I say this as an English major, the language fails us in so many ways. You know, even this notion of moderate, he'd probably be described as a raving liberal today. [laugh] As if that meant anything and conservatives who are quite, um, radical in some cases, it's like the language doesn't quite work. It's not descriptive anymore. Once upon a time, there was a thing, and this is a conversation my Republican friends in this part of the world and I have had, called a New England, uh, Republican. And they were fairly socially wide open and easy, um, mostly coming from a place of privacy. You do you kind of thing. And fiscally restrained, not hateful, just restrained.
[Archival, Senator Edward Brooke]
Edward Brooke:
If I’m anything I’m a moderate to liberal Republican. On social issues I have to admit that I'm a liberal. There’s no question in my mind about that. On other issues, on some economic issues and some things I’ve always believed that a man or woman should do for themselves, and the government should do only those things which man or woman can’t do for themselves. And that wasn’t a Goldwater statement, that was an Abraham Lincoln statement.
[End Interview Part One]
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
That was just a bit from former Massachusetts Republican Senator Edward Brooke on the transition from our interview with former Democratic Governor Deval Patrick. Massachusetts has long had an unusual history of bipartisanship which may now be lost as the state is predicted to become a Democratic trifecta this election year. That means Democrats will control both houses and, most likely, the Governor’s seat as well. The moderate and popular current GOP Governor Charlie Baker decided not to run for a third term. And the Massachusetts GOP turned much more immoderate, or populist, in nominating the Trump endorsed Geoff Diehl for the governor’s seat. And that is a change. Yes, Massachusetts has long been known as a reliably blue state in Presidential elections. And yes, Democrats have controlled the state legislature for 60-plus years now. But over that same period Mass voters elected moderate Republican governors half the time, 30 of those 60 years, making that the most consistently competitive race in the state. We asked former Democratic Governor Patrick–how did he appeal to those independent and split ticket voters in the Bay State?
[Enter Interview Part Two]
Deval Patrick:
Well, first of all, I wanna be clear, I didn't have one message for one room and a different message for another room, you know, in hopes that nobody would be aroused. I said the same thing and I listened really hard. And I think one of the things I discovered was that the same feeling of, that, you know, Beacon Hill, our capitol, was just about the neighborhood around Beacon Hill that I heard in rooms in western Massachusetts. Which is to say, I think that the dynamic in Massachusetts though, from outside looking in, if, uh, it's often described as reliably blue, in fact, the dynamic is less Democrat-Republican than it is insider-outsider. And increasingly I think that's true all over the country. And I think that tells another truth. People aren't buying a hundred percent of what either party is selling, right?
Valerie Wencis (Reporter):
I wanted to ask you about implementing Romneycare, which was, you know, your undertaking and became a template for Obamacare. You know, did you have a sense of its potential at the time that you were doing it?
Deval Patrick:
Sure. You know what, when I was, uh, so governor Romney signed healthcare reform during our campaign, uh, he had already announced he was leaving office. And I was asked by a reporter what I thought about it. And I said, this is a terrific achievement. And an important, uh, important one, not just politically, but practically in the lives of people. And lo and behold, I'm driving along the, uh, the pike and my phone rings and it's Governor Romney. And he said, “that was a very gracious thing of you to say.” And I said, “well, I believed it.” I said, “well done.”
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Was it kind of sad and surprising for you when, when Romney himself, kind of recanted [laugh] on the Affordable Care Act in Massachusetts on his version of Romneycare during that 2012 election? Or was that not surprising because that's how our politics works?
Deval Patrick:
It's not how our politics has to work. And, um. You know, I don't know Governor Romney well, he's always been a gentleman to me. I was disappointed in that, but I, I kind of understood it, right? I mean, he was running, I think when he disavowed the bill he signed, it was during the primary and by then the party, his party had demonized the Affordable Care Act. And, you know, it's amazing to me, maybe again, it's a political knife, that certain things become partisan, become political touchpoints. When healthcare expansion was not about expanding to one partisan or another, but about helping help, one of those elements of things that government can do to help people help themselves.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Well, Governor, you mentioned earlier, New England has had this tradition of a more moderate, uh, GOP uh, form of governance. And, uh Massachusetts may be poised to lose that tradition in the upcoming election, by all polling. The expectation is it will become a trifecta again. It's hard to imagine another Charlie Baker or William Weld coming along, maybe not impossible, but what do we lose when Massachusetts becomes another trifecta for decades on end like a California, or in the opposite party, you know, a Texas, which is purely red, and policy becomes about appealing to the partisans who vote in the primaries.
Deval Patrick:
Yeah, well, again I think we have Democrats in Massachusetts who’d be Republicans in any place, any other place. I mean, it's, it's for a lot of folks, it's what they say they are in order to appeal in the places where they are, meaning we have a whole spectrum of points of view in the party. And I will say and have said, sometimes to the consternation of my colleagues and then my friends in the legislature, that I think our legislature prefers a Republican governor [laugh] because it's not that, that the Republican governor moderates them, it’s that the king of the hill, if you will, are the legislative leadership. It's just a different, these are human dynamics, not so much partisan, uh, dynamics
Valerie Wencis (Reporter):
So governors, we find that governors are often more pragmatic than their legislative colleagues, whether Democratic or Republican, because in many states they're required to balance the budget. You know, that's not a Washington requirement. So did this bond you with other governors because this common, you know, struggle, whether they were Democratic or Republican? And do you think that with increased polarization that's changed today?
Deval Patrick:
Well, so I think governors are generally or historically more pragmatic. I would say it's not just because the budget has to be balanced, it's because you actually have to do stuff. It's, you don't, I don't think you get to have opinions for a living or positions for a living. You actually, you have to do stuff. And I remember going to my first meeting of the National Governors Association. And that organization at the time convened twice a year, once in Washington, and once in the summer in, in a governor's state, was hosted by a governor. And, uh, at every meeting, there was at least one session where only governors were in the room, no staff, no media. And I'll tell you for the first two years, I had no idea who was in what party. It was just problem solving. And there were things we said, peer to peer, you know, “I am having a devilish time trying to solve X problem.” And somebody across the room would say, “well, I tried this, go ahead, steal it without attribution, steal the idea without attribution.” It was just this incredible. I mean, it was, it was the reason for me to go to those, um, to those meetings, ‘cause there was just so much learning to be had and so much letting down of your defenses. That changed over time.
Valerie Wencis (Reporter):
Definitely. And this happens in industry too. It's not, you know, so you would think there's such value there. Such a gift for them to have basically each other, um, in that role, what were your thoughts during the early stages of COVID seeing, you know, how some like blue or purple state governors were responding, uh, GOP governors rather, excuse me, um, versus some of the red state, GOP governors, you know, what was going through your head in those moments as you were seeing them react?
Deval Patrick:
It's so interesting at the very beginning, I remember thinking to myself, this might be the first time since leaving office that I missed being in office. Because you know, I think back, for example, to our response to the marathon bombing. There were all kinds of lines crossed because we had a real emergency, a present danger, and we needed each other. So again, it's just astonishing to me how, um, in that moment, and I will say for the first beat or two, you got a little of that sense from the White House. The devolving into treating it as a partisan thing or, or, uh, or what that didn't come right away. First, it was, you know, denial. And then there was acknowledgement and a little bit of, um, central leadership, not directing ship but leadership. But then it started to fall apart pretty quickly, and we got to the dynamic that you refer to. It was hard, I think for some GOP governors to, um, treat the science seriously, treat the threat seriously when it had been made into what it was made into and kudos for them for doing so.
[End Interview Part Two]
Midroll
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
We’re speaking with former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a different kind of politician. More gracious, more thoughtful; less scripted and less partisan. It was his Democratic administration that implemented and refined the health insurance reform legislation often known as Romneycare. That would become the template for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. And in that perfect irony made possible by our zero sum, election driven politics, Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for the White House in 2012, he would disavow his own Massachusetts health insurance expansion policy that had been successfully taken up by his opponent, the Democratic incumbent President Obama, at the national level.
[Archival, 2012 Southern Republican Presidential Debate - CNN]
Mitt Romney:
If we don't have a Republican majority, I think we're going to be able to convince some Democrats that when the American people stand up loud and clear and say “we do not want Obamacare, we do not want the higher taxes, we do not want a five hundred billion dollar cut in Medicare to pay for Obamacare,” I think you're going to see the American people stand with our President and say lets get rid of Obamacare. But we'll replace it.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
We asked Governor Patrick about the rise in hyperpartisanship and polarization that has made public policy and legislation and governance in general so purely political and increasingly irrational over the past two decades.
[Enter Interview Part Three]
Deval Patrick:
So I worry about this deeply too. And I, I feel like it's been creeping up on us for some while before we got smacked in the face. I don't think it started with Trump. I think it, uh, with the former president, I think it accelerated with the former president. I remember when he was first elected in 2016, I made the point he was not my candidate, but he is my president. And I wanted him to succeed in his way. Here's an innocent kind of analogy, maybe not an appropriate one. The first time I ran, I'm running as an outsider, I had all kinds of people invite me to attack the legislature. You know, they're stuck in one place and blah, blah, I'm gonna change all that, blah, blah, blah. Well we wanted a lot of change but I kept saying, well, okay, I've insulted them all during the campaign, what happens when I win? And there's one other thing, Rob, I think, and it, it sort of relates to this point about performance art being such a big part of it. I don't know when it is we decided to put the bullies in charge. We excuse behavior in politics and online that, uh, in my recent memory, we would never excuse across the table in a room, or at the dinner table at Thanksgiving. And, you know, whether it's the, you know, the rise of bully politics being consistent with, you know, reality TV [laugh] and, uh, and that sort of the lack of decorum as entertainment. But it, it turns out that democracy depends on a whole bunch of unwritten rules and decorum is one of them, alongside respect and restraint and integrity. So I do worry how you come back from that.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Yeah, well, we had a conversation along similar lines with Thomas Edsall of the New York Times, who's been writing about the Democratic Party for 50 or 60 years. We’d like to play you a quote from him where, uh, he feels that, uh, although the Republicans are obviously very aggressive on polarizing issues, he thinks the Democrats have some responsibilities here as well:
[TPP Archival, Thomas Edsall Interview]
Thomas Edsall:
Well, you know, I think even though the Republicans are sort of the aggressors in pushing the polarization issues, because they work for them, the wedge issues of race, culture, and so forth have generally been ones that Republicans have found profitable on election day. I think the burden is on Democrats. To explain that I think the Democrats remain a rational party and the Republican party has become an irrational party. If you wanna preserve democracy, and democracy in a two party system has a very hard time surviving in a polarized context, the burden then falls on the rational party to do something to lessen it.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Yeah. So there's a lot to unpack there. And, uh, obviously you've been a strong and effective proponent of civil rights your entire career, but what happens when the backlash is so strong that it negates the progress made? And does Edsall have a point there that Democrats have to think about backlash?
Deval Patrick:
Yeah. I, I, you know, there's a wonderful writer and speaker, Anand Giridharadas, who's, who gave a speech in Chicago some years ago and he, he used this line, which is just stuck in my mind. He said, it's, it's so exciting that we're also, as he put it, woke today. The question today is whether the woke will leave room for the still waking.
[Archival, Anand Giridharadas speech at Obama Foundation Summit]
Anand Giridharadas:
As wokeness has percolated from black resistance into the cultural mainstream, it seems at times to have become a test you must pass to engage with the enlightened, not a gospel the enlightened aspire to spread. Either you buy our whole program, use all the right terms, and expertly check your privilege, or you're irredeemable. Is there space among the woke for the still waking?
Deval Patrick:
It's a profoundly important question, I think. I think it's a mistake for Democrats to hear Mr. Edsall's really important point as an invitation to retreat from questions of basic justice around civil and human rights. But I think we have to speak to that part of the, of the bait that's put out there that somehow justice is a limited resource—that if I get a little bit you lose some. That's not the way justice works! [laugh] It's just not. You know, to me, it's, we've gotta lift our agenda to something more than a list of sort of, you know, policy proposals and connect them to a vision of the kind of country we wanna help create that has a place for and indeed encourages everybody to flourish. But I, I agree with that point that Mr. Edsall says that just expecting that people will come to us because we are the so-called rational party in his terms, sort of misses the responsibility that we have, also I think the opportunity that we have to leave room for the folks who don't have to agree with us on everything before we work together on anything.
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
Yeah, well, we, um, had another guest on who did speak to some of this gridlock, some of this performative aspect of Congress. He was more of a pragmatist, Congressman Will Hurd was a three term Congressman from south Texas. Also a bit of an improbable story, you know, an African American, moderate Republican elected from a predominantly Hispanic Democratic district serving three terms.
[TPP Archival, Will Hurd Interview]
Will Hurd:
And what frustrates me with issues like policing reform or even immigration, right? Immigration. When you look at primary voters that are Democrat and primary voters that are Republican, this is what's called a 70% issue, where 70% of that group is supportive of it. But things don't get done because both sides would rather use some of these issues as a political bludgeon against each other rather than ultimately solve the problem.
Deval Patrick:
Well, first of all, I think Will is a fabulous guy and I'm sorry to see him gone from public life. I don't think it's forever. I hope it's not forever. I think he is right that on immigration for sure, and it may be true of police reform, that to some extent folks in politics today seem to wanna have the issue rather than a solution. It bugs me no end that Democrats have not proposed comprehensive immigration reform. I mean, of course we want secure borders. But I think we also want, and we should all want to reject another of these false choices, which is that you don't have to demean and brutalize the outcast in order to have secure borders. We have to have a system that works! That functions and that represents our best values as Americans. I think the same is true when it comes to police reform. You talk to most people in the neighborhoods where some of these excesses have happened and they want police. They don't want an absence of police. They just want consistent professionalism from the police, just like anybody else would in any other, uh, neighborhood. And we ought to be able to deliver that and not feel like there is, um, we gotta accept another one of these false choices that you have to hate the police to believe black lives matter. Of course you don't, of course you don't.
[Exit Interview Part Three]
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
We’ve had the honor and privilege of speaking with former two-term Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a less partisan politician in what has been an unusually bipartisan state, known for more pragmatic policymaking on both sides of the aisle. Thanks from the whole Purple Principle team to Governor Patrick for the great discussion and his insight into surprisingly independent, split ticket Massachusetts–which may well go fully blue this next election and stay that way for some time, as is the trend around the country. Purple states now turning fully red or fully blue and the nation as a whole further polarizing. Next episode, we’ll get a different take on Massachusetts politics from former GOP Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. She’s now a political independent and the non-partisan President of the Center for Advancing the American Dream at the Milken Institute.
Kerry Healey:
I straddle ideologies, and I have never been willing to let go of those pieces of my personal belief system which are attributed to either one party or another. So for example, I have been pro-choice throughout my life. And yet, in terms of foreign policy or economics, I would be much more likely to be classified as a conservative or as a Republican. And so I found a bit of a home in Massachusetts where there was more of a libertarian streak in the Republican party
Robert Pease (Co-Host):
We hope you’ll join us for that episode and share The Purple Principle with a friend or colleague as we near the 2022 midterm elections. So many Americans are turned off by the harsh tone of political discussion in this country. We try to take a different approach here, one that reminds us we’re all in this American thing together. If you’d like to hear our full interview with the ever thoughtful and candid Deval Patrick that will soon be available as premium content on Patreon and Apple Subscriptions. Thanks for giving us a listen from the whole team here. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.
