In this episode, we start with Leonora’s path from housing organizing in Los Angeles to a deep disillusionment with how “community input” and electoral incentives can turn public life into a toxic tug-of-war—where shouting, fundraising, and political cover often matter more than facts, expertise, or the common good. From there, Leonora explains the “ray of light” moment: discovering lottery-based democracy as a real, serious alternative, and why randomness can actually reduce manipulation and restore legitimacy.

We also get into strategy of making sortition a movement: local chapters, model assemblies, and what it could look like to build an alternative civic culture people can genuinely identify with; something that doesn’t just critique the current system, but practices a better one. If you’ve felt like our politics is broken at the level of incentives and the core way in which our system is structured, I think this interview will resonate.This interview was recorded back in the late summer 2025 and Leonora has already been patient enough to forgive me for the long delay (a delay so long that the organization has since changed it’s name since I interviewed her!).

I am also honored to share that I am now serving on the board of Sorition USA! I enjoyed interviewing Leonora very much and I am looking forward to our future conversations and work together.

If you want to learn more about Sortition USA’s work, you can get involved here: sortitionUSA.org.

I really enjoyed talking with Nick again and I’m sure this won’t be the last time we have him on the podcast! We experienced some technical issues again unfortunately :< I will be switching to a new podcast recording platform soon to hopefully avoid that in the future!

I have TWO really amazing recordings to share after this one which will come out in the next few weeks: one with Leonora Camner, ED of Democracy Without Elections and the second is a recording of our live event that took place in Manhattan on July 19th! Stay tuned for those ^.^

Chapter/topic list:

Introduction and Recap: Nick and I set the stage for the discussion, recapping previous conversations and introducing the focus on legitimacy and consent.

Cultural Narratives and Democracy: A deep dive into how cultural narratives shape our understanding of democracy and the challenges of changing these narratives.

Legitimacy in Sortition Systems: Exploring the concept of legitimacy in sortition, comparing it to traditional electoral systems.

Consent of the Governed: Discussing the philosophical and practical aspects of consent in governance, particularly in sortition systems.

Historical Context and Sortition: A look at historical examples of sortition and its philosophical roots.

Challenges and Opportunities: Addressing the potential challenges sortition systems face and the opportunities they present for more inclusive governance.

Future of Democracy: Speculating on the future of democracy and the role sortition could play in shaping it.

Closing Thoughts: Nick and I wrap up the discussion with reflections on the conversation and thoughts on future episodes.

*please excuse the audio/video delay in the latter half of the video. I am still working out the kinks of online podcast recording!*

I’m happy to share the 2nd podcast episode of [Undetermined] States of America. In this episode we are joined by Nick Coccoma, founder and executive director of Assemble America. I want to just share that I feel so impressed and aligned with Assemble America. It is one of the most well put-together orgs I have come across in this space and I believe it’s relatively young. I highly encourage you to sign up for their newsletter and get involved with the org if you feel called.

Nick is also one of the most well-read people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and, because he has a background in teaching, I think does an exceptional job at explaining the history and concepts behind deliberative democracy and the sortition movement. I’m really excited to share that there will be a part two to this episode that we’ll be recording in the coming weeks because there’s just so much ground to cover and Nick has so much knowledge to share on this topic.

I’m also really excited to share that I’ll be hosting Nick and my previous podcast guest, Phil Lindsay, for an in-person event in Manhattan next Saturday, July 19th, at the Francis Kite Club in the East Village. Please join us if you can make it! Please enjoy this episode and keep your eyes out for our second interview soon.

Chapters of this episode:

1. Nick's Personal Journey: Nick shares his upbringing in a legal household, his exposure to jury trials, and how these experiences influenced his views on democracy and governance.

2. Democracy and Citizens' Assemblies: Explore the concept of citizens' assemblies, their historical roots, and how they can address current democratic challenges by involving everyday people in decision-making.

3. Historical Context of Democracy: Nick provides a historical overview of democracy, discussing ancient Athens, the American founding, and the evolution of democratic and republican ideas.

4. Challenges and Opportunities in Modern Democracy: We touch on the current state of democracy in the U.S., the influence of money and special interests, and the potential for citizens' assemblies to revitalize democratic processes.

5. Assemble America's Goals and Strategies: Nick outlines the goals of Assemble America, including establishing permanent citizens' assemblies at the state level and advocating for a constitutional convention led by citizens.

6. The Role of Deliberative Democracy: We explore how deliberative democracy can lead to more informed and inclusive decision-making, contrasting it with the limitations of electoral democracy.

Until next time!

Colin

Steward of [U]SA

I’m really excited to announce a live, in-person event next month in Manhattan! On July 19th, I will be hosting Phil Lindsay (who I interviewed on my podcast) and Nick Coccoma (who I will be interviewing in a few weeks). You can sign up for the event here and read the description below. We’ll be hosting this at the recently opened Francis Kite Club that the NYT recently wrote an article about!

If you’re in NYC or want to come down for an exciting night of envisioning the future of our country, please come! See you there!

Event description:

We're running Windows 1776 for our government—it's time for an upgrade. Nearly 250 years after the founding, Americans across the spectrum agree: the system is broken. So where do we go to re-imagine what democracy could be?

​[Undetermined] States of America is a podcast, blog and movement to collectively envision the next evolution of American government—just like the Founders did, but for today's world.

​For too long, we've equated democracy with elections. But elections are plagued by intractable problems: special interest capture, endless fundraising, outdated structures built for 1776 and many more. Fortunately, we don’t need to start from scratch.

​Ancient Greece practiced a different form of democracy: sortition—randomly selecting everyday citizens (like jury duty) to deliberate and make decisions, informed by experts. This idea is making a comeback in the form of a burgeoning movement to bring about a full-fledged revival in American democracy.

​Join us on July 19th at Francis Kite Club for a live conversation with leading voices in the movement to upgrade democracy through citizen assemblies, deliberation, and sortition. We'll also explore the feasibility of a second constitutional convention—and what it might look like to build a government truly run by and for the people.

​Featuring:

• ​Phil Lindsay – Director of the Democracy Innovation Hub at the Hannah Arendt Center

• ​Nick Coccoma – Executive Director and Founder of Assemble America

• ​Colin Pugh – Founder and Host of [Undetermined] States of America

​See you on the 19th!

​Tickets $10 | Doors at 6:30pm | Event from 7– 9pm with Q+A at the end

I’m honored to finally be uploading the very first official [U]SA podcast with my very first guest: Phil Lindsay, Director of the Democracy Innovation Hub via the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College!

I met Phil early in the year after being connected to him through Leonora Camner, Executive Director of Democracy Without Elections. We met up at a board game cafe in Brooklyn where we both live and talked about our visions for deliberative democracy in the US.

In this podcast, we primarily discuss Phil’s work with ‘Citizens Assemblies’ and explore what deliberative democracy is and how it all relates to the vision behind Undetermined States of America.

This was a super fun interview and I know it’s not our last with Phil.

Enjoy and please leave comments! And if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe at www.undetermined.us!

In an effort to build momentum, I am setting a goal for myself to upload something every other week. In light of that, here is a casual video recording I made where I share some more of the thinking behind [U]SA. On a personal note, I was experiencing brain fog that day that has luckily subsided quite a bit.

I am so excited to start working on [U]SA. A live in-person event is in the works! Please feel free to leave comments below. This video will also be uploaded to YouTube and via podcast so you can pick your poison with how you’d like this content delivered. Sometimes I like to take long breaks from YouTube but still want to listen to podcasts.

To Be Determined By and For The People,

Colin

Today, on MLK Day 2025, I am launching a new project called [Undetermined] States of America.

It’s called [Undetermined] because we as a nation are anything but united. Our disconnection stems, I believe, from a shared loss of faith in our political system. We are running Windows 1776 for our government. And it is corrupted like an old computer is corrupt. It can no longer serve the purposes for which it was built and designed for. But when you have an outdated version of something, you also need a canvas to envision what the future vision of that thing might look like. And that vision can only come from the people themselves. But currently, there is no movement nor canvas to create this vision. This is the problem that [Undetermined] States of America, or [U]SA, seeks to solve.

What does being an American mean?

The United States is one of the few countries founded on an ideal rather than an ethnicity. And that ideal has been lost. I am going to be bold and suggest what I think is a core feature about being American: we are meant to be pioneers and visionaries of democracy and freedom. Yes, the constitution was a highly original document that had a really good run for a system of government. But the constitution was also meant to be an instantiation of the Declaration of Independence. And in the Declaration of Independence, it clearly states that we have a right to alter or abolish the government when it no longer serves our ends for our safety and happiness. The full quote below:

It is time to take these words to heart. We are going through a restless, transitional stage of our development at a nation. Through this restlessness, we have forgotten what our purpose is. That purpose is now staring right at us. And what we have in front of us is without a doubt the most difficult task we’ve faced in our history: to come together as a nation, meet each other as citizens and neighbors, and lay the foundation for a new system of government; one based on the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and equipped to handles the challenges for 2025 and beyond.

How [U]SA is going to work

Here is a tentative vision of the the strategy for [Undetermined] States of America:

1. Digital Conversations: Initially launch as a blog and podcast and begin to have conversations around the ideas laid out in this article as well as talking to individuals who have innovative visions for the alternative ways of running our country.

2. Creative Platform: Eventually develop a digital platform where these ideas can live and be rendered by artists and creatives who feel inspired by them. Individuals and/or organizations (such as communities, civic or religious groups, nonprofits, etc.) can then mix and match these ideas to assemble a cohesive vision of what they’d like the future of our country to look like.

3. National Conversations: Have a national, in-person conversation that goes state by state, coast by coast, rural and urban, to talk to Americans about these ideas and also hear from them directly on what they think it means to be an American. The added benefit of these town halls is that it will be a source of community and in-person connection for Americans as Americans. It is rare people actually rub elbows or let alone talk to each other across the political aisle. This will not only help weave a future vision and get us back in touch with our identity, but it will also help revitalize our communities and help with the loneliness problem.

4. Catalyzing Change: The hope is that some of these ideas and conversations eventually become widespread and help catalyze a movement that leads to a 2nd Constitutional Convention, or a People’s Convention, that leads to re-writing the Constitution for 2025 and beyond.

Vision by and for the people

Our country feels stagnant because we lack vision. And we lack vision because we’ve forgotten what we are all about: to be pioneers and visionaries of freedom and democracy. We feel in our hearts that the current system of government is not up to snuff. This is something that vast swaths of the population agree with, no matter what side of the political spectrum they are on. In order to move our country forward with vision, we need to do what the Found Fathers did: to synthesize the best thinking of the day on what system of government and what policies are most conducive to our flourishing as citizens. And we need not just founding fathers, but also founding mothers, people of color, rural, urban, middle-class, poor, plumbers, doctors, teachers, cashiers, i.e. the people of the United States of America. [Undetermined] States of America is a platform and movement to collectively create that vision and then to make it real. We had the American Revolution but now it is time for the first American Evolution. Together, we can envision the country we all know in our hearts is possible. Together, we can create a country that is truly United, because it has been determined by and for the people.