Systemic racism is something that diminishes all of us. Of course its worst effects are for its victims, but our entire country is held back through the inequality and the mistrust that it creates.

When you become a citizen, you are an American and questioning somebody's Americanness because they disagree with you - is about one of the most un-American things I can think of.

One of the reasons we set up this country, one of the things we celebrate in freedom and democracy of the United States is you can criticize your president. You can criticize the ways in which the country falls short of its values.

The force that has come closest across American history to actually ending America was white supremacy. That was the Civil War.

I think of myself as a democratic capitalist, although I think the word 'socialism' loses its meaning every time that it is used to describe literally any policy left of far right by the current Republicans.

When I was deployed, I could feel a full spectrum of American power keeping me safe. And yes, that was the armor on my vehicle; yes, it was the armor on my body; but it was also the armor of some level of American moral authority.

In my generation, thankfully, as somebody who served in the Afghanistan War, would have served in the Iraq War, if called to do so - was also strongly against the Iraq War, from the beginning - I'm so thankful that we live in a moment that we can honor the troops separately from policy.

So, I've learned - as a young Democrat, I've learned to think cautiously before offering advice to Nancy Pelosi.

By the way, if you ever watch Prince Harry on a panel or giving a talk, you can tell that as royals go, he's comparatively normal, and I think that's largely because he had a workplace experience with people with radically different social backgrounds.

The most moving responses I got to my coming out in the first place was people, like teenagers, letting me know that it made their lives easier in some way.