Before you watch the video below, you must know this is Mary Julia Koch, daughter of the late David Koch, libertarian billionaire and funder of far-right projects. Mary’s mother, Julia, is one of the richest women in the world. It’s important to understand that we are dealing with a Faildaughter. We’re all well aware of Failsons — Eric Trump, Hunter Biden, Kendall Roy, and other unimpressive children of the capitalist elite whose luxurious upbringing left them too emotionally and professionally stunted to be productive members of society, never mind live up to their parents’ legacy. Failsons are hilarious because their last name traps them in a prison impossible to escape. Wealth and comfort protected them from the world, and as a result, they’re supposed to lead it. Once appointed to high-profile positions, Failsons inevitably bumble around and mess everything up. But it’s the 21st century, and feminist activists fought hard to ensure Faildaughters have just as much right to make a fool of themselves in front of the world as their equally stupid brothers. (#ally) So, that’s how Mary here ended up as an associate opinion editor at The Wall Street Journal just two years out of college. But maybe I’m being too harsh. Let’s hear her out.

Yeah. That went about as well for Mary as I thought it would.

Instead of engaging with the merits of Scandinavian socialism, The Wall Street Journal decided to let David Koch’s daughter play journalist with a two-minute lecture on how DSA-associated politicians are foolishly looking to Northern Europe as a model to replicate. In the accompanying article, Mary lists DSA-elected officials who have mentioned Norway and Finland, Denmark, and Iceland as examples of socialist success, then tries to explain why they’re wrong:

“The issue is that Nordic countries aren’t socialist. Their economies are highly competitive free markets, built on private ownership and global trade. Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden consistently rank among the top 15 countries with the most economic and personal freedom. And Scandinavians aren’t simply sitting around snatching up government benefits. The labor force participation rate is higher in Nordic countries than in the U.S.”

With the exception of private ownership, this paragraph doesn’t mention anything that would determine whether Scandinavia is capitalist or socialist. Markets predate capitalism, exist in socialist-run nations, and will continue long after capitalism has disappeared. “Global trade” doesn’t mean anything, because it too long predates the economic system that made Mary’s dad rich. Saying high rates of labor force participation make the Nordics capitalist might be the most ridiculous thing Mary said, as that implies America’s lower labor force participation makes it socialist.

None of these factors determine whether a country is socialist. A nation’s mode of production — socialism, capitalism, feudalism, etc. — is determined by who owns and controls society’s productive forces — factories, industries, and other things that make things. Here, Koch stumbles into being correct by saying the Nordic countries are “built on private ownership.” This is true. Like the rest of Europe, these nations are capitalist. The productive forces are largely privately owned and operated for personal profit. American socialists don’t point to these countries because they are the end goal of our project. Rather, we highlight them because they are capitalist liberal democracies, in which Marxists, socialists, communists, and labor activists have won substantially more for the working class than in any other comparable Western democracy — the United States included. DSA politicians aren’t saying we want to establish the exact balance of free enterprise and social welfare that exists in Norway, Sweden, or the Faroe Islands. We’re saying that these countries have political systems similar to ours, and are a shining example of why working-class Americans should support DSA and vote for our candidates.

DSA politicians are clear about this, which is why Mary Julia Koch misconstrues what Darializa Avila Chevalier said in an interview. Mary writes:

“Asked by radio host Brian Lehrer if there has been a “successful model of socialism anywhere in the world outside the United States in terms of both human rights and widespread economic justice,” Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic congressional candidate and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, cited Sweden and Norway.”

And here’s what Avila Chevalier actually said in the interview. Notice how the future congresswoman insists we look at the socialist programs present in these countries, not just the current state of the nations themselves.

Host: “Has there been a most successful model of socialism anywhere in the world outside the United States in terms of both human rights and widespread economic justice that you would point to as something to emulate? Because you know what the critics say: they always point to the worst examples — the Soviet Union, some of the dictatorships in Latin America at various times, communist China, things like that.”

Avila Chevalier: “I think there is a lot we can learn from many parts of the world. I think places in Europe like Sweden and Norway, for example. But I think looking specifically at the programs themselves — what the models are and how we can implement them here — is how I envision this. And I think the other thing that gets lost is the democratic part of the phrase “democratic socialism.” We are making decisions in a democratic way about how we use the wealth that we have produced in society, because the people who are producing the wealth are the people who produce the labor: the workers.”

“It is not owning something that makes this country wealthier; it is the product of the labor of working people. And so we should be able to make decisions about how we use that wealth. Programs like Medicare for All are not only popular, they have been proven to work in places like Sweden and Norway, and across Europe and even Latin America. So we should be fighting for things like free college, universal health care, and other programs that have been proven to better the lives of working people.”

“Even the child tax credit, for example, was one of the most popular programs we have had in recent history, and it was cruel to end it. We should have never ended it because it brought childhood poverty to historic lows, and had we expanded it, we could have eradicated childhood poverty.” — Darializa Avila Chevalier’s Victory Lap

Avila Chevalier is correct. American socialists don’t look to Scandinavian social democracies as the ultimate goal of our movement. Rather, we highlight them because they are successful examples of what strong socialist movements can achieve inside liberal democracies such as the United States. (Though the U.S. is far less democratic.) The biggest misconception about the Nordic countries, which is common among the left and right, is that these are harmonious social democracies, where pure white populations unanimously agreed that private enterprise and union rights were the optimal form of economic development. This is, quite obviously, false.

As Mary Julia Koch states, capitalism underlies the Nordic economies. However, these countries have high rates of unionization, state ownership, welfare programs, and social goods thanks to centuries of militant socialist struggle against the capitalist class. Capitalists don’t just give workers healthcare or submit to heavy state control of their own volition. They never have, they never will, no matter what country they operate in. The only reason these countries are recognized as social democracies is that socialist, communist, and labor parties birthed from revolutionary Marxism made them so.

Born from the Second Communist International, the Swedish Social Democrats (SAP) fought against the turn-of-the-20th-century blacklists, strike-breaking, and anti-union laws, just like their American counterparts. Iconic Swedish Prime Minsiter Olof Palme, who openly challenged the Soviet Union that he would achieve socialism before they did, came from the SAP. In 1973, Palme’s socialist coalition ran on a long-term plan to transition Sweden to Marxist utopia and defeated their liberal opponents. The SAP remains a strong force in Swedish and European politics to this day.

Similar communist and socialist parties are scattered all across Scandinavia. The Danish Social Democrats boast of their 150-year tradition fighting for the working class. Last month they were re-elected to lead the country, giving the Social Democrats a third consecutive term as prime minister. The current Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, comes from the Labor Party, which also has roots in the Second Communist International. These parties are typically referred to as the “center left” in Scandinavia, with smaller communist groups campaigning to their left. But the prevalence of European communism should not lead us to believe these parties are only slightly more progressive than American Democrats. They are openly socialist with deep roots in the Marxist tradition, and proud of it.

As a result of this heavy socialist presence in Nordic politics, Scandinavia is rife with some of the most effective socialist policies in the modern world. Ironically, Denmark has no minimum wage. They don’t need one. Minimum wages are set at the sector level through collective bargaining agreements between employers and trade unions. This social pact is called The Basic Agreement, and is the result of over 120 years of militant unionism. About 70% of the Danish workforce is covered by one of these agreements. As a result, the average Danish salary is 10% higher than in the United States, despite Denmark having higher unemployment rates and a lower GDP per capita. Simply put, Denmark’s multi-century tradition of unionism ensures Danish workers receive more of the value they create than American workers receive. So, when our libertarian oligarchs’ nepobaby says Nordic countries have higher labor force participation, that’s because workers get more for their labor. More reward, more participation. That’s just economics 101.

Mary Julia Koch also falls flat on her face when describing Norway’s oil sector, stating:

“By the way, Norway is Western Europe’s largest oil and natural gas producer. That’s the reason for their economic success, not the welfare state.”

Of all the things American socialists preach about the Nordics, nothing is cited more than the Norwegian energy sector. That’s because… it’s highly socialist!

In the late 1960s, Norway discovered massive oil reserves in its territorial waters. Thanks to socialist presence in the halls of power, the government moved to ensure the expendable resource worked for the benefit of the Norwegian people, not energy capitalists. In addition to taking a stake in private oil companies, the Norwegian government taxes oil drillers at a marginal rate of 78%. While there are still private aspects of the Norwegian drilling process, the Norwegian people democratically control the vast majority of oil profits. In the 1990s, parliament set up the Government Pension Global Fund to reinvest oil revenues, ensuring the expendable resource leads to sustained prominence for future generations. Today, the Global Fund is the world’s biggest single owner of listed stock shares and generates significantly more income from Norway than the oil revenue itself. The Global Fund is also limited by a tight ethics policy. In accordance with the socialist commitment to social justice, the Global Fund does not invest in tobacco companies, weapons manufacturers, companies deemed corrupt or emission-heavy, or any companies involved in the colonization of Palestine. In 2024, the Global Fund divested from Bezeq, a communications company that worked with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

When it comes to judging Norway’s oil sector, Faildaughter Koch and I are in unanimous agreement. The socialist management of the energy sector is the reason for Norway’s financial success, and the United States would be wise to replicate it. We don’t even need to start from scratch. A similar system exists in Alaska, where the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation collects oil revenue, invests it, and uses it to fund the state’s social programs. Declaring all oil under American soil the birthright of the American people would significantly decrease the value of Mary’s trust fund. So I doubt she truly wants us to replicate the model.

These are just two of the many ways Nordic socialism has delivered for their national working classes. With a pro-worker sentiment instilled in Nordic populations through long histories of Marxist and labor struggle, strong social programs have made the nations of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway enviable in the eyes of all who seek to uplift the global working class. These countries have significantly lower levels of income inequality, a requirement for any healthy democracy. The populations are happier, suicide is lower, the press is freer, and they consistently rank highest among gender equality. Most importantly, all five of the Nordic countries lead the United States and the United Kingdom in the most crucial economic metric: life expectancy. In 2026, the lowest life expectancy throughout the Nordics was 82.4 years, a tie between Finland and Denmark. The U.K. and U.S. sit at 81.8 and 79.8, respectively.

Even worse than Mary Julia Koch’s analysis of Nordic social democracy is her explanation as to why these nations are able to institute these programs. To quote from Mary’s video:

“[The Nordic countries] are ethnically homogeneous and so much smaller than America. The entire metro population of New York City is four times the size of Norway. We’re comparing apples to oranges."

These are common arguments we hear from the right. For the question of size, they get it backward. If you want robust social programs such as Medicare For All and unemployment insurance, a bigger population is better. When more people pay into the pool, risk is spread out, and costs are mitigated. It’s actually better to have a bigger tax base for social programs than a small one. So by saying America is bigger than Norway, Mary is only giving us more ammunition to argue that these programs would be more efficient in the United States. This nonsensical argument about population size also ignores that the United States already has the foundation for many social programs. Infrastructure for Medicare for All, strong unemployment insurance, and universal child care has been built through Medicare, weak unemployment insurance, and the public school system. American socialists seek to broaden these programs’ mandates and fund them through higher taxation to serve our larger population. It’s really not that complicated.

As for the claim that Scandinavian nations have strong social welfare programs because they’re “socially homogenous,” this is thinly veiled racism that only exists in the reactionary mind. No, Norway does not socialize oil profits because there are no Black people in Oslo. And Denmark’s iconic sectoral bargaining doesn’t exist because the country is mostly Lutheran. This falsehood relies on the fantastical assumption that the Scandinavian social democracies became social democracies because a bunch of pasty-White people sat down at a table and agreed to turn the dial halfway between socialism and capitalism. These countries are only social democracies because labor fought capital and won a significant portion of the fruits of productive value. This is the battle between capital and labor that happens in every society, no matter what label you give it. And if these nations didn’t have strong socialist tendencies, then they would be just as deep in a capitalist hellscape as the United States.

I don’t know why everyone thinks Northern Europe is White Wakanda. They are not without class and violent conflict. In 2011, Neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Breivik killed seventy-seven people, mostly teenagers at the Norwegian Social Democrats’ summer camp. It was a political attack that was mostly covered as mindless violence by the American press. A leading financial sponsor of Ezra Klein’s Abundance movement granted $100,000 to the Swedish Neo-Nazi group Stiftelsen Nya Dagbladet in 2022. Reactionary rightism is alive and well in Scandinavia, thankfully suppressed by the socialist representatives of the working class.

Unlike in the United States, the Scandinavian nations generally adhere to the “democratic” part of liberal democracy. One reason Nordic socialists have had success is that these countries have a more level political playing field, enabling the working class to advocate for their interests. This is why American capitalists are so eager to suppress, diminish, and exclude DSA and other socialists from fair electoral participation. Until recently, there was little effective socialism in the United States thanks to decades of McCarthyism, COINTELPRO, blacklists, and assassinations. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America don’t highlight Norway, Sweden, and Finland because they are socialist utopias. We do because they show the first, welcomed step in what our project can achieve absent interference.

Not to brag, but this essay is 1000x more lucid and substantiated than anything Faildaughter Koch has put into the world. I’ve been told capitalism is a meritocracy, so I expect a job offer from The Wall Street Journal any minute.

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In Solidarity — Joe

On the eve of World War II, one-third of Earth’s population was colonized. Everyone had a one-in-three chance of being born into a nation ruled by foreign, undemocratic leaders who exploited the indigenous population’s labor and resources for profit and prestige. Then war came. After the dust settled, a wave of decolonization emancipated what is now called the Global South (Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean) from what is now called the Global North (North America, Europe, and Russia). Within a few decades, Europe’s once-mighty control of overseas territories disappeared. In 1925, Europe held almost one hundred colonies. By the 1980s, none.

Though the developed capitalist nations of the North Atlantic relinquished formal sovereignty of these emerging nations, they continued to dominate them through exploitative economic arrangements. Though the British Union Jack and French Tricolore were lowered from flagpoles overlooking India and Algeria, European and American capitalists structured the global economic system to ensure that decolonization did not disrupt the flow of money from poorer Southern countries to richer Northern countries. This new form of colonialism was dubbed neocolonialism by Kwame Nkrumah, the Marxist president of Ghana.

“The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside. The methods and form of this direction can take various shapes. For example, in an extreme case the troops of the imperial power may garrison the territory of the neo-colonial State and control the government of it. More often, however, neo-colonialist control is exercised through economic or monetary means. The neo-colonial State may be obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from elsewhere. Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power.” — Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism

Each developed nation had its own one-sided trade treaties and economic arrangements that could be described as neocolonial. But the highest form of neocolonialism was the Bretton Woods system, which made the U.S. dollar the staple global currency and established the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Uncoincidentally, this system was configured towards the end of World War II by the Allied Powers, just as decolonial momentum was sweeping through the Third World.

The IMF positions itself as a friend to the Global South by offering formerly colonized nations much-needed loans. After all, these governments don’t have much money, because the colonizers took it. To receive these loans, borrowing nations must cut social programs such as unemployment and public-sector jobs. Allowing investment from foreign capital isn’t required to receive an IMF loan, but it happens in almost every situation. This devious combination does two things. First, because the capital base is international, the majority of the value created will leave the country in the form of profits. Second, the austerity program squeezes the working class and forces them to accept even lower wages, keeping the population impoverished to ensure foreign capitalists reap the maximum profits. A Harvard study found the IMF’s exploitation of West Africa throughout the 1980s and 1990s decreased education spending by 25%, healthcare spending by 50%, and caused an estimated half-a-million unnecessary childhood deaths in Africa. Another study from 2022 called the IMF’s entire existence into question:

“Although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) claims that poverty reduction is one of its objectives, some studies show that IMF borrower countries experience higher rates of poverty. This paper investigates the effects of IMF loan conditions on poverty. Using a sample of 81 developing countries from 1986 to 2016, we find that IMF loan arrangements containing structural reforms contribute to more people getting trapped in the poverty cycle, as the reforms involve deep and comprehensive changes that tend to raise unemployment, lower government revenue, increase costs of basic services, and restructure tax collection, pensions, and social security programmes.” — The effects of IMF loan conditions on poverty in the developing world

While neocolonialism might be cancer upon the Global South, it’s a perpetual cash cow for the Global North. In just 2020 alone, Global South nations paid over $1.2 trillion in debt servicing to capitalists in the Global North. Not only is neocolonialism lucrative, but it also offers plausible deniability. The powerful nations that extract resources portray themselves as mutually beneficial business partners to their economic subjects, avoiding the stigmatization associated with the brutal colonization of centuries past. While I won’t say neocolonialism is good, at least it involved less violence directed at the subjected population. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration, specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has reasserted the rhetoric and violence of the colonizers of old.

As soon as he was inaugurated, President Donald Trump instituted a “maximum-pressure” foreign policy with specific hostility towards Latin America’s two socialist-led countries, Venezuela and Cuba. On his very first day back in office, Trump revoked Biden’s decrees and reclassified Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, severely restricting the financial flow to and from the island. By the end of the first week, an executive order declared Cuba “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US, and within a few months, Trump re-imposed travel restrictions, prohibited more financial transactions, and reinforced the already-suffocating embargo. In January of this year, Trump blockaded fuel from reaching the island, then tightened the noose in May with even more sanctions on Cuba’s energy, metals, mining, financial services, and security sectors.

The impact has been devastating. The United Nations accused the United States of driving Cuba towards a “humanitarian collapse.” As with every catastrophe, Cuba’s most vulnerable populations are the most impacted. Infant mortality has doubled in recent months, childhood cancer survival rates have fallen by 20%, and supplies of life-saving medicine are at 30%. Defenders of the U.S. embargo often claimed it didn’t prevent food or medicine from reaching the island. This was dubious in the pre-Trump era. Now it’s laughable. The U.S. government is depriving the Cuban people of food, medicine, and a modern life because it disagrees with the Cuban government’s ideology.

The sanctions regime has also ruined Cuba’s agricultural sector, forcing farmers to sell off large swaths of land to pay their bills. As a result, barely anything is grown on the island nation, severely accelerating the U.S.-caused crisis. Four House Democrats traveled to Cuba last week and described the situation as a “Silent Gaza.” The analogy is fitting. Not just because of the widespread presence of death and hardship, but because it is the deliberate choice of American foreign policy.

“Such severe sanctions packages that target entire sectors of an economy and produce broad, indiscriminate and harsh effects on populations are incompatible with basic principles of international human rights law.” — Volker Türk, United Nations Human Rights Chief

Under this cataclysmic pressure, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel recently liberalized the economy. With approval from parliament, Díaz-Canel allowed private real estate development, the operation of private banks, and the sale of state-owned companies to foreign investors. The Communist Party of Cuba, also known as the Partido Comunista de Cuba or PCC, justified the move as following in the footsteps of the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Parties, which have urged Cuba to liberalize for many years. Truthfully, I think a man will say anything when you put a gun to his head. Still, Díaz-Canel’s retreat on the once-firm centralized economy wasn’t enough for the Trump Administration. Last week the U.S. Army leaked that it had begun preparing for an airborne invasion of Cuba. A year ago, I would have considered this bluster. But now that the United States has already recolonized Venezuela, any threat of military invasion must be taken seriously.

In the seven months since shredding international law to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro, the United States has turned Venezuela into an American colony. Under the direction of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the gradual exploitation of neocolonialism has been discarded in favor of the direct colonial rule found in centuries past. This time, American colonialism is enforced with the murderous armaments of the 21st century.

Immediately after the deposition of Maduro, the Trump administration gave Venezuela leaders an ultimatum: submit or die. With direct threats to them and their families, as well as Venezuela’s civilian infrastructure, Maduro’s Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, and other government officials agreed to do as Rubio wished. As a result, nearly every government function is now being run by Washington. Marco Rubio’s Republican colleagues have begun calling him “viceroy”, a colonial-era title given to appointed rulers who oversaw colonies on a monarchy’s behalf. The American Secretary of State now controls Caracas’ finances. Revenue from Venezuelan exports is controlled by the U.S. Treasury, which distributes it to Venezuelan banks friendly to Washington’s interests. Sanctions still plague the Venezuelan people. Yet, American oil companies have been allowed to operate without penalty, ensuring the profits of the world’s largest oil flow to the Global North. Rubio has even pushed out some European oil companies that operated before the recolonization to make room for the GOP’s longtime allies in the American oil industry. Because it wouldn’t be colonization without a competition between rich Northern nations.

Marco Rubio also determines Venezuela’s foreign policy and international relations. The Rubio regime recently took full control of oil projects co-owned with the Russian state producer, bringing more energy assets under American control while pushing one of Maduro’s strongest allies out of the region. At this point, Venezuelan officials are puppets who dance on the world stage whenever Rubio tugs their strings. The Secretary of State publicly announced that Delcy Rodríguez would travel to India, something that greatly surprised the official Venezuelan President. After the U.S. attacked Iran, Rubio directed the foreign minister to delete social media posts criticizing the attack. He complied.

Last month, a pair of devastating earthquakes crippled Venezuela and killed at least 5,000. The disaster has only increased the hardship and suffering of recolonized Venezuelans. Crumbled buildings and makeshift field hospitals force images of Gaza back into our minds. No matter where in the world we look, the fingerprints of American imperialism are inescapable.

While neocolonialism sometimes requires military force, the second Trump administration’s Latin American policy goes far beyond what Kwame Nkrumah articulated. This is not neocolonialism. It is recolonization, the mindset of 19th- and 18th-century European imperialists empowered with the 21st-century weaponry of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. When Marco Rubio spoke at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, he identified his family ancestry as descending from Spanish colonizers, separating himself from Mestizo Latin Americans, who trace their ancestry to indigenous and formerly enslaved populations. The speech was telling. When Marco Rubio looks at the poor, despondent masses subjected to his dictatorial rule, he does not see people who remind him of himself or his family. Instead, he envisions himself as the European colonizer, the rightful overlord to those who dared challenge American hegemony.

“And do you know that in the year that my country was founded, Lorenzo and Catalina Geroldi lived in Casale Monferrato in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. And Jose and Manuela Reina lived in Sevilla, Spain. I don’t know what, if anything, they knew about the 13 colonies which had gained their independence from the British empire, but here’s what I am certain of: They could have never imagined that 250 years later, one of their direct descendants would be back here today on this continent as the chief diplomat of that infant nation. And yet here I am, reminded by my own story that both our histories and our fates will always be linked.” — Marco Rubio, February 2026

Donald Trump has been even more forthcoming with his imperialist designs. Long before Maduro was deposed, he said he wanted to “run” Venezuela because he “wanted their oil.” Unfortunately, that project was successful. Now, the same tactics of recolonization are being directed at Cuba, a far poorer, weaker nation than Venezuela.

By all available signs, Marco Rubio will not stop until he achieves his lifelong dream of recolonizing Cuba, killing thousands, and destroying the left-wing project that toppled the oppressive Batista regime, which Rubio’s own family fled from. (He must have forgotten that part of his family's history during his Munich speech.) A recent State Department “report” argued Cuba was the driving force of political terrorism in America. Entitled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” the 100-page document manufactures consent for the military invasion of the island, as well as wide-reaching domestic political repression. Rubio lists forty-three individuals and groups as associated with Cuba’s terrorism, most notably the Amazon Labor Union, Code Pink, and the Democratic Socialists of America.

As with imperialist projects of generations past, recolonization will torment the Global South, scarring unfortunate nations and the American homeland long after its architects are dead and buried.

If you appreciated this essay, please click the ❤️ to help it rise in Substack’s algorithm. Don’t forget to subscribe so future articles are delivered to your inbox. If you’re a returning JoeWrote reader, consider supporting my work with a premium subscription. For the cost of just one cup of coffee a month, you can help me keep creating content like this. Plus, you unlock everything JoeWrote has to offer.

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In Solidarity — Joe

Enjoy!

In Solidarity — Joe

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A few weeks ago, Jenny Racicot accused former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner of rape. Twenty-four hours after Politico published her account, the Platner campaign collapsed. Endorsers withdrew their support, once-sympathetic leftist commentators called for Platner to drop out, and the campaign volunteers demanded a new candidate. Not everyone felt this way. Some commentators pushed back on the Politico story, contesting Racicot’s veracity, and warning this could be another bad-faith attempt by the political establishment to erase a candidate they couldn’t defeat fair and square. Such suspicion is warranted. The media overly criticizes and diminishes candidates who criticize Israel and billionaires. Graham Platner’s populist platform put a target on his back, no different from the one worn by Zohran Mamdani, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and every other insurgent left challenger. So I’m not surprised some hesitated to ditch Platner and waive the White Flag on the populist campaign.

While skepticism of media attacks and establishment sabotage is warranted, the court of public opinion judged Graham Platner fairly over his short political career. When earlier accusations were raised, Maine voters and Platner supporters refused to disavow him over half-baked assertions or prejudiced prosecutions. But when an accuser came forward with a credible allegation with supporting evidence, the court of public opinion changed its mind and decided it was time for him to go.

Due Process

One of my pet peeves is when people call for “due process” during social accusations. Calls for Graham Platner to receive due process are misplaced. He has none. Not because of the severity of Racicot’s allegation, but because due process is not a social right. It is a limitation on the government, requiring that individuals be given the right to a fair and speedy trial before being deprived of life, liberty, or property. If Jenny Racicot presses charges against Platner, then he’s entitled to due process. But she hasn’t pressed charges. Rather, she shared her story to inform Maine voters about her experience with their potential next Senator. Politics is a social process, not a judicial one. Platner has no legal right to be a Senator. He has a right not to be slandered. But given Racicot’s persuasiveness, I doubt that’s what’s happening. Due process is a crucial plank of a free society. The government should have to jump through hoops and clear a high bar before it puts anyone in a cage. If anything, America doesn’t have enough due process. Public defenders are underfunded and overworked, leaving them unable to properly defend their clients. The profession has largely been reduced to helping poor Americans plead out to avoid inhumane sentences, which is as far from a fair trial as you can get. Trump’s fascist deportation regime rests on depriving suspected undocumented Americans of due process. There’s a severe lack of due process in the United States. But not when it comes to Senatorial candidates.

Graham Platner is not on trial. He ran for Senator. There is no formalized process to determine whether this allegation is sufficient to disqualify Platner as the Democratic nominee. That’s because the decision to support, oppose, or remain ambivalent toward a politician is not a single declarative decision. There’s no final verdict handed down by a jury empowered with the state’s monopoly on violence. In social situations such as this, every individual is free to judge for themselves. The court of public opinion isn’t a single court — it’s millions of them, continuously in session inside the minds of every Maine voter and national critic.

The Court of Public Opinion

Since the start of the MeToo movement, the conversation of how to protect vulnerable people, especially but not exclusively women, from powerful predators, who are especially but not exclusively men, has taken a backseat to the secondary discussion of MeToo “going too far.” Despite Harvey Weinstein being convicted in an actual trial with due process, The Free Press has taken up the mantle of defending the sexual predator as part of its anti-woke ‘journalism.’

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When bad men die, we’re commanded to forget they’re bad. Decorum decrees we overlook their moral failings and limit ourselves to the tragic moment. Context, history, and humanity are forcibly stripped from any conversation of the deceased’s legacy in favor of mandatory compassion and tears. ‘How dare you?’ the mourners ask the critic. As the critic, here’s how I dare.

Lindsey Graham was an evil man. His life’s work worsened the world for everyone except the privileged and powerful. Recent reporting says Graham’s final months were spent hyper-focused on furthering American imperialism and immiserating our neocolonial subjects and adversaries in the Global South. This isn’t surprising, given that bombing Muslims was Graham’s raison d'etre. The South Carolina Senator aggressively pushed Trump to go to war with Iran, to the point that it troubled his fellow Republicans. Graham’s bloodthirst has killed at least 3,500 Iranians and locked the United States in another forever war. His position on Gaza was very clear: “Flatten it,” the Senator told Israel. Morally, there’s no difference between Lindsey Graham and Osama bin Laden. They didn’t pull the trigger or fly the plane. But their planning and provocation killed thousands and destabilized nations in pursuit of a psychotic and self-centered worldview. The two terrorists differ only in their capacity. The circumstances of Bin Laden’s birth forced him to direct hijackings from an Afghan cave. Lindsey Graham was more fortunate. With the help of his close friend and segregationist Strom Thurmond, he waltzed into the House of Representatives and began naming countries he wanted to topple. Iraq, Libya, Palestine. For the most part, Lindsey Graham got his wish.

So focused on furthering American slaughter, Lindsey Graham disregarded the duties of a public servant. When Hurricane Helene killed over a hundred Carolinians, Graham dismissed his constituents' suffering to valorize Israel. Unsurprisingly, one former constituent told reporters Graham would be missed more in Tel Aviv than in Seneca.

Throughout his seventy-one years, Lindsey Graham challenged the English language to create a word more derogatory than “pathetic.” In 2015, Graham condemned Donald Trump as a racist demagogue. The Senator earned a brief moment of liberal praise for likening the 2016 GOP primary between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to a Sophie’s Choice between being “shot or poisoned.” When Trump won the presidency, Graham shed his Trump-critical skin like the snake he is. Within months, he was Donald’s biggest sycophant. No shit was too large for Graham to swallow. From rape allegations to coup attempts, Graham was Trump’s go-to defender, tongue-washing the slide to speed America’s descent into its current hell. When E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her, Graham called her a liar. When Trump was indicted, it was a “crock.” Meanwhile, the Senator protected himself behind the scenes at all costs, even “throwing Trump under the bus” to save his own skin. Somehow, Lindsey Graham’s personal life was even more craven than his professional one.

The secret of Lindsey Graham’s homosexuality was kept as well as the secret of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. That is to say, everyone in Washington, D.C. knew it, but didn’t talk about it because it raised uncomfortable questions. Since Graham’s death, a cascade of trans and queer sex workers, emancipated from their NDAs, have detailed their experiences with the currently decaying Congressman. Rather than grow a spine, Graham remained a closeted anti-queer crusader throughout his career. The first bill he ever introduced aimed to ban gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the South Carolina Army National Guard. It failed, but propelled Graham to GOP stardom. The rest of his years were spent campaigning against same-sex marriage and adoption.

Yearning for the death of Iranian kindergartners was Graham’s true passion. But he took great joy in his side hustle of stoking the trans panic. There’s only one word for a man who will voluntarily lead an international attack on trans rights while paying $10,000 to suck girl dick every Saturday night: coward. Too ashamed of himself to be honest with the world, Lindsey Graham used his power to punish those far braver than himself. He demeaned, degraded, and dehumanized openly queer Americans in hopes of differentiating himself as “one of the good ones” to his bigoted Republicans. It didn’t work. I’d bet every dollar to my name that Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Mike Johnson called Lindsey a Hard F as soon as he drifted away from the Mar-A-Lago table. (Laura Loomer even outed Graham during a deposition.) With his life now complete, all Graham’s performative hatred did was put him on the wrong side of history. He wasn’t just an opponent of human rights, equality, and dignity. He was worse: a traitor who actively persecuted those who dared to fight for the freedom he frequently enjoyed in private.

Despite Lindsey Graham’s lifelong dedication to murder and bigotry, which are excused as “politics” through his position in the Senate, many have celebrated the late Senator. Corey Booker called him a “hero,” and Meghan McCain is scolding anyone who says he wasn’t a perfect angel. Just like Lindsey Graham used ‘politics’ to normalize and enact his serial killer instincts, Booker, McCain, and other so-called “respectable” figures are relying on hollow decorum to force sorrow upon those who judge Graham soberly and impartially. There is a peculiar tendency in liberal politics to prove you’re Above It All by lionizing dead Republicans. It drove Ezra Klein to eulogize Charlie Kirk, who bused rioters to the Capitol on January 6th, as “doing politics the right way.” This is an expected product of the cesspool that is American establishment politics, which Americans hate, and Lindsey Graham embodied better than most. Personally, I think if you’re valorizing a man who slaughtered thousands, it says more about you than him.

Lindsey Graham’s death was bittersweet. I’m glad he’s gone. But I’m tired of evil people dying free. A crucial aspect of building a better world is ensuring those who make it worse are punished for their crimes and spend their last days in a cell. Lindsey Graham escaped man’s judgment. But he left a legacy that will be scorned for centuries. Just like Osama Bin Laden, his name will be synonymous with cowardice, genocide, and a wasted life dedicated to wrecking the beautiful fabric that unites humanity, something he was too small to understand.

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In Solidarity — Joe

The latest episode of The Ezra Klein Show features an interesting discussion with the directors of A Land For All, an Israeli-Palestinian peace group with a novel idea for the region’s future. Rula Hardal, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and May Pundak, a Jewish Israeli, make a strong case for their plan, which would recognize both the sovereign states of Israel and Palestine in a confederated system with equal rights and free movement for all. They liken their idea to a miniature version of the European Union, which enables citizens of any E.U. country to travel and work in another country while still retaining political rights in their home country. This idea has been used with success in previous peace-seeking initiatives. The Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended sectarian conflict in the North of Ireland, established the right of Irish Catholics living under British rule to opt in to Irish citizenship and hold a Republic of Ireland passport.

A Land For All’s confederate model holds promise. But ultimately, it’s not up to me, or you, or anyone except for the people who live in historic Palestine to decide what their society will look like. Palestinian self-determination means Palestinian self-determination, not another colonially-imposed defunct system, ala Lebanon. Whether the inhabitants choose to pursue a one-state, two-state, or hybrid solution is their prerogative alone. However, this is not to say that outsiders, particularly Americans, do not have a role in establishing a free Palestine. While we have no right to insist upon the final form of post-colonial governance, we do have a political, moral, and legal duty to dismantle the current Zionist entity, which was constructed to preserve Jewish supremacy that ultimately led to genocide. As required by our commitments to international law, the United States must assert that the status quo is unacceptable and insist that the future must be built on human rights, not biblical tales or the prioritization of one ethnicity over another. Which is why I take issue with the way Ezra Klein frames the path to peace like this:

“I don’t see how a two-state solution is still possible given the number and size of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. They’re not going away. Or the insistence on a right of return for Palestinians. I don’t think a one-state solution is plausible or likely. The Jewish people in and around Israel want self-determination and sovereignty. So, too, do the Palestinians. Neither side, given their history, is going to willingly give the other that kind of power.”

The keyword here is “willingly.” Throughout the interview, Klein repeatedly asks the directors how they will enact their plan, given the polarization and distrust between the groups. In typical Ezra Klein fashion, he ignores international law and discusses the plan’s viability as one that requires changing Israeli minds — as if the genocidal power currently fighting a half-dozen wars of aggression is open to good faith debate and solutions. As Klein reiterates:

“And so I can read the polling there. For the commitment to this kind of vision that you’ve described needing, you would need a wholesale change in the structure of Israeli public opinion and leadership. What is your theory of what creates that change that makes this possible?”

And again:

“I know there are no shortcuts, but, even on a 10-year time frame, what do you believe will change attitudes sufficiently so that something like this becomes possible?”

Klein is missing, or potentially misconstruing, the nature of reality in Israel-Palestine. Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Its leaders have made openly genocidal statements, which its military has enacted through unfathomable violence. A recent United Nations inquiry found the IDF “targeted Palestinian children in Gaza in two distinct ways: directly by shooting at their vital organs using precision weapons such as quadcopters and snipers; and through the use of high-impact weapons causing widespread and systematic attacks on residential buildings, schools, and displacement camps crowded with children.” The report lists several verified murders of children, including the shooting of a ten-day-old baby breastfeeding from its mother:

Injuring of a 10-day-old baby by quadcopter inside the tent in Nuseirat camp

On 12 April 2024 at 13:00, a 10 day-old-baby boy was shot by a quadcopter while being breastfed by his mother inside their tent in Nuseirat camp. The mother was alone in the tent, breastfeeding her baby, when a single bullet from a quadcopter hit the baby in the head and exited through the back of his head, hitting the pillow behind her. The baby survived but sustained brain injuries and now suffers from seizures.

The Commission viewed and analysed images of the bullet that hit the baby. The Commission concluded on reasonable grounds that the bullet was fired from a sniper rifle mounted on a quadcopter. Considering that the shooting occurred in broad daylight, the Commission concludes that the quadcopter controller would have been able to see inside the tent and assesses that the target was a mother and a baby.

With a few valiant exceptions, Israeli society does not recognize Palestinians as humans. There is no world in which the Israeli government, or its population, will operate as the good faith, egalitarian actors required for Klein’s theory of change to work. The Netanyahu government conducted the genocide, the opposition party is attacking him for not going far enough, and the Jewish-Israeli public largely supports the cross-partisan agreement on ethnic cleansing. A Haaretz poll conducted during the height of the genocide found 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the “transfer” (ethnic cleansing) of Gazans, while 56% support cleansing Palestinian citizens of Israel (such as Rula Hardal) from the country. Most shockingly, roughly half of Jewish Israelis encouraged the army to “act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, namely, to kill all its inhabitants." Israel’s other wars with Iran and Lebanon have received similar public support. The Zionist state is not the only country aflush with belligerent sentiments. But it is the only one that has turned those sentiments into widespread slaughter.

Israel’s defenders will excuse atrocities, genocidal officials, and their public support by whatabouting with similar allegations against Palestinian militants and governing bodies. But that is beside the point. Only Israel has been credibly accused of genocide by almost every major human rights organization, including its own. The United States has a specific legal duty to “prevent and punish” genocide according to the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. As decided in the 2007 International Court of Justice case Serbia v. Bosnia, signatories are obligated to step in on even suspicion that genocide is occurring, not wait for the ICJ to give a final declarative verdict. With a national sentiment seeking to eliminate the Palestinian people, a seemingly unquenchable desire for war, and well-documented genocidal crimes, the state of Israel has forfeited its right to control its future. Even if they were willing, which they are not, the Israeli state has no legal or moral right to determine what the future of Palestinian self-determination looks like, just as Germany had no say in how it was governed after World War II. Peace in historic Palestine won’t be won by debating Israelis with facts and logic. The only viable delivery of a solution, regardless of what it might be, is to employ international political, economic, and military power to force Israelis to accept a future in which everyone’s rights are respected and accepted — even if it goes against their wishes.

As with most conversations about the future of historic Palestine, this episode of The Ezra Klein Show referenced similar decolonial peace processes to find possible solutions to the enduring difficulties of settler colonialism. Specifically, the Land For All co-directors pointed to the North of Ireland Good Friday Agreement and the international movement that brought down apartheid South Africa. In both cases, justice did not arrive by convincing the dominant social group that the oppressed deserved equality. Rather, peace was achieved by forcing the prevailing power to recognize equality and codify it into law. President Bill Clinton took an active role in the Good Friday Agreement, most notably by allowing Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to travel to the U.S. and serve as a representative of the Irish Catholic Republican faction. The Agreement was met with joyous cheers in the Irish nationalist communities and a funeral atmosphere in the pro-British loyalist districts. Which isn’t surprising. Outside power had forced the dominant, oppressive group to accept its victims’ humanity. Of course those who lost their social power resented the deal! They opposed equality, and it was forced on them by a combination of armed resistance, civil disobedience, and international pressure.

Even more outside pressure was required to decolonize South Africa. A global international anti-apartheid campaign, ranging from consumer boycotts to directed state power, helped bring down the segregationist government. In the United States, this led to the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which placed sanctions on South Africa that could only be removed by the end of apartheid. With its economy strangled and ostracized on the world stage, the South African government began talks with Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement. Within a decade, white minority rule had ended.

This is not to say that international pressure alone will free Palestine, nor are they the only important actors outside the territory illegally governed by Israel. Far from it. Neither the Irish nor the African peace campaigns could have succeeded without the internal work of leaders such as Gerry Adams and Nelson Mandela, just as peace in historic Palestine will require activists such as Rula Hardal, May Pundak, and many other activists locked in Israel’s draconian torture dungeons. Whether the future looks more like Land For All’s confederation or a hard border between the two independent states, there will need to be good relations and social connections between Israeli and Palestinian neighbors. That’s true for the highest levels of their governments and for the populations that will inevitably cohabit and mingle. Social repair is a necessary component of resolving the century-long struggle, and the Land For All directors rightly recognize its imperative. But as is evident by the lens with which Ezra Klein discusses the path to end this “conflict,” mainstream liberal Zionism still sees Israel’s illegitimate state as a body that needs to be respected and nurtured, as opposed to one that must be dismantled and replaced. Fortunately, the co-directors of Land For All recognized this bias and called it out. They corrected Klein when he attempted to draw false parity between West Bank settlers and Palestinian refugees.

Klein: “One thing that I find very interesting in this project is that — you can frame it in different ways, but in a way that is different from, I think, the two-state solutions with all of its land swaps and everything — you’re able, much more directly, to simultaneously accept the presence of Jewish people in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem, and accept the Palestinian right of return at the same time. When I read it, and I doubt this is how you all would frame it — though maybe you do — it almost feels like a trade.”

Pundak: “Well, first of all, we are very careful not to make that symmetry between refugees and settlers. It’s very important for us not to make that symmetry, for all the reasons. But what I would say—”

Klein: “Why?”

Pundak: “Because refugees have a right to be part of their homeland. They have been subjected to terror and to expulsion from their homes. The settlement enterprise is an illegal and immoral enterprise. It is against international law, a lot of it is against Israeli law, and it is based on a system of supremacy. There’s no question about that, and we are all in agreement with that.”

Ezra Klein’s frame that this is a problem for Israelis and Palestinians to reach a mutual agreement on is naive at best; at worst, it’s a way to burn out good faith efforts and preserve the Israeli-dominated status quo. Because the Israelis will never willingly sacrifice their ruling position in the power imbalance. By committing genocide, Israel, by which I mean the current apartheid nation state, has forfeited its right to exist. Never mind having a say in how to solve the problem it created. Colonization is a structure, not an event. Decolonial projects tear down those structures. That can be done through an outside force, whether through diplomatic or economic pressure, or something more drastic, such as the multi-decade occupation of Germany.

The anti-genocide movement, which Ezra Klein considers himself a part of, is a long way from holding the political and social power to enact sanctions or use the American government to force an egalitarian future in historic Palestine. But we should make no mistake in clarifying that outside actors such as ourselves have a legal and ethical responsibility to enforce equality, even over inevitable objections from Zionist Israelis and their allies. Because if Middle East Peace depends on waiting for the Israelis to willingly change their minds, thousands more will die.

The organizers of A Land For All know this. After outlining the plan and addressing some of the host’s questions, May Pundak called on the international community to end the current atrocities and secure a real solution. In response, Ezra Klein ended the conversation.

If you appreciated this essay, please click the ❤️ to help it rise in Substack’s algorithm. Don’t forget to subscribe so future articles are delivered to your inbox. If you’re a returning JoeWrote reader, consider supporting my work with a premium subscription. For the cost of just one cup of coffee a month, you can help me keep creating content like this. Plus, you unlock everything JoeWrote has to offer.

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In Solidarity — Joe

Though reassuring, this rosy story is incomplete. It’s hard to square a national identity of liberty and equality with things such as, you know, slavery, genocide, the subjugation of women, and any other crime you can find by opening any history book to a random page. American propaganda doesn’t outright excuse these atrocities. Rather, it argues that the Founding Fathers were blinded by their primitive age, an unfortunate happenstance that hindered them from delivering the true equality promised by their feathered pens. Though the 18th-century founders did not live up to their promise of liberty for all, fortunately, their genius transcended their age. Born of the Enlightenment’s egalitarian ideas, the Founding Fathers created the optimal system of democratic governance that would enable future generations to overcome their missteps. As the story goes, their contributions to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights laid a path to utopia. And all we Americans must do is walk it. Former President Barack Obama, perhaps the greatest modern proponent of American mythology, drew from this national story during his recent remarks at the opening of his presidential library.

“In forming our union, the founders fell terribly short of the Declaration's promise, leaving slavery intact, allowing states to restrict the franchise to white men who owned property. But in drafting a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, they did have the foresight, the genius, to provide us with a framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect."

Though too oversimplistic for my taste, this view isn’t entirely wrong. There is no American Revolution without the Enlightenment, and the establishment of political democracy and anti-monarchical sentiment has greatly benefited the well-being of modern American citizens. While the 1776 revolution was a welcome development, it was neither decolonial nor liberatory. Grains of truth underlie Obama’s speech. But ultimately, this classical liberal view misreads history and leaves us with a false understanding of how contemporary progressive forces must grapple with the legacy of 1776 to establish a truly democratic republic.

For Better or Worse, A Bourgeouise Revolution

By overemphasizing the relevance of ideas and underemphasizing the importance of competing class interests, the classical view of the American Revolution leaves us unequipped to combat the modern issues of Republican Fascism, Democratic complacency, capitalist oligarchy, destructive climate change, and everything else that gives you a panic attack every time you read the news. Though Enlightenment ideals were present, the American Revolution was driven first and foremost by the economic and prestigious desires of the American aristocracy.

Read more

Ready for more, the Democratic Machine shook off the cobwebs and dismissed the New York elections as inconsequential. Some falsely claimed DSA candidates were backed by white gentrifiers or whatever. But as the Democratic Establishment rose, Melat Kiros set her feet, found her angle, and landed a piston of a right cross that sent Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer face-first onto the canvas. The ref has begun the ten-count. And the geriatric donkey isn’t moving.

On Tuesday, 29-year-old challenger Melat Kiros unseated 30-year incumbent Dianna DeGette to represent Colorado’s First Congressional District. When the first ballot results landed at 7 p.m. on election night, Kiros had a two-point lead. That has expanded to a thirteen-point lead over DeGette with only a few thousand ballots outstanding. Kiros hasn’t just defeated the entrenched Congresswoman — she blew her out of the water. Wiser men than I say success has many fathers, and failure is an orphan. But from my perspective as an on-the-ground Denver DSA organizer, the true parentage of the monumental Kiros Campaign was never in doubt.

Melat Kiros is a remarkable individual. From Palestine to wage labor to immigrant justice, the self-described “zillennial” barista has been personally shaped by America’s most pressing political questions. As a result, Melat Kiros embodies both the answers and the courage the moment demands.

After being fired from her legal job for standing up for anti-genocide protestors, Kiros returned to Denver and began working in a coffee shop. Though the Kiros family has lived in the Mile High City since Melat was an infant, Dianna DeGette's closing message took a page from the Turner Diaries and portrayed the Ethiopian-American immigrant as “just… not Denver.” Such xenophobia is just a sampling of the bipartisan bigotry that causes Americans of good conscience to recoil in disgust. Herself a wage laborer, rising at 4 a.m. to open the coffee shop well into her campaign, Kiros’s working-class politics, unapologetic opposition to oppression, and personal bravery resonated with Denver voters far more than DeGette’s plea that she was in line to chair a subcommittee. Shockingly, voters cared more about making rent than they did about advancing Diana DeGette’s unremarkable career.

But as Kiros said in the opening of her victory speech, she couldn’t have done it alone.

Much like in New York, the Democratic Socialists of America were the engine of Melat Kiros’s victory. Kiros wasn’t a DSA member before her campaign. So the Denver chapter’s endorsement raised eyebrows among some DSA members outside the Centennial State. While it's diligent to guard against opportunist politicians co-opting DSA’s rising popularity, those of us in Denver never had this concern with Melat.

Kiros’s dedication to socialism didn’t come from DSA’s political education program. It didn’t need to. There’s no better political educator than living through a capitalist society, noticing the powerful always win, and questioning how we can rebalance power in favor of the many. As a young woman of color working in the service industry, who has been cast out of upper society for her moral courage, and has overcome the overlapping bigotries of racism, sexism, and xenophobia that escape my understanding, Kiros understands better than most how the powerful construct unfair systems and deploy prejudice to protect their undeserved wealth and interests. When Melat Kiros joined forces with Denver DSA, it was not a marriage of convenience, but soulmates finding each other at long last. To hear Melat describe it, she searched for something like DSA for a while. And when she found us, the language and theories of democratic socialism were the natural vehicle for her working-class politics. As I told Melat when I interviewed her back in March, I’ve never felt this aligned with and excited for a politician in my life.

Unsurprisingly, Melat Kiros won Denver DSA’s endorsement by the largest margin in our chapter’s history. There was no question that Kiros shared our values and was willing to fight for them. Like any relationship, the one between Denver DSA and its newest federally elected official is a two-way street. Constantly inspired by Kiros’s unquenchable thirst for justice, the chapter kicked into overdrive. DSA-led volunteers knocked on over 115,000 doors and made 500,000 phone bank calls as part of a broader outreach effort. By the time the Associated Press called the race for Kiros, 85% of Denver’s population had received either a call or a visit from a Melat Kiros volunteer. It goes without saying that the Democratic Socialists of America couldn’t have done this alone. Jewish Voice for Peace, the Colorado Palestine Coalition, Justice Democrats, and many other progressive groups supported and organized for Melat from the start. But as one could tell from the many “DSA” chants throughout the jubilant evening, DSA provided the core of Kiros for Congress organizing, laying the groundwork for even more socialist success.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s recent wins are often framed as one part of a “progressive surge.” As this theory goes, liberal and progressive Democratic voters are dissatisfied with party leadership and are electing more left candidates in primaries. This is partly true. But if this were the whole story, we’d see progressive challengers sweep corporatist incumbents off the board. However, as Colorado’s primary night shows, dissatisfaction with the status quo does not automatically translate to anti-establishment victories.

In the Senate primary, progressive State Senator Julie Gonzales gave incumbent John Hickenlooper a run for his healthcare industry money. But ultimately, Gonzales came up short, along with fellow progressive Attorney General candidate David Seligman. There’s a lot of overlap between progressive and socialist politics. And DSA sees figures such as Gonzales and Seligman as allies in the fight against oligarchy. But when we compare Melat Kiros’s landslide victory to Gonzales and Seligman’s honorable defeats, the obvious difference is Denver DSA’s organizing infrastructure.

In an age when television and online ads are losing their impact, all highly paid consultants can do is tell their client candidates to beg corporate donors for more money to run more ads (which conveniently increases the consultants’ fees). DSA provides something paid consultants never could: an energetic network of volunteers, canvassers, and organizers who will move heaven and earth to educate the electorate about why they should vote for candidates like Melat Kiros. While faith in public institutions such as television news and incumbent politicians nosedives, the persuasive power of a normal person showing up at your door to vouch for a politician cannot be understated. That is a rare, priceless political asset that DSA provides better than anyone else on the American left.

But socialist organizing goes one step further than simply winning votes. A canvassers’ job is to promote a candidate. They have conversations, share literature, and move on to the next door. This is a crucial aspect of any political campaign, including socialist ones. However, DSA doorknockers aren’t just canvassers. They’re organizers. Unlike the Democrats, DSA doesn’t just pop back on your doorstep every two years to ask you to vote. We make it clear that the problems plaguing the Colorado and American working class won’t be solved by a single representative, even a total badass like Melat Kiros. That’s why Denver DSA brings volunteers, voters, and anyone else excited about the Kiros campaign into our ranks. As a result, Denver DSA gained 200 new members in just the final month of the Kiros campaign. Now, these new comrades can be trained, educated, and deployed to further multiply DSA’s impact at the local, state, and national levels. Plus, Denver DSA now has a household name politician, who just happens to be Denver’s gateway to Washington, to back up our efforts, just like Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did in the New York City elections. And the cycle repeats.

At the final rally before polls closed, Melat Kiros told her supporters that win or lose, they’d already won. From most politicians, this is a platitude. But from a DSA member, it’s a fact. Even if Kiros had come up short against DeGette, the Kiros campaign succeeded in building political infrastructure within Denver DSA. By ensuring volunteers were plugged into our organization as part of the election, their skills, energy, and insight won’t disappear now that Kiros For Congress has filed its final FEC declaration. Had Kiros lost, this DSA infrastructure could have been redeployed stronger and smarter to re-challenge DeGette in 2028. Now, new and veteran Denver DSA organizers can employ their improved skills and victory-fueled ambition to defeat the upcoming anti-freedom local Republican ballot initiatives, prepare for the 2028 General Strike, and advocate for socialism in the looming Democratic Presidential primary (if we so choose). Or Denver DSA could focus on liberating the Centennial State from our tech-libertarian leadership, which is hyper-fixated on doing the worst thing possible, then crying like babies when their constituents tell them to kick the Rocky Mountains with open-toed shoes. John Hicklenlooper may have bought himself another six years. But sitting Senator Michael Bennet, who looks weak as ever after getting his clock cleaned in the gubernatorial race, is up for reelection in two years. Denver Mayor Mike Johnson has angered many Denverites by ignoring their concerns and installing Flock surveillance cameras all over the city. And I’ve had a personal vendetta against him ever since he threatened to unleash the Denver Police on us at the 2024 Auraria Campus Palestine Solidarity Encampment. Time will tell where Denver DSA looks to flex our muscles next. Watch this space, as the kids say.

Just as in New York City, conservative Democrats and ‘centrist’ pundits will attempt to save face by downplaying Melat Kiros’s victory. Let them. I hope they do underestimate the organizing power of the Democratic Socialists of America. Currently, the Democratic Establishment is bruised, bloody, and on the ropes. If Jeffries and Schumer want to leave their guard down, I won’t stop them. It will only make our job easier.

I’ll be posting more behind-the-scenes photos and videos on my Instagram and TikTok accounts. Make sure to follow me there so you don’t miss them.

If you appreciated this essay, please click the ❤️ to help it rise in Substack’s algorithm. Don’t forget to subscribe so future articles are delivered to your inbox. If you’re a returning JoeWrote reader, consider supporting my work with a premium subscription. For the cost of just one cup of coffee a month, you can help me keep creating content like this. Plus, you unlock everything JoeWrote has to offer.

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In Solidarity — Joe

I’ve covered the Abundance world since the book debuted last year. Immediately, other critics and I called out the program as another elite-driven program to protect capital against socialist and progressive influence. For this, we were dismissed and told, “Abundance just wants to build housing.” That was a pretty obvious lie at the time. And now Dylan’s reporting proves it.

In her American Prospect article, Dylan reports on Silicon Valley billionaires who are driving the Abundance Network, which funds neoliberal and libertarian politics. In the leaked documents, the billionaires refer to themselves as “elites” and say they oppose democratic elections.

“Small dollar internet fundraising makes politics dumber. The old gatekeepers were political professionals who could count cards; small dollar donors today are amateurs yanking the handles of ActBlue slot machines.” — Zack Rosen, founder of the Abundance Network

Check out Dylan’s excellent reporting (here), and make sure to follow her on social media:

Twitter

BlueSky

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In Solidarity — Joe

On June 24th, 2025, long-shot mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani defeated political titan Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic primary. Three hundred and sixty-four days later, Mayor Mamdani was still celebrating. His personal endorsements for federal office went three for three, a cherry on top of the tidal wave of election victories for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). While the media and critics reluctantly attribute this week’s political earthquake to the celebrity power of America’s favorite charismatic mayor, this convenient narrative overlooks the true engine of progressive politics in the United States — the Democratic Socialists of America.

June 23rd, 2026, was a great night for DSA. Eleven of the twelve candidates endorsed by the New York City chapter won their race — Claire Valdez for NY-7, Darializa Avila Chevalier for D-13, Alexandria Occasio Cortez for NY-14, Aber Kawas for State Senate District 12, Christian Celeste Tate for Assembly District 54, David Orkin for Assembly District 38, Diana Morena for Assembly District 36, Eon Huntley for Assembly District 56, Illapa Sairitupac for Assembly District 65, Phara Souffrant Forrest for Assembly District 57, and Samanth Kattan for Assembly District 37. Endorsed by DSA national, Adam Bojak and Jo Bennett were elected to the New York State Assembly District 149 (Buffalo, NY) and the Onondaga County Legislature (Syracuse, NY), respectively. As of the time of publishing, the Democratic Socialists of America went 19-10 on June 23rd, with one candidate’s race still outstanding.

Having been a card-carrying DSA member for the better part of a decade, I’m confident in saying June 23rd was the best night in our organization’s history. Not just because of our election results, and not just because the vibes are higher than Don Jr. on a private jet. Instead, New York’s tantalizing election night is a testament to the successful theory, strategy, and execution of the Democratic Socialists of America. This was not just a “progressive wave,” nor did DSA-endorsed and recommended candidates catch incumbents off guard. These were hard-fought, high-visibility elections that proved DSA’s decades of multi-channel organizing have nurtured a healthy, growing, powerful political movement capable of defeating the Democratic establishment on its home turf.

But not everyone saw it this way. The haters and losers, of which there are many, are running through excuses to attribute this success to anything except the well-oiled DSA machine. The Wall Street Journal said the elections will put distance between Jews and Democrats, ignoring that the Mamdani ally with the largest margin of victory was a Jew. There was also a strong tendency to ignore DSA’s efforts and lay the victory solely on Mamdani’s shoulders. Many outlets anointed the mayor as “Kingmaker,” a convenient narrative that fits the post-Obama liberal belief that politics is driven by charismatic leaders rather than the effective organization of the masses. Meanwhile, my centrist friends in independent media fell back on their usual excuse that blue-district primaries have no effect on the direction of the Democratic Party. Though I’m ecstatic about socialist victories, this brings me no joy. First, the opium crisis devastated working-class towns across America. Now, the copium crisis is ravaging the Upper West Side, Forest Hills, and other enclaves of the corporatist media elite. Please, check in on your Third Way friends. And remind them, it’s okay not to be okay.❤️

A more honest accounting of the New York elections paints a different picture. Yes, these are deep blue districts. And yes, Mamdani is a cultural star. But neither of these is why the Democratic Socialists of America just went belt to ass on the Democratic establishment. New York City is not just any liberal city. It is the DNC’s home turf. These elections were just a few subway stops from the homes of Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who went all-out to defend their incumbents. Protecting Hispanic Caucus chair Adriano Espaillat was Hakeem Jeffries’s highest priority. And DSA ran right through him. If these results were in Minneanopolis or Seattle, perhaps the naysayers would have a point. But the fact that these victories occurred in New York City does not diminish DSA’s accomplishment — it enhances it.

Not to speak ill of Supreme Chairmand Zohran Maomdani, whose name strikes fear into the heart of landlords, but attributing these victories squarely to him misses (or rather, ignores) the strength and depth of the Democratic Socialists of America. Which, of course, is how Mamdani came to be mayor. From our highest elected officials down to our dedicated doorknockers and phonebankers, DSA’s New York Red Wave shows what our organization can accomplish when all avenues of our philosophy come together.

Labor 🤝 Palestine 🤝 Electoral

DSA’s most significant victory was the election of Darializa Avila Chevalier, who faced the longest odds to win the NY-13 district heading into election day. A former organizer of the Columbia Palestine Solidarity Encampment, Avila Chevalier (or “DAC” as she’s known), held her chin high in the face of racist, sexist, and Islamophobic attacks from her opponent. Days before the election, Adriano Espaillat’s senior advisor, Rusking Pimental, appeared on Spanish media and accused Avila Chevalier and Mamdani of doing the Great Replacement Theory against the district’s heavily Dominican population.

“Mamdani, who is also Muslim, his goal is to change the demography of Washington Heights, that Washington Heights no longer be a bastion of the Dominican community, that it rather become a bastion of the Haitian, Muslim community allied to him.” — Rusking Pimental

In another interview, Pimental said Avila Chevalier faked her Dominican ancestry to trick the electorate into voting for her. This hatred materialized in physical voter suppression and intimidation. Espaillat’s supporters blocked polling stations for “Dominicans only” (a civil rights violation), and Avila Chevalier had to flee several locations after hecklers turned violent. The New York media spent months digging through DAC’s deleted tweets, misrepresenting and decontextualizing them to accuse her of second- or third-order antisemitism, violence, or radicalism. But when Avila Chevalier was on the receiving end of vile bigotry and actual physical violence, the best the media could do was say “Ethnicity Becomes Instrument of Division.” Of course, they used the opportunity to talk about Avila Chevalier’s old tweets, not the Democratic establishment’s abhorrent racism against a young woman of color.

Fortunately, DSA’s energized ground game came up big. In addition to knocking tens of thousands of doors, DSA’s election-eve phonebank made over 90,000 calls for Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez. That very well may have been the deciding factor, as DAC and Valdez won by 2,000 votes and 14,000 votes, respectively. In the end, Espaillat’s pathetic racism fell flat. Avila Chevalier won NY-13’s majority Black districts by 10 points. It’s almost like New Yorkers care about affordability and abolishing ICE more than reiterating the racial dynamics of Hispanola. Who would’ve thought!

There is no single reason why Darializa Avila Chevalier won. But DSA’s continued leadership in the anti-Zionist struggle cannot be understated. DAC put her body, safety, and liberty on the line by organizing encampments for Palestine, often in the face of horrendous slanders and police violence. And those who either partook in or supported the encampment campaign took that energy into DAC’s election, knocking doors, making calls, and doing everything else necessary to send this anti-genocide organizer to Congress.

Since Donald Trump was elected, establishment media have smugly asked, “Where Are All the Campus Protestors?” While such articles appeared in The Atlantic to reassure the reactionary upper-class Americans that yes, they were right to dismiss those silly college kids, the commentariat was too busy chattering at cocktail parties to notice the Palestine Solidarity Movement was reorganizing. Protests have little impact on state policy. And they didn’t drive university divestments, either. So, the movement learned from its mistakes, shifted strategies, and directed the anti-genocide energy into the more effective channel of electoral politics. And it won.

“Where are the Columbia protestors?” the elite snicker. “On my way to Congress,” responds Darializa Avila Chevalier.

In New York’s 7th District, DSA-backed Claire Valdez defeated Antonio Reynoso in a race that shows DSA is second-to-none on the American left.

The chosen successor to retiring Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Antonio Reynoso was supported by the Working Families Party (WFP), NY Attorney General Letitia James, Congressmen Jerry Nadler and Pat Ryan, and the majority of unions that entered the race. A popular Brooklyn Borough President, Reynoso is a well-known, well-credentialed progressive. His platform calls for the abolition of ICE and the end of the Gaza genocide. In a most Democratic primary, Reynoso would have my support. But in New York City’s Commie Corridor, being a progressive simply isn’t enough. Just as American voters consistently choose Republicans over Democrats’ offering of Republican Lite, leftist voters prefer DSA’s socialism over WFP’s progressivism.

A State Assemblywoman and UAW union organizer, Claire Valdez is a natural product of DSA’s labor organizing efforts. From working at Taco Bell to organizing Columbia’s graduate assistants, Valdez embodies the socialist vision of a militant, organized working class. As Valdez says herself:

“I didn’t come to politics through party machines or electoral ambition. I learned how this system really works in low-wage customer service jobs and found my power in a union.”

A member of UAW Local 2110’s bargaining committee, Valdez and other academic workers were instrumental in democratizing the UAW after the 2020 corruption scandal. By pushing the One Member, One Vote referendum in 2022, academic workers laid the groundwork for the election of current president Shawn Fain, who has injected the UAW with much-needed radicalism. Fain’s push for a 2028 general strike and willingness to endorse candidates such as Valdez are the fruits of the academic organizing project, which has roots in DSA. While Shawn Fain and the UAW’s support for Claire Valdez is a testament to the snowball effect of DSA’s multi-avenue approach, this only scratches the surface of what our joint electoral and labor efforts can bring.

The union-versus-union dynamics of the New York 7 race teach us important lessons about the future of labor politics. Antonio Reynoso had the endorsement of most unions, but it didn’t seem to have made a difference. With Shawn Fain's support and her roots in militant union organizing, Claire Valdez won by over 21 points. Though Reynoso technically had more union support, those unions failed to mobilize enough members to volunteer and get their candidate over the hump. Comparatively, Valdez’s labor support looked weaker on paper. But the union energy, as seen by Shawn Fain’s willingness to stump for Valdez, energized his UAW base to combine forces with DSA and deliver a landslide victory. The older, conservative leadership of established unions might still shy away from DSA. But if NY-7 is any indication, activating and energizing union members towards their material interests can help us connect with America’s unionized workforce, which has been complacent and dormant for too long.

To Endorse Or Not To Endorse

While the unseen DSA’s rank-and-file went big for Darializa, Claire, and the rest of the endorsed candidates, the organization’s high-profile electeds also pulled their weight to deliver these historic results.

Endorsements have long been a point of friction between the DSA base and our elected officials. Justifiably, the rank and file wish our politicians would endorse every socialist challenger, and grow frustrated when they don’t. The problem facing politicians like Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani, who have both been criticized for being too conservative in their endorsements, is that opposing Democratic incumbents and allies can destroy the relationships they need to remain effective legislators. Showing the American working class that we can be responsible stewards of political will is crucial to DSA’s ambitions, both within and outside the electoral arena. Competent governance and legislative activity are the best ways to prove ourselves to those we wish to represent, and failing to do so will weaken our project. This puts DSA’s interests on a knife-edge. If our elected officials overreach, they risk being shunned and prevented from doing their jobs, giving critics ammunition to undermine DSA’s future projects. But if they are too reluctant to endorse, DSA risks losing winnable elections, depriving existing elected officials of much-needed allies who could give new and veteran DSA electeds alike more endorsement power and breathing room. This is a difficult balance for DSA, and an even more difficult balance for the politicians themselves. Which is why I’m greatly impressed by AOC and Mamdani’s planned strategy to maximize candidates’ chance of success while avoiding destructive blowback.

Working together, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez coordinated their support to ensure each DSA candidate had at least one ‘star’ endorsement while avoiding enraging the Democrats they still begrudgingly rely on. To do this, Ocasio-Cortez endorsed New York Assembly candidates David Orkin, Celeste Tate, and Eon Huntley. Mamdani sat out these endorsements to avoid upsetting New York state and local Democrats, giving himself the space to continue his spectacular governance of New York City, such as yesterday’s announcement that the rent is officially frozen. Mamdanistan’s city on a hill is of priceless value to both the American and international socialist movement, and should be protected. Mamdani returned the favor, endorsing Congressional candidates Claire Valdez and Darializia Avila Chevalier, boosting these candidates while helping Occasio-Cortez avoid angering federal-level allies. With Valdez running against the hand-picked successor of AOC’s mentor, Nydia Velázquez, and DAC running against the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, an AOC endorsement would have blown up many of the Congresswoman’s relationships, creating headaches for DSA’s electoral ambitions down the road. By coordinating their endorsements, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani maximized DSA’s chance of success at the federal, state, and local levels, while avoiding provoking enemies that will come back to bite DSA later on. For example, Hakeem Jeffries, who was furious at AOC and Mamdani for endorsing against incumbent Democrats, said the New York Mayor would have “work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward.” This is the classic Democratic Machine trying to punish insurgent leftists. But this time, it won’t work! Mamdani doesn’t have to repair relationships with Congressional Democrats for the same reason as Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t have to repair relationships with Albany Democrats — they don’t need them!

While many DSA members have raised concerns about the conservative nature of endorsements from socialists in office (myself included), none can deny that the strategy coordinated between Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani worked perfectly. Every candidate endorsed by one of the two won their election. In fact, the only NYC-DSA-endorsed candidate who wasn’t endorsed by either AOC or Mamdani was Conrad Blackburn, NYC-DSA’s sole loss on Tuesday. Blackburn is a dedicated union organizer, public defender, and socialist. But his uphill battle against the son of the Manhattan Democratic Party leader was too steep for either AOC or Zohran to stick their neck out for. Blackburn lost by eight points and is sure to return stronger. But compiled with DSA’s incredible victories, Blackburn’s disappointing loss shows DSA’s highest-profile elected officials know when to go all-in and when to keep their power dry. With two more New York socialists headed to Congress, DSA’s political power will grow, the demand for establishment appeasement will diminish, and more DSA members will be elected. Here’s Mamdani’s top strategist, Morris Katz, explaining how figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani coordinate and build on each other’s victories to empower other DSA candidates to win.

While Katz is correct to say Tuesday’s victories couldn’t have happened without Mamdani’s victory, and Mamdani’s victory couldn’t have happened without Ocasio-Cortez’s (which couldn’t have happened without Bernie 2016), we should remember these politicians are the most visible forms of DSA’s dedicated organizing. Without taking anything away from either politician, both rose to household-name status by running through DSA. A DSA endorsement does not mean we stamp our logo on your campaign literature. It is a promise to drive your campaign at every level, from doorknockers to fundraisers to campaign strategy. Both Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 defeat of Joe Crowley and Mamdani’s 2025 destruction of Andrew Cuomo came from the unwavering dedication of on-the-ground organizers. Both are gifted communicators and skilled political maneuverers, but neither would be where they are without the direct assistance of the New York chapter, the influx of financial, phone-banking, and digital support from DSA’s national network, and the continuous push for democratic socialism. By working hard for AOC, Zohran, and many other socialist candidates in years past, the DSA rank-and-file secured important beachheads in the electoral arena. Now, those strongholds have empowered us to launch further attacks against the Democratic establishment and fascist Republicans.

The DSA Difference

Another sign of DSA’s increasing political might can be seen not just in who won on Tuesday night, but in who lost.

As expected, Mamdani ally Brad Lander trounced incumbent Dan Goldman by thirty points. Lander is a former DSA member who exited the organization over our anti-Zionism. Still, Lander ran as a stern anti-genocide critic who opposed weapons shipments to Israel, while Goldman tried to placate the progressive base with #Thoughts&Prayers for the Palestinians and #Missles&Bombs for the Israelis. It didn’t work. The race centered on Israel, and the more critical candidate won. In what the psychotic Zionists are calling a horror show of anti-semitism, Jewish voters in the most Jewish district in the country elected an anti-genocide Jew to represent them. Cue the “This is just like 1930s Germany” freakout. But sober observers can see the real lesson here. Democratic voters have disapproved of Israel for some time. And the results of NY-10 show they’re willing to translate that disapproval into electoral results, even if it means bucking the party establishment.

The 12th congressional district saw a showdown between Resistance icon George Conway, Kennedy heir Jack Schlossberg, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, and Assemblyman Alex Bores. While Bores was by far the most progressive candidate, his obsession with Israel kept him from receiving the grassroots energy that propelled other progressives to victory. Unlike Lander, Bores rejects any conditioning of aid to Israel and recently marched in the Israel Day Parade alongside genocidal finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. The progressive surge driven by DSA passed Bores by, causing him to lose to Micah Lasher by less than four points in a four-way race. It’s unlikely Bores would ever receive a DSA endorsement. But we have a wide wake, and moving closer to DSA’s foreign policy position might have been enough to give Bores enough juice to send him to Congress.

The Anti-Tea Party

Given the sudden rise of DSA after the second election of Donald Trump, many commentators have drawn comparisons with the Tea Party. Though candidates from the far ends of the party defeating their centrist establishments appear like a funhouse mirror reflection, the rise of DSA and what is now called MAGA could not be more different.

The Tea Party succeeded because it was a top-down movement. Fearful of Obama’s domestic policies, the Koch Brothers and other wealthy capitalists used their wealth and pre-controlled media, namely Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, to inject radical libertarianism, racism, and xenophobia into the Republican Party. Alternatively, DSA’s success does not come from the top. We have no pre-controlled media allies, wealthy donors, or established political connections. The socialist cause has grown from the ground up. Claire Valdez, the Taco Bell worker. Darializa Avila Chevalier, the campus organizer. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the bartender. Since reinventing itself after the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign, the Democratic Socialists of America has organized in every avenue of revolutionary struggle. DSA members unionize workers, organize tenants, lead street protests, raise funds, run for office as independents, and fight the Democratic establishment in contested primaries. The New York elections offer insight into how these organizing avenues reinforce one another, building momentum and power. Darializa’s Palestine solidarity work has lifted her to office, where she’ll vote for the PRO Act, empowering DSA’s labor organizers to make deeper inroads in the union movement. Claire Valdez’s support from the UAW has given us another vote against weapons shipments to Israel, furthering the goals of our internationalist ventures. Which will recruit more Americans disgusted by our complicity in mass slaughter to DSA, increasing our numbers and empowering our organization to achieve our lofty goals of Medicare for All and an arms embargo on Israel. And all of this is driven by the rank-and-file membership of the Democratic Socialists of America, who knocked doors, phone-banked, raised funds, and did everything else necessary to get these fantastic candidates elected to office. These activists are standing on the shoulders of those who did the same for Zohran in 2025, who did the same for Bernie in 2020, AOC in 2018, Bernie in 2016, and so on and so forth, all the way back to comrades Michael Harrington and Jose La Luz, who founded the Democratic Socialists of America and ingrained us with hard lessons learned from the failures of 20th century communist movements and the Cold War New Left.

The Democratic Socialists of America is no longer a group of Chapo Trap House listeners sitting on the political sidelines, complaining that the Democratic establishment cheated Bernie Sanders’ long-shot presidential campaigns. DSA is the strongest socialist party in modern American history. The New York showcase is only a fraction of what we can achieve.

Rosa Luxemburg once said we will have socialism, or we will have barbarism. For centuries, the political establishment of both parties has only offered Americans barbarism. Now that DSA is offering them socialism. And they’re starting to see that our path is the superior option.

Join us. A better world is being born.

If you want Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez to have even more support in Congress, then we need your help in electing Melat Kiros for Colorado’s 1st District. Melat is DSA-endorsed and decided to run for office after losing her job for supporting anti-genocide protestors. Like Darializa, Melat has faced astoundingly racist attacks from her opponent. So, we need all the help we can get.

The election is Tuesday, June 30th, so it’s crunch time. If you volunteer for any Melat Kiros phonebank between now and then, I’ll give you a free 6-month premium access. Honor system — just shoot me a DM to let me know you got involved!

Help Send Melat Kiros to Congress!

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In Solidarity — Joe

On June 12th, SpaceX launched its initial public offering with a valuation of $1.77 trillion. Pre-IPO investors made a killing. The SpaceX share price (SPCX) rose 20% over the last month. Musk was the greatest benefactor, in more ways than one. Though he owns 42% of SpaceX stock (worth over $765 billion), Musk holds the Class B stock, which gives him 82% of the voting power. SpaceX might be public, but it’s very much still Elon Musk’s dominion. I can’t blame Musk for not wanting to give up control. His stewardship of SpaceX (which is a Russian nesting doll of all his failed companies) made him the world’s richest man by an impressive margin. Currently, Elon Musk is almost four times as rich as the world’s second-richest man, Google co-founder Larry Page, who is making ends meet with a humble net worth of $304 billion.

As expected, many people bemoaned the structural failures that led to one man owning 550% as much wealth as the entire bottom half of American society. Clearly, you peasants don’t know what’s good for you. Thankfully, our sagest business leaders and Professional Brain Thinkers have generously explained to the unsophisticated, ungrateful, undeserving masses that unsustainable wealth inequality is good, actually.

“The fruits of Elon’s labor are making him into a trillionaire, and they’re uplifting humanity,” one Silicon Valley head told The New York Times. SpaceX chief Adeo Ressi was even more sycophantic, saying Musk’s wealth was a by-product of his unscratchable itch to advance the human race. “He’s amassing resources to do things, and the thing he wants to do most is colonize Mars. That’s a really big driving force behind his wealth accumulation.” Conservative writer Charles C. Cooke praised the trillionaire status with “Three Cheers for America,” calling those who criticized Musk “Revolting. Repulsive. Grotesque. Un-American.” (Original emphasis.) Meanwhile, Cooke’s National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg declared the first trillionaire a victory for "Team Capitalism” and scolded Musk’s critics with the intellectual rigor of a middle-school redditor who read half of Thomas Sowell’s Wikipedia page.

“In objective terms, no one was made poorer by Musk getting richer. Subjectively, however, we’re all poorer in the sense that the richest person in the world became marginally richer. That’s a vibes argument. If your neighbor wins the lottery, you will be poorer in comparison. But your ability to clothe, feed and house you and your family will not have changed.

If I cure cancer tomorrow, I will get very rich. Where’s the injustice? The world gets a cure for cancer, the economy saves countless billions fighting cancer, and I get to buy a bunch of cool stuff. Everyone, except maybe some drug companies and oncologists, comes out a winner.

I’ll never cure cancer. But capitalism probably will, eventually. Which is just one of a trillion reasons why I am on Team Capitalism.” — Jonah Goldberg

It’s always fun to check in with our conservative friends and remember that “Capitalism will probably, eventually cure cancer” is the best argument they can muster. The depth of American conservative intellectualism is as shallow and repugnant as their daddy’s new swimming pool.

While the American League of Trillionaire Bootlickers is correct to identify Elon Musk as a uniquely American product, their blind zealotry reveals they have no interest in examining the consequences of a trillionaire’s world, only awarding themselves points on the imaginary political scoreboard. While the Free Market Fetishizers try to gaslight us into believing Musk’s wealth will soon trickle down to your neighborhood, an honest accounting of his business ventures paints a different picture — one that shows modern capitalism is not an engine for social advancement, but a mechanism for the rich to get richer at great cost to the rest of us.

The Best Capitalist

For centuries, capitalists have won over the masses with the rising tide theory: if capitalists are allowed to own everything and distribute resources as they please, the rising tide of economic growth will lift every boat — the billionaire’s mega-yacht and the fisherman’s rowboat alike. As the theory goes, the capitalists will create better technology, the economy will grow, and increased collective wealth will foster peace and prosperity. Though simplistic, this theory isn’t wrong. It’s why the opening chapter of The Communist Manifesto praises the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) for “creating more massive and more colossal productive forces in one century than have all preceding generations together.” Competition fuels innovation. And though the greatest technological breakthroughs have come from governments competing in space exploration and war, market competition has increased the average human’s quality of life.

However, we must remember that improving society is not the capitalists’ goal. Bankers and investors don’t want to grow the economy, invent new technology, or raise millions out of poverty. Capitalism is not a contest to be the best entrepreneur, innovator, or humanitarian. It is a competition to be the best capitalist, a race to see who can best manage money to maximize their wealth, power, and profits. Sometimes this continuous tournament will bank-shot its way into helping the working class. But as market capitalism reaches its inevitable form of state-protected monopoly, those cases are becoming increasingly rare. According to capitalist theory, Uber should be improving the rider experience to outcompete Lyft. Instead, these companies are looking inward and investing in surveillance pricing technology to squeeze extra profit out of crucial rides, raising prices if you’re in a hurry or going to pick up your kid. This process is called Enshitifcation, which is why everything around you is getting worse. Southwest Airlines is shrinking seats for the same reason Netflix is increasing ads. They can make more money squeezing you than competing with their competitors.

While capitalists can still profit through traditional market competition among companies, investors and owners are accustomed to the massive returns of internet-age hyperscalers. They don’t want 2% returns on making better dishwashers. They want massive, quick returns on tens of millions, as delivered by companies like Apple, Microsoft, and the thousands of successful tech firms that emerged in the modern computing age. So, investors are eager for new markets, even when there’s no consumer base to buy what they’re selling.

In centuries past, this was done through imperialism and colonization. But now that the map is mostly set. So billionaires hype up the Metaverse, Crypto, Artificial Intelligence, and even space exploration as new avenues for economic expansion. Silicon Valley tech bros go wild for what these products “will do,” despite their investments having no material benefit to consumers, commodities, or productive activity. Karl Marx called this “fictitious capital” for good reason. With no tangible connection to valuable goods or services, this hype capitalism has created a class of oligarchs who have summited the capitalist system without producing much of anything.

“[Ficticious capital has created] a new financial aristocracy, a new variety of parasites in the shape of promoters, speculators and simply nominal directors; a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promotion, stock issuance and stock speculation.” — Das Kapital, Volume III

Despite what SpaceX’s public relations briefs and National Review sycophants say, Elon Musk did not attain trillionaire status by curing diseases or inventing a useful product. That is what zealots want us to believe modern capitalism is. In reality, Elon Musk built his status through what modern capitalism actually is: the management of fictitious capital, the cudgel of undemocratic political power, and the profitization of the rapid fusion of corporations and the state.

A Trash Can, In a Dumpster Fire, In a Rocket Ship

While SpaceX is marketed as a space exploration company, it’s… not. Musk is already half a decade behind his promise to put a man on Mars. He hasn’t even gotten to the moon, something the United States government did two decades before the internet was invented. SpaceX’s spacefaring brand is really a trench coat that Musk uses to hide his unprofitable, overvalued companies and the profitable, publicly-funded government contracts that disprove his image as a libertarian inventor.

The SPCX IPO was valued at a record-breaking $1.77 trillion. That’s 94 times the revenue it’s generated in the last twelve months. For context, pharma companies are usually valued at 3-7 times their twelve-month trailing revenue. Figma went public last year with a head-turning evaluation of 25 times its twelve-month trailing revenue. So SpaceX being at 94 times its latest revenue year is astronomical (no pun intended.) Of course, this difference between hype and delivery rests on Elon Musk’s well-curated image, not what he’s actually done.

In January, Elon leaked to Reuters that SpaceX made $8 billion in profit in 2025. But when the company opened its books for pre-IPO due diligence, it was discovered that SpaceX actually lost $5 billion. Valuations are forward-looking, but even then, there’s little promise of actual profit. Before the IPO, SpaceX claimed it had a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, which it boasted was “the largest TAM in human history.” However, $26.5 trillion of that potential SpaceX revenue is predicted to come from xAI, Musk’s second-rate AI company that he merged with Twitter last March. (I’m never calling it ‘X.’) xAI’s flagship product is Grok, the AI chatbot built into Twitter that has a tendency to accuse Jews of undermining society and claim South Africa of white genocide. I’m not a financial analyst, but I fail to see how a declining social media site and a conspiracy chatbot will deliver $26.5 trillion in revenue.

Twitter's ad revenue has plummeted since Musk took control, with the company losing about 80% of its value in the first few years under his tutelage. Musk purchased Twitter with $44 billion raised from Bill Ackman, Larry Ellison, Saudi Arabia’s investment arm, and, of course, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. Unable to deliver a healthy return to his investors, Musk merged Twitter and xAI to obscure the social site’s shortfall. The only problem is that xAI lost $6.4 billion in 2025, making it only slightly less of a disaster than the Nazi-filled microblogging site. So, Musk merged xAI (including Twitter) into SpaceX earlier this year to hide his AI and social media losses. Yet, even that wasn’t enough.

The only profitable part of SpaceX is Starlink, the satellite-based internet service and Pentagon contractor. Starlink generated between 60% to 80% of all SpaceX revenue in 2025, depending on the estimate. But that’s only because its satellites are launched by the SpaceX space exploration segment, which operates at a loss. This is a more creative bookkeeping to make Starlink look profitable than an actual successful business model. According to the space business intelligence firm Quality Space, Starlink’s current revenue is about half consumer internet and half government contracts. Top-secret status prevents us from knowing exactly how much taxpayer money is going to Musk through government contracts, but it’s at least $38 billion. Quality Space predicts that by next year, the majority of Starlink's revenue will come from Starshield, its government contracting arm. Musk has predicted SpaceX will earn a trillion in revenue by 2031. But as analysts have pointed out, he would have increased his rate of rocket launches by a factor of 100 each year.

Elon Musk did not become a trillionaire by inventing helpful products or creating millions of jobs. Rather than engaging with the side quests, the South African immigrant identified and executed a plan to win the capitalist game. Like his fellow ultra-wealthy, Musk won the lottery of birth, being born at a time when he could capitalize on the internet's nascent market. After cashing out on PayPal, he realized Wall Street was excited for futuristic investments, even if they didn’t understand the actual value of what he was planning to build. So Elon took advantage of the turn-of-the-millennium technological acceleration and sold himself to investors as the next Thomas Edison. He quickly founded SpaceX, bought Tesla (and calls himself its founder), acquired Twitter and numerous other companies, all of which enhanced his reputation as a genius inventor. However, few of these companies are profitable, and the ones that are rely on government contracts. Which means the only functional companies Elon Musk runs are the ones that receive your tax dollars.

SpaceX is Musk’s attempt to turn his hype into profits. One after another, his lagging businesses have been shoved under the SpaceX umbrella for this IPO, hoping the public will gleefully buy up so much stock that he and his investor buddies can make themselves whole. If you’ve been on Twitter lately, you know it’s a dumpster fire. Elon Musk tried to hide that dumpster fire by merging it with the cash-burning pile that is xAI. But that looked bad, so he shoved the whole thing into a SpaceX rocket in hopes the sci-fi vibes would outshine the flames pouring from every crack in his poorly designed spaceship. And it worked. Just weeks after taking the company public, Musk announced SpaceX would be selling $20 billion in bonds, the same amount he borrowed from Wall Street in February to merge xAI (and Twitter) into SpaceX. Because Twitter wasn’t worth what he paid for it, Musk combined his companies and is using the overinflated SpaceX valuation created by his persona to pay for the acquisition. But Musk isn’t using the profits from one successful venture to balance the losses of an unsuccessful one. Musk is using SpaceX's hype to offset losses from Twitter and xAI. And this is as stable as SpaceX is going to get. It’s an open secret that Musk plans to merge Tesla into SpaceX to obscure the losses of this “car” company.

Tesla sales plummeted in Q1 of 2026, the third straight year of declining car sales. That indicates a lack of market need for Tesla’s product, but cars were never Musk’s business model to begin with. While Musk tricked America into thinking he was an environmentalist Henry Ford, Tesla made money by taking advantage of carbon-credit loopholes. By making gasless cars at a loss, Tesla sold its carbon credits to other car manufacturers to generate revenue. This is how the company supported itself as the car technology advanced. But declining car sales show that the only long-term profitability Tesla can offer comes from environmental regulation loopholes. Over half of Tesla’s $3.8B in 2025 profits came from selling carbon credits. Meanwhile, its profit margin has been in free fall, from 24% in 2022 to 4.9% in 2025. Musk has also been steering Tesla towards becoming an “AI company.” So expect fewer cars and more nonsense about how Tesla/xAI/Grok will be the future.

What Elon Musk understands isn’t about inventing or selling good products. Nor is it about using private capital to advance the common interest. What Elon Musk understands better than his oligarchic peers is that capitalism is about power. One of his supporters told The New York Times that the traditional view of wealth inequality doesn’t apply to Musk, because he doesn’t own mega-yachts or private islands (though he was very eager to go to his good pal Jeffrey’s!) Musk might not flaunt his wealth, but he understands better than anyone else that by amassing it, he can break the rules and laws to bend the capitalist system to his will. Musk has decided the law doesn’t apply to him, flaunting everything from the SEC guidelines to the Constitution. Unfortunately, he’s correct. Along with fictitious capital, Musk correctly identified that he could fuse his private companies with the state, a perpetual source of income. Not only is he making money from carbon credits and government contracts, but his record-breaking $250 billion donation to candidate Donald Trump (along with his purchase of Twitter) also enables him to pressure the government to protect his interests. In a recent lawsuit, the Department of Justice stepped in to defend xAI’s polluting data centers, claiming they were “vital to national security.” Apparently, Grok is helping us fight Iran. (Which explains why we lost.)

With so much economic and state power in his hands, no Democrat, Republican, or stockholder dares to challenge Musk. Now, he’s using that power to change the already-flimsy guardrails used to protect your retirement investments.

Congrats, You’re a SpaceX Shareholder

Through skilled management of capital, Musk has made SpaceX so valuable on paper that investment managers are throwing protections to the wayside to ride IPO coattails.

To get SpaceX listed on its exchange, the FTSE Russell Index eased its regulatory rules specifically for Elon Musk. Companies no longer need to wait for their next annual review to be included on the British FTSE 1000 and the American Russell 2000, two indexes frequently used for low-risk retirement investing. Instead, FTSE Russell requires only that the value of publicly traded shares exceed the index cutoff after five days of public trading. While every index has different cutoff requirements, the result will be the same. As mentioned above, SpaceX is valued at a record-breaking 93.5 times its twelve-month trailing revenue. You don’t need to be Warren Buffett to know this is a risky bet, which is why many seasoned investors are skeptical of purchasing SPCX shares. Yet many working-class Americans, including you, may have their retirement funds invested in SpaceX even if they don’t want to. The Nasdaq 100 also adjusted its fast-track rules to welcome SpaceX, and the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Indices are expected to do so shortly.

This would mean SpaceX will be heavily invested in passive funds, such as 401(k)s, broad-market ETFs, and other consumer portfolios, even if people never chose those investments. AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic are also pushing for IPOs, meaning even more of your retirement investments could be used as collateral to float the billionaires who over-invested in AI, and have nothing to show for it. With the average American being forced to buy into a massively overvalued enterprise, the lessons of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis ring in my ears.

“Given the high risks of IPO investing, combined with the huge premium valuations being mooted for megacap IPOs such as SpaceX, it is a reasonable question to ask whether passive funds should be forced buyers of these stocks.” — Samuel Kerr, Global Head of ECM at Mergermarket

It gets even more troubling. Musk staggered SPACX’s lockups to expire starting on June 30th and continuing throughout the year. Lockups prevent pre-IPO shareholders from selling before a certain date. This keeps the share price high, so it’s attractive to public traders. Once public money backs SpaceX, Musk’s favored investors and personal friends who got in before the IPO can sell their stock, finally profiting from a company that struggles to turn a profit. After the June 30th release date, 40% more SPACX shares than were sold during the first week of SpaceX’s IPO will hit the market. This puts everyone who purchased after the IPO, including the retirement portfolio investment managers, at risk. In 2019, Uber shares hit an all-time low after early investors sold out when the lock-up expired. With so many of Musk’s cronies invested in SpaceX, expect a similar drop in value as all the outsiders pull out.

Refer a friend

While this is nightmare fuel for those of us who work for a living, the business press is awe-inspired by Musk’s manipulation of the financial system. They treat capitalist finance like a sport, rather than the bedrock of societal stability and security. Here’s how asset managers for public employees sounded the alarm about the risk of these new index fast-entry rules:

We write as the Trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the investment adviser, custodian, and a trustee of the five New York City public pension systems, the Comptroller of Maryland and the Illinois State Treasurer. Together, our funds manage combined assets under management exceeding $600 billion, held for millions of working and retired public servants, teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses, and other beneficiaries. Those beneficiaries’ retirement security depends on the long-term health of the U.S. public capital markets and stability of passive investment vehicles tracking indexes with reliable, tested inclusion methodologies.

In light of those interests and our respective fiduciary duties, we respectfully request that the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and FTSE Russell reconsider the implementation of the Russell US Indexes IPO fast-entry rule and related eligibility changes, given deep concerns about their potential negative impacts on investors in Russell index-tracking funds. We further request that FTSE Russell publicly disclose the analysis conducted during the consultation process to justify these changes. This includes any analysis of the total market impact of Russell’s rule changes in light of a cascading series of eligibility revisions from other major index providers that seem likely to expose clients to unprecedented volatility over the pending SpaceX IPO.

And here’s how AXIOS covered Musk’s power play to tear down index protection rules:

The first of these SpaceX lockups expires after SpaceX reports earnings for the quarter that ends June 30, when as many as 912 million shares — over 40% more shares than were sold during last week’s offering — could hit the market.

And here’s the final bit of financial engineering that makes a market hack’s heart swell. In the run-up to its offering, SpaceX reportedly sought out rule changes to allow it to be included in key indexes that serve as the basis for index funds. Nasdaq recently made some changes to its Nasdaq-100 large-cap tech index, which serves as the basis for popular investor vehicles like Invesco’s QQQ tech ETF. Russell also made changes.

That means that SpaceX could be added to that key Nasdaq index — essentially forcing passive investors to buy and hold the shares — just before a big slug of freshly unlocked equity hits the market with the potential to steamroll the stock. Now that’s thinking of everything.

It could not be clearer that the interests of capitalists are directly opposed to the interests of the working class. If you’re an investment nerd, Elon Musk’s maneuvering and manipulation of the financial markets is a sight to behold, a true master of his craft. But if you’re an average working Joe, you’re watching this in horror as your nest egg for a dignified retirement is being handed to Elon Musk so he can use it at the craps table to try and win back his losses. Coming up empty would mean nothing to the ultra-wealthy playing the table we call the economy. A shrug and an “aw shucks, we can’t win them all.” To the rest of us, this would be devastating. Which is why we must change the capitalist system before it ruins us.

Predistribute the Wealth

The common progressive response to this display of ultra-wealth is to call for taxes on the rich. That is all well and good. And it’s the best way for politicians to talk about dismantling corporate power in the electoral arena, where they must match voters’ understanding of the world. But we’ll have to go further than that to create an economic system that prioritizes the public good over psychotic greed.

According to the economists at Real Time inequality, the Top 1% has increased its income more than any other group since the turn of the millennium. The ultra-rich don’t just have the most money. They’re increasing the rate at which they're getting money.

The same is true for wealth, broadly speaking. The wealthiest twenty-six Americans have seen their wealth grow the fastest, with the rate of growth accelerating the higher you climb the ladder. (The bottom 50% is the exception here. But their wealth has been contracting for most of the 21st-century, meaning rapid growth is expected.)

It is no coincidence that the rich are the ones getting richer fastest. In a capitalist system, whoever holds capital, holds power. With more income comes more state power — more government contracts, more help from the DoJ, and more ability to disregard the guardrails of public investment to force you to take on more risk to underwrite Elon Musk’s losses. The problem we face is not just runaway accumulation, but an economic system that, as Marxists long predicted, would accumulate into a cartel — an oligarchy, if you will. Today’s top capitalists aren’t just skilled money managers. They are unelected political actors who used their wealth to bulldoze any obstacle standing between them and further enrichment. In practice, 21st-century capitalism looks a lot more like Jack London’s The Iron Heel than it does the free market utopia Jonah Goldberg is trying to sell us.

“Economically, the main thing in this process is the substitution of capitalist monopolies for capitalist free competition. Free competition is the fundamental attribute of capitalism, and of commodity production generally. Monopoly is exactly the opposite of free competition; but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our very eyes, creating large-scale industry and eliminating small industry, replacing large-scale industry by still larger-scale industry, and finally leading to such a concentration of production and capital that monopoly has been and is the result.” — Vladimir Lenin, 1916

Taxing the rich at exorbitant rates is a good first step. Returning to the post-World War II structure that taxed top earners at 90% will deplete their power and fund necessary social programs. More importantly, it will reinvigorate our long-forgotten class consciousness and remind Americans that this is supposed to be a democracy.

Capitalism is rule by capital. Democracy is rule by the people. If democracy is the goal, we’ll need to change the system that equates wealth with power. That means hefty taxation, reworking political systems such as the Senate and the Supreme Court, and the democratization of the economy: unions in the workplace, nationalization of heavy industry, and a national culture in which the economy is meant to serve us, not the other way around.

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In Solidarity — Joe

Sunday was a day full of questions in Denver, Colorado: Where is the Power to the People rally? Another venue canceled? Where to next? They canceled, too? Are the speakers still interested? Do we have security? What do we tell the DJ? Will anyone show up? Are we even going to have a rally? Is this campaign doomed?

While the organizers’ Signal chats and Slack groups were flooded with requests for updates, one thing was never in doubt. No one ever asked, “Why is this happening?”

For the last few months, local organizers tirelessly planned the Power to the People rally. The venue was booked, the speakers were recruited, and the vendors were selected. Volunteers from Denver DSA, Sunrise Movement, Working Families Party, and other progressive organizations worked long nights and early mornings to ensure that when the political world gazed upon our iconic city, they would see the best we had to offer.

Big-name leftists from across the country descended on Denver to amplify Melat Kiros’s mile-high momentum for her Democratic Socialist allies. The original speaking slate included Melat Kiros (CO-1), Justin P. Pearson (TN-9), Donavan McKinney (MI-11), Julie Gonzalez (CO-Senate), and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Everything was in place. The anticipation was growing. We were excited. But then last week, the venue canceled. The managers at ReelWorks, a supposedly “progressive” queer bar, said their HVAC system broke. Yet they had already booked another event for our original time slot. So we found another venue. That one canceled too. Then we found another, and you can guess what happened.

It quickly became clear that Melat Kiros’s incumbent opponent, Diana DeGette, and her corporate allies took a page from the Donald Trump playbook. Rather than trying to compete with Kiros on policy, in which DeGette is laughably outmatched, the establishment chose to suppress the speech rights of the very people they claim to represent.

Two of the venues that canceled are run by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which is owned by Colorado’s wealthiest man, Philip Anschutz. A staunch Zionist and conservative political activist worth over $26.6 billion, Anschutz loves the grossly unjust capitalist system that Melat Kiros, Justin P. Pearson, and Donavan McKinney are trying to change. And why wouldn’t he? It’s made him unbelievably rich and unjustly powerful. Though not as wealthy as Anschutz, the owners of the Stanley Market, the third venue to cancel, are members of Denver’s corporate class, which is tightly linked to the Democratic establishment and Diana DeGette. By ordering his venues to cancel, Philip Anschutz has shown just how terrified the capitalist class is of politicians who challenge the status quo. If the elites felt they deserved their money, fame, and power, they would defend it on the merits. A simple rally would be of no concern to them. So, why are they petrified of a few thousand Denverites listening to Hasan Piker in a gay bar? Because they know better than everyone else that they didn’t earn their prestige, but have acquired it through good fortune and poor ethics. Rightfully insecure, the 1% fells the need to crush every spark of dissent, or risk it turning into an uncontrollable flame.

So while many questions flew around Denver on Sunday, none of the rally organizers asked why this was happening. We knew. Those who have built the Melat Kiros campaign know damn well she has Philip Anchutz, Dianna DeGette, and every other member of the Epstein Class shaking in their boots. Melat Kiros, Justin P. Pearson, and Donavan McKinney cannot be bought off. Anshutz’s money had a better chance of bribing Sunday’s rain clouds than the Justice Democrats slate. And by the end of our last-minute rally on the steps of the Colorado Capitol building, everyone in attendance knew that too.

Undeterred, crowds braved the spring showers to hear Melat Kiros, Donovan McKinney, and Justin P. Person speak.1 Though each comes from a different background and faces unique political challenges, they were unified in their uncompromising willingness to speak truth to power.

All the way from Tennessee, Justin P. Pearson invigorated the crowd with his fight against resegregationist Republicans, who recently gerrymandered him out of Tennessee’s only majority-Black district. As Pearson and his fellow Southerners know better than all else, the illegal gutting of the Voting Rights Act is not just a threat to Black Americans, but to all Americans. The MAGA project is a counter-revolution against the gains of the Civil Rights and other social justice movements. And we’re not going back. As Justin P. Pearson reminded us, Reconstruction remains unfinished. It is the duty of our generation to defeat the last gasp of the Confederacy and build a country with dignity and justice for all.

Hearing Mr. Pearson speak, I couldn’t help but recall the epitaph on General William Sherman’s tombstone — No North. No South. The Union Forever.

Hailing from the iconic union town of Detroit, Donavan McKinney proudly carried the banner of organized labor for all to see. A union man to his core, McKinney’s speech showed the crowd why unions are the engine of social progress; from Walter Rutherford’s UAW building four hundred planes to smash the Nazi war machine, to the modern AFL-CIO fighting for the release of political prisoner Kilmar Abrego Garcia. If victorious, McKinney would be the youngest person of color elected to federal office in Michigan history. Hearing him speak, I can’t think of anyone more deserving of that honor. It’s also no wonder that socialist icons Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib see Donavan McKinney as the next great American labor leader.

Last but certainly not least, Melat Kiros took the stage. In less than ten minutes, Kiros showed the world that she has more integrity and leadership in one pinky finger than all of her detractors combined.

For months, Melat Kiros has weathered every slander you can imagine, each more despicable than the last. Dianna DeGette has falsely labeled her a “social media influencer,” as if a young woman of color could only rise to prominence through TikTok algorithms rather than her own merit. As the Kiros campaign pulls ahead, DeGette and her allies have resorted to outright racism. A recent attack amplified by the DeGette camp accused Melat of “rationalizing the killing of Jews,” weaponizing the offensive trope that immigrants of color must all be violent antisemites. On top of all this, whispers were coming in that DeGette was behind the latest venue cancellation. Needless to say, Melat Kiros had a right to be pissed off on Sunday afternoon.

A poor politician would have let this anger consume them, devolving their speech into red-faced nothingness. A good politician would have taken advantage of the situation and asked their supporters to rush to their personal defense. But Melat Kiros is neither of these. She is neither a bad politician nor a good one. Rather, Melat Kiros is a phenomenal leader.

Without a quiver of a lip or a tremble in her voice, Melat Kiros defied those who tried to silence her. Railing against the political establishment that elevates the feelings and desires of the privileged few over the needs and wants of the deserving many, Kiros called for the end of the Gaza genocide, the hefty taxation of the world’s first trillionaire, and condemned the Denver elite who colluded to protect their incumbent lapdog. Though these issues appear unrelated, Kiros’s masterful oration connected the dots and showed how these calamities are all expected outcomes of a system that enriches those who work the least while impoverishing those who work the most; a system that empowers the corrupt while disempowering the honest masses, the only ones with a divine mandate to control our collective destiny.

Though she would have been well within her rights to, not once did Melat Kiros complain about being the personal target of DeGette and Anschutz’s racist, undemocratic lies. Where corporate politicians stumble, Melat Kiros rises.

Instead of focusing on herself, Melat Kiros spoke to the people. Not just those on the Capitol steps, but throughout Denver, Colorado, and America. Here I will speak for Melat, but only because I have heard her say this herself many times before.

The reason Melat Kiros will win is the same reason the oligarchy is trying to sabotage her, which is the same reason they cannot sabotage her. Melat Kiros is not running for Congress. We are running for Congress. If Melat Kiros were yet another opportunist who paid lip service to working-class issues but cozied up to donors, then Philip Anschutz could have canceled her. One phone call, and the rally would be over. “Venue canceled. Sorry. Go Home.” But that’s not what happens when a people-powered campaign is told “No.” Suddenly, everyone in the campaign orbit drops everything and starts working: searching for a new venue, coordinating VIPs, securing permits, sending turnout texts, arranging food and water, building booths, moving merch, and a thousand other crucial details we have to get right. Without going into too much detail, I have never felt prouder to be part of such a selfless, principled group of organizers than I did on Sunday. Everywhere I looked, someone was moving heaven and earth to make this rally happy.

Much like the enthusiasm of the thousands of Denverites who braved the rain to hear Melat and company speak, only inspirational grassroots campaigns earn this degree of volunteer dedication. By running as unapologetic socialists, Melat Kiros, Donavan McKinney, and Justin P. Pearson have earned the support of their base and put the political class in a bind. When the elite try to suppress them, they only reinforce grassroots energy and dedication. The volunteers work extra shifts, the candidate grows bolder, and voters, who are much smarter than Diana DeGette’s political consultants believe, see as clear as day the powerful are scared of these candidates. But the establishment can’t compete on the merits, so they double down, and the cycle repeats. As the saying goes, “They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”

By trying to cancel a sold-out rally, the political establishment showed Denver voters that Melat Kiros was correct all along. Yes: the regressive forces of Zionism, corporate corruption, and political insidership are not only present in our city but are colluding against the interests of everyday Denverites. It is time to put a stop to this. It’s time to put the people in charge. And that starts with electing Melat Kiros, Justin P. Pearson, and Donavan McKinney to Congress.

As the ruling class is about to learn, you cannot cancel the truth. You can only reveal it.

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In Solidarity — Joe

The “Terrorist Connection”

On Friday, four activists from the group Palestine Action will learn if they will be branded as terrorists for the rest of their lives. This decision will not be made by a jury, but by a single judge. Regardless of what the judge decides, the railroading of these four young conscientious citizens is yet another crime added to the British Empire’s bloody rap sheet.

In August of 2024, a group of Palestine Action (PA) activists broke into the Elibt Systems weapons manufacturing plant in Bristol. Once inside, they used sledgehammers and crowbars to destroy machinery used to make bombs for the Israeli Army. At trial, the defendants admitted their guilt and said they were proud to stand on the right side of history. The jury acquitted two members and found four guilty of criminal property destruction. One received an additional charge of grievous bodily harm without intent for striking a security guard during the raid. Though they might have broken common British law, the PA members were following international law and upholding the United Kingdom’s commitment to the 1948 Genocide Convention by “preventing and punishing” the crime of genocide. Yet again, we see how the law is weaponized to protect the powerful and punish the powerless, regardless of their behavior.

So, how did the jury go from minor charges to terrorism? Well, they didn’t. The jury was never told that finding the defendants guilty on simple property destruction could result in them spending the rest of their lives behind bars. The jury fulfilled its duty under the impression that the defendants would be sentenced as first-time offenders. Criminal property damage is usually punished with a fine and three months in prison in the United Kingdom. However, the British government always planned to charge the accused as terrorists based on a cynical interpretation of the Terrorism Act of 2000. When this law was being debated in Westminster decades ago, lawmakers promised parliament that the Terrorism Act wouldn’t be used to “target domestic activists” and would be used “only when absolutely necessary.” That’s why the only other time this unjust, post-trial terrorism label has been used was against an ISIS bomber who planted explosives on the London Underground train in 2017. When the government announced it would be sentencing the Palestine Action activists under this act, the United Nations accused the United Kingdom of violating the prisoners’ human rights to a fair trial.

Even more egregiously, whether or not these four young Brittons, who are rightfully horrified by their government’s murder of the Palestinian people, will spend three months or three decades behind bars is to be decided by a biased judge. The High Court of Appeals already found Justice Jeremy Johnson acted maliciously against the defendants and their lawyer during the trial. Yet, Johnson refused to recuse himself from the sentencing when asked, a dark omen indicating the British government’s steadfast commitment to branding these activists as terrorists as part of a larger crackdown on the anti-genocide left.

Founded in 2020, Palestine Action has been the leading anti-genocide direct action group in Britain. Its portfolio includes everything from sabotaging weapons manufacturers to common street protests. This has been a thorn in Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s side, as crushing the left is his most cherished hobby. The British government has been openly planning to brand PA as terrorism for a long time. And it looks like this sentencing will be the circular logic they use to do it.

As defense counsel raised during an abuse of process hearing last year, the Counter Terrorism Police and the Crown Prosecution Service collaborated on a report outlining that their resources would greatly expand if Palestine Action were “declared a terrorist group.” After Palestine Action activists graffiti-ed RAF planes last July, the Home Secretary accused the group of having a “terrorist connection” when she moved to outlaw the group. She also wrote an op-ed accusing PA of having a terrorist connection, part of an obvious, cynical media campaign to establish the terrorist narrative during an ongoing trial.

“The clear advice and intelligence given to me earlier this year from the UK’s world-leading counter-terrorism system, based on a robust assessment process, was that Palestine Action satisfies the relevant tests in the Terrorism Act 2000 and should be proscribed.” - British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, August, 2025

Since Palestine Action was outlawed, protestors have made a mockery of this declaration by simply showing their support. The hypocrisy of the British government is clear to all when the peelers throw grandma in jail for wearing a t-shirt, while Keir Starmer walks Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend into Downing Street.

No sane actor can look at this group of youthful activists and elderly protestors and think “terrorist group” is an accurate depiction. This kangaroo court is not to keep Brittons safe. It’s to silence Palestine Action so the British government can continue aiding Israeli imperialism without being criticized for it. To say this is authoritarian is an understatement. It is political repression against those who bravely stood on the correct side of history. Regardless of what is decided tomorrow, the United Kingdom has once again shown its true face to the world. Not to be outdone by our former rulers, the American government has trampled every civil liberty in the Constitution in pursuit of a bogus terrorism charge.

Imagining Antifa

While the Bristol Four await their fate, the Trump administration is using the same playbook to suppress the American left.

Read more

Last week, The New York Times published an exposé interviewing several of Graham Platner’s ex-girlfriends. The Times spoke to two dozen people, six of whom were former romantic partners of the presumptive Democratic senatorial nominee. Three of the six described Platner favorably, and they remain friends to this day. The others tell a different story. One, Ms. Racicot, says she felt he didn’t respect women. An anonymous former partner who dated Platner in 2016 described him as a heavy drinker and infidelotous. The word “toxic” is used frequently.

The article focuses on Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner in 2013 when they both lived in Washington. Fifield makes some serious allegations against Platner that deserve our undivided attention. Though Fifield admits Platner “never hit me, never punched me,” she accuses him of grabbing her hard enough to leave marks. During one argument, Fifield claims Platner twisted her arm behind her back, causing “pain but no injury,” and locked her in a bedroom until the following morning.

Like any accuser, Lyndsey Fifield deserves the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who comes forward with an allegation of inappropriate behavior (especially a woman accusing a larger, trained soldier of battery) should be heard out. Fifield has given her account, and all should listen. Here is a gift link for you to read her side before I share my thoughts on this affair.

After the Times story was published, Platner appeared on Chris Haye’s show to discuss the allegations. As he has before, Platner admits he struggled with PTSD, addiction, and depression after leaving the military. He doesn’t deny saying unsettling things or drinking too much during the years he was dating Fifield. But he does unqequivocally deny that he was ever physical with any partner.

In the interview, Platner describes Fifield’s claim as “politically motivated.” Though we can never know someone’s true motivations, it’s difficult to believe Lyndsey Fifield’s allegations are being made in good faith. After all, she is a conservative political activist with a history of smearing women who accused prominent Republicans of rape.

Ladies For Brett Kavanaugh

Lyndsey Fifield is a Republican Party operative. The Times describes her as being “affiliated” with the conservative group, the Independent’s Women Forum. But that only scratches the surface. Fifield began her career working for the GOP Super PAC American Action Network, then spent seven years at the Heritage Foundation before joining Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign. Being a Republican is not grounds to disbelieve any accuser. However, when the accuser is caught lying about their political activity, red flags rise. Here’s how The New York Times describes Fifield’s relationship to the Independent Women’s Forum:

“Ms. Fifield said she had no connection to the campaign of Senator Susan Collins, Mr. Platner’s likely Republican opponent. She acknowledged that Independent Women had been supportive of Ms. Collins but said she had not been active with the organization recently.”

This is a lie. On April 15th, 2026, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) released the following press release supporting President Donald Trump’s “Working Families Tax Cuts.” The RSC describes itself as “the conservative caucus of House Republicans and a leading influencer on the Right since its original founding in 1973.” To support the Republican President’s agenda, the RSC published statements from so-called Real Americans affirming the need for this bill. One of the statements came from Lyndsey Fifield, a self-described “Stay-at-Home Mom” and representative of the Independent Women’s Forum.

Right out of the gate, Lyndsey Fifield is shown to be a liar. She claimed she was no longer active with the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). Yet less than two months ago, she was speaking on behalf of the group to advance the Republican Party’s agenda. The Times printed her claims without criticism. But I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that the paper of record would not have discovered Fifield was an active IWF member during its source verification. If you google “Lyndsey Fifield” with a date set before the Times story, the top result is an active page on the Independent Women’s Forum website describing her as a “Visiting Fellow.” You can even fill out the form to request her as a speaker.

To be blunt, I don’t think the Times missed this. I think they were well aware that Lyndsey is an active Republican agent, but didn’t want to disclose it because it would call her motives into question. So, they didn’t disclose it, thinking we’re all dummies who wouldn’t connect the dots. Fifield lying about her recent political activity isn’t disqualifying on its own. But working for the Independent Women’s Forum, which has an infamous reputation when it comes to political sexual assault allegations, raises even more questions.

The Independent Women’s Forum gained notoriety in 2018 for leading the defense of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. During his confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The credible allegations roiled the Republican Party and left GOP politicians scrambling for a solution. The Independent Women’s Forum stepped in to feministly* defend Kavanaugh and provide embattled Republicans with talking points. Unfortunately, it worked. The Republicans rallied around Kavanaugh, called Blasey Ford a liar, and got him appointed to the Supreme Court. Here is IWF president Heather Higgins bragging about her group’s role in protecting Kavanaugh by drafting a talking-points memo. Higgins says the “most important” result of that memo was empowering Susan Collins to give her infamous floor speech, which greased the wheels for Kavanaugh’s nomination.

This is not Fifield’s only connection to the Brett Kavanaugh affair. A 2018 New York Post article identifies Lyndsey Fifield as one of the founders of “Ladies for Kavanaugh,” co-founded with an IWF staffer. According to Fifield, the group was created to defend the Supreme Court nominee from “baseless” allegations. As the article notes, they were doing this on their own time. No paychecks, just slandering rape survivors for love of the game.

Fifield was one of Kavanaugh’s most ardent defenders. She repeatedly accused Blasey Ford of lying, and wanted her “false allegations” to follow her for the rest of her life. For the record, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford didn’t want to go public and first gave her testimony in secret. As the Kavanaugh affair grew, pressure built, and she came forward at great personal cost.

Though they succeeded in getting Kavanaugh on the court, conservatives still carry a grudge about the allegations to this day. Just as it’s not enough for the wealthy to be wealthy but insist their wealth is altruistic and a benefit to others, it’s not enough for Republicans to hold power. They demand we treat them as respectable opponents, ignoring the bodies they step over on their quest for a reactionary agenda. As soon as questions about Lyndsey Fifield’s account surfaced, prominent conservatives raced to point out that Democrats were hypocritical for believing Kavanaugh’s accusers but not Platner’s.

The difference was that Blasey Ford had substantiated evidence of the assault. She had told friends, family, and medical personnel she was attacked by Kavanaugh, which was confirmed by an FBI polygraph test. Comparatively, there is no evidence to back up Fifield’s claim. As the authors admit (twice), there is no corroborating evidence for Fifield’s claim that Platner grabbed her. The reporters read “texts between Ms. Fifield and Mr. Platner, along with Google Chat exchanges, texts, and Facebook messages between Ms. Fifield and her friends during and after the relationship.” As Fifield later said, she gave them the names of people to talk to who could confirm her claims. The reporters talked to those friends and even read Fifield’s diary. Yet, on two separate occasions during the story, the Times admits their was no evidence she was telling the truth:

“Mr. Platner ‘strongly disputes’ any claims of physical intimidation or altercations, his campaign said. The Times could not independently corroborate Ms. Fifield’s account of the altercations.”

“The Times reviewed texts between Ms. Fifield and Mr. Platner, along with Google Chat exchanges, texts and Facebook messages between Ms. Fifield and her friends during and after the relationship. The Times also reviewed some of Ms. Fifield’s diary entries from after the relationship had ended, and spoke with two of her friends who confirmed that the pair had an emotionally volatile relationship but could not corroborate the physical altercations or the most controversial comments she described.”

This is a story without double-sourcing, which goes against the most fundamental rules of journalism. But the Times went ahead and published it anyway, for reasons I’ll explain later.

It is worth noting that, while reading Fifield’s texts, The New York Times found one incriminating message. But not from Platner. In a message to a group chat last year, Fifeild said she would “personally go campaign for Collins.” Take from that what you will.

We should also note that Fifield is an ardent Zionist and anti-Palestinian racist who has spread lies to support the Trump administration’s illegal incarceration of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk. Khalil was arrested for organizing the Columbia Solidarity Encampment, and Öztürk wrote an op-ed critical of Israel. Fifield accused them of “organizing violent actions” and “distributing material funded by state-designated terror groups,” claims even the Trump administration didn’t make. The government’s basis for both attempted deportations was their advocacy for Palestine, not actual crimes. It’s also hard to dismiss Graham Platner’s criticism of Israel as a motivation, given Fifield has stated: “whoever curses Israel will be cursed.”

Attempting to vouch for Fifield, her former podcast co-host Bethany Mandel confirmed Fifield was the source behind the unsubstantiated story from last October, alleging that Platner knew his tattoo was Nazi iconography. That story, published in Jewish Insider, which has launched bigoted campaigns against Hasan Piker and Abdul El-Sayed, cited an anonymous “former acquaintance” of Platner’s who claimed he knew the tattoo’s origin. I’m not sure if or when Platner knew what his tattoo was. But as Bethany Mandel admits, Fifield worked with Jewish Insider to “disqualify” Platner; not to give Maine voters all the relevant information about a candidate, but to circumvent the democratic process and disqualify him.

With an attempt to hide Lyndsey Fifield’s career as a political saboteur, her disregard for female sexual assault survivors, and her friend’s admission that she tried to manipulate the media to disqualify Graham Platner once already, I’d say this person is far from honest. I thought her account might be plausible. That is, until she began attacking The New York Times for “helping” Graham Platner. Whatever one thinks about Platner, Fifield, or the Maine Senate race, no one with a functioning frontal lobe can read The New York Times story and think it was aiding the Platner campaign.

Once readers began calling her credibility into question, Lyndsey Fifield took to social media to accuse the Times reporters of orchestrating a “set up” to “give a gift” to the Platner campaign. She claims she gave the Times reporters more evidence and corroborators to talk to. But what she fails to understand is that the reporters did talk to those people. They just didn’t corroborate Fifield’s account.

Conservative propagandists have followed Fifield’s lead, telling their audiences that the woke social justice libs at The New York Times are protecting Graham Platner from accountability. (Sure, guys. Whatever you say.) Fox News is echoing Fifield’s claim that this article was to help the Platner campaign. Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller called the story a “soft catch-and-kill” operation, alleging the Times is trying to get Platner elected. Whatever the people defending the Epstein President say.

Given that even the conservatives are saying the Times story is bogus, I see no reason to put much stock into it. After all, there’s nothing new in it. Two women said what we already knew, that Graham Platner has a history of drinking and cheating. (Am I supposed to believe U.S. Senators are chaste and sober as nuns?) Fifield was the only one to claim physical abuse, and the Times couldn’t corroborate it. But they printed her allegations anyway, packaged as “Multiple women.” Basically, they hoped to create the impression that Graham Platner was a serial abuser, despite no evidence to say so. Why would The New York Times do this? Well, to answer that question, let’s refamiliarize ourselves with The Times’ history of anti-left slanders and the reporters’ clear favorability of Israel.

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Old Dog, Same Tricks

As a staunch critic of Israel and the foreign policy establishment, Graham Platner is the exact type of politician The New York Times has a history of seeking to discredit. The paper, which has self-described as Zionist, recently debased itself with the below sub-heading associating Dr. Adam Hamawy with the Blind Sheik. Hawamy is a combat surgeon who has saved American lives at ground zero on September 11th. He also treated American servicemen in Iraq, even saving the life of Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth. Hamaway recently put his life on the line to volunteer at the Nasser hospital in Gaza, bravely refusing to leave even when the hospital was besieged by the Israeli Army. Yet, because he criticizes established American foreign policy, the Times is ‘jUsT aSKiNg qUeStions"‘ about Islamophobic allegations dredged up by the racist right.

We also cannot ignore the historical biases of the reporters who wrote this story. One of the authors on the byline is Katie Glueck, who has a history of collaborating with pro-Israel interests. In college, Glueck was the co-president of Northwestern University’s Students for Israel chapter and received an award for “AIPAC Activist of the Year.” (At least the school newspaper was ethical enough to disclose Glueck’s political biases, something The New York Times declines to do.) While working for The Times, Glueck’s fondness for Israel has severely impacted her coverage. It’s no coincidence that the Platner story is written by Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer, the same reporters who wrote the infamous July 2025 story saying Zohran Mamdani’s victory was a threat to Jews. By interviewing known pro-Israel activists such as President Biden’s anti-semitism czar and prominent Zionist rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, the authors legitimized the racist hallucination that a Muslim mayor was a threat to Jewish safety. Glueck and Lere even included a quote from an anti-Muslim bigot calling Mamdani’s primary victory a “Spiritual Kristallnacht.”

There are also serious problems with the way Glueck and Lerer presented certain information in their story. For example, the reporters found one text on Fifield’s phone from a friend saying, “Do Not Call Graham.” Glueck and Lerer use that text as evidence of Platner’s problematic treatment of Fifield. They even made it a heading, indicating the gravity they placed on that statement. But the day after the story was published, Fifield said that the text was an “out of context quote from a friend joking ‘do not call Graham’ after I called off my wedding.” This is extremely suspect. The Times admits to reading Fifield’s messages. So if it was a joke, Glueck and Lerer would have known it was an attempt at gallows-humor, joking that she shouldn’t call the ex, whom she has a history of contacting. And if it wasn’t a joke, why is Fifield saying it is?

This is all very strange and very confusing. Before I explain what I think happened, we must address the question of Graham Platner’s character. I’ll be the first one to say, I don’t love it. A former Army soldier and mercenary is far from my cup of tea. But by all available evidence, this story is not about Graham Platner, the man. It is about Graham Platner, the politician. And I find myself compelled to defend him from this smear campaign for the same reason it’s being launched against him.

The Establishment Strikes Back

Graham Platner is a controversial figure, to say the least. The Times story transports us back into his troubling past of post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. All available witnesses to that period, himself included, speak of a highly troubled man grappling with his post-war conscience.

When I first learned about Graham Platner, I instantly recalled William “Billy” Lavigne, the main character in Seth Harp’s excellent book The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces. Harp’s book details how Lavigne went from a scrawny nerd who enlisted in the Army for free cosmetic eye surgery to a coked-out killer who ran an international drug trafficking ring and shot his best friend in front of their young daughters. Fort Bragg follows Lavigne and his Delta Force comrades from North Carolina to Afghanistan and back again, with an illuminating account of drug use and trafficking propelling the War on Terror, both as a financial source for the American empire and a personal stimulant for the soldiers carrying its banner. Whatever moral justification the country and its army believed they had for the War on Terror, it quickly devolved into amphetamine-fueled violence for the sake of amphetamine-fueled violence. One line from the book remains permanently in my mind. When describing Billy Lavigne’s Delta Force unit, an acquaintance said, “All they know how to do is kill people.” This summarizes the United States of America as much as its soldiers. The War on Terror broke America’s national mind, just as the military ethos of constant violence does to soldiers. Humans aren’t made for never-ending conflict. Military training seeks to break down the moral barriers in a soldiers’ mind, until all they do is follow orders and kill, kill, kill. As a result, suicide is the leading cause of death for American soldiers, overcoming disease and combat casualties. I see Graham Platner as a Lavigne-like figure, who, either by luck or knowledge, attempted to wrench his soul back from the vile demon that is American militarism. The word “redemption” is thrown around a lot when discussing Platner. I do believe he is seeking redemption for his past offenses. But simply seeking redemption does not mean one gets a pass on every transgression. Forgiveness is a relationship between the offender and those they hurt. You don’t get to mumble “sorry” and expect a clean slate. Platner is attempting to amend for his dark past, as is the United States of America. And I do believe that his anti-genocide, anti-war platform is some sort of penance for his role in American imperialism. (There’s a reason disgruntled soldiers have consistently formed the vanguard for left-wing movements.) I can look at a man like Platner, understand how America’s violent culture turned him into something he doesn’t want to be, and give him grace as he seeks redemption. As a Marxist, I also recognize that the War on Terror was not the product of poor individual choices to enlist, but the result of clashing forces on the world stage — namely, a hyper-militaristic hegemon looking to justify its excessive Pentagon budget and seek revenge for 9/11. And though I played a far less significant role than soldiers such as Platner, as a tax-paying American citizen, my hands are not clean from the blood of nations pillaged by the American government.

However, it’s not my place to forgive or condemn Graham Platner. That is the role of his ex-acquaintances and the people who were oppressed while serving in an occupying army. Some will, some will not. To me, the moral question of Platner’s redemption is not one I am fit to give. I cannot forgive him for his trespasses when I am not the one he harmed. Nor can I condemn his quest for absolution when I, like every American, have benefited from the spoils of living inside a global hegemon. As for the political question, politicians are not our friends. Would I want to go to the bar with an alcoholic? No. And I wouldn’t want my friends dating him. But I’m not looking for a buddy. I’m looking for Senators who will vote to embargo any weapons from entering Israel. You don’t need to be the best guy ever to do that. And, as he stands, Graham Platner is a far better person than the current Senators sending Netanyahu 2,000-pound bombs every week.

That’s how I see Graham Platner. Many others on the left have reached more critical conclusions about the former soldier. My view isn’t The Right One, it’s just a different one. Though we disagree, I would urge anyone sympathetic to anti-establishment, Israel-critical politics to support Platner, at least against these latest charges. Because this isn’t actually about Graham Platner. The New York Times’ attack against the oysterman has nothing to do with his past behavior. Rather, what we are witnessing is an outburst from the country’s political elite who recognize they are no longer able to gatekeep the halls of power. Though Lyndsey Fifield was the subject of the New York Times story, since she accused the Times of helping Platner, the bipartisan political elite have pushed her into the background as they complain to all who will listen that they’re no longer able to choose candidates from a roster of Israel-loving Ivey Leaguers.

The days after the Times story, the usual suspects climbed up the moral grandstand to state winning the Senate wasn’t worth a Graham Platner. (Mind you, this is after two years of them lecturing us that we must throw abortion and queer rights under the bus so Democrats can pick up a single congressional seat in Arkansas.) The Atlantic columnist and known Jeffrey Epstein associate, David Brooks, who left his wife of twenty-eight years for a research assistant twenty-three years younger than him, called Graham Platner a “moral degenerate.” Van Jones is urging Democrats to take the high road and ditch Platner. As if the guy who told jokes about “Dead Gaza babies” on Bill Maher has any leg to stand on. Iraq War architect and Benjamin Netanyahu speech writer, David Frum, compared Graham Platner to 2017 Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, a literal pedophile. As if we needed more proof, the media elite are clutching pearls, The New York Post wrote an entire article sourced from conservative political activists about how Graham Platner was a bad bartender at the political class’s favorite bar in Washington, D.C. As if that’s a knock against him.

The mainstream media is also clearly trying to keep this baseless story running. Reporting on the impact of the Times story in Maine, CNN interviewed one woman whom they identified as a “Maine Democratic voter.”

“Beth Dindas, a Maine Democratic voter, told CNN that Platner lost her when he denied knowing about the origins of his tattoo. She said Platner now “has no credibility whatsoever.” She added that she supports Janet Mills ‘all the way.’”

Beth Dindas is not just some random Mainer. She is a Zionist political activist who has worked for Birthright Israel, American Friends of Tel Aviv University, and the Democratic Majority for Israel, as well as consulting for pro-Israel politicians Richie Torres and Jake Auchincloss. CNN’s attempt to hide Dindas’ political bias speaks to the level of deceit the media and political class are willing to engage in to sink Graham Platner’s candidacy. Not to be outdone, Katie Glueck returned to the scene of the crime to peddle more falsehoods about candidate Platner. Here’s how Glueck described the mood at a post-story Platner rally:

“It was one of the strongest responses from a supportive but relatively sedate crowd that included attendees who said they were anxious about Mr. Platner’s candidacy and still getting to know the candidate.” — Amid Mounting Democratic Concern, Platner Says His Past Is Being ‘Weaponized’

And here’s a video from that rally after Graham Platner thanked Maine for having his back after the politically-motivated story. The words “sedate” and “anxious” are not what I’d use to describe this crowd.

Democratic strategist Kaivan Shroff, a long-time supporter of known sex pest Andrew Cuomo, gave the game up when he took to Twitter to admit that the whole Platner affair wasn’t about Platner, but “pulling back from the desperation that has led Dems to embrace leftist slopulism.” Shroff speaks for the entire liberal establishment: they would rather lose the Senate to Republicans than win with a candidate who challenges Israel and the oligarchy.

Though the Democratic and Republican elite are trying to ratfuck Graham Platner (I apologize for the language, but that’s the term we’re given), their motivation isn’t wrong. For the first time in my lifetime, the political establishment is being threatened. A socialist thrashed the Cuomo dynasty to rule New York City, the heart of the Democratic political machine. The majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel, as does the world. Progressive, populist, and leftist candidates are winning elections where pundits once said it was impossible. More and more Americans are turning to alternative media, diminishing the wealth and prestige of the mainstream media. So they lash out against figures like Hasan Piker, while Bari Weiss turns the most historic American news programs into broadcast Breitbart. The criticism of Graham Platner does not come from a place of morality or concern. Rather, it is a reactionary tantrum, a desperate attempt to resecure their once-ironclad grip on what can be said and done in the political realm.

This is why I think it's important for the left to defend Graham Platner from The New York Times smear campaign. Not because Platner is a great guy, but because conservatives, zionists, some liberals, and the media will keep slandering anyone who criticizes Israel and the oligarchy. There are differences between the Republican and Democratic establishments. But as we can see, when their shared interests of Zionism and capitalism are threatened, they unite and attack to discredit critics and preserve the political status quo. Remember, the head of the Democrats’ Senatorial Committee called Zohran Mamdani a “jihadist.” The Times implied decorated Army surgeon Adam Hamawy was a secret terrorist. Jake Tapper let his panelists compare Mahmoud Khalil to literal Nazis. College kids who protested for a ceasefire were slandered as Iran-linked terrorists, blacklisted from employment, and harassed by psychotic billionaires like Bill Ackman. Even now, congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier is being criticized for making the moral decision to attend an anti-genocide protest on October 8th, 2023. Last week, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was suspended for assigning work that mentioned Palestine. But when two Israeli filmmakers joked about the dogs the IOF uses to rape Palestinian hostages at the Tribeca Film Festival, the best the festival could muster was a weakly-worded letter. And who can forget “Screams Without Words,” a propaganda campaign so fraudulent it was debunked by the NYT’s own podcast. All of these oppressive, tainted actions against pro-Palestine voices are the result of a dominant, pro-Israel political class that can silence and defame opponents at will.

The attack on Graham Platner is yet another message sent by the pro-Israel corporate establishment: “If you criticize Israel or the oligarchy, we will ruin your life. We’ll call you a rapist, a terrorist, an abuser.” I say, enough is enough. They’ll only stop when the price of lying outweighs the benefits. Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the deceptive nature of the media and the political elite, which is currently being directed at Graham Platner. Regardless of what we think of the candidate, we should call it out. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind about Platner. Nor am I saying concerns about his character are without reason. Rather, we should sternly condemn this clear-as-day hit job by the political elite and use it as an opportunity to inoculate Americans against future influence campaigns. Because no matter what we believe the future of anti-establishment politics should look like, the forces attacking Graham Platner will soon be attacking us.

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In Solidarity — Joe

Running in a red state, typical political wisdom would encourage Oliver Larkin to avoid the socialist label like the plague. As the last three decades of Democratic politics show, the establishment always pushes candidates to become Republican Lite — the Diet Coke version of conservative Coca Cola. But this doesn’t work. Certainly not in Florida, where the state’s Democratic Party has run former Republican Charlie Crist for governor twice out of the last three election cycles. Just like when choosing a soft drink, voters chose the real thing and went with the Republicans.

But Oliver Larkin isn’t listening to the political consultants. Not only is he endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, but he’s also letting voters know he’s a proud member. In the clip below, Oliver articulates the theory of democratic socialism. Socialism isn’t just winning Medicare For All or a higher minimum wage (though those are crucial). It’s about giving people control over the economy, the government, and our lives.

The benefit of the socialist worldview is that it’s correct. The pain voters are feeling across the country — high gas prices, ridiculous healthcare costs, another foreign war — is downstream of America’s undemocratic political and economic system. South Florida isn’t typically where we hear the socialist solution. But it’s the area where it is most needed.

There’s no denying Oliver Larkin has a tough race ahead of him. After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, Republicans redistricted his race from a Harris-voting to a Trump-voting district. And he is challenging Jared Moskowitz, arguably the most pro-Israel Democrat, who will be flush with AIPAC cash. But being the underdog is a familiar spot for the left. He’ll need our help to win. But with the Iran War dragging on and the progressive left winning more and more victories, Larkin’s chances are looking better and better.

I’m extremely thankful for Oliver Larkin’s time. I suggest you watch the interview above. It’ll show you why I’m excited to support him.

In Solidarity — Joe

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My criticism has not gone unchallenged. The last time I wrote about AI, someone left a comment asking how I could judge AI if I didn’t use it. That was a fair point. So, over the last three months, I’ve been forcing myself to use Claude and Perplexity for basic tasks. Though I see why this technology is preferred by the typical user, I still don’t think artificial intelligence is worth the enormous social and financial costs — and America agrees with me.

Lacking Benefits

While tech executives and Wall Street investors tell us that artificial intelligence is a revolutionary technology, the actual applications paint a different picture. The most common use of artificial intelligence is to cheat in school. Four out of five high schoolers use generative AI for schoolwork, and Brookings found that the most common use for AI is for higher education. User data from ChatGPT confirms this theory. In the chart below, we see ChatGPT usage from May to July in 2025. The dips in May are weekends (when there’s less homework). Once summer break comes, ChatGPT use plummets by 70%.

Look, I’m in no position to throw stones about educational delinquency. High school Joe got pretty good at SparkNotes-ing my way to a B minus. And Einstein’s famous saying, “I’ll never remember anything I can look up in a book,” applies equally to more advanced systems of information storage. If there’s an easy way to access info, people should use it. But that’s not how AI is being used. One Purdue computer science professor recently caught half his class cheating with AI, triggering a campus-wide panic as students threatened to unenroll. Under the instruction of California Governor Gavin Newsom, San Jose State University adopted an A.I. Everywhere strategy. Soon, professors saw no reason to give long writing assignments and asked students to submit their ChatGPT logs instead. I’m not one to police the learning strategies of higher ed. But I doubt that asking a computer questions prepares American students for the modern world.

Behind school, America’s second most common use for artificial intelligence is as a search engine. Brookings found that besides school and search, all other applications plummet. As it stands, there’s a chasm between how AI is presented and how it is actually used. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently said AI can autonomously start and run a billion-dollar business. (Life Hack: tell ChatGPT to make you money.) In reality, AI is useful for looking up recipes, settling debates, and misdiagnosing medical conditions with answers pulled from WebMD. Hardly the paradigm-shifting technology we’ve been promised.

During my time in my self-imposed AI reeducation camp, I came to see AI search as a slightly better version of Google Search.

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Inside the barbed wire and concrete walls at Delaney Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey, ICE tortures prisoners with maggot-infested food, overcrowded cells, and freezing temperatures. The captives aren’t just being starved. They’re forced to maintain the facility for $1 a day, which they’re seldom paid. This is slavery. Those inside Delaney have not been duly convicted of a crime, meaning even the 13th Amendment’s back-door permission for carceral slavery doesn’t apply. Families of the incarcerated were the first to let the world know about this heinous crime, which was quickly confirmed by visiting politicians. Even those most reluctant to criticize state agents are speaking out. A year ago this week, New Jersey congressman Frank Pallone voted to express gratitude for ICE agents. Now, he’s condemning ICE’s brutality and calling for Delaney to be shuttered. Pallone’s opportunism is gross. But the fact that those most eager to apply their tongues to the fascist boot cannot defend them shows the gravity of ICE’s depravity.

Taking matters into their own hands, hundreds of Delaney prisoners launched a hunger and labor strike to protest their barbarous treatment. Aghast at the actions of their ‘democratic’ government, concerned Americans from within and without New Jersey rushed to the detention center to stand in solidarity with the strikers and condemn the state violence. While the citizenry exercised their 1st Amendment rights to criticize their government, the federal agents chose violence. On Friday night, ICE agents launched a riot. Driven by savage rage, masked federal thugs charged peaceful protestors with the weaponry of an occupying power. In the video below, agents target a specific protestor with a brutal barrage. Another agent rushes in and kicks a bystander under the wheels of a moving semi-truck, crushing his leg. This American will likely walk with a limp for the rest of their life — yet another citizen maimed by the federal government for daring to dissent.

These protestors pose no threat to public safety. Their only offense is defying Donald Trump’s blackshirts by challenging the fascist hierarchy with signs and chants. In an effort to expand the President’s personal militia, ICE hiring requirements were lowered from an already pathetic standard. Now, what is called ‘immigration enforcement’ is conducted by state-armed anti-social sadists. The media has captured numerous episodes of ICE agents threatening individuals. “You’re a dead man,” one masked agent warned after bystanders heckled him for pepper-spraying himself. These are not empty threats. ICE uses Palantir technology to identify and track protestors and observers. And guns to execute them in the street. For every death threat caught on camera, likely a dozen go unrecorded. If this is how ICE acts in full view of news crews, imagine what they’re doing to the prisoners behind concrete walls.

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The liberal state responded as expected. Despite acknowledging that Delaney Hall is an ongoing human rights violation — what one might call a concentration camp — New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill betrayed her constituents by sending in the New Jersey State Troopers. This was as immoral as it was illegal. In March, Sherill signed legislation banning local cops from partnering with ICE. Less than two months later, she activated the New Jersey troopers and local cops to establish a “protest zone,” the latest tactic local governments are using to suppress the speech rights of anti-fascist Americans. All Sherill did was embolden the fascists. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin celebrated the Democratic Governor’s reversal by thanking her and calling the police-ICE cooperation a “win for law and order.” Former Border Patrol leader Greg Bovino, who oversaw the occupation of Minneanopolis and has a fondness for fascist iconography, supported the Delaney ICE rioters with a full Heil Hitler salute posted across his social media.

The cops did not give Mikie Sherril the “peace” she claimed to want. Instead, they joined the ICE rioters in assaulting Americans and suppressing their speech rights. On Sunday morning, Sherrill blamed “masked individuals” for attacking the protest barrier and triggering a clash with riot police. This was immediately disproven by video evidence showing the police knocking over the barrier and attacking the protestors.

As always, the governor and other politicians tried to discredit the protestors by saying they were “out-of-state extremists.” This means nothing. ICE is a federal agency, and those incarcerated in Delaney Hall were brought there from across the country. The protestors are Americans horrified by the depravity of the federal government. Sherill’s victim-blaming is also disproven by her own Senator. While the governor was helping the cops suppress speech rights, Senator Andy Kim was assaulted and pepper-sprayed after telling ICE commanders they couldn’t drive through a crowd of protestors.

The New Jersey Attorney General, Jennifer Davenport, dropped all pretense of honesty when she announced a curfew. Davenport blamed the violence on protestors who came “armed with helmets, shields, and gas masks.” These are not weapons, but protective equipment to protect protestors from police batons, tear gas, and bullets. “Orwellian” is overused. But it applies here.

The political attempts to lay blame for the chaotic scenes at the feet of the protestors are part of the police playbook. There is extensive video evidence, such as below, of the cops ‘kettling’ the crowds. As the name implies, kettling is when police force crowds into tight spaces with barricades and riot shields. Like pressure building in a tea kettle, once crowds begin to feel the deadly crush, they push back. Then the cops claim they are being attacked, and crack down with extraordinary violence. Here we see the New Jersey police, not ICE, kettle protestors with barricades.

Here we see New Jersey police start their kettling with a “go” order from the commanding officer. The cops rush to enclose protestors, entrapping them for arrest. These are not the actions of a peacekeeping force, but one looking to escalate the violence for reasons far beyond the maintenance of public order.

To further the narrative of “violent rioters,” state agents are directly targeting journalists to create a media blackout. Multiple journalists have reported that ICE and New Jersey police purposefully destroyed their equipment. The local NBC affiliate, WNBC, was forced out of its marked press vehicle and into tear gas clouds by armed riot police. The WNBC reporters were driven a third of a mile away from the detention center, preventing them from covering the violence unleashed on the remaining protestors.

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The police violence and political lies are not separate, but two tactics in a cohesive project to create what called a “false peace.” By reversing the roles of the offending and defending parties, Sherill, ICE, and New Jersey troopers are trying to create the appearance of domestic tranquility by repressing and discrediting those trying to stop the most violent crime in the history of Newark, New Jersey. Peace is not the absence of violence, but the presence of justice. If there were justice at Delaney Detention Center, then there would be no protest outside. If there were no state repression, there would be none to resist it.

When Hakeem Jeffries called for Delaney to be shut down, he naively stated, “This is not America.” What is happening at Delaney is especially American. For centuries, our government has exported fascist violence throughout the world. There’s only so much you can deal out before it returns to your shores. It is impossible for those familiar with the Israeli Army’s colonization of Palestinians not to see the direct parallels between New Jersey and the West Bank. In both cases, the authoritarian state incarcerates and tortures the vulnerable community for the crime of existing where a settler colonial entity says they shouldn’t. Then, when others rush to defend the victims, they are branded as violent extremists and crushed with military force.

As The Wolfe Tones once sang, “How dare you call me a terrorist as you look down the barrel of your gun.”

If you would like to donate to the Delaney Hall protestors and detainees, you can do so here. More than that, I would encourage you to get involved with your local immigrants’ defense network. While the most spectacular ICE activity gets a lot of attention, the truth is, ICE is quietly active in every state. Last night, I was trained by the Colorado Rapid Response Network to identify ICE activity. (I should’ve done it a long time ago.) Similar organizations exist across the country and need your help. And if there isn’t an immigrant protection network in your area, consider starting one.

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In Solidarity — Joe

While the Abundance Movement predated the book, Klein and Thompson’s title helped transform the libertarian-esque project into a useful political weapon for powerful liberals. The book launched in March, 2024, right when the Democratic establishment was searching for its future. Having let Donald Trump stumble ass-first into the White House for the second time in a decade, the establishment old guard of the Democratic Party was embarrassed, defeated, and losing factional power to the party’s progressive wing. While minority leader Hakeem Jeffries was flying to Silicon Valley to apologize to donors, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were energizing the Democratic base with their Stop Oligarchy tour. Having lost the American government to the right and at risk of losing the Democratic party to the left, the liberal establishment looked to Abundance as the excuse and answer it needed. The book blamed environmentalists and progressive interest groups for social delay, which fit nicely with the establishment’s claim that Trump won because progressives pushed the Harris-Walz ticket too far left. Ezra Klein aided this theory in more ways than one. Weeks after the election, he went on Pod Save America and scolded the ACLU for asking Kamala Harris about healthcare rights for trans prisoners in 2019 because the Trump campaign clipped her answer and used it in an attack ad.

At the same time, the ‘Abundance Agenda’ became the get-out-of-jail-free card for politicians looking to quiet the Democratic base’s demand for a bolder, progressive political program. The catch-all ‘Abundance mindset’ became the Democratic establishment’s political vision, urging the cutting of regulations so that private businesses could deliver goods and services that voters cared about. But there was only one problem. Abundance was never supposed to be a political program. And it certainly wasn’t a guide to mobilizing Americans against the violent state repression of Donald Trump’s second term. admitted this during an interview with last year, in which he said he believed Kamal Harris would be in the White House when the book launched. Speaking candidly to Silver, Thompson explains that Abundance was one of the potential messages circulating in the Democratic Party. What he doesn’t say is that Abundance was the only one not critical of corporations and capitalism, making it appealing to Democrats with deep-pocketed donors.

Despite not providing political answers to the political questions of the second Trump era, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein were happy to go along and pretend that Abundance was the solution to stopping fascism. During an interview with Lex Friedman, Thompson stated that their book was “trying to win a certain intra-left coalitional fight about defining the future of liberalism in the Democratic Party,” an explicit admission that he saw himself, Klein, and their Abundance ideology aligned with the corporate establishment.

So, the authors wrote Abundance expecting it to be published under a milquetoast Democratic president. But when things didn’t go to plan, their book served a different purpose. Like shipwreck survivors grabbing any debris they can, the centrist establishment seized Abundance as a life-saving buoy and declared it as the Democratic Party’s path forward. And for the last year, that is what the establishment has been doing. There have been Abundance conferences, collegiate groups, think tanks, Substacks, policy papers, and anything else the political elite can slap “Abundance!” onto. But that’s all the Abundance craze has delivered. A year after the Abundance Movement was bolstered by a book written by household-name pop-politics bloggers, it has failed to gain traction outside the Democratic elite. According to a recent Times/Sienna poll, 94% of Democratic voters haven’t even heard of Abundance. Of those that have, it’s equally liked and disliked. By comparison, Democratic voters are keenly aware of socialism and very fond of it. [Chart courtesy of ]

This isn’t surprising, given how the Abundists presented their movement. In their closing chapter, Klein and Thompson detail a top-down strategy to bring the Abundance Movement to life:

“[The Abundance Agenda] requires deep-pocketed donors (and political action committees) to invest in promising candidates over the long term; the establishment of think tanks and policy networks to turn political ideas into actionable programs; a rising political party able to consistently win over multiple electoral constituencies; a capacity to shape political opinion both at the highest levels (the Supreme Court) and across popular print and broadcast media; and a moral perspective able to inspire voters with visions of the good life. Political orders, in other words, are complex projects that require advances across a broad front.”

This paragraph is a window into the worldview of the liberal elite. Klein and Thompson are focused on convincing the upper strata of political society: the Supreme Court, donors, think tanks, and political action committees. The only time they mention everyday people like you and me is to say that they must “inspire” us. Not listen to us, but to help us see what the elite Abundists have decided is in our best interests. Let me just say, I trust think tanks and “deep-pocketed donors” to do what’s best for the working class about as much as I trust the Israelis to honor a “ceasefire.”

But even if I did share Klein and Thompson’s trust in the elite institutions, the Abundance worldview would still fail to deliver the results it seeks for one simple reason. As liberals, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson fail to account for the power of private capital. This oversight was obvious from the minute Abundance was launched. But as a recent one-year anniversary conversation between the authors shows, the liberal ideology behind the Abundance Movement still fails to address the most important component of American society. As a result, the authors seem out of touch, and even as they admit, their program is failing to deliver.

Abundance: Year One

To celebrate their book’s first anniversary, Ezra Klein invited Derek Thompson on his podcast for a conversation on the state of the Abundance Movement. They were joined by Marc Dunkelman, who published Why Nothing Works a month before Abundance was launched. The authors discuss how their books have held up in the year since publication, what they got correct, and where they went wrong.

While Klein and Thompson do admit their movement’s shortcomings, they fail to recognize that these shortcomings are not isolated mistakes but consequences of the liberal worldview behind Abundance. Specifically, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein still don’t understand the unprecedented power of the American capitalist class. Sure, they say we must “get money out of politics” and “increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy.” That’s all well and good. But coming from a liberal perspective, in which private businesses are the owner’s property the same way the phone you’re reading this article on is your property, they view oligarchs as on equal footing to other sources of power, such as unions, community organizations, and interest groups. Abundance argues that because corruptive power can arise from anywhere, governments should eliminate opportunities for disruptive influence so that socially necessary housing, technology, and energy projects can uplift the American quality of life. This means eliminating. Sorry, “streamlining” projects by reducing the number of environmental reviews, building regulations, and community vetoes so Democrat-run governments can deliver the goods.

Here’s Ezra Klein describing his view in the anniversary conversation:

“I think that’s one other reason I’ve always said that the theory of power in ‘Abundance’ is liberal, in the sense that it believes power can concentrate poorly anywhere. It can concentrate poorly among corporations, in government, among unions, in neighborhoods. There is no safe concentration of power.”

To be fair, Klein isn’t wrong. Power can concentrate poorly anywhere. And sometimes it can concentrate in places where the interests of the few outweigh those of the many, causing problems for progressive projects. For example, during the 2020 Democratic Primary, Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan was opposed by some labor unions who didn’t want to lose their union-negotiated health plans. This led to a brief row between organized labor and the most pro-labor candidate.

However, the potential for capital to misuse power is far greater than that of all other social groupings (especially progressive ones). There are two reasons for this. First, capital has considerable (if not all) social power. Because billionaires and oligarchs control society's productive forces, they have leverage over important decisions. Numerous studies have found America is an oligarchy, not a democracy. The small percentage of people who own damn near everything greatly overpower people like you and me, who don’t own very much. The working class (i.e., people who don’t own businesses) can increase their power by uniting in unions and other groups to advocate as a single voice. But, as evidenced by the fact that wealthy corporations still control America, the working class's unified power still doesn’t match that of the oligarchs. (Which is why we must organize!)

Second, capital has no interest in using its power for the public good. Private businesses exist to create profit. When capitalists use their power, it is 100% for their own benefit. Sometimes what benefits the private company can benefit society. As I’ll explain below, directing capital’s profit motive can advance the public good. But the Abundance view that the God-like power of the capitalist class and the much weaker power of the working class deserve equal weight and condemnation is a departure from reality.

Are there occasions where a local community group stops a necessary power line from being installed because they don’t want the eyesore? I’m sure it’s happened. But are unions, environmentalists, and every other pesky obstructionist conclave the Abundance authors point to equally as powerful and at fault as the unbridled corporate power dominating the United States? Of course not. The Abundance authors should have learned this during their book launch, when they incorrectly blamed excessive environmental reviews for sinking President Biden’s public broadband program. Ezra Klein went viral for triggering Jon Stewart with a story of how unnecessary environmental reviews and equity initiatives prevented low-income Americans from receiving free public broadband. In reality, the program never got off the ground because internet providers used their lobbying connections to destroy the bill from the start. All of the potential “misuses of power” from well-intentioned activists that Klein warned about didn’t matter. Because the power of private internet companies to protect their future profits was greater than all others combined. Klein later admitted he got the “facts wrong” about the 14-stage process he explained to Stewart, as shown below. But he didn’t retract his claim.

Believing that private capital, the most powerful force in human history, has equal power to the local school board or transportation workers’ union is wilfully naive. And if your understanding of the political situation is wrong, then your suggested political solutions will be the same.

Housing Collapse

Though they don’t reach the conclusion in their conversation, Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, and Marc Dunkelman come so close (yet so far) to recognizing that their misanalysis of capital’s power and purpose is why their Abundance Movement has yet to deliver the results the book promised. While discussing the shortcomings of housing, arguably Abundance’s most central policy, the authors admit that their program has lagged in outcomes. But because they don’t course-correct by questioning Abundance’s core assumption that private business interests are the best way to reduce housing costs, the authors fall short of offering a helpful solution to the housing crisis.

Here’s Klein:

“I think a good critique of the book that I’ve heard is that we don’t talk very much about financing. One thing that has been hard is that even as a lot of yes-in-my-backyard bills are passing, as you mentioned quickly, the financing environment has gotten much worse, because interest rates went way up after the inflationary period.

And the second is that the cost of construction in a place like California is a very fraught topic because nobody wants to see wages go down. There’s a big deportation agenda happening under Donald Trump, which, as you mentioned, is making labor more expensive.

But even as there have been a lot of victories on zoning and exempting things from environmental reviews, the financing side has gotten harder.

I’ve definitely talked to mayors and others who say: Look, I’ve got all these projects I want to see go forward, and we’ve made it possible for them to go forward. But the financing of the projects is not penciling out, and we don’t have an answer to it.”

Klein is admitting what many critics of Abundance said a year ago. And though he’s saying it now, he aggressively disputed claims that non-regulatory issues were slowing housing construction during the 2025 Abundance launch tour. Just because you eliminate regulation does not mean for-profit developers will build. It might be a bad time to invest, or investors may see higher rates of return elsewhere. So though the Abundance Movement has succeeded in eliminating building regulations, apartments still aren’t being built. This is because private for-profit developers are interested in making a profit, not helping Democrats reduce rent rates. To put it in Klein’s words, “the financing isn’t penciling out.” Independent congressional candidate said something similar during our recent interview: It’s not profitable for developers to build new housing in certain parts of Nebraska, so many evicted Nebraskans end up in trailer parks.

Derek Thompson picks up where Ezra Klein left off and agrees with his co-author:

“I’m picking up the criticisms that I heard about financing, about the fact that if you want to build this level of housing, you need to be obsessed with the question of: How do we actually finance that construction? How especially do we make loans to developers, at a time of high interest rates, possible for them to keep up with the level of housing construction that you want?

Those are really, really strong critiques. I think they click into the story that we were telling, the 50-year story. But I do think that it is fair to argue that our book missed that very important ingredient.”

Even though the Abundance authors acknowledge the limitations of their housing program, they still fail to address them. They leave the question of housing financing open, something they’ll have to “circle back on.” But it’s not an open question. We already know how to ensure there’s funding for new housing projects: public funding. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced plans to address the housing crisis by building 200,000 new apartments funded by municipal bonds and City capital investments. Mamdani’s plan was announced after this conversation was recorded. And the Abundance authors have positive things to say about the New York City mayor. However, they have failed to address how the many real estate developers backing the Abundance Movement, who are hostile to publicly funded housing because it reduces their profit potential, can be integrated into a political program aimed at reducing rents. As Klein and Thompson admit, the for-profit interests of building developers and society’s need for more low-rent housing are often opposed. The Abundance authors argue that these interests can unite in a Democratic political program. But neither they nor the Abundance Movement can answer how this contradiction will be resolved.

Artificial Misintelligence

The other policy area where the Abundists greatly misunderstand the power of capital is artificial intelligence. takes the lead here, given that he has made AI a core topic on his Substack. To be honest, I was surprised at how little substance Thompson has added to his thoughts on this emerging technology. Here’s Thompson:

“[In Abundance] We first imagine that the profits of artificial intelligence — because it is a technology that is built on human achievement and human intelligence — are taxed and redistributed to the public. Second, we envision that the workweek has shrunk, and implicit in the idea that artificial intelligence allows the workweek to shrink is the idea that to the extent that it reduces labor, that reduction of labor is not borne on the backs of a dramatic increase in unemployment but is rather distributed among a stable set of fully employed labor force that is working a bit less and earning more because of higher productivity.

If I were crafting an abundance A.I. message, I would say that it is rapidly looking like it’s going to become a multi-trillion-dollar industry. We have to restore the ability to tax corporations that could be among the most profitable in the history of capitalism. That’s part one: We want to tax these companies and redistribute their income to the people.

But we also need to think about what kind of labor market policies we can begin to build to ensure that there isn’t a displacement of workers, and so that if this technology makes people more productive, it results in something that looks much more like a four-day workweek than the equivalent 20% of the economy just being shunted onto unemployment.”

There are two parts to Thompson’s suggestions about AI. First, he suggests that AI companies be taxed at higher rates so their profits can be "redistributed to the public.” Second, he calls for “labor market policies” to ensure that advancements in AI technology translate into gains for the working class (“a four-day workweek”) rather than the capitalist class (“20% of the economy just being shunted onto unemployment”). This is where Derek Thompson’s liberal worldview fails to meet reality. If we take the classical view of economics — that artificial intelligence is simply any other industry — and a liberal view of American politics — that problems can be best solved through civic participation in the existing political systems — then Thompson’s idea would work. Congress could impose higher taxes on OpenAI, Anthropic, and other tech companies to fund schools, hospitals, and other public goods. Or, Congress could shorten the workweek to four days, spreading the gains of AI productivity throughout the economy. And that would all be well and good. But this is not how the world works. And it’s certainly not how the United States of America works.

Take the suggestion for a shortened workweek, for example. The current five-day workweek didn’t come about because capitalists and congresspeople read books that convinced them workers deserved Saturdays off. No, the five-day workweek came to be because militant labor unions fought and died for it. The campaign for a five-day workweek was a brutal and bloody struggle that spanned the 19th and 20th centuries. Socialists recently celebrated May Day, the international commemoration of the Haymarket Affair. During a 1886 rally for an eight-hour workday and five-day workweek in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, a bomb went off, and the police fired into the crowd. Authorities used the bombing to indict eight labor leaders on murder charges, despite only two of them actually being present in the Square. Such violent episodes were common in the multi-century fight for better working conditions. It wasn’t until the eve of World War II, when their labor was especially crucial to the war effort, that the struggle was peacefully resolved and a five-day work week was established.

Though modernity is less violent than the 1800s, capitalists are just as protective of their profits. Tech companies aren’t going to allow their wealth to be redistributed. If we want the benefits of artificial intelligence to go to the common good, we’ll need to fight capital. A recent landmark labor deal between Samsung and worker unions shows what this takes. After months of struggle and threats to strike, Samsung workers ratified a contract with the electronics giant, granting them a share of the profits generated by the AI boom. Semiconductor workers will now receive about 10.5% of the company’s operating profit, equivalent to a bonus of $400,000 per worker. If Derek Thompson truly believes the profits of artificial intelligence should be socialized, then he should be steering the Abundance Movement towards full-throated support for American labor. Because that is the only way we’ll get the social-democratic redistributionism he’s advocating for. Without a militant labor movement, tech companies and politicians will say they’re addressing the AI crisis, but won’t actually lift a finger to help American workers. How do we know this? Because they are profit-seeking companies, not the benevolent actors Abundance misunderstands them as.

has an excellent story in The New York Times about how tech oligarchs are fighting back against negative public perceptions of AI with fig leaves and PR statements. The mass displacement of workers is far from an inevitability, but Sun’s reporting shows that AI oligarchs are preparing for it. Keenly aware of the public’s distrust of them and their product, AI companies are publishing “radically progressive” white papers to give the appearance of social progress, but are stopping short of making these pledges a reality.

From Sun’s report:

This spring, as fears of A.I.-induced job losses were becoming impossible to ignore, OpenAI started to share solutions. In April, the company released a white paper outlining an “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age” that declares the necessity of ambitious New Deal-style policies to combat the concentration of wealth and power in firms like OpenAI. In Mr. Lehane’s telling, industrialization “really threw off that relationship between capital and labor” and facilitated the rise of “fascism and communism.”

Many of the ideas listed in OpenAI’s white paper are radically progressive: a 32-hour workweek, higher taxes on corporations and capital gains and a “public wealth fund” that provides all citizens an equity stake in A.I. companies. Others more clearly cohere with company interests, such as accelerating energy grid expansion and establishing a national “right to A.I.” that would give foundation models to schools and libraries.

Still, the document is vague on implementation mechanics and whether OpenAI will advocate the policies listed. In an emailed statement, an OpenAI spokesperson declined to provide examples of specific legislation the company supports, but said that it has talked to members of Congress and the Trump administration about their intent to contribute to a public wealth fund, among other ideas. — Silicon Valley is Preparing for a Permenant Underclass

(Here’s a gift link to Sun’s essay.)

OpenAI’s whitepaper is the corporate equivalent of Derek Thompson’s politics. Unless there is an actual movement forcing companies such as OpenAI to deliver on these promises, then the statements and whitepapers aren’t worth the gallons of water ChatGPT used to write them. Much like on the housing question, the Abundance Movement won’t be a helpful vehicle for delivering these gains because it is openly antagonistic to the labor movement required to force tech companies to share profits. As Abundance-pilled writer has stated, “Abundance will require fighting labor unions,” a sentiment shared by the many libertarian, conservative, and business interests who fund the Abundance Fest that Klein and Thompson were paid to speak at.

While the liberal Abundance authors are hesitant to admit Republican-aligned interests back their project, Barro has further expanded on this point, saying Abundance is a joint liberal-conservative project that goes beyond Klein and Thompson’s book. As expected, suppressing the labor movement necessary to make Derek Thompson’s proposed shortened workweek a reality will be an easily agreed-upon policy priority for the bipartisan neoliberal consensus that Barro celebrates.

“Yes, Abundance, the book, written by liberals Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, espouses a vision of abundance that is premised on liberal values, and primarily aims to influence intra-coalitional policy arguments among liberals and Democrats. But abundance, the concept, does not belong to Klein and Thompson (or anyone else). And because abundance, the policy project, aims to alleviate scarcities that matter to conservatives and liberals — like our insufficient production of housing and energy — it presents a great opportunity for conservatives and liberals to work together.” — Abundance Is a Bipartisan Project

Thompson and Klein suggest roads to nowhere because their liberal worldview leads them to misunderstand capital as a thing—a collection of tools, software, and infrastructure owned by very rich people. This misunderstanding prevents their Abundance ideas from addressing reality and solving the problems they correctly identify. A more helpful understanding of capital is the Marxist view, which sees capital as a series of relationships that are ever-expanding in pursuit of higher profits. Capitalists and non-capitalists can’t be evaluated as equally powerful forces, with their wishes sometimes benefiting and sometimes harming the public. By nature of being a capitalist, one owns the productive elements of society, giving them considerably more power over non-capitalists. And that power will always be used to increase and protect profits, no matter the cost.

Shareholders and oligarchs don’t just sit back and let their dividends be turned into extra days off or redistributed to workers. They fight back. Politically, economically, and sometimes, violently. This is why neither Abundance, the book, nor Abundance, the movement, can serve as an effective anti-Republican political program. As Trump’s second term devolves into all-out domestic oppression and continuous foreign war, anti-Republican politics needs a program that can energize Americans and defeat Trumpism electorally, while also changing the disastrous over-empowerment of capital that caused Trump’s political rise. That program needs to be based on the on-the-ground American reality, in which capitalist exploitation and social power are growing out of control. In Delaware, a judge recently ruled corporations can vote in elections, the latest and most troubling sign of America’s descent into naked oligarchy. Meanwhile, energy shocks driven by the Iran War are decreasing real wages. In April, wages increased only 3.6%, while U.S. annual inflation increased to 3.8%. While consumers are struggling, American oil company stocks are raking in cash hand over fist. Some oil stocks are up almost 45%. This is because American oil capitalists are reaping higher profits due to reduced supply, at the expense of American consumers. If Abundists want energy costs to remain low, they’ll need to advocate for price controls, something the oil lobby has a history of aggressively lobbying against. In other words, the path to low electricity bills runs through disempowering Exxon and Shell.

Despite what the Abundance authors claim, there is no equivalent to this level of power misuse from local unions or environmental groups. The foremost driver of the desecration of America’s democracy and the cause of economic stress is private capital, with the unsavory political elements capitalism creates coming in a distant second. Just as Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein admit that their Abundance view, which sees private business as equal to any other social force, is a liberal view, I admit that my analysis of capital as the dominant force in modern America is a Marxist view.

I doubt Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein will adopt Marxism any time soon. But ideological labels shouldn’t stop them from recognizing the limitations of liberal analysis on a world that, whether you want to admit it or not, is determined by the clashing interests between those who own America’s productive forces and those who don’t. This conclusion isn’t buried in the second version of Das Kapital. It’s right in front of the Abundance authors, who come so close yet remain so far from recognizing it in their recent conversation.

Until the Abundance Movement addresses the undeniable power of capital, it will remain limited to the liberal elite. Perhaps they don’t mind that. But as for the future of anti-Republican politics, that would be a disaster. Much like the Biden Administration, historians will interpret any short-lived Abundance political project that seizes power as a slight deviation from the Trump political era. It will inevitably not curb capital’s unparalleled power, and as a result, will fail in its ultimate goal of creating a more hospitable, dare I say, abundant society.

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In Solidarity — Joe

If you’re as inspired by Austin Ahlman as I am, please consider donating to his campaign here.

Joe: I’m here with Austin Ahlman. Austin Ahlman, how’s it going?

Austin Ahlman: I’m coming off the most poorly timed episode of bronchitis, perhaps in human history. So if I sound a little raspy, it’s not because I’m just playing it up to seem sexy. Unfortunately, this has been my life since about 7 PM on Thursday, 12 hours after a lot of really cool stuff. So not great.

Joe: So it sounds like you put out your campaign video, which got a lot of attention. I’m sure you got a lot of media requests, and then you immediately got sick, which prevented you from speaking eloquently. Am I understanding the timeline correctly?

Austin Ahlman: Pretty much. However, we have a lot of things in the works for this week. People were gracious enough to wait, and we did plenty of print work in the interim.

Joe: That’s the real power of print journalism right there.

I’d like to start by asking about what I mentioned: a lot of people became aware of your recently announced campaign through this incredibly powerful campaign launch video you just put out. And I just want to read a quote from it that I have here. “My dad got cancer, and my mom’s employer collapsed. The executives got paid, and the workers got screwed. She didn’t have the heart to tell us, even when the bank took the house. And when she took her own life, the eviction notice was in her pocket.“

That really stuck out to me. One: it’s an experience that many people can relate to. But mostly because you were willing to share such a personal story. Not only as part of your candidacy, but right out of the gate. Can you tell us specifically why you are running for Nebraska’s 1st congressional seat? And then also, what is it about your personal story that has helped you make this decision to run for Congress?

Austin Ahlman: When it comes to sharing the story, I went back and forth a lot. And as I worked with my team about a launch video, there was a lot of discussion over how much we wanted to share. And eventually, what the way it was put to me was that if you don’t share this stuff, nobody will. Because there is, especially in areas like mine, there’s so much shame that’s foisted on you for the struggle. And that’s part of the reason why my mom really had a hard time telling us about what was happening. We didn’t find out. Piecing together what had happened after the fact was really painful. And I think that a lot of people have that experience of having to piece together where things went wrong and why, and why they couldn’t tell you, and why people can’t express what’s happening. And so I think I was persuaded because it is important.

It is important for people to understand how much people are struggling, especially in places like mine, in communities like Norfolk, that have just had one hit after another after another. The pride that we have in carrying on is phenomenal, but it shouldn’t be this hard. And I think if people were willing and able to talk about it a little more, you could start to build the political momentum and community necessary to change it. And so that was the thinking.

And then, in general, why I’m running is exactly what you see. I am tired of seeing this amount of pain in my community. And the current representative just could not be more different from me. I grew up the son of meatpackers, first in my family to go to college. He grew up with a silver spoon. I have made my career doing my best to break up monopolies — particularly media and tech monopolies. He is the local media monopolist, right? Like, while we were going through all of this in the house, and this is all recent, I think most people can intuit that it’s fairly recent, everything that happened, but it was really just January that we lost my mom.

And while everything was happening and I was fighting the bank tooth and nail to get the house back, you had Mike Flood sitting in Congress, doing his best to thwart Donald Trump’s own bill that would stop big banks from owning single-family homes. And all of those things together just boiled over to me to the point that somebody has to do it. And right now, right here in this state, given that it’s a district that Osborn won, given that the Republican has so many vulnerabilities that have never been exploited by a real, credible challenger, given that the Democrat frankly doesn’t come close to being a credible challenger. I was like, damn it, let’s do it. Like somebody has to. And if you put your money where your mouth is, it’d better be me. So here we are.

Joe: Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s weirdly refreshing when people are willing to talk about politics in human terms, right? Because it’s very easy to say, Mike Flood went against this bill preventing BlackRock from owning single-family housing and stuff like that. And we forget about what that actually looks like when we think about those policies on the American people, which is families being evicted. And so I do think, at least from my perspective, it was really powerful to see somebody who is just saying, I’m coming from a place of experiencing the hardship of this broken political system rather than someone speaking about hypotheticals.

I’d like to ask you about what you touched on there: this is a very unique race, right? So you are running as an independent, not as an insurgent Democratic primary challenger. The Democratic primary is over. So you are one of 3 candidates in this race. There is the Democrat, the Republican incumbent, and then you, the independent candidate.

And you tell us a little bit about why you chose to run as an independent rather than try to win the Democratic primary. Yeah. And what do you think is going to be your biggest challenge in a three-way race, which is very different from a two-way race?

Austin Ahlman: The long and short of it is, I’m not a Democrat. I have not been. But when I first registered to vote as a wide-eyed 17-year-old, I registered as an independent. I’ve never had any strong identification with the Democratic Party. There have been a few times in my life when I have voted in Democratic primaries, mostly as an artifact of those who determine who gets to have a seat in many places where I’ve lived previously. But I wouldn’t run as a Democrat ever for any race because I’m not one. And, currently with the party in the shape that it is, I don’t see myself changing that philosophy anytime soon.

And so in Nebraska, independents have a different structure, a different window. So the primary phase, if you want to call it one, for an independent goes till August, when you can submit petitions to be on the ballot. And so I sized up the race, took one look at this Democrat who seemed likely to win for a little while, and thought, this guy is never gonna do it. He is absolutely never going to do it. He had enough money to buy the primary and some from unsavory interests, to say the least, but not nearly enough to actually run a competitive general election.

The place where he got the money is thoroughly corrupt. And then his background is not great. We can get into that a little bit later, but it’s not great. Not great morally, but then also just politically. Like, it is an albatross around the neck of a candidate out here to have the experience that he is touting as his reason to be the nominee.

Austin Ahlman: So all of those things together just, it was like, well, somebody has to do something because Mike Flood has to lose this year. He has to lose. This is a year you can beat him. People are very upset with Republican incumbents. He has voted and rubber-stamped the war. He has voted and rubber-stamped all the cuts to necessary programs that are really hitting hard out here. And so, you’ve got to do something. And so I did something, and here we are doing the something.

Joe: I do want to kind of stay on that one. Obviously, you’re not a Democrat, which makes a lot of sense. But also, you know, there is kind of an element of the Democratic Party that thinks that what we should be doing is running Democrats who are just more like Republicans in these red states, right? Kind of like the abundance-moderation mindset we hear from prominent liberal journalists. And I’d like to kind of hear like why, in your opinion, not even as a candidate, but as somebody who is from this community, like why you think that doesn’t work for putting aside all your stuff about not wanting to be associated with the Democrats, of like why you’re not wrecking a good chance of a Democrat winning.

And I, yeah, before I ask you, I want to share kind of like some of the stuff I read, which is the one, it was interesting to see this district has been represented by a Republican since the 1930s, with this lone exception of, I believe it was 1964, which was like LBJ’s huge blue wall, right? So like, this is a very Republican district. And then, I believe the Cook Political Report said it would take anemic GOP turnout and a very strong Democratic turnout for the Democrats to even have a chance. So that is why I think you're the best shot at bringing progressive politics to this red state.

But I’d like to hear from a kind of on-the-ground perspective of just a Nebraskan, like, Why is the Democratic brand failing to, you know, replace the Republicans who, as you have said, are doing nothing to help the people struggling? It’s depressing.

Austin Ahlman: Well, I think a lot of it is that the meaning of terms like centrist, moderate, progressive, they’re all filtered through like the D.C. bubble, like the D.C. media brain, which is incredibly, incredibly detached from real life, especially real life out here, right? And so what is the centrist view, as in like what does the median person actually think, is very, very different than the types of candidates that the Democratic machine churns out. They churn out the DC centrist view, which is like, we love the national security state, we should fund all these wars, absolutely moderate on everything, or not moderate, but trim down any of your ambitions for what we should do about the economy. Or the economic order. People love the power of elites. They just can’t get enough of the elites and their power.

Like, that kind of brand of politics, it’s not the center anywhere, but especially in the middle of the country out here, it is so unbelievably detached from reality that it drives you nuts, right? And so you were mentioning that this district has always been Republican, or has been for a long, long time. True, but it has also always been populist. Nebraska’s history is of— and again, this is different. The word— this word means a different thing than it means now, but the progressive Republicans, the populist Republicans, for decades and decades, their stronghold was districts like this one. And it is that, as both parties have become corporate, identity has become meaningless, and people here are adrift and persuadable. And that is why Osborn won this seat in 2024. And that was when he had to share a ballot with Kamala Harris, which is an impressive feat because I don’t think that many people around here are gung-ho about her, to be clear.

But if you are willing to go into a ballot box, click Donald Trump, then Mike Flood, and then Dan Osborn, it says you’re looking for something different. And if you don’t see that, what you’re going to do is you’re going to go with the devil that you know. And so I wouldn’t necessarily even say that what I’m doing resembles progressive politics, especially not if I’ve seen it. But it is populist politics. It is the politics embodied by the Republicans of the New Deal era, like George Norris, our most famous senator, who helped build the New Deal and did it by putting the culture war bullshit aside and looking at what people need economically and seeing what elites are standing in the way and being willing to actually name them and take them on.

Joe: I want to talk about the actual policies that you’re running on in a second, but it was so shocking to me when I was researching, you know, your opponents and the Democratic opponent. I’m going to pronounce his name wrong. Chris Bachmeier. It sounds like his leading endorsement on his website is from Foreign Policy for America. And if you look at it, like he’s, this is like the top one that he’s most proud of. And it seems like you turned the State Department into a political organization and then started endorsing people. So I’m not surprised to hear you say that that version of politics doesn’t work.

Austin Ahlman: So you say that about the State Department. What’s really funny is that the man has been funded, quite literally, by large donations from Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, Ned Price, and so on. His donor list is basically a Rolodex of every discredited foreign policy leader. And it is just bizarre to think that one of the few issues that unites the base of the left, the base of the right, and independents is being fed up with the foreign policy of the last two decades. And now we have the avatar of the foreign policy of the last two decades being muscled into a winnable seat, and it’s just enough to make your, make your damn head explode, right? But that’s the thing, right? Just try the same thing over and over again.

Never admit any mistakes. Never admit that, you know, something different might actually work. Just muscle through and then call the new guy who’s gonna try something different a spoiler for spoiling a race that you were very obviously never going to win.

Joe: Yeah. I mean, it’s like they’ve been trying the same thing for a century at this point, right? And like, Oh, you got lucky once in the 1960s. And you know, it’s just baffling to me.

I do want to talk a little bit about, you know, the policies you’re running on and how you’re going to help everyday Nebraskans and Americans, you know, get by. And I’d really like to start by talking about an issue that I’m under-informed on, which is agriculture, right? So I was reading on your campaign website, and one of your policies is to champion family farms and ranches. Corporate agriculture consolidation is the slow death of rural America. We’ll crack down on big ag’s market manipulation and endless cost squeezes, making sure that people who feed this country can afford to feed themselves.

And so I’d like to, one, ask you about, you know, what are these dynamics that you’re seeing, you know, in affecting rural Nebraskan farms? And then I’d also kind of like to, you know, ask like, okay, like how does that, you know, help people who aren’t working on these farms as well? Because correct me if I’m wrong, I imagine that what is bad for small farmers is also bad for, you know, people in Lincoln, Nebraska, who don’t work on a farm, but like to eat food from farms. Yes.

Austin Ahlman: I think all of us do like to eat food from farms, right? No, the dynamic right now is that whether you are a farmer or a rancher, this is one of the hardest years you have ever had. A lot of it is just the growing pressure from big ag to consolidate. And then there’s also market manipulation among the middlemen, right? So then you have things like Tyson, the big 4 meatpackers that are just doing everything that they can to squeeze you. And then on top of that, you have the war in Iran, which is just skyrocketing fertilizer and fuel prices. And between all of those things, we’re probably on track to have the most family farms turned over or consolidated as a percentage of any year in recent memory. And it’s horrible.

It is horrible. It tears apart the identity of communities like this when a family that has been there for generations, that has been giving back to the community, that has been a stalwart of their hometown has to sell, right? It rips apart people’s feelings of place and self. And it is why so many people feel like their way of life is being taken away from them out here. And it’s because it is— it is being taken away from them.

And so one of the things we are really conscious of is revitalizing and actually enforcing some of the laws we have had on the books for a long time to address issues like this. So I mentioned in my video, I’m the son of meatpackers. I watched my parents, you know, endure horrors. Meatpacking is one of the hardest jobs in the world. My mother worked on the chuck line, where you cut specific pieces of fat off a chuck of beef. And she would come home, her hands stuck, because if you do that all day for days on end, you literally can’t move your fingers.

But it was one of the better jobs that exists in this sort of community in terms of benefits, in terms of wages. And Tyson took it all away at once. That plant closed in a matter of, I think, a month or two. And it was purely a price manipulation move. What they did when they closed the plant in my hometown they stripped it bare. They took all the machinery out, and you can’t easily sell this machinery, right? There’s no actual benefit to the producer of stripping all the machinery out.

And then they poured concrete down the drains, and then they set up a shell LLC with a restrictive covenant. And they made sure that nobody could ever buy this plant and run it as a meatpacking plant again. And so now, 20 years later, a quarter mile from my house, you can still see the plant. It is still sitting there completely inoperable, this monument to what rural America used to have. The things that used to sustain us.

Austin Ahlman: And the only change they’ve made is that, after they did the same goddamn thing in Lexington, Nebraska, last year, they sent somebody over to take down the signs from this plant that had been sitting there for 20 years in either December or January. That’s the only thing that’s changed on that property. And so we have laws on the books, like the Packers and Stockyards Act, that make price manipulation in agricultural markets illegal, and we literally do not enforce them. We just don’t enforce it. We have decided, since the Reagan and Clinton eras, that there’s no such thing as price fixing. These corporations can do whatever the hell they want. And we’re not going to be doing that anymore when I’m in Congress. I tell you that.

Yeah, that is— I mean, you know, talking about not only does that affect food prices and stuff like that, but I imagine, you know, hearing that story reminds me a lot of what I heard from autoworkers in Michigan in the Rust Belt who were just like, our entire town, my entire family has lived by working on this auto plant. And then it got sent away and, you know, our town died. So I can’t imagine, you know, how devastating that is for people.

Joe: And also, you know, you were talking about like there’s, you know, mentioning the Iran War, something that like the base of both parties don’t like. And I kind of think that there was almost like a Republican interest in Lina Khan. And, you know, business interests hated Lina Khan and would always call her a radical communist and stuff like that. But what she was actually doing was just saying we should enforce the antitrust and market manipulation laws that have been on the books for over a century. So I’m not surprised to hear that that’s, you know, an effective and much-needed political avenue.

Austin Ahlman: Yes. And not to say that we don’t need some new laws too. Things like the big tech companies, you need some new structures, right? The people who crafted these beautiful laws that do a lot of really good things when you actually enforce them, you know, they didn’t know that Google or Facebook would come up to exist and swallow our whole damn economy. So there’s a lot to be done, but you can get a lot of headway by just enforcing the laws on the books.

And what’s crazy is if you say that the post-Roosevelt laws should just actually be enforced again, people like Fox News are gonna swarm around you to call you a progressive or a crazy socialist. Meanwhile, JD Vance will secretly copy your homework but not actually submit it. It puts you in such a weird place, as far as the DC discourse goes, that makes it difficult to message some of this stuff to a national audience. But anybody out here, it just sounds like common damn sense.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. JD Vance will go on Fox News and call you a radical leftist and then leak to the New York Times that he actually, like, really likes your campaign. Right. I wanted to talk about immigration because, one, you know, it tends to be a more important issue in red states. They tend to prioritize immigration more. And I was really impressed by how you’re approaching the immigration issue. Reading from your campaign website here, secure the border and end corporate exploitation. It’s time massive corporations stop exploiting illegal immigrants in order to drive down wages for American workers. We’ll secure the border, send violent criminals back, and make sure those looking for a chance to be an American are given a fair shot at earning the privilege.

And what immediately stuck out to me is that you are talking about immigration as a labor issue, which— honestly, thank you so much for doing that, because I feel like that is what labor-minded people have been trying to do for so long. And immigration constantly gets wrapped up as a cultural issue. If you look at immigration and things like NAFTA, or how we didn’t really start asking workers for documentation until they started trying to unionize, right? It’s very clear that immigration policy is, at least in my opinion, an extension of labor policy.

And so I would like to hear your view on the ground in Nebraska. One, why are you approaching this as a labor issue as opposed to how Democrats and Republicans approach immigration as a cultural issue? And then also, you know, what is it about this that is different from like, you know, this is a very different statement from like a typical Republican statement, you know, what is it that you think that about this district that is willing to hear and willing to accept like, oh yeah, like this is a, a labor issue that affects all of us.

Austin Ahlman: I think of it as a labor issue, because it is one, especially out here, given what has happened to jobs and the economy in rural America. People do have a lot of resentment towards immigrants. Now, I’m not going to say that’s all correct, but there are ways in which people on the coasts and in large cities don’t understand how that resentment has been bred and who is responsible for it.

So again, going back to Tyson Meats, I want to say December. I was out in Dakota City, Nebraska, which is where Tyson has centralized all the jobs from the closed regional facilities. And I was speaking to a former line worker who now works as a Walmart greeter. And he was telling me about the working conditions at Tyson, and why he had to quit, even though he made twice as much money.

He was not that old. He was in his 50s, but he had to quit. And the reason was that Tyson has an incredibly well-tuned system of bringing refugees in, pretty much treating them like slaves, using that to lower working standards and conditions, and then driving out any worker that doesn’t— that would not stand for such a thing, right? And that leaves everybody in the equation worse off.

And I asked this man, I asked him, I said, well, do you ever, like, wonder if maybe Tyson is purposely pitting you against one another in a race to the bottom. And he said, you know, for a long time I really, really resented— and he particularly talked about the Somali community that has, you know, come into some of these working plants— resented them.

He’s like, but then I realized they have no power. They can be made to do anything. And so the fact that they will work overtime for no pay, that they will break their backs, that they will endure literal and, you know, metaphorical abuse at the hands of supervisors. How can I blame them for that? It is Tyson’s fault.

But so many people, though, have not had the time to process that. All they see is their factory closed, their town dying, and immigrants who are now in the new factory working those jobs. And they do feel like their way of life is being taken. And so you have to talk about it on the terms that people know are true.

Which is that there are forces, big corporations like Tyson, that are utilizing that resentment and actively feeding into it in order to, one, pad their bottom line, but two, also insulate themselves politically. Because if you can activate people around that, then they become the enemy, and nobody is going to pay attention to you and what you are doing, and they’re not going to be able to mobilize to take you on.

Joe: Yeah. Very well said. We have almost the same dynamic here in Colorado. To the north of me, up in Greeley, there was just a huge meatpacking strike at the plant. And you know, the organizers talked a lot about how the workers spoke over 50 different languages because this meatpacking plant was specifically designed to attract refugee populations. And I’m not a lawyer, but I believe all those visas are tied to employment. So people are much more likely to say, oh yeah, I’ll work for less or something like that, just so I can stay in the country. I think that’s like, I’ve heard Grant Platner say some stuff up in Maine around the same time, where, like, if you just kind of take the time to say like, yeah, you’re being ripped off along with the immigrants, like people will come around to that, you know? Yes. Because it is the truth.

Austin Ahlman: Yeah, absolutely.

Joe: Always, always good to have the benefit of the truth on your side. I do want to touch on a little bit about foreign policy, right? And so I know we were talking about Bachmeier, your Democratic opponent. In your interview with the Nebraska Examiner, where you kind of launched this campaign, I believe this interview came out the same day as your announcement video. Right as you got sick, you know, you were talking a lot about his time at the State Department, and you specifically mentioned, you know, his work on Yemen and then also the Iran deal. And I’d like to hear just, you know, from your view, like, why are those two things where you, I believe you also said Israel was a reason that he was running as well. What is it about, you know, Israel, Yemen? Iran, that, you know, is relevant to the people of Nebraska?

Austin Ahlman: Well, people here are sick and tired of paying for foreign wars that they can’t explain why we’re fighting them, or even worse, why somebody else is fighting them, and still we’re paying for them. It doesn’t make sense to anybody around here. It never has. It has always been deeply, deeply unpopular, and there’s starting to be just a tiny bit of understanding of that fact.

But I say that because it is so frustrating to see somebody who has sat in the State Department for 20 years in various positions, rubber-stamping 20 years of failed bipartisan policy. I’m talking about going all the way back to Bush, who has been in the position of power, greenlighting 20 years of policy that people around here just loathe. They absolutely loathe it, and it does not matter their party identification. It does not matter their background, their income. Nobody here can understand why we’re doing it.

You look at my side of town here in Norfolk, the side that the meatpacking plant was closed on, which still looks like a war zone 20 years later, and try to explain to somebody that’s driving through there why we’re dropping million-dollar-a-piece bombs on some country they can’t find on a map. It doesn’t go very well. So I think that each of those policies that you mentioned, Yemen, Iran, Israel, is a piece of it, but it is the overarching feeling more than anything of being screwed, of being exploited, of the fact that the only people that are struggling that we seem to care about are abroad, and we’re not helping them. We’re just bombing them into more struggle for some reason.

It is not necessarily because people around here have deeply held views about— I promise you they don’t when it comes to Israel and Gaza and the contours of that conflict. They don’t. They just know that we’re paying for it for some damn reason, and they don’t understand why. And I’m not going to try to explain to them because I don’t think we should be either. And to put a nominee out there who will try to explain why we’ve been doing it, up against a representative incumbent who keeps voting for it. It is so naive when it is one of the biggest wedge issues of our time, and it needs to be activated. And unfortunately, we just refuse to nominate candidates on any party line that is willing to activate it.

Joe: Yeah, you know, I’ll go one step further. It sounds like Chris Bachmeier was not only supporting these policies but was actually instrumental in them, right? Like, you talk a little bit about how he flip-flopped on the Iran deal, which, you know, I have many criticisms of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

I do think the Iran deal was like kind of the crown jewel of his of at least his second term, you know. And I think losing that is one of the reasons we’re back at war, and all this is going on. But yeah, it seems like it’s like, okay, do you want the guy who’s voting for it or do you want the guy who created all of it and is now like pinky promising that he’s really— I guess he’s not even apologizing for it. He’s just saying, We need it. Yeah.

Austin Ahlman: So, yeah, no. So, I mean, yes, I have been willing to give him the narrow bit of credit for playing a serious role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal under Obama, which I think was good. Diplomacy is good. Anytime that we are not wasting our blood and treasure on places thousands and thousands of miles away, but instead of just having conversations and figuring it out, that’s great.

Then Trump 1.0 comes in. And he turns around and is immediately signing off on talking points, new sanctions, all these things that ripped apart the deal. And then under Biden, obviously, there was just a total failure, total, total failure to put that deal back together. And then, as far as I could tell, he was back on board with full maximum pressure with Iran until he took a doge buyout in May.

And so what this says to me is that this is not somebody who has sincere or strong beliefs about much of anything. It is somebody who is a rubber stamp, which means that when you have another rubber stamp who’s already sitting in Congress, you’re not going to get anything meaningfully different. And I don’t think anybody out here expects to. And that’s why it’s impossible for the guy to win.

And in fact, when we did our polling on this, we pretty much copied and pasted from his website. And when you copy and paste from his website, you get his own description of his own work over the last 20 years. And then you do the same thing with Flood. The starting head-to-head between the two, his own description of his own career, makes him drop like 6 or 7 points because people hear that and they’re like, what the hell? You want me to— a State Department official who’s been doing— you’re telling me Middle East policy? And you said he’s been doing it since Bush? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah.

Joe: That is, it’s so wild, man. Like, just the hubris of like, they must not— I wonder if they’re actually testing that stuff or if they’re just like testing it and being like, we don’t care, you know, these red state voters, they— what they really want is you know, the Foggy Bottom policy, like brought to Lincoln, which is so crazy.

Austin Ahlman: Elite impunity is a principle that must be defended at all costs.

Joe: You know, Democrat and Republican members of the elite class, as they bicker with each other. But I think as we’ve seen with a lot of the Epstein stuff and how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are protecting each other in the open, you know, they have unwavering class solidarity. And I think it’s a long time since the rest of us started to, yes, take note of that.

Joe: I do want to talk about affordability, right? Because that was, you know, a big topic of your campaign launch and, you know, just it’s one of your leading issues, which I think is awesome.

And I’d like to ask about something that I’m uneducated on, which you mentioned a little bit further earlier, which is how the Iran war, you know, is driving up food prices for farmers? And by extension, I assume, you know, the rest of the economies that are centered on that, right?

I think you mentioned fertilizer prices are going through the roof, and correct me if I’m wrong, but if I remember correctly, there’s, I believe, a lot of, maybe it was nitrogen, that comes from that area of the world. And like a lot of people have been saying, like, yeah, gas prices are going up, but our agricultural industry is about to be hit by a ticking time bomb, where even if we reversed everything right now, it would still take us years to get back to.

So I’d love to hear, like, you know, bringing that off from the Iran War, like how is that making life just so much harder for the people you’re trying to represent?

Austin Ahlman: Well, so people, you know, everybody understands that a bunch of oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz, right? But it is not just that. It is, as you said, nitrogen-based fertilizers. A huge share of the world’s supply is shipped through there, and it has been ground to a halt just the same.

And it is that on top of fuel prices, right? It’s like you have to use a lot of fuel just in this part of the country generally, because everybody has to, you know, drive. But specifically, farmers have to use a lot of fuel and a lot less fertilizer, and both of those input costs, which they have to, they have to try to map or plot out well in advance, right? When you are planning your year’s harvest, you have to make many of these projections way in advance.

And the thing that is so devastating is when you have big, sudden, explosive things like this that blow your budget for one part of your input calculation, it will be years and years and years and years before you catch up. And so you have to then build into future projections the costs of paying back and recouping all the extra costs from the prior-year loss. And so we can’t— that, I mean, in general, like, a lot of that is unfortunately that, that ship has sailed. A lot of that cake is now baked. We will just have higher food prices for several years that we did not need to have because of this pointless, stupid war.

And what we’re going to do, I’m sure, is the same thing that we’re doing with beef now, where we’re importing this horrific, like, beef supply from Argentina in order to give another dumb leader a favor. We’re going to relax our import restrictions and further undercut the farmers that we keep screwing over. It is going to keep the cycle of resentment going and keep tearing apart rural communities.

And honestly, I wish— I wish that you could say if we ended the war tomorrow that you could— that you could seriously do something about that. But you can’t. That ship has now sailed largely. And it is a damn shame. The only thing that we can do now is put relief packages in place, try to offset some of those extraordinary costs that should have never been shouldered by those farmers and, and again, you know, end it, end the war so that next year their projections actually pan out instead of being tossed aside by somebody in the Oval Office who just doesn’t seem to care at all about real people’s experiences and what happens to them when we start shooting missiles willy-nilly everywhere.

Joe: Yeah. I— one thing you mentioned was the Argentine credit swaps, beef deals, and similar things. And I remember this was actually when I started to learn a little bit more about how this stuff just ruins rural communities. Like, a bunch of— I believe it was farmers in Alabama, maybe, who were, you know, self-described Trump voters who, it was really sad, were like describing how, you know, this was going to undercut their family business, that they had gone into so much debt to, you know, make their profit for the season, which they all lived on.

And it was like a really revealing, really saddening story that all these people were telling because I was unaware that, you know, these farms are going into huge debt and, you know, if something as simple as soybean production falls, like there goes all their money for the next 3 years and stuff like that, which is, you know, it’s really easy just to be like, oh, soybeans are 1 cent more expensive. But then you actually look at how very similar it is to how you brought your personal experience into, yeah, this campaign, like how that actually impacts people.

Austin Ahlman: Yeah. I mean, and it is from all sides. Farmers and ranchers are just getting it from all sides. During the pandemic, a lot of farmers really had to cull their herds, right? Like, we got to a place where we have some— right now we have some of the lowest cattle herd— supply isn’t the right word, but, you know, probably by a hedge, some of the lowest herds in a long, long, long, long time.

And theoretically, that should be a good thing for the cattle ranchers. They now have some market power. Hopefully, they can get some better prices and have a few good years of windfalls. But instead, we are undercutting that. We are now bringing in all this beef from Argentina, destroying those cattle ranchers and farmers’ ability to actually recoup and rebuild their enterprises. And it’s going to leave them long-term just totally insolvent.

And what happens then, of course, is consolidation, right? Like those ranches, they will get sold. They will be one big player that owns them all. And then, because it is now a big corporation, of course, they’ll be treated favorably in future considerations. And it is, it’s just killing people from all sides.

So I mean, there are a lot of things that we need to do about it. One, we just need to stop favoring other belligerent world leaders who can’t seem to manage their economies by letting them flood our market with their imported beef products. But then there are a lot of things just on our side that we need to be doing, right? Like I was saying earlier, enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act, stopping price manipulation at the middleman level, which is so damn consolidated.

We do need standards for country-of-origin labeling. I think most Americans, when they walk into a supermarket, would be quite happy if they could just tell automatically what steaks that they were buying, what burger they were buying, were born, raised, slaughtered, and processed in this country instead of all these different pieces. But it’s going to— it’s getting scary.

We’re going to get to the point soon: if we don’t open our eyes, we’ll have a few mega meatpacking facilities that largely process cattle from other countries, and our domestic supply will no longer exist. And the people who have kept that domestic supply going for centuries will have nothing left.

Joe: Really scary. I think that’s the right word. I do want to kind of end by asking you about housing. I will say we’ve got a few questions in the chat that I’ll get to at the end. So if anybody has any other questions, throw them in. What I was really interested in was your housing policy, you know, and I think you even said earlier here with us that we need to stop Wall Street, private investors, stuff like that from owning single-family homes. And there has been, going back to, you know, how out of touch Washington, DC, is with districts like yours, there has been a, what I would consider, a concerted push over the last couple of years to say, oh no, it’s not BlackRock buying your homes and stuff like that.

That’s the problem. Overregulation, stuff like that. And I’m not saying that, you know, there isn’t overregulation, but I am hesitant about anybody who tries to paint with a broad brush on housing because I came from Boston, and the reason why Boston is in a terrible housing crisis is that there’s literally nowhere to build, right? And then when people try to apply that lesson to a state like Colorado, where there are tons of areas to build, I feel like it just doesn’t really fit. So I’d like to hear, you know, what some of the housing-related issues are that are driving up rents and home prices in your district? And what are some of the ways that you think as a congressperson you would be best to, you know, combat that and protect people and keep them in their homes, and honestly avoid the terrible foreclosures that, you know, you, one of the reasons you’re running for Congress.

Austin Ahlman: Yeah. So, to zoom out, largely the problem here is the structure of the economy. Consolidation is happening at the corporate level, but that also means it starts at the community level. So a town like Norfolk, which is where I am right now, where I was born and raised, is the central hub of a small, you know, broader community.

We have towns like Madison and Hader, and other things like that, all around. And what happens more and more is that, as consolidation occurs in economics, it also occurs at the community level. So more and more, as the real industry gets ripped out of these communities, everybody centralizes into the one micropolitan hub, as it’s called, if you were gonna use the census terms for it, right? And then costs are driven through the roof, while wages don’t come anywhere close to matching them.

So after the Tyson plant here closed, you saw this huge flattening of the middle class in this economy. There was an upper class that still owned all the new franchises. Right? But then the lower class just ballooned. And then you have housing shortages because there’s still not really enough building going on, but that is because it’s not really profitable enough. And it’s not— it has very, very little to do with regulation, right? It’s not profitable enough because very few people are earning wages high enough to buy a new house out in these parts anymore. And so a lot of it is just structural in the economy.

Beyond that, there, there, there’s just not nearly enough investment in affordable housing at any layer of our economy, right? Things like trailer parks, which are looked down upon, are actually one of the key ways people get ahead out here. I know that because I have lived in one. And without having that type of housing available, you don’t have the ladder upwards towards success.

And there’s a lot of controversy here because just a couple of months ago, there was this, there was this development that was slated, pitched as it was going to be affordable housing. And then you turned around, and when it finally got built, it was, I think, one floor of affordable housing and the rest were like luxury condos. And people talk about that as in like, oh, well, that just happens all the time. No big deal. Well, of course, it happens all the time because we’re not actually investing in affordable housing.

And then, very little of it has to do with land-use regulations. We have lax land-use regulations compared to just about anywhere in the country. There are all kinds of places to build. But our economic structure is built around making sure there is no ladder up for the lower class, that they stay in their place, that they work their service job, that they pay for their overpriced apartment, and that is the only life they’re ever going to have.

And then now even the homes that are left are being bought up by Wall Street. It is happening, and people deny it. They deny it right up until you try to ban it. And then they say that it’s essential for the future of the damn housing market, right? And then, Mike Flood, who again is the key person standing in the way of the bill that Trump and Elizabeth Warren worked on in the Senate, which actually meaningfully restricts this, says he’s doing it on behalf of the build-to-rent sector. Are you familiar with the build-to-rent sector?

Joe: I’m not. And I feel like it’s about to be just some draconian nightmare you’re going to tell me about.

Austin Ahlman: So the build-to-rent sector, which is the most, the worst people that you know with the globe, you know, little emojis and all that shit. They will tell you it’s just, oh, well, one of the few places where we’re building new housing. And that is because, after the Great Recession, Wall Street realized, oh, we have an opening to turn houses into an asset class. And what if neighborhoods, instead of being these organic things that pop up as people sort themselves out and try new frontiers, what if we got to control when, how, and why they were built, right?

And so now you see, and not here, right? Again, this is not happening in my district. There’s not enough. Economic mobility for people renting entire subdivisions of new homes. But the reason he is allegedly holding up the bill is on behalf of this enterprise, which is quite literally Wall Street centrally planning the development of new homes and making sure they can never actually be owned by families.

It is blocks and blocks and blocks of identical houses designed by some damn boardroom in New York meant to keep the population there captive forever. And we call that a market. And it is, it’s insane. It is absolutely insane.

And I, I just cannot believe that a guy like Mike Flood cares so deeply about Wall Street’s ability to centrally plan new communities in Phoenix, Arizona, that he feels the need to stand in the way of Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren, shockingly enough, teaming up to try to get something done about Wall Street’s entries into the housing market.

Joe: Man, that stuff is so crazy because every, like, I’ve been trying to listen to different people who are familiar with housing in each different section of the country, right? Like, I hear a lot from people in LA, and they tell me the problems are different from those in Houston. But one of them is that they all kind of say, like, yeah, private equity and stuff like this should not really be involved in housing. It seems to be unanimous, except for, like you said, the people who will deny it until you try and ban it, and then they’re like, actually, this is really good. You know? Yeah. So crazy.

I also really appreciate you talking about housing as an issue driven by wages and stuff like that, because people will say, like, oh, we need to cut regulation. It’s supply and demand. And a big part of that factor is whether or not people have enough money to live in the apartments that you’re building. And I feel like that gets really brushed aside all the time.

Austin Ahlman: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. The big question in the chat is, people want to know about your relationship with Dan Osborne. Have you talked to Dan? Are you guys, you know, in touch? And I guess like, not even outside that, but, you know, I, correct me if I’m wrong, I assume his independent bids were a reason why you kind of were like, I think I can make this work. So I’d love to hear, you know, what your relationship is with Nebraska’s most famous independent?

Austin Ahlman: I have a lot of respect for Dan Osborn. He has blazed the trail for an independent to run in a seat like this and be taken seriously. Right. I have spoken with Osborn’s team and him in the past. Right now, we are each running our own races. Ideally, you know, I would love to, at some point, become simpatico and jibe. But right now he is focused on a, frankly, a more important race, taking out Pete Ricketts. I’m still here proving my viability. I’ve been in the race for all of 5 days. I think it would be a little crazy for him to have already endorsed me.

Joe: It would be cool.

Austin Ahlman: I’m not saying that he shouldn’t. So Dan Osborne, if you’re listening, I would happily, after much pondering, accept your endorsement. And of course, offer mine back. But that’s a conversation that’ll have to develop. I think a lot of it will come down to proving viability, seeing where the Democrat ends up in the race, seeing how Flood handles this all, and then seeing what the pathway is. Because I think all those things are there, those pieces are in place, but an operation like that that has already been through the wringer is laser-focused on their race the same way that I’m laser-focused on my own right now. Yeah.

Joe: Awesome. Austin, you know, how can people support your campaign? I’m pretty psyched about it. Just, you know, when I shared a lot of your stuff, I got huge levels of engagement from, you know, take everything with a grain of salt, but people saying like, never voted for a Democrat in my life, like would absolutely vote for this guy and stuff like that. So how can people, whether they’re in Nebraska or outside Nebraska, you know, support you and help you get elected?

Austin Ahlman: Share our stuff. And pitch in. It is incredibly difficult to run a campaign like this, frankly, without small donors, because you’re not going to get any of the big donors. We, one, we wouldn’t take most of them anyway. We’re not taking any corporate PAC money. We have blacklisted every lobbyist and said, “ Do not donate to us, which is frankly where a lot of the candidates that say that they’re not taking corporate PAC money get a lot of their money. We’re not doing any of that.

We were incredibly fortunate to have a launch that just popped off, and we are in a much better position than I think any independent House campaign has probably been in decades. But we can’t rest on our laurels. Seizing on that momentum requires significant investment from many people. And the go-to line that my campaign people tell me I gotta keep saying, which is absolutely true, is that if you want to send one of us to Congress, it’s going to take all of us.

And so chip in, keep sharing our message, keep helping us get out there, keep helping us defy the odds, because it is crazy that we got this much attention and support out of the gate. And we’re doing everything we can to capitalize on it, including—we already have yard signs and all kinds of cool printed materials, things an independent campaign usually doesn’t have for months. We have gotten out of the gate because of the outpouring of support.

But to keep it going and to keep up with two candidates that are just absolutely bought by elites, we need people’s continued buy-in. So anything you can do to help, pitch it in, and know that we’ll appreciate it, and we’ll spend every dollar on local vendors here in the state, just like we did with the launch video and the signs, local union printers. The bank account is even at a local bank, Elkhorn Valley Bank. All of our values are being lived, and we are doing our best to honor every dollar. So know that if you decide to be a part of this movement, it will not be taken for granted on any level.

Joe: Awesome. Thank you so much. I’ll put all of that information in the episode description. And then, yeah, Austin, thank you for your time. Incredibly grateful to get to talk to you. Good luck. I’m pulling for you. Good luck with your worst time illness in human history, which is— I almost wanna laugh cuz it’s just so, so poor timing. Yeah.

Austin Ahlman: My, my thinking is everything else went so fortuitously about the launch that, of course, there had to be something. Like, it would be ridiculous if just every single thing weren’t right. And so I’m taking it with a grain of salt, rolling with it, and I think it’s gonna be fine. We’ve got lots of things lined up, and it was a pleasure that you were one of those things. Thank you, Joe.

Joe: Of course. I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.

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In Solidarity — Joe

A former progressive journalist, Ahlman is attempting what many leftists have suggested as the path to red-state political power. By ditching the Democratic brand, traditionally Republican voters will be more open to his ideas on ending Citizens United, breaking up the military-industrial complex, and ending arms deals for dictators. This gives Austin Ahlman a leg up over Democrats in Nebraska’s 1st congressional district, which has been dominated by Republicans since the New Deal. Recent polling shows that once Nebraskan voters learn about Ahlman, they prefer him over both the establishment candidates.

While Ahlman’s potential looks promising, his campaign won’t be easy. The duopoly isn’t going down without a fight. Which is why I wanted to talk to Austin and learn how he plans to take on the political establishments and emerge victorious.

Join Austin Ahlman and me on Substack Live on Wednesday, May 20th at 2:00 p.m. MST. We’ll discuss his insurgent campaign, his moving personal story, and how truly independent politicians can avoid party politics and focus on uplifting the working class.

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In Solidarity — Joe