Baccelli is currently chair of the Pennsylvania committee of the American Solidarity Party (ASP) and is in the running for the nine-person national board of directors.

“It’s a small third party that was started to pull together some strands that each of the other main parties—particularly what the Christian people would be interested in—from the typical Republican side of being pro-life and pro-family and from the Democratic side being pro-worker, and more in favor of a social safety net.”

For the last nine years, he has been building Clarion River Organics, a business that provides marketing and distribution services for a cooperative of Amish organic produce farmers in Clarion County, applying his same earnest, thoughtful, and committed approach.

“What concerns me is the way that secular government is closing in on Christians and the ability to live the way they want to live, believe, and do business in our society,” said Zeb. “The Amish have certainly experienced that for 100 years or more, and what drives me and my political agenda is to want to protect the rights of people to believe and live according to those beliefs and not be shut out from society. I want to be respectful of them and their way of life.”

The party is still small and does most of its voting online and people can join it at solidarity-party.org.  The site also provides more background on the party beliefs.  Once a person joins, he or she can vote on party issues.

Although ASP formed in 2011, it really gained some recognition and steam since 2016 when it ran its own candidate for president. The decision was made because ASP felt people were so unhappy with the two main candidates.  While the Party gained some attention, it was only able to get its candidate on the ballot in Colorado and most votes came in on write-ins through the rest of the country. According to Zeb, approximately 5,000 people signed up as associate members.

“I think the interest has grown since 2016,” he continued. “I think a lot of people are unhappy. Republicans are unhappy with Trump, especially the ones with religious values, and the Democrats have gotten more extreme and more pro-choice. People are pretty upset with the two main parties for various reasons — and those are just some of the reasons.”

“We’re very small, and it’s been hard to get the word out, and as people hear about us, we’re getting more and more interest. I’ve been looking for something like this for my entire life, so I think a lot of people are in the same boat.”

The first glint of what Zeb was searching for all his life may have been when he went off to college.  He went to Penn State for a bachelor in agriculture and also gained his first taste of politics.

Baccelli talks about being grounded in the Catholic Church’s social teaching.

“I discovered the Catholic peace and justice movement and the Catholic Worker movement. As the president of the Penn State chapter of Pax Christi, I organized demonstrations against the death penalty and the war, and I ran educational campaigns to introduce fellow students to Catholic social teaching.”

The Pax Christi organization was more than a Newman Club and was specifically geared toward politics and acts of mercy and charity, according to Zeb.

“We were protesting against the war and abortion, doing projects for the poor and the homeless in the cities around Pennsylvania.  We were trying to bring the Catholic Church’s social teachings into our lives and the student lives.”

After graduation from Penn State, he continued to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. He spent a year volunteering full time with the urban farm program of the Capuchin Franciscans in central Detroit and then a year and a half in Philadelphia as a caseworker at a Catholic shelter for homeless men with HIV.

Now a 39-year old business owner and father of four, Zeb describe his ideology as a “Pope Francis Catholic.”

“I aim to remain faithful to the teaching of the Church but open-hearted and non-judgmental toward those who see things differently. I’m eager to listen especially to the poor and oppressed and to creatively integrate people with divergent views into a harmonious whole. In conventional American terminology, I would probably be called socially conservative and economic leftist, but it’s the personalize at the roots of Christian Democracy that best describes my outlook.”

Much more information is available on the American Solidarity Party website.

Zeb and his family live in Knox.

For more information on Clarion River Organics click here.