05/14/2026
Thoughts from Chairman and CEO Luke Meehan:
I try, despite how busy things get, to make time to read and listen to the news before bed and when I wake up. More importantly, I try to listen to voices I explicitly disagree with.
What strikes me most is not how divided we are, but how much of that division is manufactured. The same set of facts, presented through a different emotional lens, produces entirely different reactions. Our adversaries understand this and exploit it deliberately. They do not need to invent conflict. They just turn up the volume on the ones we already have.
What saddens me is that our politics have become a heroine gallery of rage and contempt. But I think we have to be honest about why. Democracy in its current form rewards politicians for appealing to our worst impulses rather than our best judgment. The media and commentariat who spend their days condemning this are, in many cases, profiting from the very same mechanism. The outrage economy has many shareholders.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: politicians are not failing democracy. In a very real sense, they are reflecting it. They are giving us what we have shown we will reward. That is precisely why the change cannot come from them. It has to come from us, from citizens deciding to demand something better, and meaning it.
