—Systemic change begins with personal change—
In Jonathan's words:
I'm Jonathan Herzog, and I'm a Democrat running for Congress in New York's 10th District.
I was born and raised with my two sisters on the border of Hell's Kitchen and the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I'm the proud gay son of Israeli immigrants.
I’m a civil rights organizer and legal advocate endorsed by Andrew Yang.
I went to Ramaz, Hunter College High School, graduated 1st in my class at Harvard, completed my MBA at NYU Stern, and served as co-President of Harvard Law School's student government, where I'm a teaching fellow for legal and political philosophy.
With nearly a decade of experience in the movements fighting dark money in politics, poverty, and hate, I’ve worked hand in hand with the Senior Adviser & Counselor to the Attorney General on New York’s first-of-its-kind anti-corruption joint task force. I was part of the founding team that built Andrew Yang's 2020 presidential campaign, joining as the 6th hire, helping make Yang a top contender for the nomination and bring universal basic income to the mainstream.
​I know all too well that the promise of “It Gets Better†is hollow without the promise of financial security in the case your family or community rejects you for who you are. 1 in 5 LGBTQ Americans lives in poverty. 1 in 3 trans people of color live in severe poverty. Poverty is an absence of cash, not character. Universal basic income does not solve every problem, but it makes every problem easier to solve.
Bari Weiss: “For the past two decades, American Jews watched anti-Semitism re-emerge around the world with concern, but perhaps also a bit of condescension. We were the luckiest diaspora in history…Then came Oct. 27, 2018. We are suffering from a widespread social health epidemic and it is rooted in the cheapening of Jewish blood. The global surge in Jew-hatred barely registers in the West. The hatred of Jews has presaged the death of so many seemingly civilized societies. A hatred that still, after centuries, exerts its powerful allure during periods of political and economic unrest, when the angry, the confused, the shortchanged and the scared look for simple explanations and a scapegoat.â€
This pandemic has killed nearly double the number of Americans that died in the Vietnam War. This pandemic is causing a 9/11 death toll every single day. This pandemic has triggered a new Great Depression. Hate crimes in New York doubled last year alone. Two-thirds were antisemitic.
If New York had shut down just 10 days sooner, up to 80% of all deaths could have been avoided. Congress has been on recess. Our politicians have been asleep at the switch.
I didn't set out to run for Congress. I reached out to our elected officials to sound the alarm about the 21st century crises we're facing, but learned that nothing would change unless we built a grassroots movement ourselves.
We need a Representative with 21st century solutions to 21st century crises. New York deserves leaders who will fight for us.
Yuval Harari: “whoever controls the algorithms [is] the real government.â€
There is nothing inevitable. There is no teleology. There are people, ideas, and people acting upon those ideas. We don’t have to let our society continue to slide toward madness. I won't sit back as we watch the ship burn. We can rewrite the rules of our economy to work for us. If not now, when? If not us, who?
Bari Weiss: "These physical horrors — beaten with a brick; whipped with a belt — are the tips of antisemitic icebergs found on both the left and the right that have moved definitively and rapidly into mainstream waters…We have to insist that the societies of which we are a part take a stand against anti-Semitism, because any society in which it flourishes is one that is dead or dying. What if we’d been wrong? What if the story of the Jews in America wasn’t a straight line, but a pendulum, which had swung one way and was now swinging back into the darkness of the Old World we were sure we’d left behind?"
I see the quintessential American story as one of resilience, optimism, and entrepreneurial spirit. The values and vision for America that we are fighting for are very personal to me. The vision of an America where everyone is given an opportunity to thrive. One where we view people as sources of innovation, not costs.
I haven't taken political stance because I am working to removing wedge-ness from environmental policy. I'm working for people to see laws about how people affect others through the environment as we view traffic laws. We don't see red lights as red tape or bureaucrats telling us what to do. They make our world safer even if they slow us down sometimes. One day we'll see keeping mercury out of fish and other pollution similarly. I met Jonathan in person practicing democracy---gathering signatures in my neighborhood. I learned of him after meeting Andrew Yang, whose candidacy I valued. Last year I heard Andrew Yang speak and liked his message enough to read his book, The War on Normal People, and learn more about universal basic income. I listened to Andrew on several podcasts until I felt I understood what he was campaigning for and why. UBI, for example, has had centuries of support across the political spectrum. Who knew? I talked to Yang's campaign people about helping with their environmental platform. (I'll talk to any politician about their environmental platform, since they could all use help). One of the outcomes was meeting Jonathan, gathering signatures a block from home. I like people acting in my world with passion, genuineness, and authenticity. Read Yang's book to learn the platform and what's driving it. In a tradition of successful people, Jonathan had left Harvard before finishing to support Yang's campaign, then to run himself in New York City's 10th district, where I live. He cares. He also acts personally on the environment, as you'll hear in this episode.