People and a new idea

In 2026 it is not difficult to find people who are hearing about progress and prosperity that does not capture their lived experience. People are feeling a betrayal of their beliefs. Their trust is bruised as choices being made do not match the promises given. You hear, "Someone should do something."

Most people struggle when lifting the weight of abstract ideas. The average person needs a spotter, and many need others to lift for them. The Thomas Padlan-Malm Hour has its intentional audience marked with "X"s on the graphs above. Thomas hopes visionary citizens will "be followed," not as a slogan, but as a tactic. Thomas intends to build a franchise of programming specific to this 7% audience, who have the capacity to learn, understand, evaluate, imagine, design, create, and advance ideas.

"Ignorance. There is no authority in the world like it." - Orson Wells

The Thomas Padlan-Malm Hour strives to modify the manner and focus of our political conversations. He navigates dynamics in example and reference to allow choices more helpful than those made by those we have elected. It does not take a march, a confrontation, or assembled mass to wrestle citizen power back to citizen control and find the peers we are permitted to elect who can focus only on home from Capitol Hill. Thomas sees greater strength on the Capitol Hill Floor by Representatives who stand for home without the compromise of National party priorities. Thomas Padlan-Malm give the structural support he hopes can create a safe environment devoid of sensation and partisanship to allow the reluctant intelligence to emerge from 435 communities (maybe just three or four in each), who will start talking, looking, seeking, nurturing leadership from the emerging generation.

You may not have known that most people do not question their decisions. Most have no idea how they arrived at them. Contemplate that from an understanding of brain structure and development, synaptic wiring and the impact of environment, income, and nurturing. To systematically reach the mass market with a new idea, it needs to be adopted by those with influence who demonstrate through imitateable success.

Thomas Paine warned of the superfluous feeling of being right that comes from a long time doing wrong. The Thomas Padlan-Malm Hour takes a pensive exploration of where we now stand as American citizens with power.

The American Cafeteria: 50 Tables, 435 Chairs, Food Fights, Friday Night Lights.

Padlan-Malm compares America to a High School cafeteria. He asks Americans to remember turning from the cashier with their lunch tray and looking across the lunchroom tables to see where they would sit. There were people you might have looked to find and groups among which you knew you didn't belong. Maybe there were twenty or thirty tables, each a unique community that attracted the specific people belonging there. Each had it independent structure. They talked of different things, had different beliefs, and were guided by vastly different priorities.

The people from each table may only share an Alma Mater that they sang proudly together before the Friday Night game. They all love their school. Just differently. That is how Padlan-Malm envisions discussing the Fifty States. Not by any Blue-Red color-divide. But, by the character of each State that attracted Americans to it. By prioritizing what makes all feel safe at home.

50 States. 100 Senators. 435 Congressional Districts.