Tony Dastra just turned 30. It’s a bittersweet moment for him—as the Green Party’s candidate for Pennsylvania governor looks back on the last decade of his life, he recalls a few triumphs and many failures. A native of Lancaster, Dastra lost two mayoral races in 2017 and 2025. He did make it onto the committee to reform the city’s Home Rule Charter—only to fail to drag his proposed reforms across the line. Just a few months ago, the state dealt him the latest blow when he was removed from the gubernatorial ballot for failing to gather enough signatures.
I speak to Dastra while he cooks dinner—one of the perks of being kicked off the ballot, he says, is that he gets to save money eating at home. Though he maintains his trademark sense of optimism, he admits that losing his ballot line cut deep.
“It didn’t register with me up front,” Dastra says. “But as I went through the last, like, month or so, I realized it did really hurt my core being.”
You couldn’t read it on his face. The young Lancaster activist has stayed on the warpath since his disqualification, leading Lancaster Residents Against Glut and Exhaust in a campaign opposing data center development across the region. If you see him at a zoning board hearing, you’ll find him wearing his trademark emerald–green suit and the same broad smile that lights up his campaign photos. What keeps the man going? Is it a blind conviction in his ideals? Can he just not imagine living any other way? Perhaps it’s a mix of both: At the core of Dastra’s being is a heart that beats for change, regardless of the odds.
In these wilderness months, Dastra’s found inspiration in some pretty strange places: most notably, the anime One Piece. When the protagonist’s powers awaken, he says, the “Drums of Liberation” begin to sound: a joyful, pounding rhythm that represents the strength of pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy’s passion.
“There were times that, especially at that low point recently, I listened to the soundtrack … and the drums of liberation come out, and the joy that it’s bringing the people, the hope it’s bringing the people,” Dastra says.
It’s hard not to see Dastra as a kind of independent swashbuckler in his own right—especially since he and Luffy wear the same trademark straw hat everywhere they go. His first involvement in politics came when he confronted the city’s former mayor at a public meeting to demand transparency in city business.
“I was like, ‘You should live broadcast government meetings’—she was like, ‘Well, we’re not going to do that,’—and I said, ‘Fine, then I will.’”
Throughout his years of involvement in Lancaster politics, Dastra has established himself as an outsider in every sense of the word. The candidate’s gubernatorial campaign platform can be broadly qualified as “progressive”—he supports an end to healthcare monopolies, the reduction of working–class property taxes, and, of course, an immediate pause on data center development in the state. But Dastra has no interest in affiliating with any particular political tribe—that mentality, he says, is precisely what has led today’s leaders to betray the people.
“If this is a government of the people, by the people, for the people, skip the political affiliation!” Dastra says. “At the end of the day, I joined the Green Party because I was just looking to be with a group of people that supported me for who I am and not what they wanted out of me.”
Of course, being an independent in American politics comes with a whole host of problems. The electoral and financial machinery that governs state and national politics often stacks the deck against candidates without a “D” or “R” next to their names, Dastra concedes. To support his campaign’s get–out–the–vote efforts and legal fees, Dastra himself poured thousands of dollars into the campaign, leaving him deep in the hole when the campaign failed.
“Is it more challenging? Absolutely,” Dastra admits. “But because of the zero–sum game that Democrats and Republicans are playing with our politics, our economy, our lives, we have to keep fighting regardless. So I don’t care if it’s harder in this way; we have to keep standing up.”
The political life of an independent can often seem Sisyphean. As he looks back on his life, Dastra muses on how his personal goals align with the mission of justice he’s dedicated his life to.
“I hope I can find someone who wants to, like, be my life partner, and spouse or something … but in such a toxic political environment, it’s hard to have that,” Dastra says. “Yo, can you imagine being on Tinder and being like, ‘Swipe right if you like governors’ candidates?’”
It’s hard for any citizen to find alignment between their public and private personas—it’s even harder for a politician. Dastra describes his real self—who he calls “Core Tony”—as a pretty “lax, chill guy.” When he’s in his suit and tie representing his community, however, he feels like a knight in his “battle armor,” giving every issue—and every voter—the serious attention they deserve.
But beneath both of those layers, there’s something deeper to Dastra. Though he was born in Lancaster, he only returned to the city as a young man to care for his great–grandmother and his blind older cousin, Ralph. Caring for both of them and helping others in his community escape risky housing situations taught the candidate about just how fragile the social structures supporting our nation’s vulnerable truly are. What keeps Dastra going is the conviction that human dignity is something worth fighting for—after all, he hopes to one day be afforded that dignity himself.
“I’ve seen the system continue to fall apart around us. I’ve seen people continue to have to do more and more just to get the bare minimum to survive,” he says. “And if I want to be so lucky as to live to be Ralph’s age … and not be living in poverty, waiting for somebody to give me table scraps because I put enough complaining out there, then I need to fight for the country I want to live in now.”
The road ahead will be hard. Dastra knows that. But for now, the Drums of Liberation still ring heavy in his ears. And that may be all he needs.
