View this post on the web at [link removed]

Seven years ago, I was working in the advancement office at a small private high school. It was a nice job—friendly staff, bright students, lovely campus. Lousy pay, but summers off, so I couldn’t really complain. It was a quiet, comfortable job that I’d held for six years and half-expected to remain in for at least six more.
Fast forward to 2024. I not only was long gone from the school, but was told I might have a job in the White House if Kamala Harris were to win the presidential election. How on earth does that happen?
Luck.
And Neil Diamond.
Okay, that part is a bit of a stretch. But this story does begin at a Neil Diamond concert in Philadelphia on March 15, 2015. Because that’s where I finally gave into social pressure and joined Twitter.
If you enjoy my work and have the means, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My writing has helped burnish others’ glow, but the life of a ghostwriter isn’t particularly fabulous. And AI is about to replace us all soon enough, amirite? Many thanks!
It was an impulsive act. Before the concert began, fans were encouraged to tweet using the hashtag #TweetCaroline. Sitting between my mother and daughter, I stared at the tweets on the Jumbotron. Most were from other fortysomething women who also were there with their mothers and daughters. Then, for reasons I can’t fully explain, I wanted to see my own words up on that screen. With my daughter’s help, I quickly created a Twitter account and pecked out my first silly tweet. At long last, I had arrived.
Kicking and Screaming
I rejected social media from the outset. I wanted no parts of it. Even now, I still don’t do Facebook or Instagram, which is pretty rare for a middle-aged suburban mom. But I grew up in a house that prized humility and privacy, and—let’s be honest—social media tends to flout both. I was determined not to get dragged into it.
Oddly enough, I managed all the social media accounts for the school where I worked. I wasn’t bad at it, but I never had the urge to put 140 characters’ worth of my own thoughts out there until that fateful night in South Philly. Until then, it felt…unnecessary.
And frankly, not much changed even after my concert breakthrough. For close to a year, the account I created that night existed as an egghead with zero follows and a single silly tweet.
But then something changed. You can probably guess.
“MQA”
In late 2015 and early 2016, I was experiencing the same thing as many other Americans at the time: utter disbelief. And disgust. How was anyone taking Donald Trump seriously as a presidential candidate? Yet, there he was, leading in the Republican primary polls. Watching the GOP debates was particularly surreal. As Trump responded to questions, the audience hooted and hollered in approval.
What the hell was going on?
“This is insane,” my husband said. “There’s no way all Republicans like this guy.”
I agreed. Surely there were other Republicans against Trump, and if they were out there, I was going to find them. So I did the only thing I could think to do: open up the lonely blue bird app on my phone.
In those heady days, there were indeed plenty of Republicans who were still passionately opposed to Trump. I found them quickly. Once the #NeverTrump hashtag was born, it became even easier.
As the primaries rolled along, tweeting suddenly felt both urgent and necessary. I opined in threads 15 or 20 tweets long, I debated politics with complete strangers, I got retweeted by a big account here and there (Bill Kristol! Jonah Goldberg! Ana Navarro!), and I started gaining followers. I even had a nickname: MQA. It was a whole new world. I loved it.
I also got called plenty of other names by what was then known as the “alt-right.”
“Elitist!” Who, me?
“Globalist!” Huh?
“Cuck!” What the…?
Those are the names I can print here. There were some ugly ones too. Because that’s Twitter.
For anyone just becoming a Republican during that period, the experience was quite different than it was for people like me, who came of age during the Reagan and senior Bush years. Some older folks went with the flow and adapted. Those of us who couldn’t were forced to accept that times had changed. When Trump won the nomination, I knew I wasn’t a Republican anymore. According to the alt-right, I never really was.
Adrift
Just like that, I was nothing. Well, not exactly. To vote in primaries in Pennsylvania, you must be registered to a party, so I switched to the Democratic Party. I’d been a Democrat before. It’s not terribly unusual here to change your registration in order to vote in the party primary of your choice. But I didn’t really feel like a Democrat. Not yet. I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what.
In that desperate summer of 2016, like many NeverTrumpers, I became interested in Evan McMullin. Evan came out of nowhere to mount an independent challenge to Trump. It was the long shot of all long shots, mainly because hardly anyone knew who Evan was. He’d been a CIA agent and the chief policy director for the House Republican Conference—important roles, to be sure, but not especially public ones. Now, here he was, ready and willing to be the principled conservative alternative we’d hoped for.
I supported Evan with a modest donation and amplified him online. I would have proudly voted for him too…if I didn’t live in Pennsylvania. Voters in Pennsylvania, one of the most prized swing states, can’t take those kinds of chances. So I had to vote for Hillary Clinton. But Evan’s goal wasn’t a national win, which would have been impossible anyway. Because of his late entrance into the race, his name would appear on just 20% of ballots nationwide, and he was known by only a similar percentage of the voting public.
The strategy behind the campaign was to deny Trump Utah. If Evan could win that one important deep-red state—his own state—it could mean that neither Trump nor Clinton would secure the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. That would throw the decision into the House of Representatives, where Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, no fan of Trump’s, might theoretically choose McMullin (or perhaps Clinton) over Trump as the next President of the United States.
That, of course, did not happen. But it didn’t stop Evan from NeverTrumping. After the 2016 election, he and his running mate, Mindy Finn, launched Stand Up Republic, a nonpartisan organization with the mission of defending American democracy and the nation’s founding principles during the nascent Trump presidency. The organization built strategic alliances with lawmakers, journalists, academics, and activists, as well as a grassroots network of people like me—regular Americans alarmed by the incoming administration and determined to hold it to account.
A Seat at the Table
Before long, I was beginning to feel restless at work. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew it was time to move on. Prior to working at the school, I spent many years as a freelance education writer. I hoped I could pick up a few projects to pay the bills while I sorted out my next chapter. So on a wing and a prayer, I gave my notice. Once the decision was made, I announced it on Twitter. By then, I had a few thousand followers and figured I might get a good lead.
Sure enough, I received a DM from a mutual named Mike. His organization was looking for writers for a new publication they were launching. Would I be interested in applying? Oh yes. I forwarded my resume, and a couple weeks later, I was in Washington, D.C., interviewing with Evan McMullin.
And that’s how my second career began—with three tweets and a heaping helping of good fortune. I got the job at Stand Up Republic, and that opened the door to other opportunities and people I couldn’t have imagined I would meet, much less work with.
Many times over the past seven years I’ve sat in meetings and thought, “Who am I to be sitting here?” I don’t have an advanced degree. I didn’t clerk for a judge, intern for a senator, or even sit on a school board. I didn’t work on a national campaign or in legacy media. I still live in the same area where I grew up. I go to Neil Diamond concerts with my mother and daughter. Heck, I’ve never even been out of the country. I’m a nobody.
But with the help of some friends, I finally realized that I’m not a nobody. Not really. I’m everybody else. I’m most Americans. And I’m there to represent everyone who isn’t at the table, not because they aren’t smart enough or strong enough or good enough, but simply because the chance didn’t come along. It’s not me who deserves to sit there; it’s all of us who deserve it.
And if the stroke of luck that landed me here is going to matter, I better make it count.
If you enjoy my work and have the means, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My writing has helped burnish others’ glow, but the life of a ghostwriter isn’t particularly fabulous. And AI is about to replace us all soon enough, amirite? Many thanks!

Unsubscribe [link removed]?