THE KIND OF LEADER WE NEED: Caleb Maupin & the Rise of Innovationism
By M. Stephanie
As Israel and Iran exchanged missiles, and following U.S. airstrikes on Iranian territory, Iran’s English-language TV network relocated its broadcasts to London. As staff in Tehran secured themselves amid growing instability, millions of Iranians tuning in to English-language coverage each night saw in-depth conversations between London anchors and a U.S.-based political analyst broadcasting from Chicago and New York.
Who was this American analyst, so articulate, deeply informed, and consistent in his opposition to imperialism and Zionism, that he was featured by Iranian media in the midst of a military standoff with his own country? It was none other than Caleb Maupin, founder and ideological leader of the Center for Political Innovation (CPI).
Amid the 12-day war, Maupin traveled from Los Angeles to Chicago and back to Brooklyn, organizing a peace campaign and preparing for CPI’s upcoming July 12 convention. On June 22 in Chicago, CPI distributed over 400 copies of its booklet on Yemen’s Houthis. The next day, the group held a rally in Millennium Park celebrating Burkinabé leader Ibrahim Traoré. These events followed Maupin’s return from the Global Digital Forum in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, where he met with anti-imperialist leaders from around the world. He then went straight to the streets of Los Angeles to report on widespread civil unrest.
Even during this flurry of activity, Maupin found time to speak directly to the Iranian people. He expressed that he stood for “the real America,” an America of working families who reject endless wars and whose voices are ignored by corporate media. He described himself as a patriotic American who respects the U.S. military but recognizes that these bombings serve an international system of globalism/imperialism, not the interests of ordinary Americans.
This act of solidarity, while bold, was not out of character. Maupin has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of the U.S. delegation to the 2024 World Youth Festival. He has personally interviewed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. He has spoken at anti-imperialist conferences in Tehran, Moscow, Sochi, Caracas, Brasília, and Managua. But who is Caleb Maupin, and what shaped his worldview?
Caleb Maupin: A Voice of Anti-Imperialism in Crisis
Maupin grew up in Orrville, Ohio, an industrial town in the rural American heartland. As a fourth grader, he walked the picket lines with his mother, a librarian in Stark County who went on strike demanding better workplace protections. At age twelve, he visited Quito, Ecuador, and witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by IMF-backed austerity. The experience left a lasting impression.
As a college student in Cleveland, he became active in the struggle against police brutality. In 2010, he filmed officers brutalizing two Black students during a school walkout. The video helped secure their acquittal in juvenile court. Later, in New York City, he served as a media representative for former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. He appeared in global broadcasts during Occupy Wall Street and offered commentary on conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and beyond. He was featured on CNN as a voice of the “Hands Off Syria!” movement in 2013.
In 2015, Maupin joined a humanitarian mission organized by the Iranian Red Crescent to deliver medical aid to Yemen amid the Saudi blockade. Boarding the Iran Shaheed alongside Iranian doctors, parliament members, and technicians, the ship departed from Bandar Abbas carrying flour and medicine. As it approached the Gulf of Aden, the Israeli government falsely claimed the vessel was transporting weapons and issued threats of military action.
A Spiritual Awakening in the Gulf of Aden
As the only American on board and caught in an international standoff, Maupin experienced what he later described as a spiritual awakening. Fearing for his life, he returned to his Christian faith and emerged with a renewed sense of purpose.
Saudi forces bombed the Port of Hudaydah eight times in one day, preventing the ship from docking. It ultimately diverted to Djibouti, where the United Nations unloaded the aid and confirmed there were no weapons onboard. The incident made headlines around the world.
After returning to Iran, Maupin was brought to witness a speech by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. As the only American in an auditorium of 20,000 chanting “Death to America,” he realized how much his country had come to symbolize violence and domination to the rest of the world. From then on, he was determined to build a movement rooted in principled anti-imperialist solidarity.
Building a Movement for Working Families
The Center for Political Innovation (CPI), an education project and activist network, grew out of “Students and Youth for a New America” campus clubs formed around Maupin’s ideas. Despite CPI’s commitment to anti-racism and peace, the group faced backlash from both liberals and leftists. It was labeled “neo-Nazi” and “white supremacist” despite its multiracial membership and working-class focus.
The Communist Party USA published a lengthy critique of CPI and its educational material, including We Are City Builders, which praises the Black Panthers and hails the Soviet defeat of fascism. Maupin has attributed the backlash to the toxic culture of many U.S. Marxist spaces. “There’s a dark spiritual energy that flows through many of them. Around the world, people join socialist movements out of love for their nations. But in the West, they’re often fueled by resentment and trauma.”
Maupin is building a movement of “City Builders,” activists who support a four-point economic plan to move America away from imperialism and toward a growth-centered economy that invests in people. CPI’s core slogan is: We Need A Government of Action to Fight for Working Families!
One organization that has deeply appreciated CPI’s work is the People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, who faced an FBI raid and federal indictment attempting to silence their anti-imperialist message in the Black Community. Chairman Omali Yeshitela said “The Center for Political Innovation… these comrades were some of the first out of the gate when this attack happened, they were first out of the gate. They didn't ask any questions or or anything like that, they were the first out of the gate and not only in words. They began to take actions everywhere they were located, we can see the actions they were involved in defending the Uhuru 3 and opposed to what the FBI was doing to us, trying to do to us. They understood the relationship that it had to the whole question of free speech.”
What Is Innovationism?
In 2024, CPI announced its “Innovationist Turn,” a break from traditional Marxist labels. The group argued that the global divide is no longer between wage workers and employers but between the rising, growth-focused economies rising in Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America and the collapsing Western financial system that is desperately pushing de-growth, austerity, and Malthusianism.
Maupin has called for a broad anti-monopoly coalition to rescue the U.S. economy and align it with the new BRICS-led economic model. In his view, “To call yourself a Marxist in the West today is to stay stuck in 20th-century debates while the world moves forward.” CPI’s focus is on opposing the emerging low-wage police state and the danger of a new world war.
The Innovationist ideology draws from Marx and Lenin but also from spiritual traditions like Christianity and Confucianism. It holds that human beings have a unique creative capacity to transform their environment. As humanity reinvents its relationship with nature, it can achieve higher modes of production and move toward a world of abundance, equality, and freedom.
The Path Forward
Caleb Maupin isn’t just sharing political ideas. He’s offering a way of life—a lifestyle built around justice, creativity, and connection with others. For those of us who call ourselves Innovationists and CPI members, his work has been a breath of fresh air in a stale political climate. His classes, livestreams, speeches, and many published books push us to become more thoughtful, more effective, and more principled.
He challenges us, encourages us, and refuses to let us coast. Caleb Maupin is the kind of leader America desperately needs. We are proud to follow his lead as we build a new path forward together.
