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These Democrats Are Best Positioned to Win the Party’s 2028 Nomination
New Republic • Feb 10, 2026

These Democrats Are Best Positioned to Win the Party’s 2028 Nomination

You can watch this episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon above or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. You can read a transcript here. We’re a very long way from the first votes in the 2028 presidential primary. But many politicians are already positioning themselves for the next presidential contest. In the latest edition of Right Now, VoteBeat managing editor Nathaniel Rakich, University of California State University, San Bernardino political science professor Meredith Conroy, and Perry discuss who they see as the strongest potential Democratic 2028 candidates right now—among them Kamala Harris; Pete Buttigieg; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Governors Josh Shapiro, JB Pritzker, and Gavin Newsom; and Senators Ruben Gallego and Jon Ossoff.

Transcript: The Democrats Best Positioned To Win the 2028 Nomination
New Republic • Feb 10, 2026

Transcript: The Democrats Best Positioned To Win the 2028 Nomination

This is a lightly edited transcript of the February 6 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.Meredith Conroy: First, great to get the gang back together. I’m a professor of political science at [California State University,] San Bernardino.Nathaniel Rakich: I am the managing editor at Votebeat, which is a nonprofit news site that covers election administration and voting access. So the last two weeks in particular have been very busy, between the FBI raid in Fulton County, Georgia, and Trump’s comments that he wants to nationalize the election. So if you’re interested in that kind of stuff, head on over to votebeat.org.Perry Bacon: Good. And so with that, we’re going to do an exercise we used to do at FiveThirtyEight. It’s sort of goofy, but I think it’s helpful. We’re going to call it a “draft” of the 2028 Democratic presidential candidates. So by that, we mean we’re going to pick—we’re going to go around for three rounds and pick.We’re not picking who our favorite ideologically or substantively might be—even though I hope we’ll get into that a little bit as well—but the idea is to pick who we think, at this point, is most likely to win the nomination. And I understand that it’s three years away and “no one had heard of Barack”—I get all that stuff.Rakich: But people had heard of Barack Obama, importantly. He gave a very high-profile speech in 2004 that everybody was like, “Oh my goodness.”Bacon: But anyway, the idea is that often this—we are in the process where people are early. People are going to Iowa. They’re hiring staff. They are thinking about this. And so the field is not set, but we have some sense of that. And planning it out early gives you a sense of what might change and who might drop out.At this time in 2006, to date myself—we all thought Mark Warner was going to run for president and maybe win, and that Obama would maybe run ... in 2012. And so that’s how things change.So with that ... we’re going to start the draft. Meredith will go first, and what we’ll do is we’ll each name—we’ll go one to three, and then we’ll discuss the one to three and then go from there. So, Meredith, you’re up.Conroy: I am up. And when we were at FiveThirtyEight, I always wanted to get the first draft pick and never did. And actually, I don’t thank you. I don’t want it today—Rakich: Do you want to trade? Because I want it.Conroy: I think my pick is going to probably allow you to have the one that you wanted to go first anyway, since Nathaniel is second. But I know how to read; I know how to read polls. I know how to read ambition. I know what’s happening in this particular moment, and I know that I should be picking Governor of California Gavin Newsom, but I’m not going to. I’ll let someone else make the arguments for Newsom.I think that the backlash against the Trump administration’s agenda—especially on immigration and reproductive rights—is going to be pretty significant by the time the primaries come around. And the Democratic Party will need someone who can carry that mantle credibly. And so, for me, my first draft pick: I’m going to go with the New York representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Rakich: Our former colleagues Galen Druke and Nate Silver did a draft as well, and they also both picked—they both had AOC first on their boards. It ended up making an article in the New York Post that was like, “Data Guru Nate Silver Thinks AOC Is the First.” So I wonder if we’ll get the same treatment. Something tells me we won’t, but ... Meredith Conroy: Well, there’s a California Post now. And actually, I was driving on the freeway the other day and I saw a billboard that said, “Hair to the Throne.” It was Gavin Newsom’s hair.Rakich: That’s funny.Conroy: So they, yeah, so they might think it is him. So maybe the California Post, to kick their coverage off, they will cover us, but I picked her for that reason. I also don’t know if she will actually run, because she does have presidential ambitions, and I don’t know if 2028 is the moment for that. I don’t think she needs to run as a “trial balloon.” She doesn’t need name recognition; she doesn’t need a run in the primaries to help people know who she is.So the biggest knock on my pick would be that she doesn’t run. And then, of course, we have the issue of “strategic discrimination,” which academics refer to as a term that helps us explain why Democratic primary voters don’t take their first pick when they are a woman or a woman of color or a person of color. So it is the idea that you think other people are prejudiced, so you are not going to pick your first-choice candidate.In 2020, there was this survey done by Data for Progress called the “Magic Wand,” where if you were given a magic wand and you could put your person in the office right now—you would have to go back and look at the timing of all of this; Biden hadn’t officially entered—but anyway, most people—most, not a majority, by most—put Elizabeth Warren in the White House. But then when they asked who you’re going to vote for, she didn’t have the most votes.So that strategic discrimination in a Democratic primary would absolutely impact Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And also, she is very young and she has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party on Fox News and social media—her and Nancy Pelosi. I think if you did an analysis of whose faces are most commonly used in attack segments of Democrats, it would be theirs. There is gender and race embroiled in all that. So those are the knocks on her. But I still think that the “left lane” is clear with Sanders not running, and she is the likely person to fill that lane. And I do think there will be a high demand for a progressive candidate—not to say that there aren’t plenty of other progressives. So there you go. There is my argument. Bacon: So then you give yours and I’ll give mine, and then we’ll discuss all three of them. So give yours quickly.Conroy: Oh, geez. Sorry.Bacon: No, that’s OK.Rakich: Meredith is correct. I appreciate being able to take Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who ... this exercise is really difficult in general because—Bacon: I want to discuss all three ... I’m going to give Pete Buttigieg. So let’s discuss those three. Now go ahead, Nathaniel.Rakich: I just think this exercise is very difficult, because this is truly a wide-open race. When I was preparing for this, I went through the list of the top contenders and I came up with a lot more reasons why I thought they all wouldn’t get the nomination, not that they would. And there are some times when, obviously in 2024 with Trump and in 2020 with Biden as well, there is a pretty clear front-runner and something would have to happen to topple them from their perch.And here it is pretty wide-open. I picked Newsom because I do think that of all of the different people in the field, he is the strongest. He is the governor of the biggest state and the bluest state. He is leading in the polls. I know it is very early and things can absolutely change, but it is still better to be ahead in the polls than to be at two percent in the polls, which is where most other people are.... I don’t think any one person has more than a 20 or 25 percent chance of winning, but if I had to pick one, I would go with Newsom.Bacon: Let me follow up on a couple of things. First of all, the exercise, Meredith, is to pick the person most likely to win the Democratic nomination. And you, having watched the last two primaries where the left person ... the organizer person did not win.Rakich: Exactly.Bacon: There were very sustained comments about their “electability,” which became a word attached to them every day.Conroy: I study electability!Bacon: You think a congresswoman from New York, who is a Latino young woman who is on Fox News every day, is the most—I would love to be in a country where AOC was the most likely presidential candidate. I don’t think I live in a current country like that. And you read all the same things I do about racism and sexism, so I want to make sure—Conroy: If know how to play the game? Yeah—Bacon: Do you really think that?Conroy: I do. I think there is going to be a backlash against what is happening, and that right now, she is the progressive to fill it. I had other ideas that I’ll talk about, but I think you need someone—I hate this phrase, “authenticity.” You need someone who is authentic.There are great arguments for why Pete Buttigieg would be a great pick. I think he would—he is the debater that JD Vance thinks he is. And if JD Vance is the candidate, I actually think Pete Buttigieg would be an excellent nominee.But Pete Buttigieg can’t credibly pick up the mantle for what the backlash is going to require. And so, of the list of people who are credible and have viability—electability, viability, all these words are very loaded—I do think that it could be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Rakich: Look, we do know that there is a fair amount of anger now among the Democratic base with the Democratic Party establishment. And historically, the Democratic Party has been a lot more pro-establishment than the Republican Party. Obviously, Republicans nominated Trump. They have a long history of the Tea Party and stuff like that.Obviously, there is a bit of a discourse about whether there is a “Democratic Tea Party” brewing. I personally ... would tap the brake pedal on that—but I can’t deny that there is dissatisfaction as well. I’m just not sure that it is numerically a majority. I agree that AOC is going to be a strong candidate and going to have her passionate followers, but I’m not sure that Democrats are ready to throw over the chessboard the way that Republicans did by nominating Trump.And to Perry’s point, Bernie Sanders, for a brief moment in 2020, was the front-runner, and the Democratic Party establishment, they acted. They were very swift to be like, “Nope, we are not allowing this.” And I think they would do the same with AOC.Conroy: They’re not going to do that for Gavin Newsom. I teach in California. Californians have an interesting take on Gavin Newsom. A lot of the reasons I went with this pick is because the obvious pick, Gavin Newsom, isn’t obvious to me, but it hasn’t been for a while. At FiveThirtyEight, we used to have these conversations years ago about Gavin Newsom, and as the resident—other people worked at and lived in California, were from California at FiveThirtyEight—but I was like, “I just don’t think it’s going to happen.” But he does. He think’s it’s going to happen.Rakich: I think that he is not inherently the most likable guy, but he has done a good job. He has proven me wrong in terms of how he has developed this national profile, especially by standing up to Republicans on the gerrymandering thing. The base wants a fighter, and he has been a fighter. He has got all these kind of posts on Twitter that are mocking Trump’s style and everything like that. I think that’s more emblematic. I don’t think he’s literally winning votes that way. But he has gotten to a point where if you look at the very early polling, he and Kamala Harris are basically the two who are in the lead ... it’s like 25 percent, 30 percent of the vote, which is not overwhelming by any standard—but he’s gotten there and there’s probably still some room to grow.Bacon: Let me go to my pick. I would’ve ranked Buttigieg first. And the reason being, actually, that the “California knock” on California is weird, and he has fancy hair and whatever, and he doesn’t seem Midwestern enough, either. I think that would be a real barrier to him in a longer primary versus Buttigieg. I know we’ve never had a gay president, or a short one for that matter, I don’t think.But I think in some ways he ... seems like someone who would appeal to people in the Midwest, and he presents himself that way. He talks about it that way. He ran for president already. He’s very beloved among—not just—I consider him more centrist-y or something like that, but a lot of people who are pretty liberal like him. He ran before, so we know he’s good at running. He’s great at debates. He has a fundraising base. So I would’ve actually picked him first. Would you have ranked him in your top three, either one of you?Conroy: Yes.Rakich: No.Conroy [to Rakich]: You would not, Nathaniel?Rakich: I keep coming up with reasons ... I look down this list, and I’m like: “Nope, nope, nope.” And to me, Buttigieg has one big problem, which is that to win the Democratic primary, you need Black support. And I have seen no evidence that Pete Buttigieg can get Black support. Maybe he can get it—and if he does, then I will start paying attention in a hurry. But this was his big problem in 2020: He could not break in with that community. You need that.Biden had a long relationship [with Black voters]. And obviously, there are multiple Black people who have been mentioned for the nomination—Wes Moore, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris—and there is a potential to split that field, but I still think you need some boxes. I don’t think you can get through literally without any—Conroy: I went back and forth on Buttigieg or AOC as my first pick. I don’t think it is going to be Gavin Newsom. I will probably be very wrong, but ... one of the reasons was that [Buttigieg] struggled in 2020 with the Black vote in the primaries. I don’t know if that would be the case in 2028 with Biden cleared. But you just made a great point that there are plenty of other people that Black voters might prefer.But I do think, for the reasons you said, Perry, that he is a great fit. Even—I’m going to use the word again—“authentic.” He is pretty authentic to who he is and doesn’t shy away from who he is. And he goes straight into the fire. He’s great on Fox News. I am from Idaho, and I have conservative family members who in 2020 were like, “Y’all should have nominated Pete Buttigieg.” They like him for being who he is and not being a “slick,” which I think Gavin Newsom will struggle with—those conversations about being a “flip-flopper” or being an opportunist, essentially, on some of the positions he has taken. Pete Buttigieg, I don’t think he would struggle.Perry, the reason I didn’t go with Pete Buttigieg as my first pick is because you shared an article about “reactionary centrism.” It sounds like Pete Buttigieg! He may not be able to fill the progressive lane because he could be labeled as a “reactionary centrist” or an “abundance slipper”—all these terms that are still really squishy to me. So it’s your fault that I didn’t pick him, and now you can have him.Bacon: I do think he dabbles in some of that, which I, as a pretty left person, don’t like. But I don’t think he codes in that way the way, like, Josh Shapiro seems to be auditioning for that a little, and that is why—if I were Josh Shapiro, I would rein a little bit of that in. You don’t need to go on TV and trash Kamala Harris. That is not going to be helpful to you, is what I would say.But yeah, so just to finish on these three. I did not have AOC in my top nine, even. I literally don’t think she is going to run, and I don’t see her winning. I would love to see her winning, but I would not have put her in the nine.Rakich: Yeah, I think there is a top five that you have to start with, and I won’t reveal who the other two are.So I would probably put her in the top five, because she’s more likely than a random senator—like Chris Van Hollen or something like that. But yeah, for the reasons I mentioned, I think she would have a really hard time.Conroy: OK. So if I’m right, I’m really right.Bacon: You’re really right.Rakich: You can absolutely lord this over us if she ends up being the nominee. And she is very talented; she has the ability to impress. But like I said, the coordination against her is going to be rough.Bacon: Alright, so this round is Perry, Nathaniel, Meredith. So we’re going to—let’s give our picks, and then we’ll discuss. So I’m going to say Governor Pritzker.Rakich: Oh, interesting. Alright, you guys are just going to keep giving me the good picks. I’m going to say Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.Bacon: OK.Conroy: And I’m going to go Mark Kelly, senator from Arizona.Perry Bacon: OK. ... I was deciding between Shapiro and Pritzker, and that was a hard one for me. It feels to me like Pritzker has not done a particularly good job signaling—he’s from Chicago. He is pretty liberal. I don’t know what his “electability” case is, and I think that would be an interesting question.He’s done a good job in the last year appealing to the base. He’s been the most resistance-y, next to AOC, obviously, of the male candidates, I’ll say. I think he’s done a good job.Rakich: Gavin Newsom has been resistance-y, too—Bacon: Yeah.... I would’ve picked Gavin Newsom ahead of him. Gavin Newsom was secondary. Chris [Murphy] has done a good job in that lane, I would say.I tend to think Shapiro has been—is moving to the point where he’s going to be—the progressive is going to try to make sure he doesn’t win. And therefore, they’ll be for Newsom or anything. I think ... he’s getting to close to the Rahm Emanuel zone of “anybody but him”.... But he’s close ... he’s going to win Pennsylvania by a thousand points, and he’ll be able to say: “Look how electable I am.”Merideth said ... Mark Kelly. I didn’t mean to sigh that way. His resume is really good, but ...Rakich: Astronauts are really good candidates. The best position to have—the best job to have—as a politician is an astronaut. Some crazy number of astronauts have been elected to Congress.Conroy: I do think Pritzker is a great pick. Name recognition? He doesn’t have it. But in being in Illinois with ICE raids, he has rhetoric. His rhetoric on Trump has been not as theatric as Newsom’s, but striking a similar tone. I know people—I’m in California—have been talking about Pritzker in my circles, so I do think that was a good pick. I would’ve had him in my top four for sure. But Mark Kelly ...Bacon: You would’ve had him ahead of Kelly, if you had to pick yourself?Conroy: Yes.Bacon: OK, alright.Conroy: Yeah, I got the sixth pick. I went with Kelly. Harris probably would’ve been smarter given polling, but I do think Mark Kelly could make a run for it. Apparently, he has the “astronaut bump.” And also, he has had a target on his back. Trump, Vance, and Hegseth have gone after him.And if you go to the White House website—which I do occasionally—they have a website of the “Enemy of the Day,” and he’s been there a lot. I do think that it’s interesting that they’re elevating him in that way. And ... why not use that political elevation to launch a campaign? Do I think he’ll be the nominee? No, but I do think he could make a run for it if he decides to run.Bacon: Kelly would not have been in my top nine. So, Nathaniel, how do you feel about Kelly?Rakich: He’s interesting. Obviously, the astronaut thing is big. Kelly’s interesting because he has a pretty good profile nationally. So, according to the DDHQ polling average, he is at an average of 32 percent favorable and 21 percent unfavorable. So it’s rare to be in that much net-positive territory.Obviously, that leaves 50 percent of people not knowing who he is. So that’s good ... that’s 50 percent name recognition, which is pretty decent. And he is really only registering in the polls that include him—like, presidential primary polling puts him at three percent. And if you’re that well-known, you should be polling higher.I think that’s the issue. I think Pritzker is more compelling because his name recognition is currently lower. I just had that up, but I got rid of it to search for Kelly, but I can pull that back up. So he’s at 20 percent unfavorable, 14 percent favorable. But that means that two-thirds of Americans don’t know who he is, which is room to grow. And crucially, he’s rich. He can spend a lot of money to improve that name recognition. And that’s something that, probably, Mark Kelly can’t do, at least not to the same extent ...Conroy: And he’s a more compelling speaker, Pritzker.Rakich: Yeah. So I think that both of these are fine “value picks” later in the draft. But at this point, we are talking about people who are not really registering in the polls and are, I think, clearly second- or third-tier candidates.To the Shapiro pick: I think that he is someone who is very good on the stump. I think, Perry, your point is correct that there’s going to be a lot of resistance to him from progressives. But again, I don’t think progressives are the ones who decide Democratic primaries. He has a great electability argument, and he is polling [well]—he’s at eight to 10 percent in polls, which is pretty good for somebody with his profile. He also has roughly 50 percent name recognition nationwide. And to be at eight to 10 percent with 50 percent name recognition is pretty good, and suggests that once he gets his name out there, he has room to grow in a way that someone like Gavin Newsom or certainly Kamala Harris doesn’t.Bacon: So would you have ranked Shapiro ahead of Buttigieg, or the same?Rakich: Yes, I would have him ahead of Pete. I think that he has the potential, because of the electability argument, to win over Black voters. I suppose Buttigieg theoretically has that ability, but he ran in 2020 and failed at that. So I was probably going to have Shapiro second or third overall.Bacon: So I think we can move to round three. It’s Nathaniel, Meredith, and Perry. Nathaniel, let’s just name our people—this is getting hard now—and then we’ll discuss them.Rakich: I feel like I’ve got a pretty good—again, there is an obvious choice that is left.Conroy: You do! Don’t take it. Give it to me.Rakich: Sorry. Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris, baby.Bacon: OK. Meredith?Conroy: Shoot. I’m going to—I’m going to steal who I think Perry may have said, given his regional bias. I’m going to go with Andy Beshear.Bacon: OK, so now I’ve got the last one. And this is going to be hard, because it’s going to be bad if we didn’t name the right person with nine people.Conroy: It’s my fault.Rakich: No, but that’s the point—is that it’s such an open race. We wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being somebody we don’t [pick].Bacon: So, I’m struggling. The names I have written down are just—I’ll be very candid here. The names I have written down are ... the ones I’m really thinking about are Ruben Gallego, Jon Ossoff, Wes Moore.Conroy: Booker?Bacon: If [Raphael] Warnock wanted to run—Rakich: Yeah, I was going to say, you got the wrong Georgia senator there. Bacon: I don’t think Warnock wants to run, so I’m going to go with Ossoff.Rakich: OK. Wow.Bacon: So we did Beshear, Ossoff, and Kamala. I would not have put Kamala in my first nine because I think she just isn’t going to run. And because she already lost, and she is, uh ...Conroy: Really!Bacon: So if she ran, she would be the leading candidate among Black voters. I think that’s probably true.Rakich: Exactly.Bacon: She’d have a good fundraising base. So is she actually ...Rakich: The week after the 2024 election, I would’ve said, “Oh yeah, she’s not going to run.” But it seems now like she is making those moves.Conroy: What did she do yesterday?Rakich: She launched her—was it her Instagram or her Twitter account for Gen Z?Bacon: Substack, or something.Rakich: Yeah. So it seems she’s definitely keeping her name in the conversation.I think she wants to keep her options open. I agree that she’s definitely not a slam dunk to run the way that Gavin Newsom is. But, as I mentioned, the two leading candidates in the polls right now are Harris and Newsom, and I think the big red flag for Harris is that she has virtually 100 percent name recognition and she’s still only at 25 to 30 percent. And that’s not good.But I still think that you would rather start with more support than to be one of these candidates polling down at three percent, like we discussed last round. And like you mentioned, Perry, I believe strongly that the Black vote is what determines these things in Democratic primaries. And the default is that most Black voters would start with her. It’s not to say that they couldn’t move, but I think they start there.Bacon: Meredith, go ahead. So you included Harris for the same reasons, probably?Conroy: Yeah. Polling well, and these moves she’s making suggests that she is now going to run. But Democrats are a fear-based party, and the concern about 2024 and this overcorrection that they tend to do, to me, says that the primary may not be the place where she succeeds. But if she runs, I do think that she will absolutely—like Nathaniel said—rise to the top pretty quickly.Bacon: So, defend your Beshear pick, as opposed to the others—there were 20 people you could have named. So both—I’d be curious, Nathaniel, who was your next person? Because Kamala was obvious.So, Meredith, defend Beshear in the sea of others—defend Beshear as a choice. And then Nathaniel, who would have been your choice in the sea of others?Conroy: I’ll quickly say: In the world I’m seeing, when the primaries happen again, I had suggested I think there is going to be a big backlash against the Trump administration. They’re going to need a certain type of candidate. In a world where the backlash happens too early, and then, by the time we get to the primary season, we are back to, “We need an electable white guy who can win conservatives”—that’s why I went with Beshear.Rakich: He’s not conservative, though.Conroy: Won a conservative state. Exactly. He could be seen as carrying the progressive mantle, absolutely. But yeah, he’s able to qualify himself by pointing out that he’s the one who won two terms in Kentucky. And yeah, there is a demand for normalcy. Andy Beshear is—that’s my argument. Rakich: Good slogan.Bacon: Who would you have put on this if you had another choice, Nathaniel?Rakich: I would probably have gone with Ruben Gallego. I’m tempted by Warnock, because like you, I think he is an incredibly strong candidate, as he’s shown in Georgia twice. But I agree that he may be too smart to run for president.Bacon: Seems like he doesn’t want to run.Rakich: Right. But Ruben Gallego is acting like he does want to run. And he strikes the profile to me of—he used to be more progressive, and now he’s moved toward the center. I think you could argue that progressives are going to view him more suspiciously because of that, because they’re like, “Oh, you betrayed us,” or whatever.But I think he can speak both languages. I could see him doing the thing that Buttigieg did in 2020, or Amy Klobuchar. Where he’s really impressive in small settings, and he’s a veteran and cuts this profile, and people come out of the town halls being like, “Oh, that young man—he’s really going places.” Again, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar did not win that 2020 nomination. But maybe Ruben Gallego finishes second in New Hampshire? I could see that. I don’t think any of these people are particularly likely to win. But Gallego kind of fits the mold of people who have surprised in the past.Bacon.: So I chose Ossoff because I think he’s going to win this Georgia Senate race. I think he’s going to win pretty easily—not easily, but he’s going to win by three or four points in a tough state. He’ll have won twice there. He’s very—he’s on MSNBC, he’s doing Crooked Media.You can’t go to Iowa if you’re running for reelection in Georgia, because that would hurt you. But he’s doing everything you would do to run for president and prepare for that if you’re in a swing state and you can’t do the full audition. So he’s very ambitious. He’s done well electorally. He’s pretty charismatic. He’s young. He’s got the bio—he worked for John Lewis. He’s in Georgia.... The profile of a white guy who could win the Black vote, who is an unknown—he’s something like that. He has a lot of cultural references, a lot of biographical [appeal]. That would help.I guess I can say this: ... Wes Moore is not Obama, but we already had him? Or something? I don’t know the right way to say that—and you guys shouldn’t say that—but there’s something about him that is not ... you know, Booker ran last time. The charismatic Black guy—we think that’s a great lane because Obama won. But I don’t know that that is. I don’t know that Wes Moore is really anchored ... he doesn’t have the electoral credentials, because he’s in Maryland. I don’t think he’s going to win the Black vote overwhelmingly, because I have no evidence of that.So I was thinking about him, but I didn’t really end up landing with him. Gallego, I think, is interesting—he’s Latino, he’s a veteran, he’s in a swing state. He’s been both progressive and—even though he’s moved more moderate—he’s been very strong on ICE recently. He knows where the wind is blowing and is able to hit that pretty well. So I think he’s serious as well.Conroy: It’s a young bunch. It’s a youthful field.Bacon: Not coincidentally.Rakich: Yeah, not coincidentally. I think if you’re over 70, you don’t get a chance to run anymore.Conroy: Yeah. I was thinking about choosing Wes Moore, but he said explicitly he’s not going to run.Bacon: No, I think Wes Moore is going to run. I think Warnock’s not going to run.Conroy: Wes Moore said he’s not going to run.Rakich: I don’t think any of that matters.Conroy: OK, then, just kidding.Rakich: My position on this—and this is because Hillary Clinton said she wasn’t going to run, basically, up until the 2014 elections—I don’t think any statements are operative until after the midterms. After the midterms is when the “starting gun” starts on this race.If after that you say you’re out, then people—obviously, also, people can not be in and then jump in, like Mike Bloomberg did. There’s nothing stopping you from doing that. But I think that the starting gun starts at the midterms, and if you don’t start running at that point, then you are going to be behind.Bacon: Let me ask a couple of questions. Let me think as we go through here. I guess the first would be: We named AOC, but otherwise, we didn’t name anyone who I would say is clearly in the “progressive lane,” in the Bernie mold. Is that because there’s nobody there who we think is strong? Or do we think that particular bloc of the party isn’t strong?I guess I would say—Ro Khanna is somebody who is clearly running for president and is in that “progressive box.” But I would say, both, he is not well-known and famous, but I also just have a hard time seeing the progressive winning the nomination.So that’s why I went with people who—Beshear or Pritzker or Newsom—they can win some progressive votes, but I’m not sure the nominee will be anchored among progressives. Maybe I’m wrong about that. That’s where I would start from. Do you all agree with that?Rakich: Yeah, I think that’s right. And I think it’s a reflection of both the fact that the establishment is really going to work hard against a progressive candidate, but also the fact that AOC is so dominant in that lane.If she doesn’t run, then maybe you see some names like that. Ro Khanna seems like the one person who is going to run regardless. But we’ve been through—in 2020, we had 10 random House members run for president, and we saw how that went. Seth Moulton, Eric Swalwell, all these people. You can’t run as a random “one of 435” and be a serious contender. It hasn’t happened since what, James Garfield?Bacon: James Garfield? I don’t think I know the answer to that question.Conroy: I think the progressive lane is just different today than it was in 2020.Bacon: But if AOC didn’t run, would you have somebody else in that?Conroy: There probably is something—there probably is a lane to fill. But no, I think that the party itself is just more progressive and also the progressives are more pragmatic, so I just think it’s blurrier. But yeah, there would probably be someone to get the single digits in these states.I think that AOC is—she fills that lane, but she’s more meaningful beyond just the progressive lane to a lot of Democratic voters. I think she could fit other lanes.Rakich: If and when progressives eventually break through, they have to do it by building a coalition with another part of the party. Progressives are a meaningful bloc within the party, but they’re not a majority. And so you need to reach out to Black voters, or Latino voters, or the college-educated, wonky white voters or whatever.And I do actually think that in a world in which we could remove all the kind of “electability” stuff, that somebody like AOC or Ayanna Pressley, because of their ties to the Black and Latino communities, could actually do that. But I think the “electability” thing is a non-starter.Bacon: Someone in the chat, and one of my colleagues, I think, brought it up at the time—it was right after Colbert was getting ... pushed out of CBS. Colbert and Jon Stewart—do you see either of them, or in general, somebody who’s not in office?Let’s name those two for now, but somebody who’s not ... I think the case for that might be there is a lane for somebody who doesn’t “code” moderate and maybe could win progressive and leftist votes, but who is a famous person. Colbert—I don’t know what his views ... Colbert’s views on Israel are not what Shapiro’s are. So he’s not going to annoy anyone based on that. No one knows what he thinks. So I would assume Colbert and Stewart can kind of make up whatever positions they want. And they’re famous, they have money, they can raise money. And they are very resistance-y. And my guess is, if you had an Indivisible rally tomorrow, people would know who they are. They don’t know who the hell Mark Kelly is. And I wonder if those people are more viable than usual.So Meredith, I’ll start with you.Conroy: I think there will be a “Draft Stewart” movement, for sure.Bacon: Stewart more than Colbert? Because they’re both going to be open, I think, to other things.Conroy: I think Stewart more than Colbert.Bacon: Why?Conroy: From what I’ve seen online, he joined Instagram, and his messages are flooded with, “Run, please.”Rakich: He wasn’t on Instagram?Conroy: I’m pretty sure.Rakich: I’m just surprised he wasn’t on Instagram before.Conroy: Someone should fact-check me. He joined something recently and the response was massive. I just don’t think he has—he didn’t have the energy in him to keep the show up, and now he’s doing the podcast. So, just practically, I don’t think he would want to run for president. I think he will do his damnedest to get out the vote and to increase Democratic turnout to win.But I don’t think he’s going to run. And I just don’t think there’s this appeal for a celebrity in the Democratic Party like there is in the Republican Party—which is so funny, because the Republican Party is, like, “We hate Hollywood.” But no, I don’t think there’s anyone. The only other person I can think of would be Michelle Obama.Rakich: The white whale, yeah. I see a commenter also suggesting Stephen A. Smith, the ESPN commentator. But—Stephen A. Smith, we had a little moment, and then people tested him in polling. It was like two percent. And that’s an extremely famous person—although he does have a generic name, so people might not have known who he was.But look: We go through this every cycle. There’s always the “fun pick.” And it’s Tucker Carlson on the right and it’s Jon Stewart on the left. And look, never say never—Donald Trump is the president—but it is quite unlikely. It’s always just fantasy, and then the field ends up just being the random assortment of governors and senators that it always is. I am personally betting against that.Conroy: A smart “Cuban” comment. I think he is an interesting person—Mark Cuban, kind of like a Bloomberg figure. A billionaire that a certain type of people love.Rakich: Democrats don’t like billionaires, though—which, actually, by the way, I think might be an issue for JB Pritzker.Bacon: Especially since he’s running in this sort of “lefty lane.”Conroy: But what if they use those billions for good? I don’t think people know he’s a billionaire yet, but obviously that will be a common attack. OK, sorry—go ahead, Perry.Bacon: Gretchen Whitmer would’ve been on a lot of lists a couple years ago. Thinking about future candidates, when the rumors in 2024 were that Biden might not run, she was definitely high. And I’m going to add in Elissa Slotkin—who has gone to New Hampshire and done some hinting she wants to run—senator from Michigan. And Governor Spanberger, who won Virginia, of course. In Virginia, you only have one term. And she’s in a swing state; she’s ambitious. In other words, these three are what I would call ... we’ve picked mostly “electable” swing-state males. I don’t think Harris’s or AOC’s calling card is “electability,” necessarily. So why did we not pick—and what do we think about—the sort of women who’ve won in tough areas? Why do we think they are not viable, or do we think they are viable?Conroy: I’ll just say, a quick one is that they aren’t suggesting that they want to run. [That] would be the number one reason—not necessarily sexism, but that’s there. Nathaniel, what were you going to say?Rakich: Whitmer definitely seemed to be more on the national stage four years ago, and she’s really retreated from that, it seems.Conroy: It’s like that Homer meme—she went back into the bush. She’s gone.Rakich: Yeah. She seems to be signaling that she is not interested anymore. And we’re talking about, “Oh, who’s going to run?” or whatever. Let’s be real: You have to be running silently. They call it the “invisible primary” throughout this period. Even if you are not literally filed with the FEC, you are going to the clambakes in New Hampshire, and churches in South Carolina, and writing books and everything.Perry had a really good piece that I think about often at FiveThirtyEight about, basically, here are the eight signs that somebody’s running for president. And it was like: visiting early states, writing a memoir ...You have to be running without running. And Whitmer hasn’t been doing that. I do think if she had stayed in the conversation, she would’ve been more up on my list. I think of her as a Shapiro type. And she’s quite good on the stump and stuff. But yeah, being a white woman is, I think, not insurmountable, but it is going to be a detriment ...Spanberger just got elected. I don’t think she has any interest. She wants to be the governor of Virginia. Slotkin is interesting. She has no name recognition at all. She does seem like, of the three, she’s the most likely to run. But ... she’s just starting that “invisible primary” phase now. And somebody like Ruben Gallego, or certainly Gavin Newsom, has been doing it for a long time and built up that name recognition and donor base already.Conroy: I think Whitmer would’ve been my top choice if she hadn’t yet slid away. Why did she slide away? I’m sure there are personal reasons, given some of the things that she’s experienced. But remember when she was in the White House, and then the attacks with Trump—and the response was, “traitor,” and just a huge heel turn on this person that the party loved?I do think there are some elements of gender wrapped up in that—where women are given less leverage to, or less room to, make mistakes or to be imperfect. I don’t know if that also contributed to one of the reasons why she was like, “This isn’t something I want for myself, my life.” If she stayed on engaging in invisible primary activities, like writing a book, I would’ve probably put her in.Bacon: But I guess I’m more explicitly stating that the party might unfortunately conclude: two women have run; two women have lost.Conroy: Right. Can’t do it again.Bacon: We can pick a Black man. We might consider a Latino man, but it has to be a man. And I think that’s unfortunate, because I think Harris and Clinton had different circumstances for why they lost, but I just worry we’re back in the “it has to be a man” phase. And that’s why I said it that way. I agree, Slotkin is not perfect, but ...I’ll conclude with the “Chris’s”: Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen. Chris Murphy, I think, is doing some maneuvering, and Chris Van Hollen has become this liberal hero—progressive hero—because he has been very strong on immigration and things like that.Rakich: Yeah—among the five percent of people who have heard of him.Bacon: Yes, I admit he’s not Bernie Sanders. For those following the news, not just Bluesky, but ... anything on the “Chris’s”? No chance?Conroy: Murphy—his social media approach is reaching people. It goes viral on Instagram, clips of it. I still don’t think people register who he is or that he’s running for president, but I think he has become a good spokesperson and he is very effective. So, maybe the next one.Rakich: I just don’t think they’re much—they’re only one notch above the random House members that I was mentioning. I don’t think they have done a good enough job in the invisible primary to be discussed the way that a Gallego or a Newsom or whatever have been. So they’re starting from behind. Sure, they have the “fighter” mentality. But I just think that they’re too generic and haven’t differentiated themselves from the pack enough.Bacon: So let’s finish by—give me the five. Now, this conversation has helped me think about this a little bit. Give me your top five. You don’t have to “draft” anymore, but I’ll give mine.... if I had to do five I would say Buttigieg, Newsom, Shapiro—I think I’ve been convinced, I was probably already thinking about Shapiro—Pritzker, and, I guess, AOC over Harris.I just think Harris is a non-starter. So I’ll go with those five. Nathaniel?Rakich: It would be similar for me. I’m thinking about the five people who, if you were having a debate, would make the debate stage right now. I think that’s Newsom, Harris, Buttigieg, AOC, and Shapiro. And I think everybody below is just one of a million people who are at three percent in the polls and could have a “moment”—somebody like Gallego—but is not guaranteed to.I also ... think there are people in those top five who are polling decently right now, but who have ceilings. And so, I don’t think that would be my order if I’m talking about odds of winning the nomination. But when, in 20 years, we look back—right now, we think about, back in 2004, it was John Kerry, and John Edwards, and Howard Dean—I think those five will be the story of the primary, if that makes sense.Bacon: Interesting. Merideth?Conroy: I think my five would be the exact same as Nathaniel’s. I’m struggling with if I had to swap Pritzker for Shapiro. But logic tells me, if the stage had five people, it would be Shapiro. So yeah, the same list as Nathaniel, which was AOC, Buttigieg, Newsom, Harris, uh—Bacon: There were three dudes, so: Buttigieg, Shapiro, Newsom—Conroy: Yeah, and then Harris and AOC. Rakich: And of course ... Harris might not run, AOC might not run. So lots of variables, still.Conroy: Can you imagine a Democratic primary stage with no women on it? That’d be wild. It’s been a while. It wouldn’t be wild for the Republicans, but that would be wild—Rakich: I don’t know, I think back to, again, 2004, which is when I was starting to become politically aware and stuff. And we’ve come a long way where, like Carol Moseley Braun ... she ran in that year, but she was not—everybody was like, “Oh ...” She was a senator! She was a sitting senator, and she was off to the side. People were not taking her seriously.And I do think those days are over, and that’s remarkable. But at the same time, I think that the “electability backlash” is going to make it, probably, a less diverse stage, certainly, than it was in 2020.Bacon: This was fun. I learned a lot. I’m thinking about this more. Any other final thoughts before I let you guys go?Conroy: No, but that checklist—make sure you give a link to your old checklist.Bacon: Yes, that was while back. So the piece basically argued that there are seven signs when [someone is running for] president: Have you gone to Iowa? Have you gone to New Hampshire? Have you gone to South Carolina? Have you written a book?Conroy: It’s your fault that I looked up all these people and whether they were writing a book!Rakich: I’m pulling it up right now. Let’s see. It is: visited Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina; wrote a book; included in polls; helped campaign ... at least one campaign appearance outside of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina for his or her party’s candidates for governor or Senate. So we might learn something in the midterms this year.Bacon: I think Gallego went to Virginia.Rakich: And then “magazine profile” is the last one.Bacon: That one probably doesn’t—Conroy: Gavin Newsom’s got seven.Bacon: You used to do a profile with Time magazine if you were running, or The New York Times Magazine. I think that one ... if I did this one today, would be—I actually mentioned it: Have you been on Pod Save America?Rakich: Yeah.Conroy: You should update this.Bacon: Ossoff was on Pod Save America. That was my clue. And he did a long sit-down with them—which doesn’t help you win Georgia. Well, maybe it does. But that’s more about national than Georgia.Conroy: You should also add something about using social media to [counter] the Trump administration or something. Yeah, you need to update that list. There’s lots of indicators.Rakich: Yeah. I’ll put it in the chat here. Hang on.Bacon: What would be the other one? OK, so what is the other in this conversation? There’s something about social media, but I can’t land on what that is right now.Conroy: Yeah, you have to be using it in an aggressive way. I don’t want to call it memes, or trolling. But there’s something conceptually there that you have to be doing ... on social media in 2028. And yeah, we haven’t nailed it down, but give us some time.Bacon: Alright, thanks. This was longer than usual, so thanks for joining me. Thanks to the audience, the people who tuned in. Good to see you guys.Rakich: Thanks for having me. Conroy: Bye.

Rural America’s Mental Health Crisis Can’t Be Solved by Robots
New Republic • Feb 10, 2026

Rural America’s Mental Health Crisis Can’t Be Solved by Robots

Last week, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz proposed a bizarre remedy to rural America’s mental health crisis. “Sixty million Americans live in rural parts of this country,” Oz said by way of introduction, appearing onstage at an event announcing the administration’s new “Action for Progress” behavioral health initiative. “Their life expectancy is about nine years shorter than those in more urban parts of the country. Mental health issues drive a lot of that.”Then came his solution: “I am telling you right now, there’s no question about it—whether you want it or not—the best way to help some of these communities is going to be AI-based avatars. Agentic AI.” He described systems that could “do the intake, catch the patient, customize to what their needs are, understand what they’re up to.” Then he made a direct appeal to the audience: “Please go play with these tools; they are unbelievable.” To call this a strategy is to reframe abandonment as innovation. That same hour on the same stage, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had said that the addiction epidemic “feeds a national malaise of loneliness, of despair.” In previous remarks, rolling out the Great American Recovery Initiative, he had gone further: “When we cut off our relationships with other human beings, we lose that access to the divine, and that is a healing power. We are in a spiritual malaise in this country.”Strip away the futurist gloss from Oz’s answer, and the message to 60 million rural Americans becomes stark: Your suffering is rooted in disconnection from other human beings, and the federal response is you should talk to a robot.Just days before, an executive order from the president outlined the broader framing for the Great American Recovery Initiative, a whole-of-government push to align federal efforts on addiction prevention, treatment, recovery, and reentry. It framed addiction explicitly as “a chronic, treatable disease” and promised better coordination of federal dollars across agencies. A new $100 million STREETS program would aim to connect people experiencing addiction and homelessness to housing, employment, and long-term recovery. Faith-based housing and recovery efforts also featured prominently in this plan. The public narrative insists this is about restoring connection and dignity.But when it comes to the actual delivery of mental health care in rural communities, the administration’s answer is apparently to route the crisis through software. Ironically, this is happening precisely as the technology’s biggest boosters are backing away from “AI therapists.”Over the past 18 months, major AI companies have begun warning users not to treat their products as therapists or life coaches. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has publicly cautioned against young people relying on systems like ChatGPT for therapy, arguing the technology is not ready for that role despite its popularity among Gen Z users who find chatbots inexpensive, always available, and nonjudgmental. Just two weeks before Oz made his statements, Slingshot AI withdrew its mental health chatbot, Ash, from the U.K. market entirely. These tools currently are underregulated—the subject of an FDA Digital Health Advisory Committee meeting in November.Defenders will argue that some care is better than none. Indeed, in many rural counties, “none” is close to the reality. The Health Resources and Services Administration designates 4,212 rural areas as Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas, which would require 1,797 additional providers to meet basic demand. On average, for every psychiatrist serving 100,000 people in rural America, urban communities have more than four. In fact, nearly two-thirds of rural counties—65 percent—have no psychiatrist at all. The consequences can be measured in lives. According to CDC data, rural suicide rates rose 48 percent between 2000 and 2018, reaching 19.4 per 100,000 compared to urban rates of 13.4.But “some is better than none” holds only if the “some” can plausibly be called care and if it does not introduce new risks that leave people worse off. On both counts, the evidence around conversational AI in mental health is far thinner, and more troubling, than its supporters admit. A 2025 article in Frontiers in Psychiatry examined whether AI systems could meaningfully reproduce core psychoanalytic processes like transference and reflexivity, concluding that AI should be understood as a “new therapeutic artifact” that may complement—but cannot replace—human clinicians, while raising significant ethical questions. Bias compounds the risk. As a 2025 Psychology Today column detailed, AI therapy tools can embed and amplify data-driven and societal biases, often trained on skewed datasets reflecting racial, gender, and cultural imbalances. These systems may misdiagnose vulnerable groups or offer unsafe advice while remaining opaque about how conclusions are reached. Rural Americans, particularly rural people of color, already experience mental health systems as distant, punitive, or misaligned with their lives. A bot trained primarily on urban, majority-culture norms is unlikely to bridge that divide.Worse, clinicians are also increasingly documenting direct mental health harms from this same technology. A January 26 New York Times investigation reported therapists and psychiatrists across the U.S. describing cases in which chatbot interactions appeared to push some people from eccentric ideas into fixed delusions, including conspiratorial thinking and grandiose inventions. Clinicians described AI systems seeming to “collaborate” with patients’ unusual beliefs. Platform data showed a small but significant fraction of users discussing suicidality or exhibiting psychosis-like content in exchanges with bots.In this context, Oz’s directive to “go play with these tools” lands somewhere between reckless and tone-deaf. It is one thing for a lonely teenager to experiment with a chatbot after school. It is another when the CMS administrator frames AI avatars not as a narrow adjunct but as “the best way” to address rural mental health—“whether you want it or not.” There is an alternative response, though it requires a different kind of investment. It would mean loan-repayment programs and salary floors sufficient to draw psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers into rural practice. It would mean peer-support networks and community health workers drawn from the towns they serve. It would mean transportation and childcare support so people can reach in-person care. It would mean allowing rural clinics to experiment with group therapy and clubhouse models that build genuine bonds rather than simulating them.  Each of these investments does something AI avatars cannot: It relocates resources and support back into the community rather than abstracting it upward or outward.Technology could have a place in that ecosystem—most obviously by handling paperwork, flagging risk, supporting clinicians with timely information. Digital tools can be designed to strengthen ties between patients and local providers. But that is far from what Oz announced on February 2.Rural America’s mental health crisis is not a user-interface problem. It is a policy problem, a labor problem, a loneliness problem. When federal officials diagnose the crisis as spiritual disconnection and prescribe an avatar, they are redefining care itself. They are saying that connection can be simulated, that the therapeutic encounter is reducible to conversational interface, and that 60 million Americans should accept algorithmic processing as the best version of care their government can imagine for them. They are offering simulation as a substitute for substance—and calling it the best we can do.

Trump Wrecked Our Reputation Abroad. Can Democrats Put It Right?
New Republic • Feb 10, 2026

Trump Wrecked Our Reputation Abroad. Can Democrats Put It Right?

In many of the international news outlets around the world, you will find a section devoted to covering current events in the United States. Aside from just including it in their international coverage, many foreign news outlets devote special attention to U.S. coverage, a testament to the nation’s influence on global affairs. It can also be an interesting window into how journalists not enmeshed in the habits and tendencies of our own media elites view what’s happening in our own backyards.Within the last two weeks—not to mention the past year—the world has been paying careful attention to what’s happening on these shores. Since 2026 began, international outlets have been fixated on whether the U.S. government plans on throwing the world into deeper chaos. Some have been prophetic, such as the French newspaper Le Monde’s December 1, 2025 editorial, “Donald Trump’s interference and incoherence on the American continent,” which commented on Trump’s insistence on seizing the Danish territory of Greenland. Others include the more humorous headline from the Dutch satirical newspaper De Speld (“The Pin”) that, in traditional Dutch bluntness, did not hold back: “Who Is J.D. Vance, the First bitch Behind President Trump?”  More recently, however, the commentary on Trump has shifted from ridicule to genuine concern about the future. A more moving cover image published on January 28 by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo depicts an ICE agent dragging the bullet-riddled body of Alex Pretti to a pile of corpses, leaving a trail of blood that resembles the American flag. Although Pretti was murdered by Customs and Border Protection agents (identified by ProPublica as Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez), the point is pretty clear: The Trump administration has shown no remorse for killing Americans protesting against his deportation policies. Most of all, European media outlets have hyper-focused on Trump’s threats to invade Greenland and break up NATO.In Latin America, news outlets have anxiously commented on growing American military aggression in the region. In Mexico City, the paper of record La Jornada includes a series titled, “Caracas Under Attack and the Return of Interventionism.” Historians Miguel Tinker Salas and Victor Silverman, both at Pomona College, co-authored an op-ed for La Jornada telling readers that Trump’s foreign and domestic policies are designed to distract from his failing domestic policies. Drawing from the old Kentucky mining song “Which Side Are You On?” Tinker-Salas and Silverman noted that the battles in Minneapolis have exposed the failures of Trump’s immigration policies.North of the border, Canada’s paper of record, The Globe and Mail, has chronicled everything from Trump’s ludicrous threats to absorb the Great White North to his damaging tariff policies. Others, like Daniel Siemens, stated more bluntly, “Are ICE agents modern-day Nazi brownshirts?”—calling for an end to the paramilitary organization.Most of all, Canadians have rightly reacted with anger to the provocations of Donald Trump, of which they have a close-up view. As one of America’s closest allies and largest trading partners, Canada has seen a significant drop in cross-border traffic. Trump’s flippant use of tariffs to punish Canada not only contradicts his own previous revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement—the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was cobbled together during his first term—but has left permanent damage to foreign trade relations. Along with his childish labeling of Canada as a “fifty-first state,” Trump’s use of tariffs to blackmail foreign leaders led Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to call for a realignment in the geopolitical order, in his speech on January 20 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.Calling out Trump’s disregard for the rule of law, Carney told world leaders that such behavior has consequences: “If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from ‘transactionalism’ will become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.”No matter where you go in the world, chances are there’s a news outlet asking readers the same question: “What is going on in the United States—and how will this affect us?”Some, like Globe and Mail columnist Konrad Yakabuski, are already looking ahead to the midterms for an answer. In a pointedly written piece, “Can Democrats slam the brakes on Trump’s rogue presidency with a big midterm election win?” Yakabuski, hesitant to indulge advocates’ calls for instance for abolishing ICE, called on Democrats to be pragmatic about the battles they pick in the midterms: “One can only hope that, sooner rather than later, enough average Americans will decide they have had enough of Mr. Trump’s chaos. Until then, however, Democrats will need be strategic about choosing their battles.”While the question of Democratic strategy for the midterms remains undecided, Yakabuski’s article makes clear that, even outside the United States, many are anxiously watching the midterms to see how it will affect them.Midterms are often seen as a referendum on the status of a sitting president. This year the midterm elections pose a greater question: Can the United States survive another two years of Donald Trump? And will the rest of the world be able to bear it?Here, Democrats need to make the case to voters that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to the U.S. and its reputation abroad. With the shooting of several protesters by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents and the murder of dozens of migrants in detention centers, human rights are on the ballot this November. With the destabilization of the global economy and rising prices thanks to Trump’s tariffs, the ability of working-class Americans to survive is an issue this November. Come November, Democrats have an opportunity—or, really, an obligation—to repair the U.S. and its image abroad.Eighty-one years ago, on April 25, 1945, delegates representing 50 nations convened in San Francisco to organize what would become the United Nations. Building from the ashes of World War II, the delegates came together to form a new organization with the stated goal of preventing another world conflict and fostering good relations between nations. When President Harry Truman spoke before the conference, he left these words with the delegates:Let us labor to achieve a peace which is really worthy of their great sacrifice. We must make certain, by your work here, that another war will be impossible.… Nothing is more essential to the future peace of the world, than continued cooperation of the nations, which had to muster the force necessary to defeat the conspiracy of the axis powers to dominate the world.While these great states have a special responsibility to enforce the peace, their responsibility is based upon the obligations resting upon all states, large and small, not to use force in international relations, except in the defense of law. The responsibility of the great states is to serve, and not dominate the peoples of the world.Truman’s words, while inspiring, did not ring true; the postwar order was still marked by violence and global inequity. While decolonization was in some cases achieved peaceably, for instance in the U.S. departure from the Philippines, it still arose too often from conflict, as it did in many parts of Africa and Asia, most notably Vietnam. Truman found himself mired in conflict once again five years later, when he sent U.S. troops to defend South Korea from the North’s invasion.In Latin America, U.S. policy during the Cold War was far from peaceful. Foreign interventions, such as the CIA’s coup in Guatemala under Eisenhower in 1954, Kissinger’s colluding in Chilean President Salvador Allende’s murder in 1973, and Reagan’s support of the Contras in the 1980s, epitomized a long history of the U.S. meddling in Latin American affairs.Greg Grandin, a longtime expert on U.S. interventionism in Latin America, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times putting Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro within the context of U.S. foreign relations with Latin America. In some ways, Grandin argues, Trump’s behavior falls into a long pattern of U.S. presidents using Latin America as a stage for flexing American power: “Often during times of global turbulence, like the moment we now find ourselves in, presidents seek safe harbor there. Latin America was where U.S. leaders have projected power beyond their borders not only with brute force, including all those coups Washington orchestrated, but with moral suasion as well.”Yet Grandin also believes there was a period in U.S. history where the American government treated Latin America on an equal footing. In his new book America, América, Grandin asserts that the “good neighbor policy” under President Franklin Roosevelt marked a decade of peace between the U.S. and Latin America. For Grandin, it was thanks to the good neighbor policy, which restrained Roosevelt from intervening in the region, that FDR was able “to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism.”In this regard, Truman’s statement to the U.N., following in the footsteps of his predecessor, underscored America’s desire to be a leader of liberal ideology in the postwar order—one that created the America’s long-standing reputation as an advocate of peace. Now it’s these multilateral institutions that are currently under threat thanks to the Trump administration.In the wake of the invasion of Venezuela, human rights violations perpetrated during deportations, destruction of decades of good relations with European leaders, and economic mistrust caused by his own tariff policies, Donald Trump has managed in one year to destroy much of America’s reputation abroad.So how can Democrats, either incumbents or challengers, articulate a platform this November that unseats Republicans? While Trump bears the lion’s share of blame for the woes of his presidency, Republican members of Congress are also guilty of having unquestioningly bowed to Trump throughout his second administration, relinquishing their oversight in return for the promise of loyalty. Democrats will have to frame this election as the existential crisis that it is: With Trump and Republicans in power, the United States is in decline.When I spoke with Grandin, I asked him what has come out of the turbulence of the past year. In some ways, he noted, the failure of the current administration offers a rare opportunity: “The Trumpists have done us a favor by insisting on the bankruptcy of the post–Cold War neoliberal consensus. What they offer in its place of course is barbaric: a garrisoned, murderous tribalism.”When I asked him what is needed in its place, Grandin offered the following: “To defeat that vision, we need to put forth a universal humanism—an anti-fascism that understands that you beat fascism by fighting for social democracy—for social and economic rights.”I put similar questions to another famed historian on Latin America, Miguel Tinker-Salas. “I think the larger issue,” Tinker-Salas argued, “is that we tend to present Latin America as an adversarial relationship. The immigrant is an adversary, the country is an adversary, Mexico is trying to take us over, Venezuela’s trying to bring in foreign powers. Well, what if we flip that script? What if we looked at that these are our allies and that we could consider the possibility of it reengaging with the region?”It’s a compelling paradigm shift, one that has been absent from U.S. foreign policy for some time: Let’s treat our neighbors with respect. Much like Grandin’s point about Roosevelt’s good neighbor policy, there is a need to reestablish foreign relations with our neighbors on equal terms.Already, the consequences of Trump’s retaliatory economic policy have forced our former trade partners to form new trade relationships, notably with China. “At the same time,” Tinker-Salas argues, “China has stepped in to Latin America. China is the number one trading partner for Brazil, for Argentina, for Chile, for Peru. The building of the Deepwater port in Peru that will connect by rail to Brazil opens up for China a whole area of South America.”In addition to repairing damaged relationships, the U.S. needs to address its policies at home. A key part of this platform needs to be the dissolution of ICE as an agency and the dismantling of Trump’s global deportation project. As an agency that has become fundamentally loyal to Trump, its existence would hinder progressive policies and foster deep suspicion in our allies abroad. Dismantling an agency that most associate with violence and human rights violations will go a long way toward improving America’s image abroad.  Changes to U.S. domestic politics are part of the greater reshaping of U.S. foreign relations. This is especially true of Trump’s current deportation policy, his flagrant dismissal of civil rights, and his discriminatory immigration ban that targets immigrants of color. Meanwhile, the human rights of migrants in the United States, the constitutional rights of Americans to assembly peacefully, expose corruption, and speak freely, are all freedoms under attack. As Tinker-Salas and Silverman wrote in their op-ed for La Jornada, “What the protesters are proclaiming in the streets are the human values ​​that Trump and the global right are trying to erase. What will happen is yet to be determined, but we know which side we are on.”As law professor Mary Dudziak points out in her landmark study Cold War Civil Rights, discriminatory U.S. domestic policies during the Cold War, such as racial discrimination against Black Americans, vastly undermined U.S. foreign relations. At a time when U.S. ambassadors touted “American values” of democracy and freedom in contrast to the Soviet Union, foreign observers, especially those in African states, found it hard to swallow when Black Americans were excluded from participating in the American political system. This same argument still applies to U.S. treatment of immigrants. If the Trump administration continues to wantonly kill protesters, such as Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and does not prosecute the agents responsible, it ruins that credibility of the country and its government.Democrats need to not only rethink the existence of ICE as an institution but to rapidly prosecute agents who have violated law enforcement practices as in the murder of protesters. It needs to end the deportation of immigrants to torture facilities like CECOT, in El Salvador, and release those who were wrongfully detained without any due process. Moreover, it needs to permanently overturn the immigration travel bans that reinforce race-based discrimination. Otherwise, it is hard to take the United States seriously as a defender of human rights. Injustice in the U.S. harms not only American citizens but also America’s relations abroad.Lastly, in the long term, reform will also mean committing more resources than before to supporting global human rights; this necessarily includes rebuilding USAID to repair foreign relations with developing states. USAID not only emblematized the spirit of the Kennedy administration’s New Frontier program, but also signified a means to establish goodwill relations among other states. While USAID was created in a Cold War context of opposing the Soviet Union by American soft power, USAID not only helped foster good relations but also benefited the U.S. by supporting public health programs and cultural exchanges. A new USAID could offer the chance to repair shaky relations with developing nations that have long been exploited for natural resources.This November, the midterm election will represent a turning point in American history. If Republicans keep control of Congress, it will lead to two more years of unchecked power for Donald Trump—and more chaos for the rest of the world—especially if the Supreme Court continues to take a half-hearted approach toward enforcing the rule of law to appease Trump.A Democratic victory in the midterm election would not only mean a fighting chance to stand up to the Trump administration, but also the possibility to rebuild the shattered credibility of the country. Otherwise, it will also mark the end of stable foreign relations with old allies who, after facing a year of uncertainty, will form new alliances as the U.S. sinks deeper into isolation. To again quote Carney, the United States can no longer “live within the lie” that the world depends on it. 

How Companies Profit by Annoying the Hell Out of You
New Republic • Feb 10, 2026

How Companies Profit by Annoying the Hell Out of You

Several months ago, I looked at my bank account and saw that it was awash in charges from newspapers and websites charging $5.99, $13.99, $7.99 at regular intervals for subscriptions I barely remembered signing up for. They added up to a lot of money wasted each month. When I tried to cancel them, each service had a different process, some of which involved navigating through several screens or calling customer service or chatting with automated systems—rather than just clicking a button, as I had done so easily in subscribing. I quickly became overwhelmed and annoyed, and instead chose the nuclear option: I canceled my debit card. That created its own set of tedious internet tasks, of course, but at the time it felt like the best option.These kinds of experiences are so common and universal that Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., decided to weigh their true impact. They call it the “annoyance economy.” In a report released Monday, they show how junk fees, customer service calls, excessive insurance paperwork, spam calls and texts, and more cost Americans at least $165 billion in lost time and money every year. The same practices boost corporate revenue by 200 percent, the report found. Under President Joe Biden, the federal government tried to tackle the worst practices and make it easier for consumers to avoid junk fees, cancel services, deal with tax season, access government programs, and a number of other changes. Trump rolled all of that back, and here we are, still wasting money, still annoyed.The impacts of the annoyance economy can be big or small, ranging from delaying needed medical care because of overwhelming paperwork to a few dollars lost due to unnoticed fees, but Groundwork’s Chad Maisel, who authored the paper with Stanford University economist Neale Mahoney, said almost everyone has experienced some aspect of it. “Everyone can talk about how difficult it was to navigate the health insurance system and just submit a claim or to get a procedure approved,” he said. “Everyone can relate to their phone pinging eight times in a day with random companies or politicians trying to get their money.”Money isn’t the only cost these practices impose, either. “It has huge impacts on time, which is, for many people, like their most precious resource,” he said. “You get home after work, and you’ve got a couple hours with your kids, and you’ve got to navigate paperwork or wait on hold … that’s why I think this stuff is so resonant for people.”Part of the goal of the report was to show that while some aspects of the annoyance economy can seem small, that total sum can be consequential. For families living paycheck to paycheck, the burden of excessive overdraft fees—which were capped by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before the cap was overturned by Congress last year—can add up and mean the difference between affording enough to eat or not. For others who fall through the cracks of the complex health care system, it can mean tens of thousands of dollars in unexpected medical bills. That makes their impacts important, and dealing with them is popular with voters. “People deserve to have policymakers and their elected leaders and their government take on these pain points that they’re facing in their lives,” Maisel said.President Donald Trump reversed some of Biden’s efforts to protect consumers, rolling back junk fee protection and airline compensation rules for flight delays, and is unlikely to institute new, pro-consumer reforms. When dismantling the Biden reforms, the Trump administration made the usual conservative noises about how unnecessary regulatory complexity makes it harder for companies to help consumers borrow and spend, but the truth is big industries had lobbied against Biden’s new rules because they hurt their bottom line, and they won a friend in the White House when Trump was elected. The annoyance economy helps companies and their wealthy investors, and hurts regular people, and we know which side Trump is on.Maisel pointed out that there are a lot of ways that states can step up and regulate insurance companies and banks right now, while the federal government remains hostile to reform. But maybe more importantly, there are ways that promising to tackle these kinds of seemingly small annoyances can help Democratic candidates running in elections later this year and in 2028, showing that Republicans don’t care about the affordability crisis and improving the economy for working people.While something like banning junk fees might seem too small-bore to run on alone, the Groundwork report conveys the true size of the problem—and how big corporations benefit by wearing people down. “I think now more than ever, people realize that elected leaders and politicians need to be speaking very directly to people’s lived experiences,” Maisel said. “The issues that we’ve identified in this report are, I think, often under-discussed, under-targeted, but really poised to have an impact in terms of solving problems that people are facing that make … quality of life not as good as it could be.”

Trump’s New Best Bud Is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—for Now
New Republic • Feb 10, 2026

Trump’s New Best Bud Is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—for Now

In the rainforests of the Amazon, scientists have observed a rare symbiotic relationship between some tarantulas and certain humming frogs. A tarantula will scare away predators that would like to eat the frog, while the frog feeds off ants that would gorge on the spider’s eggs.This is the kind of mutualistic relationship that has formed between President Donald Trump and Jensen Huang, the chief executive officer of Nvidia, the world’s biggest company by market capitalization, responsible for more than 90 percent of the market for chips needed to build AI systems. Trump can protect Huang from predators—harsh regulations, stalled federal energy approvals, strict export regimes—all while allowing Nvidia to feast on more than $10 million in government contracts. Meanwhile, Huang has stationed himself as the guardian of Trump’s desired legacy: American reindustrialization and AI dominance. Together, Trump and Huang are burrowed together in the mud that is fascist corporatism—but can it last?Last week, Nvidia was reportedly still haggling with the U.S. government over the details of its recent deal to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, with the Trump administration taking a 25 percent cut of all revenues and sales. While it’s still unclear whether China will actually agree to buy the chips, the tenuous deal was a major victory for Huang, who has spent months cozying up to Trump.Trump and Huang’s seemingly symbiotic relationship began in April, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick invited the tech titan to Mar-a-Lago to sing for his supper. Lutnick and Huang had started off on good footing themselves just a few months earlier, when Lutnick called him to offer a direct line to Trump.“He started our conversation with, ‘Jensen, this is Secretary Lutnick,’” Huang recounted during an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast in December. “‘I just want to let you know that you’re a national treasure. Nvidia is a national treasure. And whenever you need access to the president, the administration, you call us.’“And it was completely true,” Huang said. “Every single time I called, if I needed something, I want to get something off my chest, express some concern, they’re always available.”The Trump administration had warned Nvidia earlier in April that it planned to stop the sale of AI chips to China. Huang’s Mar-a-Lago invitation was so he could make a last-ditch appeal to prevent his company from being locked out of the second-largest computing market in the world, The New York Times reported. Huang attended a $1 million-a-seat dinner at the resort and spent the evening urging Trump not to curb chip sales, highlighting the fact that Nvidia had spent several hundred billion dollars in U.S. investment. Whatever Huang said to Trump over their gold-rimmed plates must have worked because Trump reversed course shortly afterward. In May, Huang joined Trump in the Middle East, where the president announced a chip deal with Saudi Arabia that caused Huang’s net worth to surge by $12 billion in a single day. During that trip, Trump demonstrated how he could use Nvidia to make himself rich too. The president announced that he would reverse policy in order to permit the United Arab Emirates to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips every year. In return, Trump’s World Liberty Financial pocketed $2 billion from a UAE-backed investment firm.By October, Nvidia became the first company to be valued at a $5 trillion market cap, and Huang was ready to shout his love for Trump from the rooftops. “I come with only one purpose,” Huang told reporters at Nvidia’s inaugural tech conference in Washington, D.C., that same month. “To inform and to be in service of the president as he thinks about how to make America great.” Speaking at a panel with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Huang punctuated every answer with “President Trump,” stressing how hard the president was working to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing and praising Trump’s tariffs. As Quartz reported, “The tone wasn’t defiant or even diplomatic. It was devotional.” The Amazonian frog, it seemed, had an exceptionally wide mouth. Huang also confirmed that Nvidia would be one of the 37 major companies to donate to the construction of Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom, NOTUS reported. “I’m incredibly proud and delighted to help contribute in a small way to what will clearly be a historic and national monument for our country,” Huang said.Having scheduled the conference in the hope that Trump might attend, Huang even transformed his keynote speech into a MAGA love-fest. He insisted that Trump “deserves enormous credit” for recognizing that America needed to boost energy production in order to win the AI race. The president had “completely changed the game” for the AI industry with his energy agenda, Huang insisted. “If this didn’t happen, we could’ve been in a bad situation, and I want to thank President Trump for that,” Huang said. He then announced that Nvidia would embark on a project to build seven AI supercomputers with the Department of Energy. The CEO closed out his keynote address using Trump’s slogan: “Thank you all for your service in making America great again,” Huang said. Trump wasn’t there to hear it in person. But days later, while speaking in front of world leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, meeting in South Korea, Trump lauded Huang as an “incredible guy.”It’s worth noting just how far our frog was able to leap in just a few months! In September 2024, the Biden Department of Justice announced an antitrust investigation into Nvidia to probe complaints that the company abused its market dominance in AI chips. Cut to a year later, and Huang had successfully nestled himself into Trump’s orbit, exercising some influence on the president’s policies—and not just in the realm of AI.Trump had previously credited Huang as being one of the “great people” who’d convinced the president not to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco, as part of Trump’s federal takeover of American cities.And in December, Trump signed an executive order aimed at preventing states from regulating artificial intelligence, just days after Huang urged lawmakers to oppose legislation that would allow states to set their own AI regulations.Also in December, the president approved the sale of Nvidia’s second-most-powerful AI chip to China. “He’s done an amazing job,” Trump said of Huang at the time, praising the CEO as a “smart man.” Huang previously claimed that selling chips to Chinese developers represented a $50 billion opportunity. Having called dibs on a quarter of Nvidia’s sales, Trump had potentially earmarked $12.5 billion for the United States. This arrangement did raise red flags for legal experts, who viewed the deal as an export tax, which is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. To be sure, Trump’s fondness for a tech billionaire and Huang’s spineless sycophancy don’t come as a surprise. But the only thing Trump values more than money is power, and if he can use his ever-vacillating trade “deals” to control other countries, he will. And while Trump’s policies may be fluid, manufacturing is not. Nvidia is still shaped by the very globalization Trump yearns to quash. Silicon wafers used in the Blackwell GPU, Nvidia’s most advanced AI chip, are now being produced at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s facility in Arizona—but they still need to be sent to Taiwan to receive advanced packaging. Until Nvidia’s products are entirely produced in the U.S., the company is bound by international partnerships for which Trump has demonstrated little respect.While cozying up to Trump may have put Huang in the room with world leaders who could make him millions, a snap of Trump’s fingers can make those deals disappear just as easily. In September, Nvidia pledged to play a major part of Britain’s Tech Prosperity Deal, but just last month, the Trump administration put the deal on hold, hoping to squeeze more out of the Brits. And it’s unclear whether Huang can convince Trump to ensure his supposedly America First policies will still permit Nvidia access to foreign markets. Last week, Nvidia reportedly hit a sticking point in negotiations to sell AI chips to Bytedance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, because of a rule intended to prevent American products from falling into the hands of the Chinese military. So maybe the relationship between tech oligarch and authoritarian ruler is more akin to another unlikely animal friendship. While Huang may seem happy in the mud for now, he’s still at the mercy of Trump, who has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not a tarantula at all. Rather, he’s a fickle scorpion riding on a frog’s back, liable to sting at any time, surely drowning them both.

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