A lot of you are not on my Facebook page, but a lot of the discussions I have been having lately are happening there. I have been testing ideas, asking questions, reading comments, and trying to gauge where people actually are, not where consultants, party insiders, or talking heads tell us we are supposed to be.

And honestly, it has been useful.

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This week touched everything from the @DNC’s “ugly fuck” tweet, to Democratic Party leadership in Cuyahoga County, to AI and data centers, to establishment liberals acting like conservatives, to the Ohio Democratic Party chair race, California politics, Graham Platner, and even Blue Origin blowing up on the launch pad.

So let’s get into it.

The “Ugly Fuck” Tweet: What Did People Think

The official Democrats account replied to Stephen Miller with, “Shut up, you ugly fuck.”

Yes, a lot of people thought it was a parody account. It was not.

So I asked people what they thought.

I wanted to understand whether Democrats liked this, hated it, or thought it was just dumb. And after going through the comments, the answer was pretty clear.

Most people were not clutching their pearls over the F-bomb. Out of 131 unique commenters, 104 were strongly in favor of Democrats punching back. Another 15 were mildly in favor but wanted sharper strategy.

People are angry. They want Democrats to fight. They are tired of being told to be polite while Republicans light the house on fire.

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This is my opinion of the “Ugly Fuck” comment:

Trump is the most corrupt president we know of. It is blatant. And I think you make a lot of good points.

I do not think people are actually upset about someone saying, “shut up, you ugly fuck.” I do not think this is really about people clutching their pearls over an F-bomb.

To me, the issue is the lack of direction, leadership, and clarity around why it happened and what it was supposed to accomplish.

It feels like Democrats keep avoiding the bigger work (actual work and political work). We say we want to fight for certain things. We say we want to stand for certain values. We say we want to actually do the work. But then something like this happens, and suddenly we are supposed to treat it as this great moment of leadership, anger, unity, and change.

But it is not that.

It is not a great unifier. It is not a strategic step in the right direction. It is not some heroic social media warrior moment from behind the keyboard.

It still looks like confusion. It looks like frustration. It looks like a lack of clarity and a lack of leadership.

And that is what we are seeing from the DNC under Ken Martin.

The autopsy report was a complete waste. It was inaccurate, seemingly written by AI, hidden, released, incoherent, criticized, and then discarded.

That is not leadership.

So when the same DNC now puts something like this out, yes, some people respond with, “Finally, they are showing anger.” I get that. People are angry. They should be angry.

But to me, the tweet looks more like a release of frustration than an actual strategy. It does not look like a rallying cry. It does not look like organization. It looks like a representation of what people want emotionally, but with no direction behind it

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chair

That brings me to Northeast Ohio.

David Brock, chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, put out a reelection video. I reposted it and asked a very basic question to crowdsource people’s thoughts on whether he should remain chair.

Apparently, that was too much.

He blocked me.

And to me, that says a lot.

This is exactly the kind of thing I have been criticizing inside the Democratic Party. Not allowing conversation. Shutting out opponents. Shutting out criticism. Shutting out primary challengers. Shutting out anyone who questions in an open forum.

What I asked was:

1. Does he deserve another 4 years?

2. Is the county party better now than 4 years ago?

3. If so, is he the person to lead for the next 4 years?

4. Who else is running against him?

I can admit there are pros to Brock’s candidacy. I can acknowledge that there are arguments in his favor.

But if the response to basic public discussion is to cut off access, then the biggest criticism proves itself.

And after that happened, multiple anonymous people reached out to me.

One person claimed the party put its thumb on the scale and pushed them out of a race (which happened more than people would like to admit), basically warning them not to run or they would “in no uncertain terms that they'd do everything in their power to smash me to death.”

That should bother people.

Please follow the for additional commentary.

The Data Center Debate Needs More Nuance

Another big conversation this week was around AI and data centers.

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The comment section leaned strongly skeptical. Out of 37 commenters, 27 had major concerns about the current AI and data center model. Their concerns were not simplistic.

Most people were not just saying “AI is evil.”

They were talking about water, electricity, land use, tax breaks, public subsidy, few permanent jobs, worker displacement, and the concentration of wealth and power.

If the problem is water discharge, then let’s talk about retention ponds, discharge standards, cooling systems, and local environmental requirements.

If the problem is electricity costs, then let’s talk about who pays for grid expansion, whether companies should build or fund their own generation, and how we stop residents from subsidizing corporate power demand.

If the problem is jobs, then let’s be honest about that too. Data centers may create construction jobs, but they usually do not create a massive number of permanent jobs. That means communities should demand more than a ribbon cutting and a tax break.

If AI really is going to displace workers in ways we have not seen before, then the answer has to include serious conversations about shorter workweeks, stronger worker protections, universal basic income, retraining, public ownership models, or other ways to make sure the benefits are not captured entirely by billionaires and corporations.

The deeper issue may not be AI itself. The cat is out of the bag.

Or, screw it! Do we just ban AI and Data centers all together? Thoughts?

This week also brought up an argument from last week: establishment Democratic liberals are actually conservatives.

Not MAGA conservatives. Not evangelical conservatives. Institutional conservatives.

They protect the existing order. They defend the process. They defend the party structure. They defend incumbents. They defend zoning. They defend local veto points. They defend the donor class. They defend whatever already exists, then call it pragmatism.

I asked people about this too, and the response was pretty overwhelming. Out of 43 unique commenters, 30 strongly agreed that establishment Democrats are conservative, corporate, or status quo defenders.

That does not mean people are suddenly voting Republican.

It means people are frustrated with a Democratic Party that keeps presenting itself as the party of change while protecting the systems that block change.

p.s. I know that some of these are small samples and the data is biased. But, it is still interesting. Take what you will from it.

The Ohio Democratic Party Chair Race

Speaking of leadership, put out a list of central committee members by district so people can contact them about the Ohio Democratic Party chair race.

Kathleen Clyde came into the chair race with Sherrod Brown’s backing. That is why, from what I gather, other candidates dropped out. Nobody wanted to politically hurt themselves by getting in the way of Sherrod Brown’s preferred choice.

Now it looks like there may actually be a race. From what I am hearing, Bill DeMora is running to give the party a choice.

Whether you like DeMora or not is not really the point. That is what voting is for.

Make sure you call those central committee members Today!

California Is Going to Be Interesting

Another thing I am watching is California. Tuesday Primary!

The governor’s race is starting to take shape, and depending on which numbers you believe, Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer, Steve Hilton, and Chad Bianco are all names to watch. I do not put blind faith in polls, but as races get closer, markets and polling sometimes start giving us a sense of who is actually viable.

The race I am more interested in, though, is the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Karen Bass is the long-term establishment Democrat with the institutional backing. Nithya Raman is more in the DSA lane. Spencer Pratt, believe it or not, is the wild card.

If Pratt somehow gets through to the general election, that would be remarkable. If he wins outright with 51%, it would be a complete earthquake.

My thoughts on that race will come Wednesday.

Graham Platner: Vibes OR Substance

Graham Platner has also been facing a lot of criticism.

There has been criticism over the Nazi tattoo, questions about his one disclosed customer (his mom’s restaurant) oyster farm, and now attention around a dating profile while he is married.

Maybe he has an open relationship. To be perfectly honest, I do not care much about people’s private sexual arrangements if everyone involved is consenting.

However, his candidacy feels like vibes over substance. It feels like another attempt to rebrand Democrats to win back white working-class men after years of them leaving to MAGA.

Oyster farmer. Tough guy. Working-class aesthetic. Rugged authenticity.

Maybe it works. *shrug emoji*

Maybe it does not. *sad emoji*

But if the strategy is just to manufacture an identity instead of building a real politics around working people, then people are going to see through it.

Democrats cannot cosplay demographics back.

Blue Origin Blew Up: And It Was Epic

Something I wish I saw in person: the Blue Origin launch explosion.

Nobody died. That is the most important thing.

There was a shit ton of property damage. Like $3.5B or like 1% Jeffery’s net worth (dude is insanely rich).

And honestly, what a magnificent sight.

One of the biggest explosions ever caught on film. I saw estimates that it released 20% of the energy of the Hiroshima bomb, which is absolutely astounding if true.

But beyond the explosion, I like the fact that they failed big.

That is part of innovation. That is part of the creative process. That is part of trying to build something new. Reusable rockets, commercial spaceflight, and the idea that one day going to space could become as normal as getting on a plane and flying across the country, all of that requires failure.

They will get this.

It will get safer. It will get more reliable. And one day, it may become accessible in a way that sounds insane right now.

That is the kind of future thinking I wish we had more of.

Not fear. But…

Building.

Trying.

Failing.

Learning.

Then building again.

That Is What Is on My Radar

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That is what is on my radar this week.

The DNC’s anger without strategy. Cuyahoga County’s leadership and chair race. AI and data centers. Establishment liberals are actually conservatives. The Ohio Democratic Party chair race. California. Graham Platner. Blue Origin. All of it connects more than people think.

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Stay Angry

Establishment Democratic liberals are conservative. Not conservative in the MAGA sense. Not conservative in the evangelical, Reaganite, right-wing Republican sense.

I am talking about conservatism in the institutional sense.

Conservatism, broadly understood, is about preserving existing institutions, protecting inherited systems, favoring gradual change, and resisting disruption. That does not only exist on the right. That absolutely exists inside the Democratic Party too.

A lot of modern establishment Democratic liberalism says it is culturally progressive. It says supports diversity, tolerance, climate language, housing language, equity language, and democracy language.

But in fact it is institutionally conservative. When the actual solution requires building, changing, challenging incumbents, disrupting donors, reforming zoning, questioning institutions, or moving faster than the system is comfortable with, the instinct becomes conservative.

Protect the process. Protect the institution. Protect local control. Protect the incumbent. Protect the donor structure. Protect the old way of doing things.

Status-quo bitches.

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Conservatism Is Not Just Republicanism

This is where the conversation has to start. If we define conservatism only as Republican politics, then we miss what is happening inside our own party.

The Republican Party has become reactionary. It wants to drag the country backward. But the Democratic establishment has become preservationist. It does not usually want to reverse social change. It wants to manage the current system more politely and with better language.

But preserving a broken system is still a form of conservatism.

That is the distinction. The Republican Party is reactionary. The Democratic establishment is preservationist. And preservationism is a form of conservatism.

You can see it in housing. You can see it in transportation. You can see it in clean energy. You can see it in technology. You can see it in the way the party protects incumbents. You can see it in the way the DNC handles accountability. You can see it whenever reform challenges the people already holding power.

The Democratic establishment says it wants change.

But too often, it fights like hell to block it.

Housing Is the Cleanest Example

Democrats talk about housing affordability all the time. Housing is too expensive. Rent is too high. Young people cannot buy homes. Working families are getting pushed out. Homelessness is a crisis. Climate change requires density and transit-oriented development.

Talking points.

But when housing reform actually challenges zoning, wealthy neighborhoods, local control, and the ability of existing homeowners to veto new development, a lot of Democratic liberals suddenly sound like old-school conservatives.

California is probably the clearest example. Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 79 in 2025, a law meant to allow denser housing near major transit stops. It is basic climate and housing logic: build more homes near trains and buses. But Los Angeles leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass and members of the City Council, opposed it over local control and community input concerns.

Then in 2026, seven California Senate Democrats joined Republicans to oppose Scott Wiener’s SB 677, which was designed to close a loophole cities were using to avoid building more housing near transit.

That is liberal conservatism.

New York had a similar problem. Governor Kathy Hochul proposed the New York Housing Compact to build 800,000 homes over a decade, but after suburban and local opposition, she backed away from mandatory housing growth requirements.

Democrats say housing is a human right until the solution requires overriding wealthy suburbs, zoning boards, and the politics of “community character.”

“Local Control” Is Often Just Liberal “States’ Rights”

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Local control sounds democratic. It sounds participatory. It sounds like community input. But in practice, local control often gives veto power to the already housed, already wealthy, already organized, and already powerful.

It becomes the liberal version of states’ rights.

It is a phrase that sounds neutral while protecting the status quo. It lets people say they support reform in theory while blocking reform in practice.

Housing? Local control.

Transit? Local control.

Solar farms? Local control.

Wind turbines? Local control.

Shelters? Local control.

Apartments near transit? Local control.

At some point, local control becomes a polite way to say, “Nothing changes unless the people already benefiting from the current system approve it.”

That is conservative.

Democrats Want Clean Energy Until Someone Has to Build It

The same thing happens with climate.

Democrats say they believe in clean energy. They say they believe in fighting climate change. They say we need wind, solar, batteries, transmission lines, grid upgrades, and a new energy economy.

But when clean energy becomes a real-world construction project, suddenly the conversation changes.

Now it is about viewsheds. Neighborhood character. Land use. Agriculture. Wildlife. Local process. Developer distrust. Property values. Community input. More studies. More hearings. More delay.

To be clear, some of those concerns are legitimate. Not every project is good. Not every developer should be trusted. Communities should have some say in what happens around them.

But the larger pattern is still there.

The Sabin Center at Columbia Law School has tracked severe local restrictions on renewable energy projects across the country, and by the end of 2024, it found that hundreds of counties and municipalities had adopted major restrictions on renewables. The opposition is not always simply left versus right. It often comes down to land use, aesthetics, local power, and distrust of the process.

That is what makes this so interesting. Sometimes the conservative farmer wants the solar lease because it brings income and tax revenue, while the liberal process-oriented activist wants to slow the project down.

So who is actually conservative there?

The person willing to build the future, or the person trying to preserve the view?

Technology Shows the Same

Tech is another place where establishment Democratic liberalism often becomes conservative.

I know, I know. Elon is a polarizing figure. But it is still worth saying that companies like Tesla and Starlink created some tech that directly connect to things Democrats have been having for decades. Electric vehicles. Climate change. Broadband access in rural areas. Infrastructure gaps.

But instead of separating the technology from the person, a lot of Democratic liberals react ideologically. They do not want Elon to win. They do not want Elon to get money. They do not want to be associated with anything he built. People put bumper stickers on Teslas saying they bought the car before they knew Elon was crazy.

But at some point, the question has to be whether we want outcomes or self inflicted ideological purity. If rural Southeast Ohio lacks broadband and Starlink can reach places where cable has failed, do we actually care about connecting people? Politics over people? OR People over Politics?

That is the conservative I am talking about.

Preserve the political comfort zone, even if the tool could solve a problem.

Transit Is Where Democratic Cities Expose Themselves

Democratic cities love transit branding.

And if you look at the progress we have had in the past decades, that is only what it is. Transit Branding.

They love talking about walkability, equity, climate, density, and reducing car dependence. They love transit station plans, studies, community meetings, environmental reviews, ribbon cuttings, and big speeches about the future.

But the United States barely builds rail.

In 2024, American cities added only about 29 kilometers, or roughly 18 miles, of light rail and no new metro rail service, according to The Transport Politic’s year-end roundup. That is pathetic for a country and party that claims to care about climate, mobility, and urban affordability.

And we see the same thing locally. Cleveland and Cuyahoga County talk about transportation, but RTA continues to face major challenges, and we still do not seem to plan around public transit in a serious way. Look at the Cleveland Browns stadium conversation. Where is the bold transit planning? Where is the actual infrastructure vision? Where is the discipline to say, if we are building or relocating major public assets, transit must be central?

Instead, we get the same slow, managed decline.

Study it. Talk about it. Frame it. Review it. Delay it. Then wonder why nothing changes.

That is not progressivism. That is bait and switch conservatism.

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The Party Protects Itself Too

This is not only about public policy. It is also about the Democratic Party itself.

The David Hogg fight inside the DNC is one of the clearest examples. Hogg and Leaders We Deserve announced a $20 million effort to support younger candidates and primary challenges, including challenges to House Democrats in safely Democratic seats. The backlash was immediate. The DNC ultimately moved to redo the vice chair elections, and Hogg announced he would not seek to remain in the role.

You can dress that up however you want. Procedure. Neutrality. Party unity. Avoiding infighting.

But the deeper message was obvious.

Do not challenge incumbents. Do not threaten the internal order. Do not organize against the people already in power.

That is establishment protectionism. That is institutional conservatism.

You saw the same fight in New York with Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani represented the new democrat challenge, the new coalition, the voters who wanted something different. Cuomo represented the old establishment style: name recognition, institutional power, big money, donor politics, and the belief that politics should remain controlled by the same people who have always controlled it. Axios described Mamdani’s upset over Cuomo as something that had some Democrats in Congress worried about their own reelections, because it signaled the possibility of more anti-establishment primary challenges.

The establishment does not just disagree with progressives. It treats them as a threat to the order of the party. When younger candidates, left candidates, working-class candidates, anti-corporate candidates, or grassroots candidates challenge the old structure, the reaction is often not debate. It is containment.

And this is not just one race. Progressive challengers are showing up across the country, and when they win, it is treated as a shock to the system instead of evidence that voters may actually want a different kind of politics.

That is why this fits the larger argument. The Democratic establishment says it wants democracy, but too often it wants democratic managerialism. It wants participation, but only if participation but only their way. It wants energy, but only if that energy can be controlled. It wants younger voters, working-class voters, and disillusioned voters, but it does not always want the candidates those voters actually produce.

They just want the money and free volunteer labor.

I already wrote about the DNC autopsy report as a leadership issue, and I’ll link to that here. But the deeper pattern is the same. The institution’s first instinct is often self-protection.

Again, that is not progress.

That is preservation.

The Establishment Liberals Are Not the Party of Change

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This is the core of it.

The modern Democratic establishment has become conservative in practice, even while remaining liberal in branding. It conserves institutions, incumbents, zoning systems, donor relationships, seniority, process, regulatory structures, and procedural norms.

It calls this pragmatism. But for people dealing with housing costs, health care costs, corruption, climate collapse, broken infrastructure, student debt, unaffordable cities, rural decline, corporate power, and democratic backsliding, it looks like managed decline.

When every solution dies in process, that is conservatism.

When every reform gets watered down or financially bloated to protect stakeholders, that is conservatism.

When every new idea gets buried under studies, task forces, and local veto points, that is conservatism.

When new candidates are treated as threats, that is conservatism.

When the party protects incumbents before voters, that is conservatism.

When we talk about the future but preserve the present, that is conservatism.

The Solution

The Democratic Party needs to stop with the bull shit.

We need to build or allow housing, not just talk about affordability.

We need to build or allow clean energy, not just talk about climate.

We need to build or allow transit, not just talk about equity.

We need to allow primary challenges, not treat them like attacks on democracy.

We need to hold party leadership accountable, not hide behind process every time someone asks hard questions.

The Democratic Party can still be the party of the future. But…

Establishment Democratic liberalism has become… weak AF.

It has become too comfortable preserving institutions that are not delivering results.

It has become too comfortable saying the right things while defending systems that prevent those things from happening.

And I think it is time we say that honestly.

The Republican Party is reactionary.

The Democratic establishment is preservationist.

And preservationism is a form of conservatism.

Stay Angry

I got the opportunity to sit down with former Congressman Jim Renacci, who represented Ohio’s 16th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019. Since I ran in roughly the same area he once represented, I wanted to have a real conversation about where Democrats and Republicans can still find common ground in this political environment.

We talked about Congress, fiscal responsibility, Social Security, campaign money, social media, AI, surveillance, Ohio politics, and what has changed since he served in Washington.

I do not agree with Jim on everything, and that was never the point. The point was to have the kind of conversation we need more of: direct, honest, and focused on whether there are still places where people from different political sides can start from the same basic concern.

Common Ground We Found

• Millionaires and billionaires do not need Social Security benefits the same way working people do.

• Social Security should be strengthened and managed more intelligently so the program is there for people who actually rely on it.

• The national debt and deficit are serious problems that both parties avoid dealing with honestly.

• Campaign spending is out of control, and super PACs, corporations, unions, and large outside groups have too much power in elections.

• Both parties have become too rigid, too extreme, and too hostile toward people who think independently.

• Social media has made politics more toxic, more dishonest, and more driven by money and narrative control.

• AI and bots could make future campaigns even more chaotic, deceptive, and difficult to hold accountable.

• Surveillance tools like Flock cameras raise real questions about privacy, public safety, and government overreach.

• Voters should care more about candidate quality than party labels.

• Democrats and Republicans can still have serious conversations when the goal is solving problems instead of scoring points.

  ---

Timestamped Section Summary

00:00 - 05:10

Introduction, Renacci’s Background, and the State of the Republican Party

The conversation begins with Jim Renacci’s background as a former congressman, mayor of Wadsworth, Senate candidate, and gubernatorial primary candidate. Renacci explains that he is currently out of elected politics but still involved in public issues.

The discussion quickly turns to the current state of the Republican Party, party loyalty, and Renacci’s concern that the GOP has moved away from fiscal conservatism and toward populism.

05:10 - 16:50

Fiscal Responsibility, Debt, and Social Security Reform

Matt and Renacci discuss the federal deficit, national debt, mandatory spending, and the long-term pressure on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest payments.

Renacci argues that politicians in both parties avoid the real drivers of the debt. The first major area of agreement comes when both discuss the idea that millionaires and billionaires do not need Social Security benefits and that the program should be strengthened for people who actually depend on it.

They also discuss whether Social Security funds should be managed more intelligently instead of being left in low-return investments.

16:50 - 23:25

Finding the Political Middle

The conversation turns to whether there is still room for Reagan Republicans, Clinton Democrats, Obama Democrats, blue-dog Democrats, independents, and fiscally responsible voters to find common ground.

Renacci argues that Congress has changed dramatically and that members are now punished more quickly for disagreeing with their party. Matt connects this to the broader problem of both parties pushing out independent thinking and discouraging debate.

23:25 - 33:35

Ohio Politics, Independents, and Candidate Quality

Matt and Renacci discuss whether Democrats can become competitive again in Ohio, especially with blue-collar, manufacturing, rural, and independent voters.

They also talk about Amy Acton, Vivek Ramaswamy, Sherrod Brown, Jon Husted, Max Miller, Mike DeWine, and the role of independent voters in deciding statewide races. The section also covers whether personal scandals still matter in modern politics and whether voters now prioritize party control over character issues.

33:35 - 45:20

Money in Politics, Citizens United, and Social Media

The conversation shifts to Citizens United, super PACs, unions, corporations, and outside spending.

Renacci says he supported Citizens United as a First Amendment issue, but also believes the system has gone too far. Matt frames campaign finance limits as another area of possible agreement, and Renacci agrees that outside political spending needs serious limits.

They then discuss social media, false narratives, attack ads, AI, bots, and how campaigns are increasingly shaped by money, algorithms, and misinformation.

45:20 - 57:30

The Cost of Running, Party Endorsements, and Broken Primaries

Matt pushes on the idea that the modern campaign system has become dystopian because candidates need money not only to run, but to defend themselves from lies.

The conversation moves into party endorsement systems, local party control, and how both Democrats and Republicans often anoint preferred candidates instead of letting voters fully decide. Renacci argues that voters need to care more about whether candidates are qualified, not just whether they have the right party label.

57:30 - 01:04:45

AI, Data Centers, Surveillance, and American Competitiveness

Matt and Renacci discuss AI, data centers, job displacement, and whether the country is prepared for how fast technology is moving.

The conversation also covers Flock cameras and surveillance. Renacci says the issue is not only whether surveillance can help with safety, but whether the purpose expands over time into something more dangerous.

They also discuss taxes, regulation, tariffs, and whether the U.S. is creating an environment where businesses can compete globally.

01:04:45 - 01:09:06

Stock Trading, Foreign Policy, and Closing Common Ground

The final section covers stock trading in Congress, insider information, executive branch influence over markets, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and foreign policy risk.

The conversation closes by returning to the larger point: Democrats and Republicans still have issues they can talk about seriously, especially fiscal responsibility, money in politics, social media, AI, and the health of American democracy.

This summary was transcribed and written with the assistance of AI based on the original recorded conversation. It has been edited for clarity, readability, and structure.

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Plenty of people are talking about that. They are going to pick apart the findings, the mistakes, the omissions, the spelling errors, the factual problems, the issues it did not address, and whether it actually tells Democrats anything useful about what went wrong in 2024.

But that is NOT the real issue here.

The real issue is leadership.

And the sooner Democrats understand that this is a leadership issue, not a report-content issue, the faster we can move into the midterms with some actual clarity about what the hell is going wrong inside this party.

Ken Martin Created This Problem

Ken Martin campaigned to become DNC chair by talking about transparency. He talked about 2016. He talked about how the DNC needed to release the 2016 autopsy report so the party could understand its mistakes, learn from them, and be honest with the people inside the party.

Then he won.

After winning, he commissioned the 2024 autopsy report with the full expectation, at least from a lot of people, that it would be released. That expectation was not created out of nowhere. It came from the way he talked about transparency. It came from the way he framed the need for an autopsy.

But then the report became a problem.

By now, it is well known that he enlisted someone close to him to do the report, and the final product was apparently not up to par. It had spelling errors. It had factual problems. It failed to touch on major issues Democrats were actually talking about. It did not seriously engage with some of the concerns younger voters and other constituencies were raising.

(If you want to read about the autopsy report, click the below from )

The Whisper Campaign

The Report the DNC Didn’t Want you to Read

I have spent this series arguing one thing about endorsements. The danger is not the act of endorsing itself. The danger is the race to define the choice early, before voters engage, so a small group settles the outcome and calls the result inevitable. I called it a cartel. The word underneath is corruption, and it runs through everything the report des…

Read more

18 days ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Laura Rodriguez-Carbone

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So instead of saying, “This report was sloppy, I take responsibility, and I am going to commission a better one,” Martin decided not to release it.

Then came the explanations.

It was “death by a thousand cuts.” It was not one issue. The party would use the report internally. The DNC was going to learn from it and get better for 2026.

And honestly, I understood that argument.

I even said in a video (below) that while he never should have created the expectation that the report would be released, there was a reasonable argument for holding it close if the report was going to create more infighting than clarity. If the report was incomplete, sloppy, or not useful, then maybe releasing it would just make the party look even more dysfunctional.

So I was not against keeping it internal.

But then he released it anyway.

The Problem

Some people are praising Martin for transparency now that the report has been released.

I am not.

Because the problem is not simply whether the report was released. The problem is the decision-making that got us here.

First, this showed nepotism inside the party. He hired someone close to him to do an important job, and that job apparently was not done well. That alone is a problem. If the report was haphazard, sloppy, incomplete, or factually weak, then Martin should have owned that. He should have said the work was not good enough, taken responsibility, and commissioned a serious replacement.

He did not do that.

Second, he ran on transparency and then failed to follow through when transparency became inconvenient. That is not ideal, but it is also not uncommon in politics. People say one thing when they want power, then do something else once they have it.

Third, he kept changing the explanation. He told people why he was not releasing it. He framed it as an internal tool. He tried to manage the backlash. Then he reversed himself and released it anyway.

Fourth, and this is the part that really gets me, the DNC then tried to distance itself from the report with disclaimers saying the party does not stand behind it.

Well, if you do not stand behind it, why the fuck did you release it?

That is not transparency. That is fear. That is a leadership team trying to do everything at once and somehow making every option worse.

If the report was good, release it and stand behind it.

If the report was bad, own the mistake and replace it.

If the report was incomplete, say that.

But do not hide it, defend hiding it, release it later, and then tell everyone not to take it too seriously.

That is exactly the kind of weak, incoherent leadership people are tired of.

Pod Save America

The Party Has a Leadership Problem

There are three major issues here.

First is lack of leadership. The party is being damaged by people who do not have bold ideas, clear direction, or the ability to unify through policy and action. Instead, too often, they try to unify through fear, pressure, and force. They tell people the stakes are too high to ask questions. They tell people criticism is dangerous. They tell people to fall in line because the alternative is worse.

That might work for one election cycle. It does not build a durable party.

The second issue is moral clarity. This situation would not have played out this way if the Democratic Party actually had moral clarity about what it stands for, what it wants to run on, and how it plans to lead. A party with an ideological foundation can take criticism. It can commission a report. It can read the findings. It can admit mistakes. It can explain what comes next.

A party without that foundation flails.

It panders. It gaslights. It hides. It leaks. It spins. It releases a report and then distances itself from the report it released.

That is not strength. That is weakness.

The third issue is the disconnect from the people. Voters care about issues. They care about whether the party understands their lives. They care about cost of living, corruption, housing, jobs, health care, war, democracy, corporate power, and whether anyone in leadership is actually listening.

But right now, too much of the Democratic Party is stuck in a branding war.

You see Democrats reaching for tough-guy personas to show white male voters that they are just like them. Tim Walz pulls an air filter out of his car to show he understands engines. Graham Platner is the oyster farmer. Others try to present themselves as rugged, working-class, no-nonsense guys.

But if the party thinks it can win with image instead of policy, people are going to see through that shit.

People do not want cosplay. They want a party that knows what it believes and can actually fight for it.

The Autopsy Is a Symptom

Confidence in the Democratic Party is in the garbage. Approval ratings are in the toilet. People are frustrated, disillusioned, and tired that the only plan is “Trump bad, Republicans bad, GOP bad.”

Again, all of those criticisms may be true. But that is not a governing vision.

That is not an ideological foundation.

The problem is not the autopsy report. The problem is all the decisions that led to this moment. The nepotism. The gaslighting. The sloppy work. The bad judgment. The media tour explaining why the report would not be released. The reversal. The disclaimers. The backtracking. The fact that the party somehow managed to make itself look worse at every stage.

This is not about the contents of the report.

This is about leadership.

It is about a Democratic Party that too often tries to create loyalty through fear instead of trust. It is about a party that tries to force unity instead of earning it. It is about a party that talks about being a big tent while punishing internal disagreement, ignoring grassroots frustration, and failing to build around clear Democratic populist ideas.

That is the hill I will die on.

We can do better.

We should do better.

And people are absolutely sick of being told that asking for better means they are hurting the party.

The Solution

The Democratic Party needs leadership that can be honest without panicking.

If the party commissions a report and the report is bad, say it is bad. If the process was flawed, admit the process was flawed. If someone made a bad hiring decision, own it. If the party needs to start over, start over. That is leadership.

The party also needs moral clarity. Democrats need to stop trying to brand their way out of an identity crisis and start building around actual policy, actual accountability, and actual economic and democratic reform. The party needs to stand for something people can understand without needing a consultant to explain it.

And finally, the party needs to reconnect with the people it claims to represent. Not by focus-grouping toughness. Not by pretending a photo op is a worldview. Not by hiding behind Trump every time someone asks what Democrats actually believe.

People want a party that listens, learns, fights, and tells the truth.

This autopsy mess showed the opposite.

That is why this matters.

Not because of the report itself.

Because of what the report revealed about the people leading the party.

Stay Angry

Thomas Massie just lost his Republican primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger. President Trump’s endorsed candidates dominated across several races, and Massie’s loss showed, once again, how tightly Trump controls the Republican Party.

But this is bigger than one Republican primary in Kentucky.

I do not have to agree with Massie on every issue to see the warning. He was one of the few Republicans willing to break with his party, question power, push uncomfortable issues, and refuse to be a rubber stamp. He supported releasing the Epstein files. He questioned government surveillance. He challenged his own side when he thought they were wrong. He took positions that did not always fit neatly inside party loyalty.

And now he is gone.

I do not know if Massie was the canary in the coal mine, or if the mine had already collapsed and crushed the canary.

That should bother Democrats. Not because Massie was one of us. It should bother us because it shows what happens when party loyalty replaces independent thought. It shows what happens when asking questions becomes an act of betrayal.

I do not want that for the Democratic Party.

I am a Democrat because I believe this party can still be the party of accountability, transparency, working people, civil rights, democracy, and actual public service. I believe the Democratic Party can be the party that takes the hard questions seriously instead of running from them. But that only happens if we are willing to have the conversations that party insiders, consultants, donors, and power brokers would sometimes rather avoid.

These conversations should not be controversial.

Releasing the Epstein files should not be controversial. Banning congressional stock trading should not be controversial. Questioning surveillance should not be controversial. Asking whether representatives should serve their constituents instead of their president, their party, their donors, or their leadership should not be controversial. Saying no more forever wars should not be controversial.

But somehow, it is.

That is why The Angry Democrat exists.

This is not about tearing down the Democratic Party. It is about making sure the Democratic Party does not become a place where independent thought gets punished, where internal criticism gets labeled disloyal, and where difficult conversations are buried because they make people uncomfortable.

We can still be Democrats and ask hard questions.

We can still support the party and demand better from it.

We can still fight Republicans in November while also refusing to ignore corruption, insider politics, and institutional rot.

, along with , exists to keep these conversations alive.

Your support helps me keep covering national Democratic politics, local Northeast Ohio races, party operations, campaign finance, corruption, and the issues that too often get ignored until it is too late.

If you believe the Democratic Party should be strong enough to handle scrutiny, honest enough to confront its own problems, and serious enough to have the hard conversations before the cave-in comes for us too, please consider supporting this work.

We need clarity heading into 2026 and 2028.

We need courage.

We need a Democratic party for the people and the USA.

Please support The Angry Democrat.

Stay Angry.

Not that I even want to be invited. What I am saying is that this looks like a massive cluster of self-enrichment, conflicts of interest, insider access, and institutional corruption. And at some point, I have to wonder how much longer people can keep pretending they do not see it.

This is not just some niche ethics story for political nerds. Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication found that government corruption was the top public worry in the United States, with 54% of Americans saying they were very worried about it, ahead of the cost of living at 48% and the economy at 47%.

So when people say voters do not care about corruption, I think that is bullshit. They do care. They may not always use the same language. They may not follow every disclosure filing. They may not know what an OGE Form 278-T is (The OGE Form 278-T or, Periodic Transaction Report, is a mandatory federal ethics form used by senior government officials to disclose financial transactions, such as the purchase, sale, or exchange of securities). But they know the system feels rigged. They know the people in power seem to get richer while everyone else gets told to tighten their belt.

And they are not wrong.

This Is Not Just a Trump Problem

Democrats are going to use Trump’s financial disclosures as more proof that Trump is corrupt and in office for self-enrichment. Of course he is!!!!! I have written about that plenty of times, and I think the evidence keeps stacking up. Read about it below.

But this turns into party politics way too quickly when the bigger issue is that this is a uniparty of corruption. The rot is not limited to one side.

Nancy Pelosi defended members of Congress being allowed to trade stocks by saying, “We’re a free-market economy. They (congress) should be able to participate in that.”

Mike Johnson has also pumped the brakes on banning congressional stock trading, arguing that a ban could discourage good people from running for office, even after previously saying he supported a ban because of the “appearance of impropriety.”

So there it is.

Different parties. Different speakers. Same basic posture.

Congress needs to get the bag. Members need to be able to make money. Do not make public office too restrictive. Do not scare away “good people.” Let them participate in the markets.

And what does that really mean?

It means the people running the government are allowed to use proximity to power, policy, regulation, classified briefings, committee work, agency relationships, and insider timing to get filthy rich, while lying to the rest of us that it is just normal investing.

That is fucking insane.

Should Congress Be Paid More? That Does Not Mean They Should Trade Stocks

I want to be clear about something because I have said this before and I still believe it.

Congress should probably be paid more. Their salaries have lost spending power. Many members have to live in two places. They are supposed to represent hundreds of thousands of people. And if we want ordinary people to be able to serve, we should make public service financially realistic.

Mike Johnson has a point there.

But that is a different argument from letting members of Congress trade individual stocks while they are shaping the rules of the economy. Those are not the same thing.

Pay Congress more if that is the problem. Create housing allowances if that is the problem. Reform the size of the House if that is the problem. Hell, maybe we should revisit what representation is supposed to look like when one member of Congress represents far too many people and the whole thing has become completely detached from the original constitutional scale.

But do not tell me the answer is letting elected officials trade stocks while they have access to information, influence, and policy levers that regular Americans will never touch.

NOW the Executive Branch Is in the Game Too

And now, with Trump’s latest disclosures, we are not just talking about Congress anymore. We are talking about the executive branch.

Reuters reported that President Trump disclosed at least $220 million in financial transactions involving U.S. corporate securities during the first quarter of 2026, with the disclosure range putting the total as high as around $750 million. Let me repeat that for everyone in the back. THE FIRST QUARTER

Now, the Trump Organization says these holdings are managed through fully discretionary accounts controlled by third-party financial institutions, and that Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization do not select, direct, approve, or get advance notice of individual investment decisions.

But I keep coming back to the same standard I have written about before.

In the judicial world, there is this old ethics principle that a judge should avoid not only impropriety, but also the appearance of impropriety. The U.S. Courts’ Code of Conduct says an appearance of impropriety exists when reasonable minds, knowing the relevant facts, would conclude that a judge’s honesty, integrity, impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve is impaired.

Even if Trump’s portfolio was technically managed by outside brokers, a president holding and trading hundreds of millions of dollars in securities tied to companies affected by his own administration creates a massive appearance-of-impropriety problem.

Trump Has Monetized the White House

Donald Trump has monetized the White House in a way that is almost too obvious to even describe without sounding ridiculous.

It feels like he brought in a team to walk through the entire federal government and asked: Where are the products? What can we sell? What can be branded? What can be routed through a family-connected business? What can be turned into a financial instrument? What can be converted into access?

Crypto. Stablecoins. Executive orders. Pardons. Foreign policy. Regulatory capture. Government contracts. Military leverage. Public statements. White House events. Everything is a storefront.

And now people are looking at the timing of public statements, policy decisions, and stock positions and asking the obvious question.

Is this all coincidence?

We should not have to ask whether the president is governing for the country or trading around the country.

p.s. I will answer that question for you. No. No it isn’t coincidence.

This Is a Democratic AND Republican Crisis.
No. Actually, this is a democracy and the republic crisis.

This is not a left-right issue. It is not just Trump. It is not just Pelosi. It is not just Mike Johnson. It is not just congressional stock trading. It is not just the executive branch.

It is a crisis of whether representative government still represents the people, or whether it has become a wealth machine for insiders.

It is a crisis when members of Congress trade stocks while sitting on committees that affect industries.

It is a crisis when party leaders defend the right to trade because lawmakers supposedly need more money.

It is a crisis when the president’s financial disclosures show hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions tied to companies affected by the government he runs.

It is a crisis when the public looks at all of this and knows, correctly, that if a normal person did anything even remotely similar inside their job, they would be fired, investigated, or both.

Government officials are using the will of the people, taxpayer dollars, the United States military, foreign policy, and the economic might of this country to benefit a very small group of people. Their friends. Their donors. Their business partners. Their families. Themselves.

That is corruption.

And I am sick of people acting like it is only corruption when the other party does it.

The Solution

The solution should be simple.

Ban members of Congress, presidents, vice presidents, cabinet officials, senior executive branch officials, judges, Supreme Court justices, and their spouses from trading individual stocks while in office.

Require real blind trusts, diversified mutual funds, or divestment where necessary. Ban government officials from holding individual securities in companies they regulate, contract with, subsidize, investigate, rule on, appoint people to oversee, or publicly promote.

And stop pretending disclosure is enough.

Disclosure is not accountability. Disclosure is not prevention. Disclosure is not ethics. Disclosure is just the public getting to see the receipt after the insiders already made the trade.

If elected officials think they cannot survive on their salary without trading around their own power, then raise the salary and close the loophole. Or… wait for it… live pay check to pay check like 60% of the USA!

Do not use underpayment as an excuse for legalized corruption. If you are making policy that moves markets, you should not be personally trading in those markets.

And maybe this is where people need to start thinking bigger. There is no direct national citizen petition that can force a constitutional amendment by itself. A citizen-led campaign could pressure Congress, pressure state legislatures, force candidates to take a position, organize state-level ballot efforts where allowed, and build the kind of public demand that makes this impossible to ignore. Maybe we need to collect signatures across country.

Check out & https://integrityindex.us

This is not just unethical. It is a national security issue. A government that normalizes corruption can be bought, bent, manipulated, and redirected away from the people it is supposed to serve.

So we can keep pretending this is just politics, or we can admit the whole damn system is infected. Federal and Local.

Stay Angry

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I received this comment from a frustrated Democrat who feels politically homeless inside their own party.

And honestly, I think a lot of people feel the same way right now.

There are plenty of Democrats who still believe in the core values the party claims to stand for.

But they’re increasingly frustrated with the structure, operations, money, insider politics, and top-down control that have taken over so much of the process.

That’s why we’re building &

Not to abandon the party. To fight for it. To push it to be better. To hold it accountable.

Because if we don’t, who will?

We cannot play the same game and think we will get different results.

Your support helps fund not only , but also and our coverage of national Democratic politics and Northeast Ohio political news.

If this mission resonates with you, please consider subscribing and supporting our work into the midterms.

Thank you all! And…

Stay Angry

- Matt

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And we are watching it happen right now in real time.

We are seeing it in cryptocurrency. We are seeing it in AI. And after watching the All In podcast the other day, where David Sacks (Trump’s A.I. Czar) basically screamed for everyone to pay attention, I think this needs to be said plainly. Because the trick here is not subtle once you understand the playbook.

First, you amplify the problem.

Then you present yourself as the responsible actor.

Then you fund the politics around the problem.

Then you help write the rules.

Then the rules just so happen to favor the companies already big enough to comply.

That is regulatory capture.

And right now, Anthropic is giving us a case study.

Step One: Create the Fear, Then Offer the Cure

For AI companies to move into Washington and ask for regulation, there has to be a problem. And to be clear, there are real problems. People are worried about AI for legitimate reasons. They are worried about jobs, water use, electricity use, data centers, farmland, privacy, deepfakes, national security, and whether these companies are building something society cannot control.

Those concerns are not fake. People are right to be concerned.

But this is where the manipulation starts. A company can take real public concern, amplify it, wrap itself in responsibility, and then show up in Washington saying, “Please regulate us before something terrible happens.”

That sounds altruistic. It sounds like an industry is finally taking responsibility.

But…

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has become one of the loudest AI doom voices in the industry. He has warned about massive white-collar job losses. He has talked about unemployment spikes. He has warned about AI writing most code. He has raised concerns about civilization-level threats, biological weapons, autonomous weapons, deception, blackmail, and systems that may operate beyond human control.

When the CEO of one of the biggest AI companies spends a lot of time warning the public that AI could be dangerous, and then that same ecosystem starts moving money into politics to shape AI regulation, you should at least stop and ask what the hell is going on.

Because the message is very convenient.

AI is dangerous.
We are the responsible ones.
The government must act.
We are here to help write the solution.

That is the first step.

Step Two: Build the Political Machine

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Once the fear is established, the next step is political money.

Enter the Jobs and Democracy PAC, funded by Anthropic. According to the information I am working from, Anthropic put $20 million into this PAC, and the PAC recently spent almost $500,000 on TV ads supporting Brian Poindexter in his congressional primary. But a total of $1.3 million in total spend from Jan 1, 2026 (as far as we know).

Now, let’s talk about what a Super PAC does.

Anthropic knows exactly what a Super PAC is. They know it can spend unlimited money promoting candidates. They know this is considered political speech. They also know Super PACs cannot legally coordinate with campaigns.

And that is not just a bug in the system. That is also a very convenient feature.

Because it gives everyone plausible deniability.

The campaign can say, “We cannot control what outside groups do.” The candidate can say, “We are not coordinating with them.” The PAC can say it is independent. The company can say it is supporting “responsible regulation.” And the voters are supposed to pretend all of these walls are made of steel instead of paper.

The second layer is even more important. This is not just any corporate-funded PAC. This is a PAC that can present itself as being for democracy, jobs, and responsible AI regulation. So when people raise concerns about corporate money, the response becomes, “Well, isn’t this good? Don’t we want AI regulated? Don’t we want responsible technology?”

And that is exactly the trap.

Because the regulation being demanded is already being framed by the same industry that benefits from it.

Step Three: Write the Rules Before Anyone Else Understands the Game

Most members of Congress do not understand AI. They do not understand crypto either. They do not understand the technical systems, the market dynamics, the open-source implications, the infrastructure requirements, or the long-term competitive consequences.

That is not even necessarily an insult. These are massive, complicated fields, and Congress deals with everything from agriculture to defense to health care to tax law to foreign policy. Nobody knows everything.

So what happens?

Lobbyists show up.

“Experts” show up.

PAC-funded influence networks show up.

Industry-backed nonprofits show up.

Lobbyists buy million-dollar townhouses in Washington, host events, build relationships, circulate white papers, draft model legislation, and slowly become the people lawmakers rely on to understand the issue.

Then when the time comes to regulate AI, who already has the framework written?

The companies! (lobbyists)

Some lawmakers will listen to Anthropic. Some will listen to OpenAI. Some will listen to Google. Some will listen to xAI. Some will listen to whoever has the best relationships, the best lobbyists, the best events, or the most money moving around the political system.

And then the rules start to take shape.

On the surface, they will sound reasonable. They always do. Testing requirements. Licensing. Know-your-customer systems. Safety reviews. Registration. Reporting. Compliance departments. Liability rules. Security audits.

Again, I am not saying every one of those ideas is bad.

But ask who can afford them.

Who can hire the lawyers? Who has the congressional friends? Who can build the compliance teams? Who can survive years of regulatory process? Who can meet complicated federal requirements? Who can lobby for technical language that looks neutral but just happens to crush open-source competitors and smaller startups?

The biggest companies can.

That is the moat.

The Rockefeller Lesson

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This is why the analogy on All In was so useful. He laid out a thought experiment about John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Rockefeller was one of the most ruthless monopolists in American history, but Sacks makes the point that Rockefeller was terrible at public relations.

So imagine if he had been better at it.

Imagine if Rockefeller had not called his company Standard Oil. Imagine he called it Safe Oil. Imagine he went around warning everyone that kerosene was dangerous. Which, of course, it was. It could light your house, burn it down, torch a city, or be used to make a bomb.

Then imagine Rockefeller calling for a government agency to regulate kerosene safety. Testing. Licensing. Common-sense standards. Rules for wick thickness. Rules against dangerous independent refiners. A whole debate over what makes oil safe.

People would have gotten lost in the debate over safety while missing the real move. Rockefeller would have been building the richest, most powerful monopoly in history under the moral cover of protecting the public.

That is the point.

A company can be right about danger and still be using that danger to eliminate competition.

That is what people need to understand.

Competition Is the Threat They Actually Fear

Companies do not like competition. Big companies especially do not like open-source competition. Digital companies do not like open ecosystems when closed ecosystems make more money. They want users trapped inside their products, their models, their platforms, their APIs, their pricing structures, and their rules.

Open-source AI is a threat to that. Smaller startups are a threat to that. Independent developers are a threat to that. Competitive markets are a threat to that.

So if you are a massive AI company, what is the best way to stop them?

You do not say, “Please ban our competitors because we would like to become a monopoly.” That would be too obvious.

You say, “This technology is dangerous, and we need serious safety rules.”

Then you help define the rules.

Then those rules require compliance systems that only a few companies can afford.

Then the small companies die. The open-source models get squeezed. The independents get buried under red tape. And the largest companies carve up the industry as they see fit.

That is regulatory capture.

And that is why David Sacks, (remember, he is the Czar of AI & Crypto for the Trump administration) was warning that if Anthropic continues on its current trajectory, it could become one of the most powerful monopolies ever created. He also pointed directly at anti-competitive behavior.

The Political Trick

This is why I keep coming back to the money in these races.

A lot of people hear that a corporate-backed PAC supports AI regulation and think, “Well, that sounds good.” They hear that the PAC cannot coordinate with the candidate and think, “Well, then it is separate.” They hear that the company is worried about AI safety and think, “Well, maybe they are being responsible.”

But that is how the whole structure works.

The company amplifies the fear.

The company funds the political vehicle.

The political vehicle supports candidates.

The candidates can deny coordination.

The PAC can claim moral purpose.

The public gets told the whole thing is about safety.

Then the industry helps write the regulations that determine who survives.

That is not fucking benign. That is not some innocent little civic engagement project. That is a complete fucking manipulation.

And yes, people will say, “But we need regulation.”

Fine. I agree.

But regulation written by whom? For whose benefit? With whose money? With whose lobbyists in the room? With which competitors excluded? With which open-source projects crushed? With which candidates supported along the way?

Those are the questions.

This Is How Power Works

The entire point of this is not that AI should be unregulated. The point is that we need to understand how regulation can be used as a weapon.

If we are not careful, we are going to wake up in a world where a handful of AI companies wrote the rules for everyone else, crushed open competition, trapped users inside closed systems, and then told us they did it all for our own safety.

Create the problem, or amplify it.
Present yourself as the responsible adult.
Fund the politics.
Write the rules.
Kill the competition.
Call it safety.

That is why this matters. And that is why we cannot just shrug and say, “Well, they support regulation, so it must be fine.”

Because sometimes the most dangerous power grab does not come from the company saying regulation is bad.

Sometimes it comes from the company saying, “Please regulate us.”

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A year later, the district ceased to exist.

What replaced it became, almost immediately, a national joke. The new 7th sprawled across five counties — Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Berks, and Lancaster — connected by passages so narrow that at one point, in King of Prussia, the entire district squeezed through a strip of land barely wider than the parking lot of a steakhouse called Creed’s Seafood and Steaks. The Washington Post named it one of the ten most gerrymandered districts in America. The shape was widely compared to a Disney cartoon: Goofy kicking Donald Duck.

The lines were not random. They cracked Pennsylvania’s fifth-largest city, Reading — one of the poorest urban communities in the country — across multiple districts, pairing its voters with Lancaster County farmers and rural Chester County landowners. The purpose was to dilute the Democratic-leaning voters of Delaware County by pairing them with enough rural Republican territory in four other counties that the aggregate vote in the new 7th would come out Republican by a comfortable margin — regardless of how strongly the people in Delaware County voted. Their votes still counted. The map ensured they would be outnumbered.

It worked. Meehan won the new 7th with 60 percent of the vote in 2012, 62 percent in 2014, and 60 percent again in 2016. He never faced a competitive primary. He never faced a competitive general election. From the moment the new lines were enacted until he resigned in 2018 amid a sexual harassment settlement scandal, the seat was effectively uncontested — not because Delaware County had stopped being purple, but because the map guaranteed that whoever the Republican primary chose would win the general.

This is how a district disappears. The people who lost were not the Democratic Party — which survived 2012, 2014, and 2016 without difficulty. The people who lost were the residents of PA-7 themselves, Republican and Democrat and unaffiliated, whose representative no longer needed to listen to them because the map had decided he didn’t have to. The same arrangement, drawn by Democrats in Illinois, produces the same result for voters in the packed Republican districts there. The party machinery on either side survives. The voters do not.

The story of how this happened begins not in Pennsylvania but in a Republican strategist’s reading of the New York Times.

The Plan

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In early 2009, Chris Jankowski, executive director of the Republican State Leadership Committee, came across an article noting that 2010 would be a census year. The next round of state legislative elections would determine who controlled congressional redistricting for the entire decade. Jankowski did the arithmetic. Eighteen state legislative chambers, he later said, had partisan margins of four seats or fewer. Those chambers, in those states, would decide American politics until at least 2022.

The plan he developed was called REDMAP. It identified 107 state legislative races in 16 states — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Florida as priority targets — with a fundraising goal of roughly $30 million. Trivial in federal politics; enormous in down-ballot races where a few hundred thousand dollars could swing an outcome. In March 2010, Karl Rove published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal endorsing the strategy. Its subhead read: He who controls redistricting can control Congress.

In Pennsylvania, REDMAP spent close to a million dollars on three state House races and won all three. Combined with the 2010 Republican wave, Republicans flipped the Pennsylvania House and the governorship while holding the Senate — unified control of all three for the second consecutive redistricting cycle, this time with the strategic infrastructure to lock the new maps in place. The wave alone might have produced the same legislative majorities. What REDMAP added was the second prong: lawyers, mapping software, and operatives ready to draw districts that would survive future waves. Waves recede. Maps do not.

Drawing Pennsylvania’s new congressional map happened largely behind closed doors. The legislature’s Republican leadership released a redistricting bill in September 2011 that contained no map at all, only placeholder language. The actual map appeared in mid-December and was approved by the state Senate on a 26-24 party-line vote. Democratic state Senator Vincent Hughes pointed out the design. Of Pennsylvania’s eighteen U.S. House districts, both plans would give Democrats roughly four safe seats. But the Republican plan would produce twelve safe Republican seats and just two genuinely competitive districts. The Democratic alternative would have produced eight safe Republican seats and six competitive ones. Even the Democratic counter-plan favored Republicans. The Republican plan was different in kind — not designed to give Republicans a majority, but to eliminate competition.

The pattern that followed vindicated the design. Through this period, Pennsylvania had roughly a 10-point Democratic registration advantage. Across 2012, 2014, and 2016, Republicans held 13 of Pennsylvania’s 18 House seats — a 72 percent share, year after year, in a state Hillary Clinton lost by less than one percentage point and Obama carried twice. The single most revealing year was 2012. Pennsylvania that November reelected Obama by more than five points, reelected Democratic Senator Bob Casey Jr. by nearly nine, and gave Democratic congressional candidates a majority of votes cast statewide. They received five of eighteen House seats in return.

The Cost

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What this meant for voters inside districts like the 7th was a slow disappearance of representation. Retirees at Kendal-Crosslands, carved out of the 7th into a district whose representative lived an hour away in Lancaster County, told reporters their letters came back as canned form responses on issues they hadn’t raised.

One wrote about health care. The reply thanked them for their interest in deer hunting.

By 2017, with constituent pressure cresting on the Trump administration and the ACA, Meehan declined to hold open in-person town halls, defending tele-town halls as “a very effective way to stay in touch.” Aides screened the questions. There were no follow-ups. A representative whose seat is gerrymandered to win by twenty-plus points has no electoral incentive to face an angry crowd. The crowd cannot remove him. The map has already settled that.

Something else fills the accountability void. In a gerrymandered safe seat, only a primary can remove an incumbent — and corporate money has colonized primaries too, funding incumbents and any challengers who might emerge against them. There is no longer a moment in the electoral cycle where an ordinary voter’s preference reliably determines who represents PA-7. Accountability flows toward the funders. That is not a quid pro quo. It is gravity. Meehan’s largest industry source of contributions over his career was Lawyers and Law Firms. The largest employment sectors for actual PA-7 residents, per the 2012 Census, were Educational Services and Health Care and Social Assistance: teachers, nurses, hospital staff, social workers. The people writing checks to keep him in Washington and the people whose work filled his district were not the same population.

The Court

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The 7th was not undone by an election. It was undone by a state Supreme Court. Gerrymanders are not permanent. They can be reversed.

In June 2017, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania filed a state-court lawsuit alleging the 2011 map violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause. On January 22, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed 5-2, ruling the map a “severe and durable” partisan gerrymander. When the legislature could not produce a remedial plan, the court drew one itself.

The new map was fair. Most of the old 7th became part of a new 5th covering all of Delaware County, and in November 2018, attorney Mary Gay Scanlon won it decisively against Republican Pearl Kim. Across the state, Pennsylvania’s House delegation moved from 13-5 Republican to 9-9. Two cycles later, under another court-drawn map after the 2020 census, the same state elected 10 Republicans and 7 Democrats in 2024. A fair map moves with the voters. A gerrymandered map does not. That is what makes one rigged and the other not.

The catch is that this remedy was specific to Pennsylvania. The federal courts that voters in other states might have used are no longer available — two recent Supreme Court rulings, Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 and Louisiana v. Callais last month, closed the federal pathways for partisan-gerrymandering claims and for most challenges under the Voting Rights Act. That leaves only state court, under a state constitution, in the small number of states with strong enough language and a willing court.

Roughly a dozen states qualify; most states with the worst gerrymanders do not. North Carolina tried this same path in 2022 and won; then Republicans took the state supreme court that fall and reversed the ruling. Pennsylvania got lucky. Most states have not. And the path is itself under attack — the same Republican organization that funded REDMAP in 2010 has spent more than $29 million since 2014 to elect conservative state supreme court justices in the states where the federal door is now closed. We return to that fight in Part 9.

The map did not happen by accident. It was conceived as a strategy, funded as an investment, executed as a campaign, and sustained as a structural advantage. It produced a representative who stopped needing the people he represented because the people who could remove him were elsewhere. Multiply that across roughly 340 congressional districts and hold it for a decade, and you have explained a substantial portion of why the United States Congress no longer responds to majorities of its own voters.

In Part 2, we follow the legal architecture as it was dismantled — from Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, through Citizens United in 2010, through Rucho in 2019, through the Callais decision last month. The law is the second half of the machine.

Stay Angry

Sources — The Rigged Map: Part 1

1. League of Women Voters v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 178 A.3d 737 (Pa. 2018).

2. Daley, David. Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy. W.W. Norton, 2016.

3. Rove, Karl. “He Who Controls Redistricting Can Control Congress.” Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2010.

4. Republican State Leadership Committee. REDMAP post-election analysis, 2012.

5. National Public Radio, Fresh Air. “Understanding Congressional Gerrymandering” — interview with David Daley, June 15, 2016.

6. WBUR, Here & Now. “’Gerrymandering On Steroids’: How Republicans Stacked the Nation’s Statehouses.” July 19, 2016.

7. WHYY. McKelvey, Wallace. “Touring Pa.’s 7th congressional district.” February 2018.

8. Public Interest Law Center. Pennsylvania Redistricting Lawsuit case page.

9. Fair Districts PA. “About Gerrymandering” and “A recent history of the PA Supreme Court’s role in redistricting” (September 13, 2025).

10. Grofman, Bernard, and Jonathan R. Cervas. “Can State Courts Cure Partisan Gerrymandering.” Election Law Journal 17(4) (2018).

11. PBS NewsHour. “GOP gerrymandering creates uphill fight for Dems in the House.” March 31, 2014.

12. Philadelphia Inquirer. “As Trump critics demand an audience, Republicans avoid town halls.” February 18, 2017.

13. Philadelphia Inquirer. “Mary Gay Scanlon wins Pa.’s Fifth Congressional District.” November 7, 2018.

14. OpenSecrets and Ballotpedia. Campaign finance summaries for Patrick Meehan (PA-7), 2010–2018.

15. U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, Pennsylvania Congressional District 7, 2012.

16. Ballotpedia. “Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District” historical pages, 2010–2018.

17. Wikipedia. “Pennsylvania’s 7th congressional district”; “Redistricting in Pennsylvania”; “REDMAP”; “Pat Meehan”; “Mary Gay Scanlon.”

18. Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684 (2019).

19. Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (2026). On the Supreme Court’s gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

20. Slate. “Pennsylvania Just Gave Every State Court a Blueprint to Strike Down Partisan Gerrymandering.” February 2018. On the dozen-plus states with Free and Equal Elections Clauses.

21. State Court Report. Coverage of state supreme court races and partisan composition, 2024–2026. On the North Carolina Supreme Court reversal after the 2022 partisan flip.

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That ruling did not come out of nowhere. It was the latest chapter in a decades-long campaign — planned, funded, and executed with remarkable discipline — to rig the rules of American democracy before most Americans noticed what was happening.

This series is about that campaign. How it was built. How it works. What it has already cost us. And what — if anything — can be done about it.

But before we get into who did what and when, we need to establish something that this series will return to again and again. Because if you walk away from this introduction with one idea, we want it to be this one.

This is not a Republican problem. This is an American problem.

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We will document in this series how Republicans built the modern redistricting machine and used it more aggressively, more systematically, and more effectively than Democrats have. That is not a partisan opinion. It is a documented fact, confirmed by the Brennan Center, by academic researchers at Duke, MIT, and Harvard, and by the Republicans who designed the strategy and wrote about it openly at the time.

But Democrats have done it too. After the 2020 census, Democrats in Illinois redrew their congressional map so aggressively that Republicans were left holding just 3 of 17 seats — in a state where a fair map would have produced roughly 6. That is gerrymandering. It is wrong when Republicans do it in Texas and North Carolina, and it is wrong when Democrats do it in Illinois.

We make this point not to create false equivalence — the scale and coordination of Republican gerrymandering since 2010 has no Democratic parallel — but because the argument that this is simply a team sport, where your side’s gerrymandering is acceptable and theirs is not, is exactly the kind of thinking that has allowed this problem to fester for decades.

Here is the thing that most political coverage gets wrong. Republicans are winning the redistricting war. That is true. But winning implies there are two sides in competition and one is ahead. That framing misses what is actually happening — because the people losing are not Democrats. The people losing are voters. All voters. The scoreboard that matters is not R versus D. It is corporations and wealthy donors on one side, and everyone else on the other. And on that scoreboard, the donors are winning in a landslide — in red districts and blue districts alike.

Think about what a safe seat actually means in practice. A representative in a gerrymandered district does not need to win a competitive general election. The map guarantees the seat. The only thing that can threaten their career is losing a primary — and corporate money has now colonized primaries too. Which means there is no longer any moment in the electoral cycle where an ordinary voter’s preference reliably determines the outcome.

You can see this in the most basic act of democratic accountability: the town hall. Research drawing on more than 23,000 town hall meetings over eight years found that the average representative holds just nine town halls per Congress — and many hold none at all during the two years between elections. In March 2025, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee advised members in a closed-door meeting to stop holding in-person town halls entirely. The House Speaker agreed. Several Texas Republicans replaced public forums with private meetings — not with constituents broadly, but with business owners and stakeholder groups. Not the people who vote for them. The people who fund them.

This is what a safe seat produces. A representative who has stopped needing you. Gerrymandering is the tactic. But voters are the target. All of them.

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Share The Angry Democrat

What this series will show you.

Over ten installments, we are going to take this apart completely — and then show you what can actually be done about it.

We start where the machine started. In Part 1, we go back to 2010 — to REDMAP, to Karl Rove’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, to the $30 million that flipped 20 state legislative chambers and handed Republicans control of the mapmaking process for an entire decade. We document what Democrats were doing instead, and why that failure compounded into the structural disadvantage that persists today.

In Part 2, we follow the legal guardrails as they were dismantled one ruling at a time — from Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, which opened the door to unlimited political spending, through Citizens United in 2010, through Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019, through Callais last month. Each decision narrowed the field of legal recourse available to voters. Together they closed it entirely.

Part 3 draws the full circle — from corporate PAC money to redistricting to policy outcomes. We show, with sourced data, what happens to healthcare legislation, wage policy, gun safety, and environmental regulation in gerrymandered states versus competitive ones. This is where the abstract becomes concrete: what rigged maps actually cost people, in dollars and in lives.

Part 4 is the mathematics. Geographic sorting, the S-curve, the reason a 10-point national wave can produce a 5-seat swing when maps are drawn to absorb it. We draw on research from Duke, MIT, and Harvard to show how the numbers work — and what neutral maps would have produced in Ohio and across the country.

Part 5 covers the technology — the same algorithmic tools that made extreme gerrymandering possible, and the open-source research tools now sitting in university labs that could draw fairer maps than any human legislature has ever produced. This is not a theoretical future. The tools exist. The question is whether voters will demand they be used.

Part 6 maps the battlefield state by state in the post-Callais world — which states are redrawing maps right now, which seats are at risk, and what the floor looks like for Democrats trying to win a House majority against maps explicitly designed to stop them.

Part 7 is the Ohio story in full — redistricting history from 2010 to today, the seven court rejections, the legislature that ignored every one of them, and what the next cycle looks like if nothing changes.

Part 8 is about solutions — what has actually worked, in California, Virginia, Michigan, and elsewhere. Independent commissions. Algorithmic maps. Multi-member districts. The Fair Representation Act. We do not cover solutions that sound good but have no path to implementation. We cover what has moved the needle and why.

Part 9 is the timeline — what Democrats and reform advocates must do in the next four years, before the 2030 census resets the cycle. The 2026 Ohio Supreme Court races. The 2028 seats. The governor’s race. The ballot initiative pathway. Year by year, what the window looks like and how quickly it closes.

And Part 10 is yours. Specific, actionable, and honest about what one person can actually do — whether you live in Ohio or not, whether you have $25 or $2,500, whether you want to donate, organize, vote in a judicial race you’ve never thought about before, or simply understand the fight well enough to explain it to someone else.

The system is rigged. That is not a talking point — it is a documented, litigated, peer-reviewed fact. But it was not rigged against one party. It was rigged against people. Against the nurse in a county that lost its hospital. Against the factory worker whose wages haven’t moved in seventeen years. Against the parent — Republican or Democrat — who wanted their legislature to act and watched it do nothing. Against every voter whose representative stopped showing up the moment the map made the seat safe. The coalition that can fix this is not one party. It is everyone who has noticed that their government no longer works for them. That is a very large number of people. This series is for all of them.

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SOURCES — THE RIGGED MAP: INTRODUCTION

1. Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (2026). Supreme Court of the United States, decided April 29, 2026. supremecourt.gov

2. Kagan, J., dissenting. Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (2026). supremecourt.gov

3. Brennan Center for Justice. Louisiana v. Callais case page. brennancenter.org

4. Rove, Karl. “He Who Controls Redistricting Can Control Congress.” Wall Street Journal, March 2010.

5. Daley, David. Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy. W.W. Norton, 2016.

6. ProPublica. “How Dark Money Helped Republicans Hold the House and Hurt Voters.” propublica.org

7. Republican State Leadership Committee. REDMAP post-election analysis, 2012.

8. Brennan Center for Justice. Analysis of 2024 election maps and Freedom to Vote Act standard. brennancenter.org

9. Clarke, Andrew J. and Daniel Markovits. “Congressional Town Halls and Legislative Effectiveness.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, April 2024. doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12456

10. NBC News. “Republicans advised to avoid in-person town halls after confrontations over layoffs go viral.” March 5, 2025. nbcnews.com

11. Politico. “No more town halls, NRCC chief tells House Republicans.” March 4, 2025. politico.com

12. Axios. “House Republicans told to stop doing in-person town halls.” March 4, 2025. axios.com

13. The Texas Tribune. “Texas Republicans in Congress scaled back town halls during summer recess amid criticism over Trump megabill.” September 5, 2025. texastribune.org

14. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). supremecourt.gov

15. Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). supremecourt.gov

16. Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684 (2019). supremecourt.gov

Congrats to everyone who put their name on the ballot and actually ran. Now we move on to November.

And thank you to everybody who tuned into the live stream last night. Around 80 people popped in, even with the technical difficulties and the original link having to be changed. I know that left some people scrambling to find the stream, so I appreciate everyone who stuck with it.

I streamed for about two and a half hours and went to bed right before the race was officially called for Poindexter. But honestly, by that point, the writing was on the wall. I was already saying on the stream that it looked like it should be called for him.

Some races were over so fast that you barely had time to boot up the computer, log in, find the results page, and pretend there was suspense.

But that is primary night. Sometimes you get a fight. Sometimes you don’t.

So let’s go through the races I was watching and what stood out.

The Statewide Races Were Mostly Blowouts

For governor, it is going to be Vivek Ramaswamy versus Amy Acton in November. Ramaswamy absolutely dominated the Republican primary, beating Casey Putsch, also known as Casey the Car Guy, in a race that was called almost immediately after the polls closed.

I do not think there is some massive insight to pull from that race. Of course, if there is a competitor on the ballot, some people are going to vote for the competitor. That does not mean there was a real movement. That does not mean the party was in trouble.

The Republican-endorsed candidate, who had the endorsement behind him long before the signature deadline, won easily. It was not close.

Sherrod Brown

In the Senate race, it will be Sherrod Brown versus Jon Husted. Brown also had his race called in like 12 minutes after the polls closed, defeating Ron Kincaid in the Democratic primary.

You still have to give people like Ron Kincaid credit for making the attempt. Running is not easy. Putting your name on the ballot is not easy. But this race was never really in doubt.

Ohio’s 7th District Deserves a Deep Dive

Ohio’s 7th District was the number one race on my radar, for obvious reasons.

Brian Poindexter took command of that race once the votes really started coming in. Early on, it looked closer between Poindexter and Ed FitzGerald, but as the night went on, the margin kept growing. Poindexter ended up winning the race with about 37 percent of the vote, beating FitzGerald by around 10,000 votes, followed by Laura Rodriguez-Carbone and Michael Eisner.

This is one of those races that needs a deeper dive. There were a lot of candidates, a lot of perspectives, and honestly, a lot of strong people in the field. The votes were spread all across the ballot, which tells me voters were actually looking, thinking, comparing, and making their own personal decisions.

But in the end, Poindexter dominated.

The Congressional Races Set Up Some Real November Fights

In Ohio’s 11th District, Shontel Brown dominated her primary and will be heading back to Congress. The general election there is more procedure than actual suspense.

HOWEVER, Over in Ohio’s 9th District, Derek Merrin won the Republican primary and will face Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in November. Multiple outlets projected Merrin’s win, setting up a rematch against Kaptur, who has represented the district since 1983 and remains one of the toughest people in Ohio politics to beat.

And yes, I am still calling her the Iron Babushka (I just cant stop laughing about that name from The Rooster).

Republicans poured a lot of money and energy into that primary because they think Kaptur is vulnerable. Derek Merrin won clearly, Josh Williams raised serious money, and Madison Sheahan also had attention around her campaign. But Merrin came out on top, and now Republicans get the matchup they were looking for.

To be perfectly honest, I would still not bet against Marcy Kaptur. I do not care how the district looks on paper. I do not care how much money Republicans raise. I do not care how many times people say this is the year she is finally vulnerable. People have been trying to take her down for a long time, and she is still standing.

The Attorney General and Secretary of State Races

In the attorney general race, Democratic-endorsed candidate John Kulewicz won the nomination and will face Keith Faber in November.

To be perfectly honest, I think Elliot Forhan overperformed statewide. Considering the easily Googleable baggage attached to him, rightfully or wrongfully, I was surprised by how well he did overall. But in Cuyahoga County, where he is more known, he got trounced. That tells you something too. Sometimes familiarity helps. Sometimes familiarity hurts.

The Secretary of State race was the one that surprised me more. Allison Russo beat Bryan Hambley pretty decisively.

That one deserves an autopsy.

Hambley’s support seemed extremely robust. He raised real money. He had grassroots energy. He had people talking. He looked, at least from the outside, like someone who could make the race close or maybe even pull off the upset.

And then he got beat by a lot.

That does not mean the campaign was fake. It does not mean the support was meaningless. But it does mean we need to be honest about the limits of online enthusiasm, grassroots visibility, and fundraising when you are going up against the party-insider candidate. Russo is now headed to November against Robert Sprague, and that race will be one to watch.

Congrats!

Congratulations to everyone who ran. Seriously. Running for office is hard. Putting your name on a ballot is hard. Taking criticism, raising money, knocking doors, answering questions, and asking people to trust you is hard.

And congratulations to the winners who are now moving on to November.

Now it is time for the party to back the Democratic candidates. Ohio is still a heavily gerrymandered state, and these races are still uphill battles. Winning a primary is one thing. Winning in November is something else entirely. There is a lot more work ahead.

Over the next couple of months, we are going to keep analyzing these races. We are going to look at what happened, what worked, what did not, where the money went, where outside spending mattered, where endorsements mattered, and where voters made their own decisions despite all of it. And trust me, we are still going to call balls and strikes when it comes to spending, strategy, messaging, and anything else that happens along the way.

That is the point of The Angry Democrat. It is to make sure the conversation keeps flowing, even when that conversation is uncomfortable, and even when it is about our own party.

But in the meantime...

Stay Angry.

Tonight, I’ll be going live around 7:45 after the polls close.

You can watch at theangrydem.com, theangryohioan.com, or on Facebook, YouTube, and X.

I’m just going to be hanging out, watching the results come in, giving my comments, and maybe having a few guests swing by as the night unfolds.

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Below, I’ll include some resources that may help you before you head to the polls.

Google your county name and “Board of Elections.” Your local board of elections usually has everything you need, including polling locations, sample ballots, candidate lists, and basic voting information.

https://www.waynecountyoh.gov/

https://www.boe.ohio.gov/ashland/

https://www.boe.ohio.gov/medina/

https://boe.cuyahogacounty.gov/

And please, take a few minutes to look at your sample ballot before you go.

Know who is actually running in these races. Do not just walk in and let the first name you recognize make the decision for you.

There are candidate lists available, and Vote411 from the League of Women Voters is another great resource. It can show you polling locations, sample ballots, candidate information, and what you need to bring with you to vote.

It may be raining, so take an umbrella.

The best times to go are usually outside the rush hours.

Avoid before work, lunch, and right after work if you can.

If you go during one of the random slower parts of the day, you will probably be in and out.

And honestly, this is a midterm primary, so it should not be anything like waiting in line during a presidential year.

Also, remember, if you are one of the people that hasn’t mailed in their ballot yet, you need to drive it to the ballot box. You cannot mail it or it will not be counted. It needs to arrive on or before election day

The Statewide Races I’m Watching

The first race I’m watching is the Republican primary for governor.

Vivek Ramaswamy is the endorsed GOP candidate, but Casey Putsch, also known online as Casey the Car Guy, has been getting a lot of support on social media. He has not raised a ton of money, so the question is whether that online energy actually translates into votes.

I do not think the real question is whether Vivek wins. I think the real question is how much he wins by. That margin will tell us something about how real the online grassroots energy around Casey actually was, and the actual popularity of Vivek.

The attorney general race between Elliot Forhan and John Kulewicz. John is the endorsed Democratic candidate, and Elliot has some baggage. I do not know if everybody knows the actual stories behind Elliot Forhan’s baggage, but to be perfectly honest, it seems like some of it was overblown and turned into a smear campaign. He definitely has people who strongly support him, but I do not know if that will be enough to overcome the Democratic endorsement.

See some Elliot news below

The Angry Ohioan

Leave Mom out of this...

I met Matt a few months ago. He reached out after his social media feed had been serving up some of my POWW! Protect Ohio Women at Work videos. I knew Matt’s name because I had heard good things about him as a candidate. We did a fun interview talking about my 13 years as legal counsel to the House Democrats and how it ended with Allison unceremoniously…

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a month ago · 5 likes · Sarah Cherry

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Then there is the Secretary of State race, which is probably the one everyone is paying attention to statewide. Bryan Hambley is running against Allison Russo. Russo is the establishment Democrat, the House Minority Leader, and basically the party’s candidate. Hambley is the grassroots candidate. He has built a strong campaign, raised a hell of a lot of money, and created real energy around his race.

If Brian Hambley wins, it will be considered an upset, but also somehow expected. I know that sounds contradictory, but that is exactly how this race feels. If Allison Russo pulls it off, that will also feel natural because she is the party-backed candidate. But it would also feel a little unnatural because Hambley has clearly built something real.

See my interview with the candidates below

The Angry Ohioan

Russo and Hambley: Two Democrats. One Office. Same Questions.

I recently sat down with former State House Minority Leader Allison Russo and Bryan Hambley. Both are Democrats running for Secretary of State here in Ohio…

Listen now

3 months ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · The Angry Democrat

Northern Ohio Congressional Races

Obviously, I’m watching Ohio’s 7th District. There are eight candidates in this race, and they are going to be splitting up votes like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Ed FitzGerald

Brian Poindexter

Michael Eisner

Scott Schulz

Laura Rodriguez-Carbone,

Ann-Marie Donegan

Keith Mundy

John Butchko

I can see this race going a lot of different ways. There are definitely candidates people consider favorites, but I do not know how far that goes when you have this many people dividing the field. This could be a blowout, or it could be a total toss-up where almost anyone can win.

See my interviews and write ups below

I’m also watching Ohio’s 9th Congressional District Republican primary, which is fascinating.

The incumbent is the Iron Babushka (tm ) herself, Marcy Kaptur. But Republicans are throwing a lot at this seat because they think she may be vulnerable.

Josh Williams, Derek Merrin, Alea Nadeem, Madison Sheahan, and Charles Kinsel are all in the mix.

And they are raising serious money. Williams has raised around $800,000. Merrin has raised around $760,000. Nadeem has raised around $700,000. They are fighting like hell over there because they think this is their shot.

To be perfectly honest, I would not bet against Marcy Kaptur no matter what the political landscape looks like or how much money Republicans raise.

Derek Merrin may be the favorite to win the primary, but Josh Williams has raised more money, and Nadeem could possibly slide in if the others split votes.

Who knows, maybe one of the other candidates catches just enough support to squeak through. It is almost like Ohio’s 7th District, but for Republicans.

Share The Angry Democrat

Ohio’s 14th District is another one I’m paying attention to. On the Republican side, Nicole Frenchko is to primary David Joyce. It ain’t gonna happen, but she is out there.

On the Democratic side, Maria Jukic, Carl Setzer, and Bill O’Neill are competing for the nomination. What surprised me most is how little money has been raised in that race. Maria is the top fundraiser with only about $21,000. Carl has around $13,000. Bill O’Neill did not raise anything. I do not know if the plan was just to win the primary without fundraising, but considering the year Democrats may have, I expected a lot more money to go into that race.

See my interviews below

The Angry Ohioan

Ohio’s 14th District: Three Democrats, Three Very Different Visions

Hey everyone, Matt Diemer here, The Angry Democrat…

Listen now

2 months ago · 3 likes · The Angry Democrat

The Local Races That I am Looking Forward To

Moving into the local races, there are a few statehouse races I’m watching closely.

House District 18 is one of them. Gabe Crenshaw, Samuel Gruber, Peter Hoffman, and Davida Russell are all competing for the Democratic nomination. That is a race worth watching because these local primaries are where the future of the party actually gets shaped, whether people want to admit it or not.

House District 19 is another big one. Dionna Gore, Cheryl Perez, and Nicole Sigurdson are all competing for the Democratic nomination. Nicole is the endorsed candidate in that race, but I would not count out Dionna or Cheryl. Nicole has been carrying some baggage that I do not think she has fully shaken, and that has rallied a lot of people against her.

There is also a Democratic write-in candidate in House District 19, Azaadjeet Singh. To be perfectly honest, I did not know about him until he texted me a couple days ago, but I wish him well.

State Senate District 21 is also interesting to me. Kent Smith, the incumbent, is facing Dolores Gray Ford. I watched their League of Women Voters forum, and you can read my write-up in the link below. It should go without saying that Kent Smith, being the incumbent, is also the endorsed candidate.

Read my LWV roundup below

The Angry Ohioan

Ohio’s 21st State Senate District: League of Women Voters Forum

Does a Good Communicator Make a Good Legislator…

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2 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · The Angry Democrat

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County Council Races to Watch

Cuyahoga County Council Districts 3 and 11.

In County Council District 3, incumbent Martin J. Sweeney is facing Anise Mayo. I do not think this is going to be much of a competition. I expect Sweeney to run away with it. But trust me, I love surprises.

County Council District 11 is much more interesting. Shirley Smith, Ebony Spano, and Christine McIntosh are all running for the seat, and there was no endorsement in that race. I have met each of them on multiple occasions, and I think this is going to be a very interesting race to watch once the results start coming in.

Tonight, We Watch the Results

Again, I’ll be going live around 7:45 after the polls close to watch the results come in. You can watch at theangrydem.com, theangryohioan.com, or on Facebook, X, and YouTube.

Make a plan.

Look up your polling location.

Check your sample ballot. Know who is running.

Bring an umbrella if it is raining.

Vote.

And, Stay Angry.

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I recorded every episode on VHS. I would sit there stopping and starting the tape so I could cut out the commercials, and I honestly do not think I missed more than a couple episodes during the entire run of the series. My dad kept those tapes for a long time, until my late 30’s, until eventually we realized you could just buy the whole series on DVD, download it, or stream it like a normal person. But that process, looking back, was part of the obsession. It was part of the ritual. It was part of loving something before everything was available instantly.

Star Trek is deep in my heart. A lot of people may not know this about me, but I am a big nerd. Science, philosophy, sci-fi, all of it. I did not just watch Star Trek. One of my favorite classes in college was Philosophy and Star Trek, taught by Dr. Kathy Ferguson, who later became my thesis mentor. I wanted to write about Kantian philosophy in Star Trek. Her class was brilliant because she took Hegel, Mill, Kant, and so many others, then showed how those ideas played out inside Star Trek episodes.

So when I came across this picture of the ten best Captain Picard quotes from The Next Generation, I kept thinking about it. Not because this is some deep academic breakdown, but because these quotes really did impact me and thousands others. They shaped my personality, my goals, my morals, my ideology, and the way I think about leadership, politics, truth, compromise, failure, and power.

Picard had this code. No compromise, but also enough judgment to know when the rule itself had to be questioned. He believed in sacrifice over self-indulgence. He carried this stoicism that was not always healthy, and in many ways, Picard was a sad lonely man. But for some reason, I admired that too. Maybe because he showed that leadership is not about being happy all the time. Sometimes it is about carrying the weight and still doing the right thing.

Here are 10 great Captain Picard Quotes and what they mean to me.

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10. “Let’s see what’s out there. Engage.”

I am a creature of habit. I love comfort. There is nothing better than sleeping in my own bed, taking a shower in my own bathroom, and living inside the small rituals that make life feel stable. I have never been the traveling hippie type. I know people who can go anywhere, sleep anywhere, camp anywhere, move from place to place, and feel perfectly fine. I know people from the military who can do that without thinking twice. That is not me.

But at the same time, I cannot stay in one place forever. There is too much out there. I need to explore. That is why I moved to Hawaii. That is why I moved to China. That is why I lived in Taiwan. That is why I have been to more than 40 countries and learned foreign languages, because every culture and every language adds another layer to how you understand the world. The more time you spend outside your own bubble, the more depth you get.

And to be perfectly honest, that can be a lonely place. Not everybody has those experiences, and not everybody understands what it does to you. But trust me, the people who do understand find each other.

9. “There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.”

I do not even remember the episode this quote came from, but as soon as I read it again, I thought, yeah, this is rebel Matt.

I do not believe laws are absolute. I never have. I am the guy who sees a no right turn on red sign and, if it is clear and nobody is being hurt, I am probably taking the turn. That may sound small, but that is the point. There are rules we follow because they protect people, and there are rules we follow because somebody wrote them down and nobody has questioned them since.

This one hit me because of recent Supreme Court rulings. Laws should be examined. Laws should be challenged. Laws should be changed. And yes, sometimes existing laws need to be broken, because shit, sometimes we have evolved. Sometimes a law was right for one moment, one context, one version of society, and then it becomes the opposite of what we wanted to achieve.

It means justice means change and change means there are no absolutes.

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8. “There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders.”

This one immediately made me think of Senator Mark Kelly and his statement about troops following orders under President Trump. There are two sides to this, and both are very valid. On one hand, you cannot have a military where everyone just disobeys orders because they personally do not like them. That creates chaos, and there have to be consequences for that.

But at the same time, you cannot have troops blindly following orders if those orders turn them into tools of something immoral, homicidal, genocidal, or unlawful. I am not saying that is what Trump is doing. I AM saying there has to be a line.

And this does not only apply to the military. It applies to your boss. It applies to your political party. It applies to your friends. It applies to yourself. At some point, you have to be able to say, no, I am not doing that. The more clearly you draw that line before the moment comes, the more likely you are to actually hold it when it matters. No matter the consequences.

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7. “Let’s make sure history never forgets the name... Enterprise.”

Here lies my ego.

I do not know why I am on this earth, and I do not think most people really know either. But I know this. I do not want to die and be forgotten. I do not want to have no impact. I do not want to live a life, fade away, and have nobody remember me two generations from now.

If we are not trying to do something big, then what the hell are we doing? Go big or go home. I know that is not for everybody, and yes, I probably judge people for it more than I should. But I believe we are supposed to ruffle feathers. We are supposed to make waves in still water. I do not want to leave this earth without contributing something positive, something real, something that mattered.

6. “You cannot explain away a wantonly immoral act because you think that it is connected to some higher purpose.”

This one is very relevant because of what we see in politics all the time. Money starts flowing, outside groups start spending on behalf of a candidate, and suddenly everyone wants to pretend the principle changes depending on who benefits. I want to be very clear because people love to twist shit. This is not about one specific candidate. This is about the system. It is about whether we actually believe money in politics is corrupting, or whether we only believe that when the money is helping someone we do not like.

When people say, “Well, you need money to run a race,” they are not wrong. You do. But that does not erase the principle. You can still say you are against corporate money in politics. You can still say Super PACs are corrosive. You can still say the system is fucked, even if the system helps someone you like.

You do not get to explain away an immoral act because you think it is connected to some higher purpose, like winning office. Maybe you think your side deserves the exception. Maybe you think the ends justify the means. But does that make it right?

5. “The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth. It’s the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based.”

When I ran for office in 2022, I dealt with personal truth quite a bit. In 2024, I broke out of the consultant-driven version of campaigning and tried to run a campaign that was actually mine. My ideas. My instincts. My voice. My purpose.

Now I feel like I am on a different mission, which is trying to find truth in a broader sense. What do we actually want out of the United States? What do we want out of democracy? How much truth do people really want?

But truth is not just one thing. There is scientific truth, historical truth, political truth, and personal truth. The guiding principle should be figuring out what truth you are actually operating from. If you do not know that, then you are just reacting. You are not thinking. You are not leading. You are just being pushed around by whatever pressure hits you next.

4. “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”

This might be my favorite quote in all of Star Trek. It may be tied with another one, but this one is personal. This is not just about politics. This is about who you are and the decisions we make and what we allow.

I think about this every time someone in politics says, well, it is just a little compromise. Just take the money. Just look the other way. Just soften the statement. Just make the deal. Just vote for this one thing. Just go along this one time.

But with the first link, the chain is forged.

People do not think one small compromise changes how they legislate, how they represent people, or how they can be manipulated in the future. But it does. That first link matters because once it is attached to you, somebody can pull it. And once somebody can pull it, you are not as free as you were before.

I also think about this with our data, our privacy, AI, online manipulation, corporate control, and every app being designed like a slot machine. We keep acting like the first step does not matter. But it does.

It is like addiction. The danger is not just thinking about heroin. The danger is the first time you do it. That is when the path starts.

So how much compromise do you take? How much do you endure? How many times do you look the other way before you realize the chain is already around your neck?

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3. “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”

This is tied for my favorite Picard quote because I think about it all the time. I think about it for myself, but I also think about it for other people. I know people who started businesses and failed. I know people who started businesses, succeeded, and then failed later. I know people who did everything they were supposed to do and still ended up struggling.

And the truth is, some people do reckless things. Some people gamble, cheat, lie, or self-destruct. But most of the people I know who failed were not those people. They were people who tried hard, made decisions, worked their asses off, and still lost. The decisions did not work out, but that does not mean the decisions were stupid. It means life is brutal sometimes.

That is why I believe in a social safety net. Not because everyone who struggles is inadequate. But, sometimes people just lose. And when they do, a decent society does not treat them like garbage for it.

2. “There. Are. Four. Lights.”

This is the power quote of power quotes.

If you do not know Star Trek, it may not make sense. But Captain Jean-Luc Picard was captured by the Cardassians, and they tried to break him. They wanted him to say there were five lights when there were only four. It was not really about the lights. It was about breaking his mind, his hope, his spirit, and his ability to trust what he knew was true.

And he did not break.

He said, “There! Are! Four! Lights!”

That means he refused to capitulate. He refused to give in to torture. He refused to say something false just to stop the pain. I honestly think everyone should watch that episode at least once a year, just to remember that whatever you are going through, however hard it gets, do not break.

But I also think this quote hits differently now because of what we consume every day. It is not just about torture in some distant sci-fi prison cell. It is about what people tell us is true, what media tells us is true, what algorithms push in front of us, and what we know in our gut is wrong.

We live in a time where manipulation is everywhere. Some of it comes from inside our own country. Some of it comes from outside of it. Now we have deepfakes, AI-generated bullshit, edited videos, fake screenshots, propaganda farms, and endless online narratives all trying to make people doubt what they saw, what they know, and what they believe.

That is what makes this lesson so important. People can look at the same video, the same event, the same set of facts, and walk away with completely different interpretations. Some of that is human nature, but some of it is intentional. The goal is to wear you down. The goal is to make you so confused, so tired, and so overwhelmed that you eventually give in and say whatever version of reality makes the pressure stop.

And that is where the strength comes in. Being grounded in truth, whether that is factual truth, personal truth, or moral truth, is not always popular. It is not always comfortable. Sometimes the easier path is to capitulate. Sometimes the more rewarding path, financially, socially, or politically, is to just say ‘there are five lights’ and move on with your life.

But that is the whole point. The strength is seeing the situation clearly, knowing what is true, and refusing to let manipulation pull you away from it. It is not stubbornness for the sake of stubbornness. It is the discipline to say, no, I know what I saw. I know what happened. I know what is true.

There! Are! Four! Lights!

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1. “Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”

This is probably the most Buddhist thing you could ever hear from Star Trek. Everybody talks about living in the now, but most people do not do it. We live in the future. We live in the past. We predict. We project. We worry. We replay old mistakes. We make decisions today based on imaginary futures that may never happen.

But the truth is, we do not know. We do not know what is coming. We do not know how long we have. We do not know which moment is going to matter until it is gone.

So why not make now the time? Why not live in the now and let it move over you like waves? Do not try to control every second of it. Do not plan so obsessively that you forget to actually experience your life. I think a lot of people would be happier if they stopped trying to manage every possible future and started being present in the one moment they actually have.

That is what these quotes mean to me. Some political. Some personal. Some probably obvious. Some maybe not that deep. But they are mine. Star Trek shaped me. Picard shaped me. Philosophy shaped me. And whether I am talking about campaigns, corruption, truth, law, compromise, or just trying not to break, I can still hear these lines in the back of my head.

That is what old Star Trek gives you. It gives you a moral question without handing you a clean answer,. That was the beauty of it. It was never on the nose. It was not just an action show. It was not empty entertainment in space uniforms. It was asking real questions about society, power, identity, duty, faith, work, love, marriage, race, gender, sexuality, and what it actually means to be decent when there is no perfect choice in front of you. Or how doing the right thing might actually make you a villain.

That is why I always encourage people to go back and watch the old episodes. Star Trek would put these questions in front of you, let the characters wrestle with them, and then refuse to insult you by pretending there was always one obvious answer. The crew still had to act. Picard still had to make a decision.

And that is the part I miss. That image of Picard staring out the window of his ready room, quietly carrying the choice he just made, is more powerful than most shows yelling their entire moral argument at you from some superiority high horse. It leaves you wondering whether he made the right call, or whether there was ever a right call to begin with.

That was the beauty of Star Trek. It forced you to wrestle with ethical questions without treating you like a child. It was humbling. It reminded us that you can think hard, act in good faith, do everything right, and still lose.

That is not weakness. That is life.

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Something caught my attention today, and I don’t think it’s for the reason people would expect from me.

Clip is from Pod Save America with interviewing DNC Chair Ken Martin

The DNC does not want to release the autopsy report from the 2024 election and I can understand why. If there are a bunch of different reasons why Democrats lost, putting all of that out publicly could muddy the waters, create a ton of noise, and turn into people who aren’t even in the arena trying to diagnose what went wrong.

Even Ken Martin says there’s no “smoking gun,” that it was one of the closest elections in years, everything mattered, and that releasing the full report would just lead to people pointing fingers instead of focusing on what comes next.

And to be honest, I get it! But that’s not why this is an issue.

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You Ran on It. So What Changed?

The problem is simple. If you’re going to run on something, follow through on it.

Ken Martin didn’t just casually mention releasing the report. He criticized the DNC for not releasing the 2016 autopsy and pointed to that as exactly what not to do. He said people deserved to know what happened and why Democrats lost. That was part of the pitch. That was part of why people were supposed to trust him in that position.

Then he gets the job, and NOW we’re not releasing it.

That’s what people are reacting to.

And this is where Jon Favreau is right to press him. He asked a very simple question: what changed between August and December? Why go through the entire process of doing the report, traveling to all 50 states, interviewing people, gathering all this information, if you’re not going to show the full results of it?

And the answer keeps coming back to focusing on “lessons” instead of the full report, because the full report could be weaponized or distract from upcoming elections.

And again, I actually agree with that. But it still doesn’t answer the question.

Now Everyone Fills in the Blanks

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Here’s what actually happens when you don’t release it.

You don’t prevent speculation and conspiracy theories. You guarantee it. Everyone is going to fill in the blanks themselves.

Israel and Gaza is an obvious one. Internal divisions inside the Democratic Party is another. Messaging, candidates, turnout, strategy, all of it is now open to interpretation because there is no shared understanding of what actually happened. And instead of controlling that conversation, the DNC is now reacting to it.

So now you’ve created the exact situation you said you wanted to avoid.

And instead of talking about what went wrong and how to fix it, Ken Martin is spending his time defending why the report isn’t being released in the first place.

Now that is the story and for no good reason… I think.

Politics as Usual

This is the part where it starts to feel like politics as usual. That’s what people are frustrated with.

The explanation turns into a lot of talking about staying focused, not looking backwards, learning lessons, and not bringing up the past (Like, why are you talking about that old thing again? That was 18 months ago. Move on!)

And again, to be honest that all sounds reasonable. But the way it comes across is different. It comes across like you’re telling people not to worry about it, that they don’t need to see it, that they should just trust the process. It’s condescending. Patronizing.

Because people aren’t asking for the report just to tear the party apart. They’re asking for it because you told them you were going to release it. They invested time, energy, and money into that election, and they want to understand what actually happened. THEY WANT TO WIN!

And when you change your position after you get into power, it doesn’t come across as strategic, it comes across as dishonest at best.

And hiding the truth for people that really care at worst.

The Reality

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At the end of the day, I don’t even know if releasing the full report is the best move. I think most Democrats would understand that dumping everything out at once could absolutely muddy the waters, create internal conflict, and give Republicans something to latch onto and attack with. There is probably a smarter way to release that information; by breaking it down into lessons and presenting it in a way that actually helps the party improve.

But that’s not what happened here.

What happened is Martin ran on doing one thing, changed his position, and now is explaining why that change is actually better for everyone. And once that happens, everything else starts to sound like spin, smoke and mirrors, and fluff.

So, now it doesn’t even matter what’s in the report anymore.

People are going to make up their minds based on how you handled it.

So, what do you think?

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That’s really the only way to describe what just happened in Virginia. A referendum passed that allows lawmakers to redraw congressional maps under the guise of “restoring fairness” until the next census. And if you read that at face value, it sounds reasonable. But, that’s not what it is.

What it actually does is take an existing map and reshape it in a way that gives Democrats a stronger advantage in the short term. And before anyone jumps to defend it, let’s be clear about something upfront. Republicans started this escalation. Texas, Indiana, and other states have aggressively tried to redraw maps to lock in power and pick up seats. That is part of how we got here.

The response from Democrats is if you’re going to do it, we’re going to do it too. And on a tactical level, I understand it. You don’t just sit there and let the other side stack the deck without responding.

The problem is what that leads to.

Because when both sides are playing this game, the only thing that actually loses is our representation.

Gerrymandering Was Always a Problem.

Gerrymandering isn’t new. It goes back over 200 years to Elbridge Gerry, who signed off on a district so absurdly shaped that it was compared to a salamander. That’s where the term comes from. Gerry’s Salamander. Gerrymander.

And since then, it has always been used for one purpose. To manipulate district lines in a way that gives one party an advantage in elections.

The difference now is precision.

Data and technology is better. You’re no longer just drawing broad lines across counties. You’re zooming in on neighborhoods, sometimes even down to individual blocks and houses, and carving out districts that guarantee outcomes. You can try it too with tool like Dave’s Redistricting.

That’s how you end up with districts like Illinois’ 4th, nicknamed “the claw,” or what’s now being referred to now in Virginia as a “lobster” shaped district that stretches across completely disconnected regions just to group voters in a way that produces the desired result.

Virginia Was Already Close to Fair

What makes this situation frustrating is that Virginia wasn’t wildly out of balance to begin with.

In the 2024 presidential election, the state went roughly 51.8 percent for Kamala Harris and about 46 percent for Donald Trump. The congressional delegation before this change was split 6 Democrats to 5 Republicans.

That’s not extreme. If anything, that’s fairly representative of a state that leans Democratic but is still competitive.

Even if you wanted to argue for a slightly more Democratic tilt based on the gubernatorial race, you’re talking about maybe 7–4. What is being proposed now is not that.

You’re looking at potential outcomes like 9–2 or even 10–1, driven by maps that stretch across regions that have no logical connection.

This Is the End Result of “Win at All Costs”

This is what happens when both parties fully commit to winning at all costs.

You stop trying to represent people, and you start trying to just win. You put voters into boxes, you isolate opposition, and you concentrate your own base into districts that guarantee outcomes. And once that happens across enough states, you don’t have competitive elections anymore.

You have a handful of districts across the entire country that actually decide control of Congress. Everything else is predetermined.

When that happens, Congress stops functioning the way it’s supposed to. We see that now! Because the real risk for most politicians is no longer losing to the other party. It’s losing a primary. It’s losing to someone more extreme within their own party. So there’s no incentive to compromise, no incentive to work across the aisle, and no incentive to actually govern.

That’s how you end up with a system that looks active but produces very little.

What Do We Do About It?

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Our Revolution, the group built by Bernie Sanders around fighting the billionaire class and getting money out of politics, just endorsed Tom Steyer, a billionaire who is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money into a race. That’s the exact behavior they’ve spent years saying is the problem.

And what makes it worse is that they don’t even try to reconcile it in a serious way. The justification is that he is “upsetting the system” and that he has the best chance to stop Republicans. But if you actually think about that for more than a second, it falls apart. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence an election is not upsetting the system, it is the system. It’s the very thing they claim to be fighting against, just now it’s happening in a way that benefits them.

This IS the Pattern

What bothers me about this is not just the decision is that we have seen this movie before.

The Democratic Party sets these very clear moral positions, they build messaging around them, they rally people around them, and then the second those positions get in the way of winning, they abandon them.

You see it over and over again.

They talk about protecting democracy and then avoid real primary competition when it becomes inconvenient.

They talk about banning stock trading in Congress, and then you have situations like Ro Khanna pushing a ban while his household is actively trading millions of dollars.

They talk about getting money out of politics, and then justify massive spending when it’s on their side.

And every time, the explanation is the same. They’ll tell you they have to win. That the stakes are too high. That this is different. That this is necessary. But it completely undermines everything they were saying before.

Do they think we are dumb?

The “Good Billionaire” Problem

What this really exposes is the idea that there are good billionaires and bad billionaires, depending on who they support.

The bad billionaires are the oligarchs, the corrupting influence, the people buying elections.

But the good billionaires are the ones that are doing the exact same thing but for our side.

You see names like Steyer, J. B. Pritzker, George Soros, and Reid Hoffman get treated as exceptions, not because the principle changed, but because it is the blue team.

If your position is that money in politics is corrupting the system, then it doesn’t suddenly become less corrupting because it’s helping your side. Either the principle matters or it doesn’t. You don’t get to redefine it every time the bag is making it rain for your team.

This is the part that I think people are actually reacting to, even if they don’t always articulate it this way.

It’s not just the hypocrisy. It’s the fact that they think nobody notices.

They really think we are dumb.

You can’t spend years telling people that money in politics is the root of the problem, that billionaires are distorting democracy, and then turn around and say this time it’s fine because it helps you win. You can’t say you want ethical standards and then immediately carve out exceptions when it benefits you.

At some point, people stop taking that seriously. Not because they don’t agree with the original goal, but because they don’t believe you actually stand by it.

And that’s where this becomes a bigger problem than just one endorsement. It erodes credibility. It makes everything sound like bullshit.

Stand on Business

At the end of the day, this isn’t about whether you support Steyer or oppose him. It’s about whether the things you say actually mean anything.

If the goal is just to win, then say that. Say you’re going to use whatever tools are available and stop pretending it’s about principle. But if you’re going to take a moral stance, if you’re going to build an entire movement around that stance, then you have to stick to it!

Because right now, we look like fucking dumb hypocrites. And, people are paying attention to that.

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We had maps in the back seat, corded phones, street lights telling us when to come home, and suitcases without wheels. We also watched America move from being a manufacturing and industrial powerhouse into the internet age, the smartphone age, and now whatever this next AI era is going to become. That is why this moment feels familiar to me. We have seen this kind of economic and technological shift before.

When manufacturing jobs left the United States, people were told to “learn to code” like that was some serious answer to a huge national problem. It was not a serious answer. It was unrealistic, dismissive, and pretty damn offensive. You had people in their forties and fifties, people raising families, paying mortgages, and trying to make it to retirement, being told to just go learn a completely different technical skill and rebuild their lives. Everybody knew that was bullshit. It sounded clean as a slogan, but it did not match the reality of people’s lives.

I think we are back in that same moment again. The difference is that this time it is not factory workers being told to learn to code. This time, it is the people who already learned to code who are watching their jobs change.

The Job Already Changed

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Over the weekend I was at a wedding, and I ended up talking to a lot of people who are software developers and engineers. Every single one of them told me some version of the same thing. A year ago, their job was writing code. They sat down in front of their computer, solved problems, debugged, and wrote code all day. Now, their job is much more about prompting AI to write code, checking AI’s work, correcting it, and guiding it toward the result they want. They are not doing the same job the same way. That shift did not take ten years. It took about a year.

That is the part I think people are missing. This is not some far-off theory about the future. It is already happening in the sectors closest to the technology. That does not mean all those jobs are gone, and I am not saying every layoff is directly tied to AI. But the work itself has changed, and once the work changes, the next question is obvious. How many people do you actually need to do it?

That is where we have to start asking questions. Some research says AI could displace or significantly change around 6 to 7 percent of the U.S. workforce over time, while broader estimates range from 3 to 14 percent depending on how adoption unfolds. That is millions of jobs. However, “Predictions that technology will reduce the need for human labor have a long history but a poor track record,” Briggs and Dong

Roughly 60 percent of U.S. workers today are in jobs that did not exist in 1940, and about 85 percent of employment growth since then has come from technology-driven change. So yes, jobs will be created too. That is how these transitions usually work. But that does not mean the transition is painless, and it definitely does not mean it is evenly distributed.

The people I worry about the most are not even the developers I talked to, because at least for now, they still have jobs and are adapting. I worry more about the next group coming up. The sixteen-year-old deciding what to study. The eighteen-year-old heading into college. The twenty-two-year-old taking on massive debt for a profession they think is stable. Entry-level legal work, paralegals, marketing, graphic design, admin work, call centers, software support, and a lot of basic knowledge work all look vulnerable to some degree.

Even in health care, I think a lot of non-specialty or general practice work could get compressed through telehealth and AI tools. The issue is not that AI replaces every human being. The issue is that it reduces the amount of labor needed, and when that happens, the entry point usually disappears first.

The Warning Signs Are Already Here

Now, I am not saying that every big layoff is AI. But when you start seeing tech layoffs pile up while companies are simultaneously making huge investments in AI infrastructure, you would have to be asleep not to at least ask the question. As of April 11, 2026, TrueUp’s tracker shows more than 91,000 tech layoffs this year across more than 200 companies.

That is why I think we are entering “learn to code 2.0.” The first version hit manufacturing towns and industrial workers. This version is likely to hit white-collar and entry-level knowledge work much harder. And if that happens, it becomes a regional problem, a tax base problem, a housing problem, and a social problem. We saw what happened when manufacturing left places like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. We know what dislocation looks like. The only difference this time is that the geography could be different and the workers being hit might wear business casual instead of steel-toed boots.

What really hit me after that wedding was not that the sky is falling tomorrow. It was that the public conversation still feels behind where reality already is. The people closest to the technology are telling you their jobs changed fast. The market data is showing tens of thousands of layoffs in the sectors closest to AI. The research is telling you millions of jobs are at least exposed to change. And yet most of the conversation is still either hype or denial.

The Solutions

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