Policy: Building Trust - Jeff Jackson's Novel Approach
Jesse talks to Charlotte's newest member of Congress in this Y'all Weekly exclusive
Jeff Jackson sees nothing to lose by being himself.
When I talked to Charlotte’s newest Congressional representative in January, he had just been sworn in after a historically protracted election for Speaker of the House. His insider perspective was truly fresh.
“I want to do the work here that raises people’s expectations for those who serve,” he said, noting what he calls a “crisis of insincerity in elected office.”
“When trust drops to zero, character no longer counts for much. It can’t be a disqualifier … when character no longer counts, the only people you’ll trust are the ones who keep telling you that ‘no one here can be trusted.’ That ‘these are all your enemies.’ This is the con man paradise. Which is why we’ve seen an influx of especially obvious grifters in Congress.”
Rep. Jackson may be a freshman in Washington, but he has been on the path to political leadership for at least a decade. He enlisted in the Army following the September 11 terrorist attacks, and served in Afghanistan before returning home to work as a prosecutor in Gaston County (he is still a major in the North Carolina National Guard).
In 2014, he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the North Carolina Senate in a close election held by Democratic Party insiders; he was reelected four times and served for over eight years. In the State Senate, Jackson spearheaded legislation that changed our state’s antiquated definitions of sexual consent.
After multiple rounds of redistricting during his tenure, he decided it was time to level up. He was elected to represent North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District in November of 2022 after initially running for the U.S. Senate.
Part of Jackson’s appeal comes from his lofty ideals, but the principles that make him an attractive candidate leave him unable to approve of candidate quality in the current political landscape. He has reasoning behind it. “In every election we end up lowering our expectations. That level of distrust is the garden where conspiracy theories and propaganda love to grow.”
I asked him if he has a line on earning the trust of an increasingly wary electorate.
“There is no trust without transparency,” he said. “[The] most important thing I’m doing is just showing people ‘hey, I’m a real person,’ and I’m doing this job on a day-to-day basis in a way that makes sense to you. I think it’s striking a chord, not because I’m doing anything incredibly great, but because folks just aren’t used to that type of direct contact.”

Since he went to Washington, Jackson has blogged weekly about his experiences, and his reels have gone viral. In candid and sometimes funny fashion, Jackson offers viewers a window into his own experiences. The headlines are plain: “The decisive phase of the Ukraine War is about to begin. Here’s what I’ve learned.” “I just got a brief from NORAD. Here’s what they told me.” “Everyone around me on the House floor started yelling and I didn’t know why.”
His perspective isn’t surprising because it’s revolutionary. It’s because it’s honest.
When you’re a voter in the United States, good faith can be difficult to identify. This is vexing, because we should be able to hope that elected officers desire to act with integrity. With context we will never have, they may occasionally make decisions we would not make ourselves; but we should be able to trust that they are acting with our best interests at heart. Unfortunately in this landscape, hard to say who is taking an honest path.
“We need to use every single way we have to reach people directly … Just by showing up, you can upend people’s expectations.” - Rep. Jackson
Take Representative Marjorie Taylor Green. She is at best ill-informed, and at worst one of the grifters Jackson alludes to. She is inflammatory and brash, but the voters who reelected her feel she is representing them with the fervor required to defend their values.
However, when Greene appears at a Georgia Election Reforms Caucus meeting and sits next to a GOP adversary to harangue and blame them on camera before leaving – without staying to contribute anything to the work of the caucus itself – it is difficult to see her as anything but a cynical strategist looking to the next election.
Good faith requires more than just playing the role expected of you. It is a method of interpreting your context as much as it is a method of acting within it. Leaving aside any hope that folks will acknowledge when they are wrong, I’m sure Rep. Jackson would have preferred to enter a Congress full of reflective lawmakers who seek the best solutions for American problems.
He is not so lucky.
His approach to earning trust back is heartening, though, because he thought critically to identify a problem with trust fundamental to American politics, and then he adjusted to meet it. After all, politicians were once just voters; by simply telling his experience without any of the hawkish bluster we have become used to, he hopes to foster trust.
“We need to use every single way we have to reach people directly,” he said. “When you do, this amazing thing happens: People say, ‘I normally think all politicians are rotten to the core, but you seem okay.’ Just by showing up, you can upend people’s expectations.”
Just like Y’all Weekly, he has a Substack, too.