Bill Kristol spent four decades as a top operative and editor of the American right - chief of staff to Dan Quayle, founding editor of The Weekly Standard, co-architect of the Project for the New American Century - before becoming one of conservatism's most prominent defectors. Today he runs Defending Democracy Together and is editor-at-large of The Bulwark, where the man once called 'Dan Quayle's brain' now spends his days arguing against the movement his family helped invent. In May 2026 he registered as a Democrat.
Jonathan Chait is an American political columnist known for picking fights in every direction - skewering conservative economics, needling the progressive left over identity politics, and defending liberalism with the persistence of a man who enjoys an argument. After three decades that took him from The New Republic to New York magazine's Intelligencer, he joined The Atlantic as a staff writer in late 2024. He is the author of 'The Big Con' and 'Audacity,' a self-described liberal who is happy to annoy everyone on his own side.
Will Wilkinson is a political analyst, essayist, and policy intellectual who spent two decades navigating the intellectual terrain between libertarianism and liberalism before landing somewhere more interesting than either. A former research fellow at the Cato Institute and vice president at the Niskanen Center, he has written for The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, and dozens of other outlets. Currently working in government affairs at Persona, a digital identity company, he continues to publish the 'Model Citizen' newsletter on Substack, where his blend of philosophy, political science, and sharp commentary finds its most faithful audience.