Cities matter
Cities are the drivers of our national economic growth, where cultural and social capital accumulates, and where more than 100 million Americans reside. But our cities are also in crisis. Public education is failing, crime is rampant, and entire neighborhoods are being surrendered to a spiraling drug, homelessness, and mental health epidemic. What happened?
Decades of far left, performative politics
Defunding the police, opposing school choice, and supporting harm reduction solutions to drug addiction and homelessness — all of these ideas sound great to the privileged few who can afford homes in gated communities, private schools for their children, and hired security for their families.
But small minorities of wealthy progressives shouldn’t get to bully the rest of us into a politics that denies opportunity and quality of life to the working class — all while buying their own way out of the consequences. We deserve better. We deserve a new politics of opportunity for everyone.
We’re all part of the solution
Too many conservative and independent leaders have turned their backs on cities, taking our nation’s strongest institutional advocates for free minds, free markets, and ordered liberty out of the fight. We refuse to give up the ship.
And just like Commodore Perry did when he used those words to rally his sailors in the War of 1812, we’re fighting back — and winning. The Briones Society’s mission is to develop, promote, and advance a brand of conservatism that works in cities and for city dwellers. When we win:
Conservatives win, with better representation in more parts of the country.
Moderates — yes, even moderate liberals — win, with credible competition from the right pulling their own coalitions and leaders back to the center.
And cities win, with improved governance from more robust political competition and a broader array of solutions available to tackle urgent problems.
Core values
Our north star is the indispensable argument for the United States of America, articulated in the essential clause of the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Inspired by these words, we believe:
Government should be modest in the exercise of its power. It should act only when there is broad consensus to do so. And when it does act, it is morally obligated to deliver results above standard, on time, and under budget.
Government that governs least, governs best. Markets are incredible tools to surface diverse, novel ideas that work. They are, quite literally, laboratories of democracy. Governments should do what they do best — determine what voters want, at what cost, and with what guardrails, and create markets based on those preferences — then step out of the way so that civil society and entrepreneurial citizens can do what they do best — experiment, compete, and innovate solutions that are effective, efficient, and equitable.
The rule of law is foundational to democracy.
Without public safety, there are no public spaces. Those spaces, whether physical or figurative, are the sine qua non of societies, and they cease to exist if they’re surrendered to the most antisocial actors in a community.
No one is above the law, neither private citizen nor elected official. Apolitical institutions undergird our free society, and they must not be undermined or exploited for personal gain or partisan advantage.
Founded on these core values, we are building a new urban conservatism — principled, pragmatic, and prudent — starting in our hometown of San Francisco.