Idea: An accelerator to help ambitious optimists get into activism and politics.
Imagine a campus that looks more like a campground. Many small cabins organized in circles around larger common areas, with the center of campus anchored by a large quad with one large building on each end, a dining room for 100+, and a library with lots of tables too. This institution doesn’t have classes, but famous guests do often give talks during dinners. Most of the work is done in small cooperative groups, organized by mission, each taking specific actions in activism and politics.
This is my 10-year vision for the Positive Politics Accelerator. Our mission is to get thousands of ambitious optimists into activism and politics. Think Y Combinator for Politics. As I wrote about in my book Positive Politics, by focusing on getting things done instead of just getting elected, we’ll create a new, more effective and meritocratic pipeline into politics.
So what’s the 1-year vision? How do we get from here to there? That’s what I’m building now. Imagine a small retreat this summer at an rental home with a few bedrooms, in nature near water with a trail for long walks. 6-12 ambitious optimists living together for 3-7 days, each sprinting towards a specific mission in activism and/or politics. We’re doing this retreat for real this summer!
Our Summer 2026 retreat will be the MVP for the Positive Politics Accelerator. We will all work together on each idea and pressure test your paths to impact. I will also invite special guests who will help you turn your ideas into bills, pilots, and even constitutional amendments. If you’ve always wanted to get into activism or politics, but don’t where to start, this retreat is for you!
The goal of this retreat is to prove can make political progress in days, not decades. Each win by our fellows reinforces the idea that politics is so much more than elections. By focusing on direct activism instead of just electoral politics, we can change laws and minds faster and help encourage the next generation of ambitious optimists to join us. The Positive Politics Accelerator will be a new front door into politics!
This accelerator takes its inspiration from the first university in Western history, The Academy, founded by Plato in 387 BC. Academy students like Aristotle learned philosophy, political science, history, biology, math, and more here, because Plato believed that future leaders should be well rounded and educated, so we could have more philosopher kings and fewer tyrants. Our Accelerator will be the modern Academy.
Cost should not be a barrier to entry for anyone, so I’m already talking with potential donors to fund scholarships for our retreats and accelerator. Next, we’ll want to create endowments to consistently and sustainably fund future classes. And once we prove this model can scale to hundreds of fellows per year, our nonprofit should raise a fund to buy an old college or retreat center and transform it into the Positive Politics campus of our dreams!
Why is it so important for us to create the Positive Politics Accelerator? There are two reasons, practical and pyschological:
Practically, this accelerator has the power to break two-party control over our politics. Right now, whichever party has 50.1%+ control in each legislature gets to control which bills reach that floor for a vote, which is essentially a veto on all new legislation. Corrupt influences use this bottleneck to lobby majority party leaders to block legislation that would regulate them.
We will encourage the politicians we accelerate this decade to run as independents, breaking two-party control over our politics and using our power to open legislatures to new ideas and bills. This would also ensure that House Speakers and other leaders answer to all representatives, not just their own party.
Psychologically, whether we’re optimistic or cynical about politics is self-fulfilling. The biggest pool of lost potential in politics is the people who never run because they believe that they could never win. Creating an open and meritocratic pipeline into politics will prove that great politicians can come from anywhere!
The Positive Politics Accelerator will create a new path for elite individuals to start a career in politics. YC proved that “young hackers can start viable companies.” Our accelerator will prove that ambitious optimists can win elections and do good.
— Positive Politics, Chapter 11, Page 201
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills…”
— John F. Kennedy, 1962 Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort
There’s one more reason why it’s so important to start the Positive Politics Accelerator — Purpose.
Have you ever met someone truly chasing their highest purpose? They don’t need to “unwind” or “recharge”, or otherwise escape their life. They’re already living their dream now.
So much of what we call burnout is actually existential starvation. We tell ourselves we’ll become activists and do charity work and travel once we retire. But then we chase meaning in money and materialism and get stuck in a golden rat race we make for ourselves.
Have you ever heard the parable of the businessman and the fisherman? Most of the world lives like that businessman, trading free time now for money later with the goal of eventually trading that money for free time later.
What if you chased your highest potential now? I bet you’d make less money, at least short-term. But have you ever noticed how people who are happily chasing their highest potential tend to get “lucky” often? Luck is openness meeting opportunity.
If you ruled the world, what laws would you change? This doesn’t have to be a dream. You can change those laws this decade, and maybe even this year if we work hard and smart. Bring us your best political ideas, and let’s go make them laws!
A community of Positive Politicians all fighting for our highest purposes will be one of the most powerful forces changing our politics, and the world, for good!
“Why is it we spend so much of our time preparing for when we can do what we want, instead of just doing those things now?”
― John P. Strelecky, The Cafe on the Edge of the World: A Story About the Meaning of Life