About the author

• I'm 36.
• I'm from South Louisiana.
• I'm a man.
• My dad was in a union.
• My mom is an artist.
• My parents supported me when I came out of the closet at 14.
• I'm white.
• I'm married.
• He's from Virgina.
• His parents are from Vietnam.
• I'm a school teacher.
• I voted for Sanders in 2016, then Clinton.
• In 2000 I supported Al Gore.
• But I studied Ralph Nader and was compelled by his criticisms of the corporate Democratic party.
• The political and media reactions to 9/11 didn't make sense to me when I was 18. People's hysteria scared me.
• I opposed the Iraq war and cannot take a politician seriously if they supported it.
• I supported Howard Dean in 2004 and it broke my heart when Kerry won the nomination. But I voted for him.
• It broke my heart far worse when I saw that Howard Dean became a lobbyist.
• I've lived in New Orleans, Germany, Vietnam and Switzerland.
• As a child I was very Catholic.
• My Catholic upbringing shaped my views on a lot of things.
• But I've nearly fully abandoned my religion.
• When I was a sophomore in college I fractured my ankle and had to drop out of college because I couldn't afford the medical bill.
• I finished my bachelor's degree from a public university (LSU), in a program that no longer exists because Republican governor Bobby Jindal cut university funding. 
• Climate change scares me and I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.
• My favorite literary figure is Thomas Mann because his political views evolved so compellingly over his lifetime. 
• I would be honored to die in a fight against injustice.
• It seems likely to me that we have between two and twenty years left on planet earth before something goes horrifically wrong.