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My wife made this video to celebrate our engagement a few months ago and it's my favorite thing: youtube.com/watch?v=HWkE3g0w…
Reihan Salam retweeted
We’re all excited about the moderates and moderation but you have to pause and observe that this is factually completely wrong slopulism
Talarico argues pro-business really means pro-big business, socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for everyone else
“I've seen that when people talk about being pro-business, what that usually means is being pro-big business, right?”
“we basically subsidize Walmart through Medicaid because they don't give their employees quality healthcare.”
“So again, socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the rest of us.”
“And this is not a radical vision. It's what we had before.”
w/ @jamestalarico
Reihan Salam retweeted
A world where the GOP feels the heat of competition in red southern states and Dems feel it in blue northern states is a better one.
Both parties’ analytical and campaign abilities atrophied bc they’ve been anchored by uncompetitive states.
A Forecast of the Near Future:
As we close out this remarkable week, discussions are shifting to the impacts of the election on the lame duck, the new committees, and the topics of early bills and funding fights. I want to pan up out of the day to day business and offer some predictions on more macro aspects of politics.
- The new Democratic Majorities that take power in January will not be divided primarily by ideology, whether someone is on the left or in the center. They will instead be divided by seniority. The chairs and their staffs will want to use this moment to achieve long held goals, such as root and branch oversight of corporate America, assuming the freshman will go along. This large freshman class will, like the freshman class after Watergate, realize they have their own different views and will resist being told what to do. In the end, the Chairs probably end up generals without an army.
- There are few deals with the Trump Admin. The Trump WH is not cowed by the results and decides the midterms were a function of the MAGA base being betrayed. While blame is shifted early on (rightfully) to the Iran War as a cause, hardliners inside the WH successfully argue that the base was let down by the lack of more deportations. The WH is disinterested in doing deals with Democrats generally and there are multiple shutdowns. The public sees Washington again as broken.
- The 2028 campaign for President starts early, with the first candidate to declare on the Dem side announcing an exploratory committee before Christmas. The Dems have a massive field, including one statewide elected official who only is sworn into office in January 2027. But unlike 2019, there is a clear S tier of just 3-4 people. The primary is less toxic and contentious than in 2019, as many in the party now realize the policy bidding war was a mistake and need infighting. The absence of Bernie, Biden, and Warren or clear successors to any of them makes the race less about the past and more about the future. On the GOP side, VP Vance chooses not to run but former Secretary of State Rubio does. He does a surprising challenge from the right on both the war and inadequate commitment to hardline immigration policy. The primary is short for the Dems and long for the GOP.
- The next two years of politics are defined, after a short burst of focus on broad oversight, by AI, which continues to pick up speed. The need to have technical knowledge of the subject to do effective oversight and legislation on it favors younger members with less seniority in both parties, reducing the power of the Chairs and Rankers. Technical staff grow in value versus lawyers for the first time in a generation, and surprising “gangs” emerge in the Senate to tackle aspects of the topic for the first real time in a decade. 2028 is the AI election, marked by at least one spectacular hack of major infrastructure during the last 90 days.
- When folks look back on our politics in 2030, it is clear to all that the Trump era, the Long 2016, ended on November 3, 2026, which also marked the end of the Dems long 2016 primary. 2029 also is the first year of an administration in which Dems do not feel compelled to fight over the choices of 2008-2009, whether they win or lose the election, marking the end also of the Long 2009. Trump is gone to Mar a Lago and seen like all former presidents as an artifact of a prior time.
- The Administration that takes office in 2029 experiences a ChatGPT like moment in robotics in its first 9 months. It is a surprise to all in DC.
Reihan Salam retweeted
It wasn’t just the fake pollster.
Someone else knew what was coming in Mississippi.
The poll that best predicted @scott_colom’s performance in Mississippi?
The Wedgewood poll that turned out to be fake.
nationalreview.com/corner/th…
Reihan Salam retweeted
I don’t think the GOP’s problem was that it wasn’t racist enough on the internet.
Reihan Salam retweeted
Justin is the man to follow as Dems figure out whether they are going to use their power prudently or learn nothing and abuse it. The internal D struggle isn't just about power, it's about basic philsophical disagreement within the party on the role of gov & the nature of man.
Reihan Salam retweeted
I can’t believe the Democrats imported all these white college-educated immigrants so quickly
White voters comprised 73% of the electorate in 2026, compared to 72% in Trump’s first midterm in 2018.
But the share of white voters without a college degree decreased.
In 2018, they outnumbered white college graduates by a 10-point margin—41% to 31%—but that edge shrunk to 3 points in 2026.
Non-college white voters favored Republicans by 24 points in 2018 and 21 points in 2026.
White college graduates backed Democrats by 8 points in 2018 and 19 points in 2024. thedispatch.com/article/midt…
Reihan Salam retweeted
The newly elected Governor and Lt. Governor of Texas are far more left-wing than anyone ever in statewide office in Texas.
But because of both political and constitutional constraints, they will change Texas less than the left hopes or the right fears. city-journal.org/article/tex…
Reihan Salam retweeted
Republicans redrew maps last year to favor them in a neutral environment. But that aggressive effort left their maps vulnerable to a Democratic wave, helping Democrats win so many seats as those gerrymanders unraveled.
From @PolicyEngineer and @JKetcham91:
.@JKetcham91 and I sift through the wreckage of the NYGOP, which has "conspicuously avoided any serious introspective or after-action analysis following recent election defeats."
city-journal.org/article/new…
Reihan Salam retweeted
When the LIRR strike stranded hundreds of thousands of people, @NassauExec attacked Hochul, who by all accounts was standing up for riders and taxpayers by driving a hard bargain. A huge missed chance to show leadership. nypost.com/2026/05/16/us-new…
Reihan Salam retweeted
As I warned earlier this year, NY Republicans weren't offering a credible answer to NY's exploding electricity rates (in parts of upstate, they more than doubled between 2019 and 2025!). A huge missed opportunity to speak to affordability concerns.
city-journal.org/article/new…
Reihan Salam retweeted
.@JKetcham91 and I sift through the wreckage of the NYGOP, which has "conspicuously avoided any serious introspective or after-action analysis following recent election defeats."
city-journal.org/article/new…
Reihan Salam retweeted
At the very least people who told you that serious democratic contestation was going to disappear (because of mass immigration or left-elite cultural power or Trumpist authoritarianism or the undemocratic Constitution) have been consistently mistaken.
teapawt.net/patrickc/status/211808…
It seems to me that democracy has on the whole worked very well in America over the last decade, and perhaps better than in any other major country in the West. National outcomes have repeatedly been responsive to underlying voter preferences on meaningful questions, and significant changes in policy have ensued. I’ve been reading Democracy in America this past week, and it’s striking how much it still rhymes nearly two centuries later.
Reihan Salam retweeted
3 - Harvard. Early last year, Harvard looked ready to settle & make some policy changes & move on. Then the admin made over-the-top demands & forced an adversarial standoff. Harvard’s strategy has been to wait it out. It surely feels pretty good about that strategy now.
Reihan Salam retweeted
Regardless of the partisan messaging, DEI is likely on its way back. Left-leaning policy professionals are still committed to race-conscious practices. They’re already putting together model legislation to “rebuild” DEI. For them, this is the easy higher ed agenda item.
Reihan Salam retweeted
Some Democrats thinking about 2028 might still spurn identity politics and opt for a race-neutral message. Others (Ro Hanna) are already announcing that “DEI is back!”
Reihan Salam retweeted
2- DEI. The term “DEI” lost the PR battle two years ago. It seemed plausible that universities would substantively curtail their diversity infrastructure. Now its clear that some will go right back to what they were doing.
Reihan Salam retweeted
One advantage the civics schools have is that they’re a positive policy initiative. Leaders of these schools should think about how to make the bipartisan case for civic and liberal education.