I have been running old discs through an external DVD drive, a box at a time, mostly to get them copied before the dye layer quits. Most of what comes back is family video from the early 2000s. One of them was a blast from the past. And a warm reminder for me that I’ve been on this defense innovation road for a long time.

It turned out to be forty-four minutes of me in ACUs at a hotel podium in Austin, talking to the 4th Region annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army (hosted that year by the Texas Capital Area Chapter, 4 through 7 April). About forty minutes in, I tell the room I hang up the uniform in 41 days or so for my May 2013 retirement. If you’re a energy or national security nerd, you can find the whole video here.

I had forgotten the talk. I had not forgotten the argument, which I am still making, mostly to different rooms.

It started with a question about the lights.

In 2004, General Bob Cone pulled me onto a team helping with the Iraqi elections that were organized that year and executed the following January. I had worked for him in 3rd ACR. He went on to mentor me for the rest of his life, and I would not have been in that job, or in most of the ones that came after it, without him.

I went over to talk about voting.

“Every time I sat down to talk to an Iraqi and ask them about elections, they’re like, look, first question we want to know is when do the lights come back on? Don’t even think about air conditioning. Let’s just talk about keeping our medicines cool and our food from spoiling, because right now, since you moved in, the lights aren’t on.”

09:02 / Kopser, AUSA 4th Region

Every conversation about elections turned into a conversation about electricity. The Sunnis had the power, Saddam had starved the Shia, and by the time we showed up the whole arrangement had flipped and nobody’s refrigerator worked.

Operational energy equates to operational capacity.

That sentence is General John Allen’s, from a memo he signed to the force in Afghanistan in December 2011, not long before he gave up command. I put it on a slide and I have not found a better way to say it since.

“For every soldier not guarding a supply line of fuel, that’s a soldier he or she can be pushed forward into the fight. For every dollar not spent on an old disposable, ineffective battery, that’s more dollars for bullets.”

18:55 / Kopser, AUSA 4th Region

I was not asking anybody to hug a tree.

I said this from the podium and I would say it the same way now:

“I am not advocating creating the stereotypical tree-hugging, sandal-wearing, hippie soldier who is at love, peace, love with the environment. It’s great if we can have a smaller footprint on the environment, but my goal is to make the soldier more lethal and more survivable.”

15:37 / Kopser, AUSA 4th Region

The arithmetic is what got me. A Vietnam-era soldier carried a pistol belt, boots, a helmet and a rifle, call it eight hundred dollars in today’s money. The soldier I was describing in 2013 ran about twenty-two thousand, because of communications gear and armor (numbers I had worked a couple of years before that, so read them as period figures). The gear keeps him or her alive. It also weighs a great deal, and on long missions in Afghanistan a good portion of the hundred pounds on a soldier’s back was batteries.

Take weight out of the batteries through science and engineering and you hand it back as bullets, food and water.

The convoy is the target.

Fuel and water are the bulk of what has to move forward, and moving them is what puts soldiers on roads, in mountain passes, and in front of IEDs. Flying it in or dropping it runs ten to twenty times what it costs to drive it.

So the ladder I laid out had four rungs, and every rung takes trucks off the road:

• Change behavior first. The cheapest gallon is the one nobody has to move.
• Make the generators, vehicles and machines more efficient, so less has to arrive at all.
• Generate power at the point of use, downrange, where it gets consumed.
• Store it where you made it and move it around a microgrid.

I also argued we should quit maintaining two entire equipment sets, one we train on at home and one we deploy with. Design it once, efficient enough to work in both places, and the savings follow the vehicle overseas.

Texas already had every piece of it.

“Show me another region of AUSA in this United States that has land and terrain that is more similar to the Middle East, that has more military installations, or that has more research and development going on in the world of energy.”

20:39 / Kopser, AUSA 4th Region

Count what sits inside one footprint. Oil and gas expertise and solar, wind and geothermal expertise, in the same state. Biofuel research at the University of Texas and at Texas A&M. Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, Fort Sam, Lackland, Randolph, Camp Mabry, Camp Swift, Camp Bullis, and the home of the Texas Army National Guard. Installation Management Command, which runs 168 installations worldwide, headquartered in San Antonio, with the Air Force civil engineers there too. The semiconductor industry that IBM, National Instruments and Dell built here, full of engineers who already understand thin film.

And ERCOT (there is a grid for the East Coast, one for the West, one for the Midwest, and then Texas, which has its own, like Texans). Our own grid means we can run experiments here with far less hassle than anywhere else in the country. The Capitol and the Railroad Commission that write the rules were a few blocks from where I was standing.

Fort Bliss had just been named for the largest military solar farm in the country, twenty megawatts (a lot of power, if you are not an energy geek). Fort Bliss and Fort Hood were both carrying Net Zero pilots. An installation that makes as much energy as it burns stops depending on the civilian grid, which is a security argument before it is anything else.

The law was in the way, not the technology.

In 2013, public land in Texas could not develop power capacity over two megawatts. That rule had been written years earlier to stop people from electrocuting themselves with uncontrolled distributed generation, which made sense then and made none by 2013. We wanted ten.

Which is why I wanted garrison commanders, industry, researchers, state legislators and lobbyists in the same room with their sleeves rolled up. I used the word lobbyist on purpose. They are the ones who know how to write the legislation.

Then I retired and went to work on it.

The ask at the end of that talk was for partners for the first Defense Energy Summit, 11 through 13 November 2013, at the AT&T Center. Policy makers from the city, the state and the federal government. DOD and DOE. Homeland Security too, because an agent posted on the border is every bit as expeditionary as a soldier on an Afghan hillside, and just as far from a wall outlet.

The gap I named then is the one I still hear about. Industry wants to help and cannot find the door, and the military is still working out who answers when somebody knocks and says I have a solar blanket, or I can put two megawatts on your back forty.

What holds up thirteen years later.

The convoy math has not changed enough. The battery weight has not changed enough. What changed is that the hardware got dramatically cheaper, and the grid got a great deal more contested than anything I was worried about in April 2013.

I was right about the assets and wrong about how long it takes. The pieces really were all sitting here in Texas. Assembling them turns out to be slower, and considerably more political, than a slide deck makes it look.

The full forty-four minutes is up now, introduction and certificate and all. If you work anywhere near installation energy, microgrids or defense procurement, watch the middle twenty and tell me what has actually moved since. I am still at this, and I want to know what you are seeing out there.

Joseph Kopser is a lifelong problem solver committed to building the teams needed to take on our toughest challenges. He is currently President of Grayline after he co-founded and served as CEO of RideScout, before it was acquired by Mercedes. He served in the U.S. Army for 20 years earning the Combat Action Badge, Army Ranger Tab and Bronze Star. He is a graduate of West Point with a BS in Aerospace Engineering and also received a Masters from the Harvard Kennedy School and former member of the Army Science Board. He was recognized as a White House Champion of Change for his efforts in Energy and Transportation as well as won the U.S. DOT Data Innovation Award. He co-authored the book, Catalyst, a book focused on helping teams adapt to change. He is the Chair of the Board of Advisors for the CleanTX, an economic development and professional association for energy innovation. In 2025, Joseph was selected for the Texas Business Hall of Fame Future Texas Business Legend Award. Joseph and his wife of 31 years, Amy, live in Austin and they are extremely proud of their three adult daughters living their best lives.

You can’t turn on the TV or open the news right now without running into another story about AI and jobs. And the striking part is how differently people see it depending on their age and their stage in life.

Last month I wrote here that AI data centers are the new fracking.

That piece got me invited to share some of my thinking with the Austin Technology Council.

This time my focus was less on the power grid and more on people. On workforce, on disruption, and on what the displacement of jobs means for the next generation. If you think are politics are bad now, wait until AI gets into the mix and makes it harder for us to seek truth.

But I did not go up there to sell doom and gloom. I told the room the truth about myself: I am a 99% AI optimist. I always leave that one percent open for the knuckleheads of the world who can still find a way to screw it up.

That part is real, and I said so. But like almost every other step function in technology and innovation, the same wave that closes some doors kicks open whole new ones. New sectors get invented. New kinds of work appear that no previous generation could have imagined, and they turn out to be not just ways to make a living, but ways to support a family. I have watched it happen more than once in my own career. I believe it will happen again.

Then I walked the audience through a couple of ideas I have been chewing on.

In a world where information is close to limitless, we are all about to face a never ending onslaught of outreach. Organizations are already using AI tools to scrape the web and figure out who you are, what you do, and what you like. Then they use it to write to you in a voice engineered to sound like your oldest friend.

Think about how many people already fall for scams over the phone or online today. Now hand the bad actors even better tools. It gets worse before it gets better.

The good news is that we get to build back. I call it the Trust Wall. It is a digital barrier we put up around ourselves to keep the flood of fake friendliness out. But a wall that only plays defense is not enough. If you are going to keep the bad actors out, you also need a way to decide who you let in.

Here is the line I put on the screen at ATC. When you can reach anyone, trust is the only key. Invention is now limitless and AI makes infinite outreach nearly free, so the walls get higher, the filters get better, and inboxes get buried. In that world the warm introduction stops being a nicety and becomes the only key that still opens the door.

Here is the part I find hopeful. The people who get to breach your Trust Wall, who get waved over the top, are the ones you choose. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your family. Your real network.

And when they are building their own Trust Walls at the same time, the whole thing compounds. A network of people who vouch for each other is a network that nefarious folks have a much harder time getting through. This is the same social capital I write about constantly: the trust we build simply by being in each other’s corner is one of the most valuable, and most fragile, things we have. In the age of AI it stops being a nice-to-have and becomes your first line of defense.

My friend Thom Singer put it perfectly in one of his ATC newsletters:

“Austin’s competitive advantage is not code, it is collaboration. Austin became Austin because people crossed paths and helped each other.” Thom Singer, at the Austin Technology Council

That is a Trust Wall described from the other side. The city that got built on people helping people is exactly the city that knows the warm intro is the only key.

Now play that out. If the new tools mean that just about anyone can do the technical part, and two candidates show up with near identical credentials, then employers get to be a lot more selective about who they actually want on the team.

Gone are the days of keeping someone around only because they are a wizard with the technology and you feel like you cannot replace them. Technology is about to be able to replace just about anybody on the technical merits alone. That sounds ominous, but it hands us something better: permission to focus on the winners.

On one end are the genuinely creative. The bold, original thinkers who see the world in a way the machine cannot. AI, at its essence, is a compilation of all the world’s existing knowledge. If you can blaze a brand new trail, a trail that is not already in the training data, you have a very bright future.

On the other end are the people who are just plain good to be around. Pleasant, thoughtful, engaging, the kind of person others cannot say no to. If an employer is choosing among twelve candidates who are all armed with the same tools, they are going to pick the one they most want to work with.

That is the whole thing on a bumper sticker: choose the novel, and the good to be around. When the tools are equal, those are the two edges that still cut.

If you follow that logic all the way down, the people who struggle most in the long run are the dull jerks of the world. Dull, meaning they bring nothing new to the table. Jerks, meaning they treat people poorly. Land in either bucket, and worse in both, and unless you are cushioned by generational wealth, this is going to be a hard world to make your way in.

Afterward, people asked me the question I get most from parents and from high schoolers and college students themselves. In a world of AI, what is the single skill worth working on the most? Technology? Liberal arts? Something else?

My answer surprised them. It is not really a subject at all. It is making sure you don’t grow up to be a jerk.

The future of work in an AI world is genuinely unknown. But history has a few known knowns. Adaptive people who are willing to take a risk tend to land on their feet over the long haul. You will take a lot of swings that come up short. That is fine. Keep stepping back up to the plate, keep repeating the same mantra I gave my kids growing up, try to be happy, try to do the right thing, try to have a good thing to say, and rinse and repeat that over a lifetime, and you are going to do just fine.

That is why I am a 99% AI optimist. For every tool we build, yes, some people will find ways to use it to cause harm. But more people will find ways to guard against that harm, and more still will find ways to use it for good. I have bet my career on that math, and I am not changing it now.

So let me turn it over to you. Where are you right now on the spectrum of AI optimism? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Still a question mark? Hit reply and tell me, I read every one.

And tell me what you are reading. The book I just finished that gives me the most cause for hope is by Yuval Noah Harari, which traces our information technologies all the way from the Stone Age to the age of AI. It is worth your summer. (Maybe not exactly beach reading, but it is for me!)

Take care,

Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder, USTomorrow.us

P.S. Where do you fall on the optimism spectrum, and what’s on your nightstand? Leave a comment or hit reply. I read every one.

Joseph Kopser is a lifelong problem solver committed to building the teams needed to take on our toughest challenges. He is currently President of Grayline after he co-founded and served as CEO of RideScout, before it was acquired by Mercedes. He served in the U.S. Army for 20 years earning the Combat Action Badge, Army Ranger Tab and Bronze Star. He is a graduate of West Point with a BS in Aerospace Engineering and also received a Masters from the Harvard Kennedy School and former member of the Army Science Board. He was recognized as a White House Champion of Change for his efforts in Energy and Transportation as well as won the U.S. DOT Data Innovation Award. He co-authored the book, Catalyst, a book focused on helping teams adapt to change. He is the Chair of the Board of Advisors for the CleanTX, an economic development and professional association for energy innovation. In 2025, Joseph was selected for the Texas Business Hall of Fame Future Texas Business Legend Award. Joseph and his wife of 31 years, Amy, live in Austin and they are extremely proud of their three adult daughters living their best lives.

Originally published at https://www.ustomorrow.us.

You are seeing it all over the news so I thought it was worth a deep dive as its something I follow closely as a member of CleanTX. A five-person board in a small Michigan town voted 4–1 to reject a rezoning request for a $500 billion AI campus backed by OpenAI and Oracle. Two days later, the developer sued the township. Within weeks, construction equipment was on the site anyway, moving under a state permitting path that didn’t require the township’s blessing.

That story is going to repeat itself in towns and counties across this country. A March Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans now oppose building AI-supporting data centers near them. I have not seen public sentiment swing that hard against a piece of physical infrastructure in a long time.

So before the country splits into “data center yes” and “data center no” camps and stops talking to each other, I want to lay out how I’m thinking about this. Because if we get the debate wrong, we lose more than we know.

Start with what change actually is

In the opening chapter of Catalyst: Leadership and Strategy in a Changing World, my co-author Bret Boyd and I spend the whole first chapter on one question: what is change, really?

Not innovation. That’s the easy part. Change is what happens to everyone around the innovation. It’s the disruption to a town’s tax base, a worker’s identity, a homeowner’s view out the kitchen window, a utility’s load forecast. Innovation is a press release. Change is a fight.

Every wave of new technology runs into the same pattern. The people closest to the disruption push back first and loudest, and they are often right about the specific harms they see. But the question is never “is this disruption uncomfortable?” Of course it is. The question is whether we shape it together or let it happen to us.

Data centers are this generation’s test of that question.

The closest parallel: fracking

If you want to know how this story plays out, look back about fifteen years.

Hydraulic fracturing wasn’t a new idea in 2010. The basic technique dated to the 1940s. What changed was that horizontal drilling and modern fracking finally made it economic at scale. The early days were chaotic. There were real environmental problems. There were towns that voted it down, lawsuits, documentaries, kitchen sinks lighting on fire on YouTube. A lot of the concern was legitimate.

Then look at what happened. In 2005, the U.S. was importing about 15% of the natural gas it consumed and building LNG import terminals because we were sure we’d run short. By 2017 we were a net exporter. By 2023 we were the world’s number one LNG exporter, ahead of Qatar and Australia. Cheap domestic natural gas displaced a huge amount of coal, which, whatever you think of fossil fuels, was the single biggest driver of falling U.S. carbon emissions in the 2010s. (I highly encourage Michael Webber work that you can find here. His documentary goes deep into the story of energy.)

Fracking wasn’t harmless. I am not arguing that. But on the net, over the long arc, fracking did more good than harm for American energy, American manufacturing, and American geopolitical leverage. The people who screamed loudest in 2010 weren’t wrong that there were problems. They were wrong about the shape of the future.

AI data centers are the same shape of story. We’ve had data centers for decades. Every credit card swipe runs through one. What’s different now is that modern AI models have a voracious appetite for compute, and that compute requires new chips, larger campuses, and a frankly mind-boggling amount of power and water. U.S. data center electricity demand is projected to nearly double from roughly 80 GW today to 150 GW by 2028, and to consume about 12% of all U.S. electricity by 2028. A typical 100 MW AI campus drinks 1.5 to 3 million cubic meters of water per year for cooling.

Those numbers are real. The concerns are real. And just like fracking in 2010, they’re getting tangled up with something else.

Two kinds of “no”

When I read about a town meeting where a data center package gets voted down, I try hard to separate two very different groups of people standing at the same microphone.

The first group are neighbors and ratepayers genuinely worried about water tables, electric bills, traffic, and the night sky. Those are not unreasonable things to worry about. We should listen.

The second group are people with an ulterior motive. Folks who don’t actually want the digital economy to scale at all, or who are using local zoning as a proxy fight for a much bigger argument about technology itself. (Keep an eye on the Chinese or Russians messing with our social media influecning this political debate because they do not want the Americans to win the AI race). I see those two groups getting looped together, and the result is that the legitimate concerns of the first group never get answered, because the political energy gets captured by the second.

I’ll also say what is true about the other side. The hyperscalers and tech giants building these campuses have not, historically, been great citizens at the local level. They show up with lawyers and tax-abatement asks before they show up with listening sessions (some are better than others with community outreach! My friend Jose Beceiro is a great example). Some of them pour money into political causes that run directly counter to my own beliefs. They have earned a chunk of the suspicion they’re getting. They need to do dramatically better as stewards of the communities they enter and the watersheds they tap.

But “the developers have behaved badly” is not the same as “the infrastructure shouldn’t exist.”

The silver lining that few are talking about

Here’s the part that gets me genuinely excited, and I don’t think it’s getting enough airtime.

If we structure the incentives correctly, the private sector building this AI infrastructure is about to fund the biggest acceleration in new energy production, storage, and distribution in modern American history. Hyperscalers are signing power purchase agreements for new nuclear. They are restarting Three Mile Island. They are building behind-the-meter gas-plus-renewables, deploying batteries at unprecedented scale, and quietly pioneering microgrid campuses.

Picture a data center campus that is also a community microgrid. Generation, storage, and load on one site, with the spillover used to stabilize the regional grid and, in some scenarios, deliver heavily subsidized or near-free electricity to the surrounding community. That is not science fiction. That is a structure we can negotiate for, if local governments come to the table understanding what leverage they actually hold.

The communities that say “no, never” miss that leverage entirely. The communities that say “yes, but here’s what we want in return” are about to write themselves a generation of upside.

And then there’s China

I don’t bring up China to wave a flag. I bring it up because the math is the math.

China is on track for roughly 400 GW of spare power capacity by 2030. That’s about triple the projected power demand of the entire global data center fleet. In the first half of 2025 alone, China installed 357 GW of new wind and solar, more than the entire installed power capacity of India. Chinese data centers pay less than half of what American ones pay for electricity, and a project there moves from plan to operation in months rather than years.

Meanwhile, nearly half of planned U.S. data center builds for 2026 have been delayed or canceled. Power shortages. Transformer backlogs. Local opposition. Permitting purgatory.

If we lose this round, the country that wins it is one that does not recognize the rights of its own people, does not have a free press, and does not subject its decisions to the consent of the governed. I am not willing to hand that government compounding leadership over the most important general-purpose technology of our lifetimes because we couldn’t figure out how to talk to each other about a 200-acre campus in our county.

We’ve seen this movie

In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, Luddite weavers smashed the looms because they were certain the machines were coming for their livelihoods. They were, in a narrow sense, right. And in the longer sense, no industrial society since has ever willingly gone back. The looms won. The question was always whether we would build the schools, the safety nets, and the new jobs fast enough to bring the people forward with the technology.

That’s the same question on every college campus where students boo speakers who want to talk honestly about AI. I get the fear. I also know that booing the conversation off the stage doesn’t make the technology go away. It just guarantees that the people who do show up to shape it don’t look like you.

A few months ago I had a long conversation with my friend Brett Hurt, founder of data.world and one of the clearest thinkers I know on the ethics and architecture of AI. We spent most of it on a single point. The potential of this technology, properly harnessed, is staggering. The risk isn’t that AI gets built. The risk is that it gets built somewhere we don’t have a say in how.

What I’m asking of you

I know this is not the most popular position to take with the US Tomorrow audience. Push back. That’s the point of this newsletter.

But before you vote no at the next zoning meeting, I’d ask four things.

1. Replace “yes or no” with “yes, and what do we get?” Demand water reuse, grid contribution, ratepayer protection, workforce pipelines, and a local tax structure that actually funds schools. The leverage is real.
2. Insist on public-private partnerships. Private capital, nonprofit accountability, workforce-development institutions, and local voters at the same table. Not separate tables.
3. Hold hyperscalers to a higher standard of citizenship. Make community stewardship a precondition, not a press release.
4. Don’t let the loudest voice in the room speak for the whole town. The folks with ulterior motives are organized. The folks who just want a fair deal need to be more organized.

We’ve done bigger things together than this. The interstate highway system. Rural electrification. The internet itself. Each one came with real, painful disruption. Each one paid back the country many times over because we decided to shape the build instead of refusing it.

The looms are coming either way. Let’s be the country that owns them.

— Joseph

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on May 22, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

Catalyst: Leadership and Strategy in a Changing World, co-authored with Bret Boyd, is available wherever books are sold. The first chapter is the foundation for how I think about everything in this piece

Joseph Kopser is a serial entrepreneur and leadership development expert. Prior to that his company, RideScout, was acquired by Mercedes. He served in the Army for 20 years after graduating from West Point and Harvard. He was recognized as a White House Champion of Change in clean energy and won the U.S. DOT Data Innovation Award. Co-author of Catalyst: Leadership and Strategy in a Changing World, co-authored with Bret Boyd, is available wherever books are sold.

It’s good to be back with you.

It’s been a month since I’ve sent a USTomorrow newsletter. I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I unplugged. No email, no news, no scrolling. Amy and I spent two glorious weeks in France — a river cruise through France’s wine country (there is a future Thomas Jefferson newsletter there) and the Loire Valley (and a future Leonardo da Vinci newsletter there) — and for the first time in years, I let myself be fully present somewhere that wasn’t a screen. From there I went to Boston to celebrate the retirement of one of my favorite professors at the Harvard Kennedy School, David King — an evening of speeches and toasts that recharged my batteries in ways I wasn’t expecting. And then home to Lexington for Mother’s Day, to visit my mom in her final resting place.

I came back with a lot to write about. Future newsletters will get into:

• Why more Americans need to get a passport and actually travel abroad — there is no substitute for seeing your country from the outside.
• Why we’d all be better off watching less news and substituting short-form for longer-form pieces. The attention economy is winning, and we are losing.
• Why beating up on our European allies is both wrongheaded and historically illiterate — and why a walk through Paris, from the Revolution to the modern day, will show you more American tributes than most Americans have ever bothered to count in present day Paris.

But that’s for later. I’ll package those up over the coming weeks.

What I want to focus on today is the fact that during those two weeks unplugged, I got to read several books cover to cover (Amy says I have to clarify that I listen to Audible). Of those four, the one most worth your time right now is almost ten years old: Robert Gates’ A Passion for Leadership, published in 2016, on the discipline of leading large organizations — bureaucracies, governments, and businesses alike. We are watching in real time, in both the public and private sectors, what happens when people running large organizations lack the skill or experience Gates spent his career honing. Much of what he foreshadowed and warned against a decade ago is playing out right now. More importantly, the book offers a recipe for going forward.

So let’s start there.

If you know Robert Gates, you know he is a national treasure. His perspective on service isn’t theoretical. It runs through the CIA, the presidency of Texas A&M, and his tenure as Secretary of Defense — decades of institutional leadership across both parties. I’ve been a fan since I first met him shortly after he became SecDef in 2006, when he and his team flew into Mosul, Iraq. What struck me wasn’t the visit — it was how far forward he came to the front. When he writes that he wants to hear from Soldiers and frontline supervisors, he means it. I heard the same thing from friends and mentors who knew him well — Steve Smith, George Casey, Pete Chiarelli — and from leaders like Howard Schultz: Gates is the real deal. I later got to host him at the University of Texas in 2012 for a fireside chat with our ROTC cadets. It was off the chain amazing.

One detail in the book stuck with me harder than I expected: Gates traces his own life of service back to John F. Kennedy’s call to public service. A generation of Americans heard “ask what you can do for your country” and built careers around it. Gates was one of them. I was another, in my own small way. In 1989, while still in high school, I gave a speech to the United Way on the same theme — service to country, service to community, service to something larger than yourself.

I think about that speech often, because I think we’ve lost something in the decades since.

People become what they can see. I tell audiences this constantly. If young people grow up watching leaders campaign against government, mock career public servants, and treat the civil service as a punchline, we shouldn’t be surprised when they choose other paths. Role-modeling isn’t a soft skill. It’s the single most consequential thing a leader does — and the cheapest investment we can make in the next generation of public servants.

Gates also lands hard on something every leader of a large organization needs to internalize: numbers don’t lie, but people do — in the way they manipulate them. Pick the wrong metric, and you incentivize the wrong behavior every time. Body counts. Standardized test scores. Quarterly earnings. Arrests. Wait times. Every one of these has, at some point, distorted the very thing it was meant to measure. The point isn’t that measurement is bad. It’s that lazy or politically convenient measurement is corrosive. Choosing the right goals is the leader’s job — and getting it wrong cascades through every layer of the organization below.

This points to a bigger problem in America we don’t talk about enough: numerical illiteracy. We are a country that struggles to read statistics, weigh one measurement against another, and tell absolute risk from relative risk or correlation from causation. A democracy that can’t read its own data is a democracy that can be sold almost anything. The consequences land hardest on the institutions trying to make evidence-based decisions in front of a public that has been trained to feel rather than calculate.

The media environment doesn’t help. Gates notes — and he’s right — that the press rarely focuses on people doing what’s right. “If it bleeds, it leads” was always true of news. Social media has industrialized it. Every platform is engineered for clicks, outrage, and stickiness. There’s a new book by David Epstein on the importance of constraint and focus, discussed in a recent EconTalk with Russ Roberts, that I’d recommend to anyone trying to think clearly in this environment. Leaders who govern well in the next decade will be the ones who can quiet the noise long enough to choose where their attention goes — and what their institutions optimize for.

The parts of Gates’ book that hit hardest, though, weren’t the program cancellations or the policy victories. It was his respect for career public servants — the civil servants, federal employees, state workers, and local administrators who show up regardless of who won the last election.

There’s a figure in Army culture sometimes called “the little old lady in tennis shoes” — a euphemism for the career public servant who outlasts every commander rotating in and out. She knows where the bodies are buried. She knows why the last three attempts at reform failed. She knows which lever to pull to make something actually stick. She’s invaluable. And she’s perpetually underestimated. The political reflex to campaign against government, to treat these people as obstacles rather than partners, is one of the most damaging habits we’ve developed in modern American politics. It costs us reform we could otherwise be celebrating.

Years ago, a friend and colleague — Margaret K., herself a career public servant whom I met running for Congress — pulled me aside after I made an offhand remark. I had said, half-joking, that if something was “good enough for government service, it was good enough for me.” She looked me in the eye and calmly explained how demeaning that phrase is to the people who forego private-sector pay and public recognition to serve with diligence and integrity. I’ve never used it since. And I’ve never forgotten the lesson.

Here’s what baffles me about the current moment: there is a real need for innovation and reform across many sectors of government. Gates proves it’s possible. In 2009 and 2010, in the Pentagon, I watched him cancel the Army’s Future Combat Systems and other programs that were bloated, out of scope, and over budget. Hard, consequential reform — done by earning credibility with the people inside the system, not by declaring them the problem.

When you walk into an institution with contempt for the people who built it, label them as obstacles, and govern by humiliation, the backlash from both inside and outside is predictable. That’s not resistance to change. That’s how human beings respond to being treated as enemies in their own house. I wrote about the Elon Musk disruption with DOGE when people could not believe what he was doing. I think Elon should have read Gates’ book before he started.

Gates also reminds us that humor matters in leadership — at every level. People are surprised when I say this, but even in combat we made room for levity and sarcasm. Not despite the stress. Because of it. Leaders who can’t laugh — at the situation, at themselves — burn out themselves and their teams.

If there is a single thread running through A Passion for Leadership, it’s this: real change in any large organization, and especially in government, comes down to two disciplines.

Listen more than you talk. And power down responsibility to the people closest to the work.

That’s it. That’s the whole job.

If we want a better government — and the next generation of Americans willing to build it — we should start by modeling those two disciplines ourselves.

Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on May 13, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

I generally do not comment on the current President since most of his public statements are done to invoke shock and create a distraction. However, for USTomorrow readers, I wanted to give them additional food for thought that might come in handy if they ever do get a chance for a civil conversation with a Trump supporting Christian or Catholic.

It was only a matter of time for me to need to bring this previous USTomorrow piece back for another run. Here is it in full from just after the Vice President went to Rome last year.

From May 19th, 2025

With all the talk about the new Pope, the Vice President’s return to Rome and religion being in the news so much recently, I wanted to highlight a great book that stays top of mine for me when people talk religion and politics. (Which I hope more people do!)

I want to recommend: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta. This book offers insight into the evolving role of the evangelical church and how its internal battles have influenced American politics.

Understanding the Evangelical Movement

Alberta, himself a Pastors’ son and practicing Christian, provides a nuanced look at the modern evangelical movement through the experiences of pastors, congregations, and everyday believers. He explores how shifts in values and priorities have led to divisions within the church, which in turn reflect and contribute to the polarization we see in politics today.

You might recall I did a recent piece on how Democracy grows stronger when more Christians reflect Christ’s compassion — and when secular voices make space for faith in public life. It’s why I found the book so compelling. You can read it here: A Gay Atheist Jew, the Pope, and American Poverty

This newsletter was written prior to news of the Pope’s passing. I went back and updated the newsletter to put emphasis on the Pope’s call for Christians and Catholics to live in a more Christ-like way.

A Mirror for Our Politics

For many conservative Christians, America has been seen as a special, divinely blessed nation. However, Alberta points out that this national pride has sometimes evolved into political/Christian nationalism. He traces key moments in recent history, such as the Trump presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic, to show how these events have deepened existing trends within the evangelical community.

Alberta aims to explore the complexities of how faith and politics have become intertwined, leaving readers to reflect on the future of both the church and the country.

In writing this post, I found a great interview between Tim Albert with fellow Pastor’s son, Jon Ward, before the book went to press. It’s a great discussion if you enjoy audio podcasts. Tim Alberta’s new book portrays a tug of war for the soul of American Christianity

Final Thoughts

I believe The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory is a valuable resource for understanding the broader cultural and political shifts we’re witnessing. It sheds light on the challenges facing the evangelical community while offering important context for the current political climate. I encourage you to read it and share your thoughts.

It might even help with a family member or neighbor where you both don’t understand each other’s political views when it comes to understanding why the country is still nearly 50–50.

Let me know what you’re seeing out there.

Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on Apr 13, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

I’ve been thinking more and more about how AI is starting to get pulled into partisan conversations. And since workforce of the future is important to the focus of USTomorrow, that doesn’t sit right with me.

AI isn’t a political position. It’s a tool — no different than the computer or the internet. The real issue isn’t the technology itself, it’s how we choose to use it. But before we even get to that point, we have a more basic problem: most people don’t actually understand how it works.

And that’s where leadership comes in.

You Can’t Lead What You Don’t Understand

In the Army, I learned a hard truth about leadership: you cannot lead what you do not understand.

Back in 2006, when that photo was taken in Mosul, Iraq, I was serving as the Squadron XO for 1/9 Cavalry. We had nearly 1,000 Soldiers and hundreds of pieces of equipment spread across everything from vehicles and weapons to communications, medical, and intelligence systems.

I wasn’t the expert in any one of those areas.

I wasn’t the best marksman. I wasn’t the master gunner. I wasn’t the mechanic or the intel officer.

But I had to understand how it all worked.

Because when something broke down — and it always did — I had to make decisions. Real decisions with trade-offs between time, money, and mission risk. If I couldn’t follow the troubleshooting recommended, I couldn’t lead effectively.

Leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about having enough understanding to see the whole picture while your team is deep in the details.

A “group” photo from the officers on 1/9 CAV late evening DEC 2006, Mosul, Iraq.

The Same Lesson in Business & Politics

That lesson didn’t go away when I left the Army.

When we built RideScout, I wasn’t the lead developer. But I had to understand how the product worked and how the MVP was being built. If the CEO is disconnected from the technology, the company is operating blind.

You don’t need to write the code. But you do need to understand the logic.

AI Is Today’s Version of That Problem

Today, that same challenge is showing up with AI.

I talk to a lot of people (i.e. business leaders) who are trying to stay “high level” on AI. They read summaries, attend panels, and talk strategy. But they’re not actually using the tools.

That’s a mistake.

The pace of change right now is fast enough that what worked even a few months ago can already feel outdated. You can’t lead through that kind of shift from a distance.

My Own Approach

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been forcing myself to get hands-on.

Not just reading about AI — but actually using it. Testing tools. Breaking workflows. Trying to understand where it works well and where it doesn’t.

And I’ll be honest, it’s been fun.

It reminds me of sitting in front of my first computer (and IBM PCjr), trying to get BASIC code to run. That same sense of figuring things out as you go.

Where I Think People Are Getting It Wrong

What concerns me is that a lot of leaders (business and political) are hesitant to admit they don’t understand this yet.

So instead, they default to safe language — frameworks, policies, strategy decks.

But without real understanding underneath, that’s not leadership. It’s just positioning.

The baseline has shifted. If you’re not willing to engage directly with the technology, you’re not really leading on it.

Bringing It Back to the Bigger Point

AI shouldn’t be something that divides us politically.

It should be something that challenges us to step up.

To learn.
To experiment.
To get a little uncomfortable.

Because that’s what leadership has always required.

The Question

So here’s the question I’ve been asking myself:

Am I actually learning how this works… or am I just talking about it?

Curious how others are approaching it — what’s one AI tool you’ve used that actually helped you understand things better?

Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on Apr 03, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

Last week, I asked a simple question: How does a candidate win by nearly 20 points without really running a campaign?

I promised I had theories. But first, I wanted to hear from you.

And you delivered.

Heads up: If this topic resonates with you, there’s a couple of opportunities to learn more linked below. Join if you can.

You’ve Seen This Before

The response from readers was thoughtful, personal, and, in the best way, a little heartbreaking. It confirmed what I suspected: the Kelly Hall story isn’t an anomaly. It’s a pattern. And many of you have watched it play out up close.

M, put it plainly:

“I read about that Hall election and my heart sank. I think we simply stopped paying attention to elections and the process and now we are seeing the results. Another unfortunate result here in Bexar County. We simply must do a better job of creating voters who seek to be informed about candidates. League of Women Voters has our Voters Guide and we distribute 50,000 in both English and Spanish. The TX Trib does a voters guide, our local SA Report does a voters guide. Anecdotally people tell us they read at least one of those to get informed — but obviously not enough.”

O. spoke to something even more fundamental — the real-world constraints on civic engagement:

“My husband and I read the background and platforms of every candidate. Also every bill put forth, outlining the pros and cons. It doesn’t require a lot of time — but most people have their noses to the grindstone to pay bills, feed their families, and maybe catch an episode of a favorite show at the end of the day. It is sad but true. You pointed out that sometimes their decisions are based on race, gender, affiliations, or if they are good looking should they even make it to the polls. Sad but true.”

C. brought up a powerful and specific example — one that illustrates just how consequential name-based and identity-based voting can be in down-ballot races:

“It has happened in the past and it has happened in several cases this election. If you remember Tim Sulak — who was an experienced judge — he ran for reelection in 2016, when Hillary was on the ballot. Basically young women voted for the woman on the ballot and he lost. I think women are as qualified and many times more qualified to be elected, but I try to look at qualifications versus sex. People who don’t research candidates should be very cautious voting in races just because of the name.”

And Sharon Lawrence — who spent nearly a decade working in the elections industry — highlighted our last newsletter publicly and added her own expertise over at her Substack. She wrote:

“You raised an issue that has frustrated me for over two decades so I was thrilled to see this post!”

Sharon Lawrence has been writing thoughtfully on these similar issues for years. I encourage you to follow her work here.

The common thread running through all of this feedback? Our system, as currently designed, makes it far too easy for uninformed choices to drown out informed ones — especially in primaries. Which brings me to the good news.

There are real solutions. And one of them is elegant in its simplicity.

What If the Top Three Advanced?

Among the most compelling responses I received came from J., who cut right to it:

“Do away with primaries by party and have one primary. Top three are in the final election, most votes wins.”

I love this idea — and not just because it would have helped me personally (more on that in a moment). There are a lot of reasons why we need to look at changing the system.

A combined, nonpartisan primary where the top three vote-getters advance to the general election would fundamentally change the incentives in our political system. Here’s why it matters.

Go back to Texas House District 19. Under a top-three system, Kelly Hall — who spent $750 and ran no campaign — would almost certainly not have been one of the three finalists. Javier Andrade, the Army veteran and cybersecurity professional endorsed by the Austin American-Statesman, would have made it to the general election. Voters who had no idea there was a primary — or no intention of voting in it — would have gotten a second opportunity to do due diligence and weigh in during the general election.

It would have helped me too. In HD47, I ran a real campaign. I knocked on doors, raised money, built a coalition. Under a top-three primary system, I would have advanced to the general — where a much broader and more informed electorate would have decided the outcome. That’s how it should work– even if I lose, at least more folks will get a voice.

And then there’s Ken Paxton.

In the 2026 Texas Senate race, Paxton — the indicted Attorney General — finished fourth in the primary (if you combined them, he was fourth behind Talarico, Crocket and Cornyn. Under a top-three system, he would not have made it to the November ballot, not to mention the ongoing potential for a bruising, divisive, and expensive GOP primary runoff or the meddling of a fickle President.

Many of my Republican friends told me they felt torn during the primary: they wanted to vote for me in HD47, but felt their higher calling was to vote in the GOP primary specifically to keep Paxton off the Senate ballot in November. A combined primary resolves that tension entirely. You don’t have to choose your tribe over your conscience.

A top-three combined primary doesn’t eliminate competition. It expands it. It gives voice to the voters in the middle — independents, crossover voters, people who don’t neatly fit into either party’s base — and it rewards candidates who can build broad coalitions rather than just mobilize the hyper-partisan minority of the electorate that currently decides primary results.

It’s not a perfect system. No system is. But it’s a serious improvement over what we have now.

Unfortunately, the very elected officials required to change the laws are in power now and could give up that power if the combined primary system were implemented, so unfortunately, there is little will to fix it.

The Independents Are Coming

Here’s the thing: the frustrations that lead to elections like the Kelly Hall outcome — and the solutions readers like J. are proposing — aren’t fringe ideas anymore. They’re the emerging mainstream.

According to new research from Builders, nearly half of all Americans now identify as political independents.

Let that sink in. Half the country doesn’t feel represented by either major party.

And it’s not hard to understand why. When a winner-take-all primary system — stacked on top of gerrymandered districts — consistently produces candidates who appeal to the ideological extremes, voters in the broad middle have a rational response: they disengage, or they opt out of the party label entirely.

The rise of independents isn’t just a polling curiosity. It’s a signal. People aren’t abandoning their civic values — they’re abandoning the vehicles that no longer reflect them. And that creates a genuine opening for a different kind of politics: one built around competence, integrity, and the ability to actually govern.

Which brings me to two friends of mine who are doing exactly that.

Two Leaders Worth Your Attention

Seth Bodnar — U.S. Senate, Montana (Independent)

Up in Montana, my friend Seth Bodnar is running for the United States Senate — as an independent.

Seth is a West Point graduate, a Rhodes Scholar, and a former Army Ranger. He’s also the former president of the University of Montana. He brings exactly the kind of record and character that voters say they want — and he’s betting that enough Montanans are ready to elect someone who doesn’t owe a party anything.

Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin — Cedar Park, Texas (Re-Election)

Closer to home, my good friend and fellow Army veteran Mayor Jim (as many hall him) is running for re-election in Cedar Park.

Jim is a West Point graduate who has brought the same discipline and integrity to leading Cedar Park that he brought to serving our country. He’s exactly the kind of local leader that makes democracy work at the ground level — the kind who actually shows up, does the homework, and earns your vote. You can donate here if you’d like to support him.

Local elections are where the rubber meets the road. Cedar Park deserves a leader like Jim, and races like his are often decided by small margins. Your support matters.

The Thread Connecting All of This

Reader feedback. Combined primaries. The rise of independents. Friends running as the kind of candidates we say we want.

These aren’t disconnected stories. They’re different angles on the same challenge: a political system that too often produces outcomes that don’t reflect what most Americans actually want — and a growing movement of people determined to change that.

Democracy doesn’t fix itself. It gets fixed by informed voters, better rules, and people willing to step up and run.

You’re already doing your part by reading and thinking carefully. Now let’s keep pushing.

As always — reply and let me know what you’re seeing out there.

Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on Mar 25, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

If we’re serious about fixing what’s broken in our political system, we have to start by being direct about what’s wrong with it.

Over the last four months on the campaign trail for the Texas House, I got a second look from a front-row seat, seeing how the system actually works — not how we hope it works. What I saw should concern anyone who cares about accountability, participation, and results.

As we head toward the midterms, I’m launching a USTomorrow series to take a clear-eyed look at where our system is falling short — and what we can do about it.

But this isn’t just my perspective.

I want to hear from you (and the other nearly 9,000 UST readers) — what you’re seeing, what’s not working, and what needs to change. Because if we’re going to rebuild trust in the system — and overcome the gigantic effort underway to sow doubt in it — it starts with honest conversations and shared ownership of what comes next.

Do Your Homework Before You Vote

How does a candidate win an election without running a campaign at all?

That’s not a rhetorical question. Voter “preferences” sometimes deliver surprising results.

In the Texas House District 19 Democratic primary (next door to the District I ran in), a candidate who reportedly believed he had stepped aside from the race still ended up winning the nomination. He (Kelly Hall) had spent only about $750 covering filing fees, put up no yard signs, and did little of any traditional campaigning. No website. And yet he won by nearly 20 points. In mid-January, Kelly changed his mind to not run for Texas House and decided to run for mayor of Round Rock.

Screen Shot of Primary Results from Ballotpedia…

Meanwhile, the opponent he defeated (Javier Andrade) was an Army veteran and cybersecurity professional who had received the endorsement of the Austin American-Statesman.

When the results came in, the outcome surprised nearly everyone — including the winner himself. Friends reportedly interrupted a Call of Duty session to let him know he won the primary.

Screen shot of Austin American-Statesman endorsement of

So how does something like that happen? Seriously. I’m asking you, the reader, to reply and let me know how you think it happens. I have my theories that I plan to lay out in the next several USTomorrow newsletters.

For now, let’s take a look at a few underlying factors. Because the answer isn’t just about one contest. It reveals something deeper about how voters behave — especially in primary elections and down-ballot races.

The Information Problem in Down-Ballot Races

Political scientists have studied voting behavior for decades and consistently find the same pattern:

The farther down the ballot you go, the less information voters tend to have.

When voters lack information, two things usually happen:

Ballot roll-off — some voters simply skip the race entirely.

Shortcut voting — others rely on cues instead of research.

Those cues can include:

• Name recognition
• Incumbency
• Ballot order
• Perceived gender or ethnicity inferred from names

Researchers call these heuristics — mental shortcuts that help people make decisions quickly.

Sometimes they work well.

Sometimes they don’t.

And in low-information environments, they can produce surprising outcomes.

Primaries Magnify the Problem

Primary elections amplify this effect.

Unlike our currently hyper-partisan, gerrymander entrenched general elections, where party labels provide a strong signal, primaries usually feature candidates from the same party. Voters cannot simply choose the candidate with the (D) or (R) next to their name.

Without that cue, voters must rely on other signals to make decisions.

At the same time, primaries usually have lower turnout and less media coverage.

That means fewer voters — and less shared information.

Which is exactly the environment where unexpected outcomes become possible.

Civic Literacy Matters

This is where civic education becomes critical.

Surveys from the Annenberg Public Policy Center show that about 70% of Americans can name the three branches of government.

That’s encouraging. (And a little discouraging its not 95%)

But it also means millions of voters struggle with even basic civic knowledge — making complex ballots harder to navigate.

Civic education isn’t just about memorizing facts.

It’s about learning how to find credible information, compare candidates, and evaluate sources.

In other words:

It’s about learning how to do your homework as a voter. Don’t vote unless you really know who you are voting for. In this case, 7,887 voters “for” Kelly Hall are likely to have done literally zero homework on the race before casting a ballot.

The Ballot Box Is Powerful

Every election season, one song captures the essence of American democracy.

Willie Nelson sings it simply:

“The biggest gun we’ve got… the ballot box.”
“If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out.”

He’s right.

The ballot box is one of the greatest inventions in human history.

It allows citizens to change leadership without violence.

But powerful tools only work when we use them carefully.

If the ballot box is the “weapon” of democracy, then responsible citizens have two jobs:

Show up.

Aim.

Showing up means voting — especially in primaries, where fewer voters determine who appears on the November ballot.

Aiming means taking a few minutes to understand the candidates before casting your vote. Or skip that race and don’t vote.

A Simple Civic Habit

Doing your homework doesn’t require hours of research.

It might simply mean:

• Filling out a sample ballot before voting
• Reading one or two trusted voter guides
• Looking up the candidates’ backgrounds
• Checking credible journalism or endorsements

Those small steps replace guesswork with knowledge.

And when millions of voters do that together, democracy becomes stronger.

Granted, the Texas House District 19 race may be unusual.

But the conditions that produced it — low information, primary turnout, and shortcut voting — exist in elections across the country.

If we want the ballot box to do its job, we have to do ours.

Because democracy works best when citizens vote with reasons.

Before we end, why do you think Kelly won by nearly 20%?

Let me know what you think and what you’re seeing out there.

Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on Mar 19, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

Friends,

Yesterday the voters of House District 47 made their decision.

While it wasn’t the outcome we worked so hard toward, I want you to know how deeply grateful I am for the trust, the encouragement, and the belief you placed in this campaign.

Running for office is a humbling experience. You knock on doors in the heat (yes, in Texas in Feb/March it was hot!). You have conversations with neighbors who agree with you and others who don’t. And along the way you are reminded that democracy is not an abstract idea — it’s a very human process, one conversation at a time.

Flossie and me posted up early at the Circle C Polling station on Election Day. (Outside the allowable perimeter for candidates!)

Now that the voters have had their say, it’s now our job to ensure the elected are working to break the partisan expectations are holding our communities and our country back.

Over the past months I met thousands of people across our district. Parents worried about their kids’ schools. Small business owners trying to navigate an uncertain economy. Veterans looking for leaders who understand service. Young people eager to participate in shaping the future of Texas.

Those conversations will stay with me going forward. I would welcome you to join us to power that effort.

From the beginning, this campaign was about doing things differently in our politics. Moving closer to the center to push back on the politics of division.

Many of you stepped up to be part of that experiment.

You donated your hard-earned money.
You opened your homes.
You volunteered your evenings and weekends.
You shared the message with your friends and neighbors.

Together, we raised resources, reached thousands of voters, and built a community of people who believe that leadership should still be about service.

That matters.

Because elections come and go, the work of building stronger communities never really stops.

As many of you know, my life has always been guided by service — first as a Soldier, later as a husband, father and entrepreneur, and now through my work writing and speaking about the future of our country through USTomorrow. That mission doesn’t end because of an election result.

If anything, the lessons of this campaign reinforce what I’ve long believed: our country doesn’t just need better politics — it needs more citizens willing to engage, listen, and lead.

You helped prove that spirit is still alive.

Thank you for standing with us.

Thank you for believing that leadership grounded in service still matters.

And thank you for the friendships, conversations, and community that came out of this campaign. Those will last far longer than a single election cycle.

Lastly, congratulations to Pooja Sethi on her victory. Primaries matter.

With gratitude,

Joseph Kopser

PS — I’ll be following up soon with my next chapter.

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on Mar 04, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

It’s finally election day. And I just want to say thanks to all those who opened their doors or reached out to engage in conversation about how we create real change.

On top of everything we’ve endured, we now find our country at war with deadly violence hitting too close to home.

But it’s when things are so off track that I think we need to make our politics bigger, not smaller.

If you’ve heard my message, you know I’m not a complainer, I’m a doer.

I ask the tough questions. I don’t back down to bullies, and I’m not afraid to buck the line with my own party because I want results.

In business, it’s called disruption.
In politics, it’s called caring.

Thank you for caring and standing with your neighbors to build a better Texas. Polls are open tomorrow 7 am and as long as you’re in line by 7 pm, no one can turn you away. So if you haven’t yet, please VOTE!

Our ad on Youtube now has over 375,000 views. I plan to keep it running through 7 pm tonight.

Thanks again for everyone that donated with their time and money to support our efforts to make a change.

Take care,

-Joseph

Joseph Kopser

Co-Founder of USTomorrow

First published on Substack on Mar 03, 2026

The conversation continues on Linkedin , X-Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and Facebook.

Joseph