A New Digital Democracy to Fix Our Elections - Voters, Power & Reform w/ Travis Misurell
Watch the full episode: YouTube
Episode Summary
Most Americans feel unrepresented — trapped between "the lesser of two evils," media narratives, and party gatekeeping. Travis Misurell, founder of FiNC (Future Is Now Coalition), presents a vision for digital democracy that puts power back in voters' hands through technology and electoral reform.
Key Topics: digital democracy, Travis Misurell, FiNC, election reform, voter empowerment, political technology, electoral system, democratic innovation, Future Is Now Coalition, political reform
Conversation
Evan Meyer: 00:02.542 Hey everyone, excited to be here today and introduce you to Travis Miserel. Last name got it right? It was funny, in some of the early notes provided, it rhymes with Wizz-er-bell, which I thought was a great way to explain to people.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (00:10.686) Yeah, you got it.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (00:19.872) Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 00:27.854 That's awesome. So Travis, it's great to have you. I'm going to give you a quick AI, personally honed with AI, and some of your own notes here about you and your organization and why this conversation.
will be fruitful for our listeners. Travis Miserel is the founder of Think The Future is Now coalition. Instead of fighting inside a rigged system shaped by money and spin, Travis focuses on working with the many players in politics to build a digital democracy.
A shared stage where every candidate is seen and every citizen is heard. Fink doesn't pick sides, but rather standardizes fairness, visibility, and shared language so people, not gatekeepers, donors, or party insiders shape what comes next. What a cool idea. And we are going to dive into this. Travis, it's great to have you on today. Thank you.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (01:24.19) Yeah, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Evan Meyer: 01:27.488 So why don't we just tell us really what the problem you're trying to solve is and what you're doing to solve it.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (01:36.414) Yeah. So really at the core of it, it's all about, right now, the average citizen is not being represented. It's about, the problem is the concentration of power, money and politics. pretty much it's like the three evils we talk about is the party gatekeepers of both parties, money and politics and the influence of corporations. And the third one is the media bias of the establishment media.
But essentially, the democracy infrastructure exists for America, but we're kind of manipulated into a false choice of the lesser two evils. And right now, a lot of people, they're trying to get those in office to fix things. Like some are trying to get money out of politics or ending gerrymandering, things like that. But you're not going to get those inside the system to do that. The phrase we use is like, you're not going to get a wolf to lock their own cage.
So we're really building basically like an alternative political system outside of the system that's going to be truly citizen-owned, citizen-controlled. And because it really boils down to the candidate selection process is a big part of it that, you know, right now when we're going through an election, both the Democrats and Republicans, basically they know who they want before you even know who's going to be on the ballot, even before the primary.
They know who they want. have an established and Democrat pick and established Republican pick. And they're going to shove that person down our throats, whether we like it or not. You know, sometimes they lose, but almost always they win. And so we're basically trying to build a system that that citizens can decide. We showcase all candidates equally, regardless of how much money they can raise and just build a more fair system that's that's that's easier, streamlined, digital.
And, you know, it starts with the candidate selection process and being able to objectively decide who you want to vote for. then there's obviously a lot of other pieces to it. But that's kind of the starting point.
Evan Meyer: 03:37.262 Sure, sure. So the forward party, led by Andrew Yang, I'm sure you're familiar with this, is a party that has aimed to...
I'll say depolarize, but at least create a three-party system, right? So it's not strictly polar and stood for the balance of a central way of primarily. How does, does this party fit into your system or is it, you, how do you work with the individual parties, including a party like that, to make sure that it all is cohesive?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (04:17.3) Yeah, great question. yeah, this is one of the perfect examples of what makes us so unique. an analogy we're using is like, so imagine like right now there's a Democrat slash Republican train, going there, there are miles and miles ahead of anyone else. And then there's like the forward party, green party, libertarians, there's different wings of the current political parties, but like each one has a separate train on a separate track trying to catch up with the Democrat and Republican.
And that's just not gonna happen. There's too much fragmentation, too much spreading of like where voters are, who they're supporting and different sides and all that. So the analogy is like, we wanna build just one train where there's the forward party, the green party, like everyone shares the same train on the same track, which is basically like the infrastructure of like doing candidate selections and like going through the whole process. So it's kind of like instead of,
relying on the establishments, train and their infrastructure. We want to build a citizen-owned infrastructure that doesn't matter if you're forward party, green, independence, even within the two parties, but more grassroots. Like we want to build citizen-owned infrastructure that every candidate can use across the aisle. And so the idea is like some people might like the forward party, but others are, you know, investing in other ideas and
instead of making it that each decision fragments us, like there's so much we do have in common. We're not gonna agree on the same like healthcare stances, immigration, all those things, but there's some core infrastructure that we could agree on that like in order for any of us to win, we need to overpower the status quo, overcome money and politics. So we wanna build like this level playing field where the forward party has a chance, green party, independence, again, even people within the two parties that are fair.
so it's, it's a way to try to limit the splitting of the vote, splitting of resources, give, give the forward party, party a voice, give all the, all these different alternatives of voice, but like build a better infrastructure. So by the time the general election happens, we already know which choice people want. and it might be in different races, like in one Senate race, the forward party might be doing really well, but in another race, a different party is doing really well. And so we want to build a system that
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (06:41.968) knows that before the general comes so you don't have to split the vote by the time the general election hits.
Evan Meyer (06:48.59) Okay, so how do you get those parties, do they need to trust your system for this to work?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (06:55.944) Well, so initially the core right now is about trust of citizens, getting just pure citizen empowered, feeling empowered and trusting the system. And that's the core of what we do. Like we emphasize we are not building the tech ourselves. Our job is to get the citizens involved, make sure the citizens, the average Americans are in control of this. They'll have oversight of this.
As we flesh out the legal structure, it's gonna be that every American can opt into equal ownership stake of this technology as it builds out. So our job is almost like the, we're here to get the buy-in from the American people, get them to trust it, build structures to make sure it's trustworthy. So it's kind of work from the outside in like citizens are first, but then we're talking to journalists, podcasters, other influencers.
our reform organizations. We are starting to talk already with like third parties, independent candidates. So it's kind of working our way outward in. But once you get the citizens, once you get enough buy-in, whether the politicians want it or not, at some points it's going to be inevitable that they have to be part of that. So either way, we're going to like one of the flagship products that we want with digital democracy is a politician report cards.
So that every candidate, could like look at a candidate, know who's funding their campaign, where's that money coming from? How consistent are they with promises? So stuff like that. They don't need a consent to that. We're gonna automatically pull that in. So whether they like it or not, that information is gonna be accessible to the average American. So it's kind of like working our way outward in, guest build trust with third parties and independents, and then slowly go towards like the...
the two parties and whatnot. So essentially in the long term, yes, they would need to trust us, but mainly the first challenge is getting citizens to really buy into this.
Evan Meyer: 08:57.528 So what does it mean for a citizen to buy in?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (09:01.108) So it's really to like, you know, there's a lot of layers to what we're doing. really like, and we're still kind of learning the most concise way to explain like that how our strategy is super unique. Like, yes, there's different organizations that are doing like some form of a digital democracy and there's different apps that exist. But like what we're doing is not, we're not trying to re, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. We're actually trying to interconnect them into one larger infrastructure that citizens would own.
So there might be like, you know, several different civic technology organizations, different reform organizations, different journalists, independents, just all these, anyone that's not part of the status quo, we want to kind of interconnect them and say, hey, we have this shared goal, know, different orgs can build different tech, but it's going to be under this shared infrastructure that America is going to own.
So part one is just kind of understanding what's unique about it. But then also as the more people learn, like the legal structure is going to be that everyone can opt in to equal ownership stake of the technology in terms of storing the data. It's eventually going to be on a blockchain, which is kind of like a democratic way of storing information. like every decision we make is meant to be like, what's the safest, most democratic, decentralized way of doing it?
that really guarantees citizens are gonna be in full control of it and it's not gonna be able to be taken over by the party gatekeepers or big tech or even think anyone else. So it's really learning to trust us and what our mission is, trusting the uniqueness of it, that it can actually succeed. People feel very defeated these days. And then also understanding what we're doing is truly nonpartisan. We take it to the level, we call it a politically agnostic.
that like, you know, can lean left, you can lean right, want to be, you want a third party, independent, we respect all political beliefs, we just want Americans to truly be represented in a way they're not right now. And so that in itself, we need to build trust and prove that we're gonna be completely objective and like, all I want is to make sure your district actually gets what they want. And you know, different districts will obviously have different ideas and like I might personally disagree with somebody.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (11:18.932) And that doesn't matter. It's all about like, if this district wants something, then their representatives should be fighting for that thing, whether I like it or not. So it's that kind of trust factors that we're looking for.
Evan Meyer: 11:27.468 Right. Sure. So is there something I could do right now as a citizen to get involved?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (11:33.924) yes, actually, we're starting next week, Monday, we're launching our digital politics hub. So we're moving into this, like we're still kind of in the early stages, but moving into a big kind of second phase of what we're doing. So the digital politics hub is launching on Monday. And what that does is it's kind of like a, it's a coordination hub. It's not going to have all the features that we want in the long term, but
It gives people like what we're calling a micro actions, like swell things they could do on social media to help spread the word, build the people power. People could put their name on there to be a future owner of the platform and be one of the first to own the platform. We're to be asking for feedback and what priorities they want from things. And then they could also like submit like trusted voices they like. So if you like a certain journalist, you think that would like being part of this or a candidate you like.
We're going to have different materials and ways to submit. If you're a journalist, you'd submit a form and we'll actually contact that journalist and try to connect into them and add them to this network. So it's all about just really growing people power and interconnecting people, making people really feel like they're going to build this with us. We're not just building a tool and handing it to them. We actually want people to feel like they're part of it from day one.
So this hub that we're launching is our first really big step forward to really get people involved in this.
Evan Meyer: 13:02.839 How, you mentioned journalists, how do you foresee a journalist getting involved in this?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (13:08.25) Yeah, so the way we're seeing it, one of the core problems that we see with politics is the influence of media is so powerful. They really are a huge part of the political machine. And the problem is, right now, the statistics show there's about six companies that own 90 % of TV media. There's more definitely online, but there's a very limited
like concentration of influence on our media and that, you know, really influences how we see reality. And so with FINK, we wanted, like instead of just having a handful of people that control all this media, it's independent journalists that are more, they're more held accountable to the people, they're usually striving more for objectivity. So we want to interconnect them into this system of like,
Like basically it's like a win-win scenario of like, hey, like a lot of these journalists, talk about how the system's broken, money in politics, party gatekeeping. So we wanna actually build them into this network and say, hey, we actually wanna amplify your message. We wanna connect you with more citizens. We wanna plug you in with grassroots candidates and parties and stuff. And...
So it's kind of like, on one hand, we wanna just kind of build their network up, amplify them. And then on the other flip side, like we have this language around us, like digital democracy is the tech, but then digital politics is this language, like a new lens, a new way of doing politics. So we want journalists to learn a little bit of the new language, a new way to frame like what the problem is and how we can solve these problems.
And so that's our benefit is like getting them to help spread the word of like, hey, look, there's this new way of doing politics. can really bring true representation. It could really move the needle towards a true democracy. So we're trying to help build them a network, connect them into political infrastructure, and then also having them spread this healthier message out.
Evan Meyer: 15:15.018 some of the people that you look at journalists that are, I think you mentioned they were using, there are people already trying to spread this sort of, at least in fundamental thought, right, some of this nonpartisan goodwill. Who are these people?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (15:33.694) Yeah, mean, like, like we're not, don't have like a list of like, these are going to be like pure people. You know, everyone's going to have a bias. Everyone, especially journals are going to have some partisan stance that they genuinely believe in. We're more about like, long as they're authentic and like they truly believe what they're doing. They're not just selling a narrative to make money. They truly believe that like whatever their, their ideology is in politics, they truly believe it. But like most importantly is really, really showing the problem.
It's like right now, everyone tries to push that left versus right. And it's like what we say with digital politics is that the new layer is up versus down. It's people first candidates versus power first candidates. And so the better, good journalists that we like are the ones that really just acknowledge that both sides are part of the problem. The system's breaking down. It's not just one side is the good guys, the other side is the bad guy.
So with that said, like, you know, there's going to be some Republican leaning ones, are going to be Democrat leaning ones. And so we're talking about like hundreds of different independent media people and influencers and journalists. So like think ourselves, we don't want to be the ones that like say you're in, you're out. We just want to interconnect those that generally are like.
talking more honest and more objectively, and then we wanna build infrastructure where the citizens actually end up grading them. We'll have grading systems that if you're following a journalist, will ask you how honest are they, how partisan do feel they are, build mechanisms so citizens can hold them accountable. So it's not like, you have to trust Fink to decide who's good, who's bad. But the goal is really just...
building a funnel of giving a chance for independent journals to build that trust, prove their objective, prove they're doing things for the common good. Because a lot of the problem is getting demonetized. On YouTube, if you're too radical and you speak in a way that they don't like, then you get demonetized. there's all these different ways that it's essentially censoring them. So we want to build an infrastructure that basically doesn't censor them to be when they're being honest like that.
Evan Meyer: 17:40.824 Sure.
Evan Meyer: 17:46.766 Sure. Have you seen Allsides.com?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (17:49.888) Yes, so that's one that we would want to be in touch with.
Evan Meyer: 17:54.412 touch with. So and it's interesting you know I because I constantly seek for these folks trying right there's people who are trying and some of them are in the you know in the media. Chris Cuomo has who would has previously leaned quite left as work is messaging around
what he's trying to create and the conversations he's trying to have. I don't know if you've watched any of it, but it's respectable very much. And I've leaned into that because it's like, even if I don't agree with everything he says, I don't have to. I agree with some of the things he says, like almost everyone. don't think I agree with everything anyone said, a hundred percent, right? But like I have been, and I'm bringing him up, I'll bring, who else will I bring up into this who I think is trying to do that? Bill Maher.
right, has tried to at least open that conversation in a way and have those people on and build friendships, not enemies through that. You know, I think both of them speak out, seem to speak out against Trump in a certain type of way that may be too much for some people to be like, he just doesn't like Trump or whatever. I don't know, but.
It's been, and look, the purpose of this podcast even, about four years ago, I think, when we started, is to bridge that divide between thought on both sides. And.
I'm wondering, there are people now, mean early folks like me trying to do this in the podcast universe, folks, larger folks like Cuomo and Mar, who have been trying to put out this messaging now, which is encouraging. So my question is,
Evan Meyer: 19:51.416 How can you leverage the people that are already leaning that? What are some of the steps you're gonna take? Because I wanna see you succeed in this. I think it's a great thing. And how can you get these people on this year or this month? right? are those the type of people that you're...
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (20:09.812) Yeah, yeah.
Evan Meyer (20:14.23) I don't know, those are the two that I know. I'm sure there's other folks, but I wanted to mention them as a starting point for the conversation, because obviously they are the big leaders in media around this type of stuff.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (20:27.422) Yeah, no, everything you're saying sounds great. Yeah, like definitely all sides and like, I mean, you know, we're starting with a pretty wide net anything from like what you're mentioning even like, again, wide net anything from like a Joe Rogan, maybe young Turks, there's like there's people on different sides. Again, we're not all gonna agree with everyone. But like, we just kind of want to, it's really like a lot of people talk very similarly about the
problem. It's like how do we solve the problem is where left and right kind of start like really splitting up in different ways and and ultimately like what you know we're not all going to get on the same page like like left and right kind of stuff. What we what we envision I think is eventually it'll be like you know if you're a citizen you're like you know what I want to find a good trustworthy journalist you're you're gonna want to find one that's left leaning if you're left leaning or right leaning that's right you know you're you are gonna look for somebody that agrees with you but the the more important thing you said something earlier about intention.
Like we care about the person's intention. Are they genuinely there that they're giving you the best truth? know, no, no humans perfect. We're all biased, but are they giving you the most truthful answer that they genuinely believe? Are they really trying to tell you what's going on or are they just selling you BS? Are they just being part of the system and you're, just trying to like, you know, manipulate all of us. That's the big distinguishment that we're trying to show here. But to answer your question. Yeah. Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 21:41.239 Right.
Evan Meyer: 21:48.386 But how do you get those individual, how do you get away from the, is it an independent journalism technique that needs to be pursued or is it because you can have a hierarchy of information that needs to be pushed forth from the top down, right? And there may be rules of what you can say and what you can't say when you're a journalist. And some get more freedom.
Right? I don't know. It feels like, for example, the one quorum was on News Nation does have that freedom. There's people on both sides of that. It's not a one-sided network for the most part. How do you get those people? How do you know who's pure and who has a certain type of agenda? And it may be a pure agenda, but it's not their own. you know, like, how are you going to differentiate here?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (22:38.186) Right. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you know, the starting point is like, first, we're kind of casting the wider net we want to, you know, especially with the hub that we're launching right now. So some of the like, how do you get them is like, we want citizens to recommend who they trust and start to kind of tallying up that and like not not they could just trust anyone saying who they trust, but we want to show the demand that like, like, like, it could even be something like people are messed, we get
like hundreds of people to email Como and say, hey, Think is doing this crazy thing. We really want you guys to get in touch with them and kind of like using the people power. Once we get a little further in, that's one strategy. Like right now we're kind of working small. Like right now we're doing like small, medium podcasts and more on the influencer side is a little easier because there's a lot more freedom there.
but working our way up to more more well-known and popular groups and organizations. definitely, like what you said, if there are certain organizations they belong to, or finding out the organization if they have an agenda is easier than sometimes an individual. So if somebody's working for MSNBC or CNN, they're very, very much filtered in what they're allowed to say.
So depending on what they're part of, mean, ultimately we wanna start building a network where they're free to like kind of connect to our network instead, but that'll be a gradual process. But so I guess the starting point is like, it's again, very big on the people power, like just getting average citizens to show that they're demanding this change. They want people to be on this side. Because once you have like,
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (24:25.416) Like once we're showing like, look, millions of people are on this hub and they want to hear your voice unleashed over here, come join us over here. So like the more you have the people power, the more that big time influencers or journalists are gonna join, are gonna wanna come on board. And some of it's chicken or the egg, like you get some that just really understand the potential and they'll take a little bit of a risk to put their name out there.
Evan Meyer: 24:42.497 I say.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (24:54.698) stuff like that. even before getting them to endorse us, even just being interviewed by one of them just once is a huge, millions of citizens would see that. And even if they don't necessarily endorse us, but they just shine a spotlight and say, hey, look at what these guys are doing. I'm curious. just start showing, having people look at what we're doing and start having a conversation about this. Because there's a lot of
A lot of conversations that could come out of this of how we're framing a lot of things differently. And then so it's it's starting with that, building the people power, building the demand of something new, this new way of organizing, a new way of talking about politics, a new way where you can have your policy stance, but in some way be intertwined with others that don't agree with the same policies.
So getting the citizen buy-in is really the key to that. then just everything kind of moves all the needles forward. Because our main categories is movements and reform organizations. There's journalists and influencers, underdog candidates and third parties, and independent coalitions. So there's different categories of what we call political stakeholders.
that are involved with a political ecosystem. So we're trying to build a new political ecosystem that would involve these different stakeholders. So it's kind of like casting a wide net of categories as well as who we would consider based on like, you know, the main thing at the core is like the being against money in politics, being truly for citizen representation.
Those kinds of things are like the glue that we, that's like the common denominator that we want for everyone is money out of politics and actually wanting people to be represented.
Evan Meyer: 26:44.632 So people will ultimately run on your platform, right? And now they would pick a party still. They would pick their, they'd have to pick a, yeah, sorry.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (26:47.84) Yeah
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (26:51.836) yeah. Yeah, like that. Sorry. There's so the beauty of what we're trying to do is really build like, there'd a fluidity there could be like, you technically belong to one party, but you might identify something different, you know, like, like a Bernie would say he's a socialist or social democrat, but then he runs as a a as a democrat, when he's running as for president.
We're gonna allow the fluidity. If you're a third party, there's gonna be a way to run as third party. If you're independent, you could be independent, but then have your own special lens that you wanna identify your label that you want. You could say I'm a Democrat, but I'm a separate wing of the Democrats. So you don't have to run as a party, can run as an independent. We're open to any way that somebody could legally run themselves. And we would still build.
Evan Meyer: 27:38.766 So how do they run this through you? How will they run this through you?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (27:42.313) Yeah, so kind of like the first launching of the full thing, the digital democracies, that every candidate's going to have a politician report card with like, know, who's funding their campaign, their stances, things like that, whether they like it or not, that'll exist, especially state and federal can be automated very, very easily because it's all public information. Then the next step is anyone willing to be part of this would have their own profile where they could...
Like there's a part of it where they don't control it and it just shows basically the skeletons in their closet, whether they like it or not. Then there's another section where you are, you build it yourself. could conduct a virtual town halls, Q and A's, people can ask you questions. So ideally people start participating willingly as candidates, probably more so third parties, independents, grassroots people would start that early. Eventually everyone will feel like they have to do that.
But then the ultimate goal, hopefully by the general election, is the people's primaries. And basically, like having a digital primary that while the Democrats and Republicans are having their primary, we would have a digital primary where like a third, an independent could be running against a Green Party, running against a Libertarian, running against like anyone can run against anyone in this primary. And then we would actually like host
basically a full election on this system, allow America to vote for who they wanna win. And the ultimate goal for that is that by the general election, we wanna show who is the most electable alternative candidate in each race. So like in this Senate race, it looks like the Green Party candidate got a lot of support, so they have a chance to win in the general. And then this other race, the independent did really well. So they have a real shot at beating the establishment.
But in this other race, no one was really better. right now it's just the establishment people, no one else got enough support. So you'll probably wanna just vote for the lesser two evils in that race. the idea is kind of building a more fluid people's primary that people could do. And then it shows the electability of the candidates, how popular, what are the chances of a alternative candidate to actually win in a certain spot. So that's kind of the biggest.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (30:03.676) goal to have those.
Evan Meyer: 30:03.992 So, sure, sure, so at one point they'll, you would host this, and then the real one would be hosted also. So they would be on two, and you would show the results of the, we'll call it the pure one, which is yours, and the impure or the current one, the problem ridden, you know, issue with primaries.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (30:13.492) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 30:30.562 that sits in that current system. So you would then have a comparison, and then I imagine, and you would showcase the differences of what the people's primary versus the state's primary. Because the state, each state, right? Something like that.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (30:47.284) Yeah, that's a layer of it. mean, the problem with the primaries right now is like you have a rigged Democrat primary, you have a rigged Republican primary, and everyone else is excluded. So what we're offering is all the people excluded and the people included can all be in this other, this pure primary. So some of it's for comparison's sake, but a lot of it's also just really showing the electability like.
In what races would me voting third party be a wasted vote? And in which races would that third party actually stand a chance? Because like right now, you know, less than 5 % of Americans actually end up voting third party in a general election. But the statistics show that right now 63 % of Americans want a viable third party. So it's not that we're not voting for them because we don't want them. A lot of Americans want a viable third party. But because we're told you're wasting your vote,
that's why they're not getting the votes. So if we could do a primary to show who, where, what races wouldn't be wasting a vote, that would basically overcome that big challenge. So that's part of it and just general electability and also knowing like, you right now if there's like five, like 10 different third parties running, you know, even if people don't like the establishment, they're gonna be split between 10 votes, 10 different parties.
What we want to actually do is encourage that, whoever wins the primary, the Green Party won this primary, well, all the other third parties, you really should step out of the race before the general election. If you lost the primary, it'd be, you we can't force them, but we would encourage everyone to drop out. You know, if the American people spoke that they want that party in the primary, let them get your votes. You should endorse that candidate as, you know, so stuff like that, we're, there's like, again, a lot of layers to it, but that's essentially how we're doing it.
Evan Meyer: 32:30.442 I say, I say.
Evan Meyer: 32:36.401 Sure, Yeah, so if I'm using your system now, or let's just say for the next primary we decide to use your system, and I can now vote for anyone in any party, as opposed to just being registered and voting for the candidates that you're registered for the party for.
Right? That's the comparison. Right?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (33:08.414) Yeah, like, yeah, because it's like, it's gonna be inter-party because right now, like if you're doing the Democrat primary, you're only choosing between Democrats than Republicans, but then third parties are not anywhere to be found. So, you know, you might have a Democrat in our people's primary, you might have a Democrat and a Green Party and a Libertarian and you get to vote between all.
Evan Meyer: 33:29.413 Yeah, interesting. Every state's a little different with their primaries, right? Is there any state that you know that is the closest to doing something like this, or are they all just doing straight party primary?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (33:47.552) Right now it's all just straight the way it works. We did recently learn the legal structure is that the Supreme Court decided that the taxpayers own the primary and that the way we are using primaries today is not a legal precedent. It's not like the Democrats and Republicans get control over the primaries. The American people get to decide what to do with the primary.
So initially, we don't necessarily need it to be legal. We just want to show the electability of the candidates to influence you, help you make a decision in a general election. But eventually, we would legalize this. It's just a matter of people power. Having enough support in a state would make this work. But by law already, all 50 states, can have a Democrat running against a Libertarian running against all. It's just.
It's just the two parties don't want that to be and there's not enough infrastructure support to make that happen, but it's already legal. Like we don't even need to make legislative change on it. We just need enough support.
Evan Meyer: 34:41.817 Right, or wow.
Evan Meyer: 34:46.415 Wow, yeah, or political will to fix that because say, how does that help? Is there enough personal incentive for anyone to do that to lead a movement again, like when you're already in government? So.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (34:48.308) Mm-hmm.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (35:00.062) Yeah, so that's the point. The core of what we're doing is everyone that's not benefiting from the status quo, we want to build together. Like, hey, libertarian, I know you don't like the socialists, a socialist party or whatever, but both of you would benefit by having a people's primary, and both of you would benefit by having money out of politics. And everything we're doing benefits all of them, whether they agree with each other's policies or not.
Evan Meyer: 35:23.654 Yeah.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (35:26.1) Like what we're talking about is evolving civics. the politics, you do politics however you're gonna do it, we're not gonna change that. But the civic infrastructure of how we choose our vote, how we do primaries, that's what we're evolving. And so everyone that's not part of the status quo would want that leg up. They're gonna have a better chance of winning.
Evan Meyer: 35:49.147 Sure. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, I'm obviously a huge fan of trying to improve systems, and I think what you're doing is a great goal, a great mission. Is there anything that you want from people right now?
in a way that they can be supportive. guess it could be any group, but it sounds like citizens is your first, your everyday citizen is layer one. What can people do right now to support you?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (36:24.638) Yeah, so by the time you hear this video being played, our digital politics hub should already be out. So you just go to hub.futureis.org. Our homepage right now is futureis.org. So just add the hub in the beginning. It kind of pops you into like a web app basically.
Like right now, the biggest thing is just about awareness. I know there's like a lot of, it's a very, like people have to take a step back. It's kind of like zooming out of politics and kind of seeing it from a broader perspective and structural. But the more you learn about what we're doing, a lot of people just get very excited. So it's so unique the way our strategy of how to get here is just so different. So the hub helps people understand what we're doing and it helps you,
help with the awareness spreading. So, you if there's a journalist you like, we have a form to fill out of what, you know, is there somebody you trust that you think we should get in contact with, candidates, movements. So we have like one section for that. We have a section for like micro actions to do little things that can spread awareness over social media. Definitely donations. We're all about just small dollar donations right now. We can't take large donations or give any equity or else we'll be just sold out as everyone else.
that we're trying to fight against. So right now it's really about spreading awareness as average citizens, donating if you can, and just doing little actions on the hub to spread awareness. And we want your feedback. At this first launch, we're already asking what your priorities are, what part of politics do you care about, like money out of politics versus representation versus getting rid of gerrymandering. So we want to get your feedback.
We want to prove that you'll learn that you'll be able to trust us and that we truly have the American people's interests in mind. And the more people get excited about it and want to tell their friends and family this will grow exponentially because people are people are very much pain, whether it's Trump or Democrats in office. People feel like we're not moving in right direction. know, trust in government's all time low trust media is an all time low.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (38:36.414) This is that answer to that problem. And it's not like, think's gonna give you the news. Think's gonna run their candidates. We're not doing any of it. We're just building the infrastructure that gives all better candidates a chance. Better candidates, better journalists, better everything, and put you at the front and center of what they're fighting for. And they have to prove themselves to you.
Evan Meyer: 38:58.129 It sounds like one of the things and just a kind of final thought on this like
It sounds like this is an opportunity for, it's very challenging for people to want to even start running. Right, and a lot of that is, at this point, political violence is now a real reason. But, you know, being in the hot seat, being scrutinized, your whole life is now under a microscope, and your family. So there's a lot of fear in that. But also, it's very difficult to beat the incumbent.
Right? And they have a certain set of resources and of course all the relationships. So it's very hard for someone to start. You really have to start at the bottom, you know, at the neighborhood level or the, you know, business improvement district type level and work your way, you know, up to local office.
and build over a period of time. And that may be the right course for a lot of people, but there may be some very qualified engineers and entrepreneurs out there, people who are not lawyers or doctors. They seem to have done a good job at getting themselves an office also. But not quite as many entrepreneur and engineer way of thinking. sounds like, would this be something that would allow these people to run more fairly?
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (40:05.641) You
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (40:19.124) Yes, absolutely. I mean, that's really the bottom line. We want to build a fair stage with a level playing field. Because there's also like, not only is it like so much harder to even want to join, like run for politics from scratch, but there's also millions of people that like are already in that space. And it's just the establishment drowns them out. There's wonderful, great politicians out there, but the ones that are bought out have more money and the media is going to give the
the establishment wants attention. So the entire game is stacked for the candidates that America doesn't want. So whether you're a brand new politician that wants to get in the fold or you're a third party and you've been running for years but don't really get to the finish line, this is the chance to start moving the needle forward. giving the, this like significantly increases the chance of a third party winning, independent winning, new people winning.
And yeah, it's basically like once America goes to this one place to see like who should I vote for? Like this is the level playing field. We want to show every candidate has a chance that every candidate has a voice to prove whether they're the right candidate for you as a voter. And you don't need to raise millions of dollars just to have a voice. Everyone gets a voice. Everyone has a chance. You still have to prove yourself, prove that you have to earn the vote from the voters.
but you actually get that chance without spending millions of dollars.
Evan Meyer: 41:47.902 Well, even if you win in the beginning, even if you win on your platform, that doesn't mean you're officially in office, right? Because you have to convince people that your system, if you do enough of those, is actually better than the other one, or at least they're using your language and system within their, and we'll say their, who's there? would be the Democratic Party.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (41:55.263) Right, correct.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (42:02.272) Mm-hmm.
Evan Meyer: 42:16.303 right, at the national level. And the Republican party at the national level would be the two major players that ultimately need to subscribe to your system and your infrastructure.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (42:29.598) Yeah, more so the voters. Because the idea is like, our platform is what gives the visibility, hey, this is a candidate running in your district. This is what they stand for, yada, yada. They're the perfect match for you. You still have to vote at the regular voting poll. That's the only difference. It's like, yeah, you can't vote on the platform, but this helps you choose who you're going to vote for. Then you just have to vote.
once or twice a year, that's when you go to the voting poll and you vote based on what you decided on our platform. So everyone that we'd be showcasing, they're gonna be on the ballot. And the only difference is that this is gonna influence millions of people to make a better choice for themselves. And now instead of voting for the establishment candidate and voting for the lesser of two evils, they're gonna vote for their ideal candidate.
Evan Meyer: 43:11.557 There you go. All right.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (43:20.094) because the manipulation and the noise and distraction is no longer there.
Evan Meyer: 43:24.025 Yeah, ambitious goal and it sounds like you're off to a great start and I wish you absolutely the best of luck. I hope this is a wonderful 2026 for you and you achieve all of your milestones and you make a big difference in creating a more democratic and more fair system for everybody. Everyone, a lot of people have that wish for the country.
and hopefully this is a huge step in the right direction. And yeah, all the power to you. Thank you for being here and good luck. All right, take care, okay? Have a great day.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (44:07.904) Thank you.
Travis Misurell @FutureIsOrg (44:13.92) Thanks, you too.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving the authentic flow of conversation.
Written by
Evan Meyer
January 7, 2026