Why We’re Founding BASEDPolitics
What does “based” mean? Based is popular slang for something upfront, on point, or rooted in true principles.
Unfortunately, politics today aren’t very based.
If “based” sounds alien in our modern political context, it’s because it is. That may well be why the real winner of the 2020 presidential election was “none of the above”—as 80 million Americans chose not to vote.
We’re launching BASEDPolitics to offer a home to the millions of Americans, especially young Americans, who’ve lost any last shred of faith in both parties’ establishments and their mainstream media shills. Many feel politically homeless, silenced, and unable to become reliably informed on the issues that impact them the most. As journalists, commentators, and political activists, we have all felt this too—and we’ve been more fortunate than most.
Put simply, there are few places for young people who want radically independent, principled, and next-generation political content to go. But we know there is a market for such content.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve been quietly working together behind the scenes to strategize and develop content that actually educates Americans on free-market economics, makes the case for limited government, consistently stands up for civil liberties, rejects failed foreign policy conventions, and embraces personal freedom.
And not to brag, but we’ve been very successful. Our social media platforms have exploded, our podcasts and videos have received hundreds of thousands of downloads, our articles have received millions of pageviews, our TikToks have gone viral, and our message has led to meaningful public policy change.
Hannah has personally gotten legislation across the line in multiple states ending the death penalty, while Brad testified before the U.S. Senate on the harms government COVID lockdowns had on youth mental health. We’ve both become mainstay guests on old-school cable news and wildly popular YouTube podcasts alike, and have written for too many publications across the spectrum to count: from the Hill to USA Today to the Washington Examiner to FoxNews.com to Newsweek to National Review to the Daily Beast.
Yet we’ve done this all while swimming against the stream as individual content creators—and that’s where BASEDPolitics comes in.
As a new nonprofit organization, BASEDPolitics will be a next-generation multimedia hub that fosters community and supports our efforts to produce content that makes liberty go viral. We will use our extensive writing, social media, and publishing experience to produce news and opinion articles covering the economic, political, and social trends that people actually care about—from honest voices that are not curtailed by loyalty to a tribe or a party.
This promise includes a wholehearted commitment to journalistic ethics and transparency, the lack of which has lost mainstream media all its credibility with the next generation. We aren’t unbiased or neutral and will never claim to be. But we will be honest and transparent. We commit to disclosing any financial connection to our coverage, clearly labeling opinion and news content separately, being up-front about significant changes made to our content post-publication, extensive sourcing and fact-checking, and everything else laid out in our statement of journalistic ethics.
BASEDPolitics isn’t your grandpa’s old-fashioned news website, though. We’ll also have a suite of podcast offerings and YouTube videos, including our already-launched BASEDPolitics podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. There’s already lots to tune in to, between the weekly BASEDBrief breaking down the news of the week and taking you inside a fun conversation between friends and Hannah’s monthly classic BASED vodcast going deep on the history of one issue. In fact, we’ve already been getting more than 21,000 podcast listeners a month—and we hadn’t even fully launched yet.
We have already experienced great success in our work, and we know this is only the beginning. But we need your support to take this project to the next level. We now have multiple new ways that you can do just that. You can donate to our organization or become a member of our community for just $5/month. To keep up with our content, you can bookmark Based-Politics.com and check back for new articles every day, subscribe to our podcast feeds, or sign up for our email list.
We know that we can win the minds of the next generation and make liberty go viral. And we’re ready to work tirelessly to that end. Join us.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlBUNSWxKHDRmHlcW5TrXYE4yFWLlwsEJ