FAQ
Everything you wanted to know. We don't redact our answers.
About Actually Govern
Actually Govern is a civic movement for the 45% of Americans who identify as political independents — and everyone else who is tired of being sorted into a team and told the other side is the enemy.
We publish civic education content in The Briefing — long-form, heavily sourced, non-partisan reporting on issues where Americans agree far more than the system lets them realize. And we run the Drop the Party pledge, a public commitment to vote for people over parties and think for yourself.
No selling. No ideology. No team.
No. We are not a political party, and we are not creating one. That would defeat the entire point.
The Drop the Party pledge is not about joining a new team. It's about stepping off the field entirely — refusing to let party affiliation determine your vote, your opinion, or your identity. We're asking people to think independently, not to think like us.
Actually Govern is a project of Whimsy Books LLC d/b/a Actually Govern, founded by Eva Marie Cole and Edward Joseph Gall (who writes as EJ Wisher). We are registered independents. We are not funded by any political party, PAC, or ideological organization.
We started this because we couldn't sleep. Not metaphorically — we literally kept lying awake watching the country we love get sorted into increasingly hostile camps by a system that profits from the division. This is our answer to that.
Neither. Deliberately.
The Briefing covers issues where large majorities of Americans — across party lines — already agree. Term limits: 87% support them, including 86% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats. Campaign finance reform: 77% support limits. Electoral College reform: 63% favor a popular vote. These are not partisan issues. They're governance issues that the party system has prevented from being resolved.
If any of our content sounds "left" or "right" to you, we'd gently suggest that's worth examining. Demanding that the government function is not a political position — it's the baseline requirement for self-governance.
Every claim in The Briefing is cited with its source, in APA format, linked to the primary document wherever possible. We use peer-reviewed research, government data, nonpartisan polling organizations (Gallup, Pew Research Center), and primary historical sources.
We don't ask you to trust us. We ask you to read the citations and verify the claims yourself. That's the point.
If you find an error, we want to know. Contact us and we will correct it publicly.
The Drop the Party Pledge
You're committing to vote for people over parties — to evaluate candidates on their record, their positions, and their actual conduct in office, not on the letter next to their name.
You're committing to think before you react — to question what you're told, verify before you share, and refuse to be manipulated into outrage.
You're committing to hold every elected official accountable regardless of which party they belong to.
That's it. No membership fee, no organization to join, no platform to agree with. Just a public statement that you're done being sorted.
No. The pledge is about how you think and how you vote — not about which box you check on your voter registration form. Though in closed-primary states, your registration does affect which primaries you can vote in — something worth knowing.
People who are registered Democrat or Republican can absolutely take this pledge. The point is independent thinking, not independent registration.
That said — if you're curious: party registration is public data, and both major parties track their membership numbers closely. When those numbers drop, they notice. When millions of Americans quietly uncheck the box, it sends a message that no poll, protest, or pundit can manufacture. We're not telling you what to do. We're just saying the math is interesting.
Your first name (if provided) may appear on the scrolling name wall on the pledge page as social proof that the movement is real and growing. That's it.
Your email (if provided) is used to send you a welcome message and occasional updates from The Briefing and the movement. We do not sell it. We do not share it. We are not running a lead-generation operation — we are running a civic movement.
Your state (if provided) populates the map showing the geographic spread of the movement. Only counts per state are displayed publicly — never individual locations.
In the context of Actually Govern, it means approaching each issue and each candidate without a party filter. It means being willing to agree with a Democrat on some things and a Republican on others — because issues are more complex than parties allow for.
It does not mean being "moderate" or splitting the difference between two positions. It means thinking independently enough to arrive at your own conclusions based on evidence — even when those conclusions are not comfortable or convenient.
Getting Involved
Go to our Take Action page. We have links to look up your federal, state, and local representatives by address. We also link to tools for verifying your voter registration, finding your polling place, and tracking congressional recess schedules so you know when your reps are actually home and reachable.
Calls to a representative's local district office are more effective than emails. Postcards beat emails. Showing up beats everything. The most effective contact names a specific bill number or issue, is brief and civil, and comes from an actual constituent.
The Take Action page links to 5Calls.org, which gives you scripts and direct phone numbers for whatever issue matters to you.
Yes — please do. Share articles, share the pledge page, share anything that you think will start a conversation. The more people who engage with this content, the more useful it becomes.
If you quote or reproduce content, please link back to the original article and credit Actually Govern.
The Take Action page has a full "Stay Informed" section with links to AllSides (for checking media bias), FactCheck.org, OpenSecrets (for following the money), and Ballotpedia (for researching candidates and ballot measures).
The short version: when a story makes you angry, pause before sharing. Find the primary source. Ask who benefits from you feeling this way. Actual journalism tells you what happened — spin tells you how to feel about it.
Use the Contact page. We read everything. We are a small operation so we can't always respond quickly, but we do respond — especially to corrections, tips, and people who want to get more involved.