Mitchell Distin

Mitchell Distin earned a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University in 2015, an M.D. from the University College London in 2018, and a Ph.D. from the University of Valencia in 2023. His career experience includes working as a scientist.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm Mitchell Ryan Distin, PhD—scientist, historian, and philosopher by trade, and now a reluctant politician by necessity.

I’m not Left. I’m not Right. I’m not even a Capitalist or a Socialist. I’m a Localist—meaning that I believe in returning power to the people, rebuilding local communities, keeping money in local economies, and dismantling the political machine that's been working against all of us.

That’s my politics in a nutshell.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Localism as our core philosophy. In the words of G.K Chesterton, your politicians should be close enough to be able to kick them when they misbehave. This is why power belongs closest to the people it affects. Not with distant corporations, not with party machines in Lansing or D.C.—with the communities who actually live with the consequences of these decisions. Localism as a sociopolitical philosophy is exactly what our world needs right now: decentralizing power structures and returning power back to where power belongs, to individuals and communities. Every position I take, from data centers to surveillance to energy policy, starts with the same question: does this give power back to the community, or take it away?"Let's get money out of politics. Our democratic systems should be sacred. Ban corporate PACs and dark money. End the revolving door between lawmakers and lobbyists. You deserve representatives who answer to you, the voters, not their donors.Michigan Belongs to Michiganders. Our land, water, and homes are not commodities for outside investors. Ban Wall Street from buying single-family homes. Keep foreign entities out of our farmland and forests. Michigan's resources belong to Michigan's people. This means fighting back against the multitrillion-dollar Big Tech industry. AI data centers across Michigan are draining our water, straining our power grid, and strip-mining our landscapes for distant billionaires. They're also building the infrastructure for a modern surveillance state: digital IDs, Flock cameras, & digital currencies that grant the government unprecedented control. Michigan will NOT be a testing ground for surveillance capitalism.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Three areas define my work, and they're connected by a single philosophical thread: local control versus distant extraction. They include: (1) Data center and energy policy; (2) Surveillance and digital privacy; (3) Water and resource sovereignty. Underneath all three is the same conviction, that communities know how to govern their own resources better than distant interests do, and our job is to rebuild the local power to do it.

What organizations or individuals have endorsed your campaign?

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