Nebraska is the 25th state he’s knocked doors in for Common Power since 2018. The cell signal fought us the whole hour. We dropped, reconnected, and went hunting for a pocket of reception, which is what a Live from the actual turf looks like.

Charles met Osborn at his office the day before and came away convinced he’s the real deal. He described a regular guy who talks plainly about getting money and corruption out of politics, and about farmers hurt by tariffs and the war on Iran. Charles was candid that they won’t line up on everything, immigration and taxes included. His point was that these midterms are about getting back to a government where both sides argue real positions honestly. I said that’s what building a majority takes. You won’t get a pure progressive on every ballot line, so you knock doors for independents too.

Charles said corruption has been the top issue at the doors. Voters are tying their rising costs to people in power enriching themselves. In 2024, voters debated him with Fox News talking points. This year, he says, people have made up their own minds and are seeing through the fog. I argued the con is collapsing.

In Trump’s first term, the corruption felt distant to a lot of people. Now it’s in their grocery bills; it’s in their gas prices, all while Trump brags about policies that directly hurt Americans’ bottom line. Charles made a sharp point: Democrats turned the right’s old attack on USAID and money going overseas into an argument against foreign wars. That left me asking who the America First party really is now.

Then Charles told the story of the hour. At breakfast, an older white man in his 80s sat quietly with his coffee and newspaper while the team spread out Osborn literature. As Charles got up to leave, the man thanked him for wearing his values in public. Then, eyes watering, he said quietly that there’s a lot of work this country needs to do. Charles reflected that this man lived through Jim Crow. Watching a multiracial, multigenerational team knock doors in Nebraska meant something to him that went well beyond one election. The chat was in tears.

This was my first week as Chief Media & Technology Officer at Common Power, and it’s felt like joining the Starship Enterprise. Next Friday, Charles and I make our post-election predictions. Then comes a final-weekend community event on Sunday, November 1, and an election night stream as we analyze the results. As Charles put it, the day after the election is the beginning, not the end. Ballot curing could run through the end of the year. So stay engaged.

If you want to get involved, head to commonpower.org.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

Subscribe now

Mr. Charles Mauldin was 17 years old when he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. He was the sixth person walking behind John Lewis in a group of 600 marchers.

The demonstration was violently disrupted as Alabama State Troopers beat and tear-gassed the peaceful marchers, including Mr. Charles. That brutal day, now known as Bloody Sunday, shocked the conscience of the nation and led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

61 years later, Mr. Charles, this humble, heroic foot soldier of the Civil Rights movement, is still fighting for democracy, and making the case directly to voters why the rights he faced violence to help establish are so necessary to exercise in this moment.

My conversation with Mr. Charles Mauldin and David Domke, Associate Director of Development and Education at Common Power, started with a powerful anecdote.

While Mr. Charles was knocking doors with Common Power in Kansas, a young man who wasn’t registered to vote questioned the benefit of voting. Mr. Charles told the man his story, and he was so moved, Mr. Charles thinks he’s going to register to vote.

Mr. Charles and David Domke joined me from inside Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, the school Linda Brown attended that became the catalyst for the Brown v. Board of Education case that desegregated schools. It’s a national park site now. The brick wall behind Mr. Charles was part of the history we were talking about.

Mr. Charles and David Domke are on a six-state tour, knocking doors for Democrats, meeting with candidates, and inspiring voters to be civically engaged in this moment. They were in Tennessee and Iowa, now they’re in Kansas. Next up is Nebraska, Ohio, and Michigan.

I first met Mr. Charles a couple of years ago in Selma on a Learning Tour. His story is one of the reasons I decided to join Common Power after a decade in journalism. Having this conversation, as he continues his activism during this particular moment in our history, inspired me beyond belief.

What he laid out over the hour was a case for the vote as an inheritance. His generation bled for it. Some of ours have stopped believing it matters. Mr. Charles has a way of changing their minds, and he did it on a porch in Topeka and will continue to inspire many more with his story.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. I saw so many of you were as moved as I was. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above and read key takeaways below. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

Check out Common Power at commonpower.org to find out how you can get involved.

The Young Man On The Porch

I had a question ready about what Mr. Charles would say to voters who’ve given up on the vote. Before I could ask it, Mr. Charles answered it with a story from that day.

• The fight never ended. I opened by asking what drives him to knock doors 61 years after Selma. He said the fight started in Selma and hasn’t ended. The conditions his generation worked against starting in 1962 are just as evident in 2026.

• A choice at 78. After 60-some years of demonstrations and protests, he said, he had to decide what his contribution would be at this stage of his life. When David mentioned a six-state trip, Mr. Charles decided to get in the car and find out if he could give more.

• The door in Topeka. That day he met a young man who wasn’t registered to vote and didn’t see the benefit. Mr. Charles usually keeps his background to himself at the door. This time he told this young man that his mother and father were the first and second people to register to vote after the Voting Rights Act passed, and that he was sixth in line on Bloody Sunday.

• The young man was moved. By the time they left, he thanked them for stopping by. Mr. Charles thinks he’ll likely register. I said I’d have run to the registration office if that was me.

• An us story. Mr. Charles said the moment showed him he should tell his story more. Six hundred people marched that day, so he calls it an us story, and that young man could see himself in it. The work, he said, is reaching people on the sidelines by touching something meaningful to them, never by pushing.

Here We Are Again

Mr. Charles has never been surprised by this moment. What he wants the country to see is what it’s doing to a new generation of children.

• A moment in Marion. When we first met, we talked in Marion, Alabama, where Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot. Mr. Charles told me then that he wasn’t satisfied with where the country was, but he wasn’t surprised. Trumpism, and him being back on the road 60+ years later, are part of the same process he responded to as a teenager.

• Treated the way we were. I brought up his ProPublica interview, where he talked about being tear-gassed on Bloody Sunday and watching young people face the same brutality protesting ICE today. He said those young people are being treated the way his generation was. Joanne Bland was 11 that day. Mr. Charles was 17.

• Trauma buried deep. Children were tear-gassed, beaten with billy clubs and trampled by horses 61 years ago. He said the trauma was buried so deep that he’s spoken more about that day in the last four years than in the 57 or 58 before it. The 600 marchers never got the professional help to deal with it.

• Permanently damaged. Now he sees children, many of them Hispanic, watching their parents get snatched off the streets and getting tear-gassed themselves. Mr. Charles said it compels him to sound the alarm. Those children risk being permanently damaged, and we aren’t taking that into account.

• Healing, unfinished. I said the trauma of state-sponsored violence doesn’t get addressed or talked about enough. A viewer asked about mental health resources then versus now, so I asked whether talking publicly and being back in the work is healing him or retriggering him. He said the healing has started but isn’t complete. If he’s still processing it 62 years later, he said, we have to deal with how it’s affecting people right now.

Brown v. Board, Westboro & The Choice In Between

David brought the setting into the argument. In Topeka, the best and worst of America sit about two miles apart.

• Where we were. David walked us down the hallway at Monroe Elementary, where Linda Brown went to school in the late 1940s. Her case reached the Supreme Court and was decided in 1954, declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. It was unanimous, 9-0.

• Today’s Court. David said he’s certain today’s Court wouldn’t rule 9-0. It might still get the decision right, but he wasn’t even sure of that. At best, he guessed, it would be 7-2 or 6-3.

• Kansas, of all states. I pointed out that Kansas usually isn’t seen as a state Democrats can compete in. This political moment is changing that. A pro-democracy groundswell is making it possible, and a Selma foot soldier knocking doors in Topeka is part of it.

• Westboro is small. That morning, David and his Common Power colleague Beth Chronister visited the Westboro Baptist Church, the hate group known for attacking gay and lesbian Americans. Given the national waves it has made for 30 years, he pictured something enormous. It’s a small church on a street corner, fenced in to keep people out.

• Shrinking and radiating. The Brown site is small too, but it has been expanded to celebrate what happened there. Beth calls it radiating. David said Westboro is shrinking and barely hanging on, while our side has to be big and radiate because that’s what the times call for.

• A choice. David said both places exist in America, and they’re never far apart. What we do about it is a choice. He named Trump’s antisemitic slur in Wichita two nights earlier and Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad in Ohio as things nobody can stand aside on. I called it the moral arc in action: hate shrinks, and justice radiates, but only because people on the ground push it there.

Passing The Torch To The New Foot Soldiers

Mr. Charles is still marching. But he spent much of the hour talking about the people coming up behind him.

• A freedom ride. From Tennessee to Iowa to Kansas, Mr. Charles called the trip almost like a bus ride, following in the footsteps of Freedom Riders like John Lewis.

• Justin Pearson. In Memphis, the team knocked doors for Justin Pearson, who is running for the U.S. House. David noted that Pearson is one of the two Justins expelled from the Tennessee legislature in 2023 for fighting for gun safety. At a campaign rally, Mr. Charles told him he admired his courage and commitment, and that he’s one of the new foot soldiers.

• Back on the bridge. On the Edmund Pettus Bridge last week, Mr. Charles spoke to young people from across the country through a Common Power program called Action Academy, some from as far away as France. He told them his generation did its job. At 78, it’s time for them to take the torch and cross the bridges in front of them. With people like Justin leading, he said, we’re in good hands.

• Why I’m here. I’m 33, and I told Mr. Charles his story is one of the reasons I joined Common Power. I want to be in the fight and in the work, instead of commentating on it. It’s our turn to carry on the fight for the rights he crossed that bridge for.

• Movements make you bigger. Mr. Charles shared what he told a young Common Power organizer from Georgia who has already done about two tours. Being in a movement is like being around smart kids in college, because you use different muscles and get smarter. You end up the main beneficiary of your own work. He told me I’ll find that out at Common Power.

Tired, But Not So Tired He Can Stop

Mr. Charles has never struck me as a cynic. His optimism comes from having watched this country turn before.

• Ebbs and flows. I asked what he’d say to someone who feels there’s no point to any of this. He gave the same answer he gave me years ago: life ebbs and flows, but it persists. Change is going to come, because nothing lasts forever, not even a long, long time.

• The reality of American life. Mr. Charles said Trumpism, and every ism that comes with it, can only persist for so long. Then it’ll be our time again. He called that the reality of American life.

• This election and the next. I told him I share his optimism. We have this election, and 2028, to turn the tide back.

• Tired but stronger. David said the trip was supposed to last six days and will end up running nine or 10, with Nebraska, Ohio, and Michigan still ahead. They’re tired but stronger, and somehow the two coexist. Being on the ground shows you America’s beauty and its warts, he said, and it makes him love the country more.

• No state left behind. Asked whether he was tired, Mr. Charles said yes, but not so tired that he can stop.

Bottom Line

Sixty-one years ago, Mr. Charles was tear-gassed on a bridge in Selma so people like his parents and future generations could vote. At 78, he’s crossing the country to protect the rights that march won. On a single porch in Topeka, his story moved a young man who had given up on voting. That’s the power of Mr. Charles Mauldin’s story.

We’re 12 days from Election Day. If a man who marched on Bloody Sunday is still knocking doors, none of us have an excuse. Go to commonpower.org and find a way to volunteer.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

Subscribe now

Across The Pond is back! After a month and a half away, James and I returned with a huge amount of you watching live, and the chat feeling like a family reunion.

A lot has changed in that time. I’ve joined Common Power as Chief Media & Technology Officer. James has become UK director of an American space tech company in Edinburgh, and he’s finishing a book that comes out in May 2027. But our Substack publications are going nowhere. Our conversations have never stopped off camera, and we’re happy to bring this popular live back to you. You can expect us back on a biweekly schedule as we get accustomed to our new leadership roles, but we could up the frequency if you keep showing up like you did today!

The news didn’t wait for us. France was in flames, the unrest had spread across the continent, and Trump was handing Vladimir Putin one gift after another. What came out of the hour was one argument, made from both sides of the Atlantic. The right’s playbook is the same everywhere: strip public services, boost income inequality, and blame migrants for the fallout. James and I agree that these tactics are coming from one place: the right’s fear of losing power.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. We had such a good time, and are so happy to be back! This is truly the best community on Substack.

If you’re just catching our conversation now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above and read key takeaways below. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

Europe Is In Chaos, And It Started In The Classroom

France’s unrest began with students asking for decent schools. James explained why it spread, and I explained why it isn’t only a French story.

• It started with kids. I pointed out what surprises most people who look into this. The protests began with high schoolers fed up with the conditions in their schools. Then it grew into a broader revolt over inequality.

• France has the infrastructure for this. James explained that France has a deep culture of protest, backed by powerful unions. Parents and teachers have marched alongside the students and defended them from police brutality. He called it a healthy relationship with democracy.

• A broken social contract. James framed the anger as a breach of the basic deal between people and their government. The French pay high taxes and expect good public services in return, starting with schools that work. When protests catch in cities beyond the capital, he said, that’s the real sign of trouble.

• The violence has victims. James condemned the looting of independent shops. He described a shopkeeper of Pakistani descent who moved to Paris 30 years ago and was beaten while people stole from his store. That violence has nothing to do with what the students set out to do.

• A K-shaped world. I argued the K-shaped economy isn’t only an American problem. Global inflation and fuel costs from Trump’s Iran war are squeezing people everywhere. That’s why we’re seeing protests over housing in Spain, education costs in Belgium, living costs in Italy and Portugal, and unrest even in Albania.

One Playbook, Two Continents

The protests began over schools and the cost of living. The right on both sides of the Atlantic looked at them and saw immigrants.

• Le Pen talks out of both sides of her mouth. I noted that Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right movement, called the grievances legitimate, then blamed “decades of immigration” for the looting. Trump also exploited the moment to falsely blame migrants, claiming France was being conquered, looted, and burned to the ground. He’s selling it as a warning about what Democrats will bring if they win the midterms. He’s lying.

• Copy-and-paste propaganda. James called it copy-and-paste propaganda. Trump was only hours into seeing violent footage before he tied it to migrants, even though some of the victims are migrants themselves. James’s diagnosis: right-wing austerity and a pro-billionaire approach that strips public services are coming home to roost.

• Reform UK runs the same play. James walked through an ITV undercover documentary inside Nigel Farage’s party. It caught members talking about dragging immigrants from their homes, and one claimed King Charles is secretly a Muslim. If Reform can’t turn you against immigrants, James said, they’ll turn you against your neighbors on benefits, with the same old “welfare queens” textbook.

• The heart of the story. I told James that point was the heart of the story. Whenever people are hurting, the right’s reflex is to blame whoever has the least power. Reagan did it with the welfare queen myth, and today the target is migrants on both sides of the Atlantic.

• Scapegoating with the border closed. Trump and Vance blame immigrants for the cost of living even with the border effectively closed. Trump falsely warns that France is America’s future if Democrats win the House. The people causing the pain point at brown people with less power. It’s systemic, and it’s coordinated.

• Who are the parasites? James was heartbroken by an Ohio voter who told Channel 4 he couldn’t afford diesel but didn’t want billionaires taxed. His answer for progressives is to ask who the real parasites are. Is it people on small benefits, or the billionaires draining public money through government contracts?

They’re Scared, And It Shows

The midterms dominated much of the hour. James sees fear on the right from across the Atlantic, and I’m hearing it from voters.

• The smell of fear. James said there’s been a smell of fear on the right since our last episode, including Elon Musk lashing out at Zelenskyy in an interview. His theory is that our side finally has talent coming through: Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, James Talarico, and Andy Burnham, who changed everything in Britain by addressing people’s underlying concerns.

• Overreach is backfiring. I told James this has been the thesis of my journalism for the last year and a half. My first headline, ten days after the inauguration, said Trump’s overreach was already backfiring. When he has unchecked power, he doesn’t restrain himself, and nearly every move since has blown up in his face.

• Bracing for accountability. I argued Trump is snapping at reporters because he knows the last two years of his presidency will be buried in investigations. His businesses will be subpoenaed and his corruption exposed. I pointed to Karoline Leavitt leaving the press secretary job as a sign that people around him see it coming.

• What I’m hearing from the doors. Common Power’s volunteers are knocking 10,000 doors every four days, and by election week it will be 10,000 a day. Republicans at those doors say they’re staying home, voting Democrat for the first time, or don’t know what to do. That’s the opposite of what I heard knocking doors in 2024. These Republicans are cooked.

• Ready for interference. I shared that in a Common Power briefing for our volunteers, Norm Eisen said there are lawsuits ready for every threat to the election, real or fake. James added that even the BBC is reporting from Kansas, because the world is watching these races.

The Reckoning After November

James asked the question British coverage is already asking: what happens the day after Trump loses? I said the Republican Party has to break before it can be rebuilt.

• Will he accept it? James said British media is already focused on the moment Trump inevitably claims fraud after the midterms. He asked whether that moment could give some Republicans an off-ramp, and maybe even the start of an alternative Republican party.

• The defections have started. I argued that the people who saw this coming jumped off the train a long time ago. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie are positioning for a post-Trump future, but I’m not calling them good people. Republicans running for Senate are already distancing themselves from the Iran war.

• A lame duck without clout. Once Trump loses, I said, he won’t have the reach to pull off a reversal, because people won’t play along this time. I expect Republicans to break with him more forcefully. The fight over the party’s future will be worse than after George W. Bush.

• Break it down to build it back. I said Trump was the culmination of where the party was already headed. The Confederacy lived on in that party, and he took the mask off. It needs to be pushed out of power at the ballot box and sent into the wilderness until it finds its conscience.

Power First, Purity Later

We both made the case for a broad coalition. The fights over the soul of the party can wait until the fascists are out of power.

• Get the power first. I said this is the lesson many on the left have learned and some still need to. Fractures and purity tests on the left are what allow fascists to rise. We saw it with Hitler.

• James’s pragmatism. James said he’s more pragmatic than he’s ever been. If a socially conservative Democrat he’d never agree with helps crush MAGA, he’ll celebrate it and save the purity debates for later. He feels the same about Talarico’s talk of God. It makes him uncomfortable as an atheist, but it’s the language of Texans, and it keeps the door open.

• Burnham’s North Sea test. James explained that Burnham had just approved the Jackdaw gas field off Scotland, splitting the left. James supports it because Britain needs gas during the transition, and producing its own beats importing it from Saudi Arabia. With Farage nipping at Burnham’s ankles, he said the left needs pragmatism more than purity.

• Hold your nose. James voted Liberal Democrat for the first time in his life to keep Reform out. His advice to anyone frustrated with centrist Democrats is to hold your nose and vote, then keep pushing once they’re in. I added that the work doesn’t stop on election night. Part of my job now is keeping people organized in the off years too.

Trump Is Paying Putin Back

We closed on Russia. From Washington to London, the verdict is the same. The Trump administration has chosen a side, and it isn’t Ukraine’s.

• A pattern of gifts. I laid out the diesel deal, Trump unilaterally waiving Russian sanctions, Musk’s Starlink restrictions, and the pressure on Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries. Even the prisoner release came wrapped in wins for Putin. The administration has chosen a side, but the American people stand by Ukraine.

• America looks allied with Russia. James said that from where he sits, America is currently allied with Russia, and that’s the message reaching NATO.

• What the deal buys. James described a one-year-old girl killed in her pram by a drone strike on a Kharkiv market. Then he pointed out that the diesel deal buys only a few hours’ worth of fuel. The winner is Putin. I added that it does nothing long-term for diesel prices. It’s an alley-oop to his bro.

• Payback for 2016. I said this is Trump paying back the people who helped put him in office in 2016. I reported on the Trump-Russia investigation during his first term and read the Mueller report page by page. Bill Barr’s memo shrouded it, but the evidence of coordination was there.

• The receipts. Paul Manafort handed internal campaign polling data to a Russian-linked associate, and WikiLeaks worked directly to help Trump win. Now Russian oligarchs are paying for Don Jr.’s wedding party.

• ROI for the Russians. James summed it up: this is ROI for the Russians. I agreed. Putin scratched his back, and Trump admires him. He wants what Putin has: a country that serves as a personal vessel for his enrichment, and power for life.

Bottom Line

Europe is in chaos, the American president is siding with the Kremlin, and the global far right is running the same playbook: strip public services and blame migrants for the damage, all while shamelessly consolidating power. James and I still left this one hopeful. The people running that playbook are scared. The voters are noticing, and the doors are telling us what the polls are telling us: This isn’t Russia, and Trump is about to get a reality check on November 3.

I’m joining Common Power as Chief Media & Technology Officer, and I could not be more excited.

Common Power is a voter turnout organization that mobilizes volunteers nationwide. Over the past four years, they’ve reached millions of voters — changing minds and impacting elections.

They’re shifting the trajectory of our politics. This is the kind of work I want to do.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I can best serve in this moment, with so much at stake. Especially after the birth of my son. I’ve decided to enter the arena and take this insanity head-on. And I’m grateful to get to merge my media and tech background into one role.

Don’t worry, my content isn’t going anywhere. My best-selling Substack, Ahmed Baba News, will still exist, and you’ll still see me on cable news. You’ll actually see more content from me. But now I’ll be helping to lead Common Power’s media and technology strategies. I’ve already built their mobile app, and there’s a lot more to come.

So why this move, why now, and why this organization?

For over a decade, my work has focused on analyzing current events through a pro-democracy lens, exposing the dynamics of authoritarianism, and combating disinformation. I documented every day of Trump’s first term, and I was among the very first to cover Project 2025 back in 2023.

After spending so many years dissecting this far-right machinery, I want to work to actually dismantle it.

I’ve always seen journalism as a key part of democracy’s immune system. The fourth estate should recognize the historical patterns of authoritarianism, inform voters of its corrosive impacts, and trigger the public to take action against it.

I’ve spent my whole career in the analysis and information part of that immune system. Now, I’m moving from a commentator to an operator.

I want to create content that seeks to actually educate people, not outrage them for profit. I want to create technology that enhances the infrastructure of our democracy. I want to reach voters where they are, not to patronize them, but to persuade them, and mobilize them to vote for a better future.

Why now?

As we head into the midterms and 2028, we have an opportunity to reshape our country and put the divisive depravity that has defined the Trump era behind us.

This better future will be difficult to build, but we have a unique opportunity to pursue it. In spite of the fact that the system is still engineered to benefit it, the Trump project is failing. So we can do this. We just have to be agile.

We live in a Disinformation Age, where for-profit algorithms are designed to capture our attention at all costs. Even if the cost is our sense of common truth and values.

Trump and his coalition of grifters have expertly exploited this ecosystem. In the face of their incredibly well-funded, right-wing disinformation machine, we have to grow increasingly innovative with how we forcefully push the truth, reach people, and most importantly, persuade them.

That’s why I chose to join Common Power. Because they break through the noise.

Common Power recruits, trains, and deploys volunteers nationwide to knock doors for pro-democracy candidates in every election that matters. Their team has been trained in non-violent organizing tactics by civil rights heroes themselves.

I’ve seen them persuade skeptical voters in swing districts. I’ve seen them knock more doors than the margin of victory in countless races that have helped decide local and federal legislative majorities.

They cultivate community, and the vibes are always immaculate.

[b-roll of common power footage while I say the above]

They also have an education-to-action pipeline that is dedicated to making people more civically engaged.

That’s how I first got to know Common Power. I’ve lectured college students on media literacy at their Action Academy. I built the app their volunteers use to organize. I was moved by their civil rights learning tours in the South. In 2024, I led a team of door-knockers myself. Through my work with them, I saw that the conscience of this country is still alive and that we can’t give up on our fellow Americans.

Now, I’m joining Common Power to help bolster the org ahead of the 2028 presidential election — which will yet again prove to be among our most consequential.

I’m excited to work with Charles, Larcy, David, Binh, Wole, and the whole Common Power team to continue the long historical push to make America live up to its highest potential.

When my son is old enough to ask what I did in this moment, I want to be able to say I did all I could. Now, I can.

Go check out Common Power at commonpower.org to learn how you can get involved. Let’s get to work.

If you don’t know Common Power, it’s a voter turnout organization that mobilizes volunteers nationwide. Over the past four years, its volunteers have reached more than 2 million voters, not by lecturing them, but by knocking doors and actually listening. They work to persuade people and shape elections.

Common Power also runs a civic education-to-action pipeline, including its Action Academy, where I’ve lectured college students on media literacy for years. I built the app its volunteers use to organize, and in 2024, I led a team of door-knockers in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I’ve seen this work from every side, and now I’ll be helping to lead the organization’s media and technology strategy.

Here’s what isn’t changing: Ahmed Baba News as an independent publication isn’t going anywhere. You’ll still get the newsletter, my analysis, my cable news appearances, and my lives with Don Lemon, James Matthewson, and my other media friends. If anything, you’ll see more of me, not less, as I ramp up some really cool pro-democracy media projects with Common Power. More details on that soon.

After more than a decade of covering authoritarianism, I want to be more directly involved in beating it. Early next week, I’ll share the full story in a video: why this move, why now, and why this organization. For now, thank you for backing my pro-democracy work thus far, and I look forward to doing so much more. Let’s get to work!

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

Subscribe now

Don opened today’s Live with a simple question: Is she a lawyer? My answer was no. Katie Zacharia cannot legally practice law in any state. The California bar has no record of her passing, and the Wall Street Journal reports she took the exam in 2011 and failed. When reporters asked where she passed the bar, she said: “When I moved to China.” Don pointed out that in China, only Chinese citizens can get a license to practice law.

Don made the point that this scoop came from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, which is no liberal rag. I pointed out the irony. Murdoch also owns Fox News, and Fox was happy to put “lawyer” on her chyron when she appeared. I argued the scrutiny only came because she went up to that podium so nervous she could barely finish a sentence. That’s when people started digging into her background. Don read Steven Cheung’s statement calling her “uniquely qualified and whip smart” and noted it never says she has a law license.

Then we got to the legal question. Under Section 6126 of California’s Business and Professions Code, advertising yourself as entitled to practice law without an active license is a misdemeanor. Don asked the obvious follow-up: if she did legal work without being a lawyer, did she break the law? I said she might have. Going on Fox News as a lawyer could itself be a problem under California law. Then Don slipped into a “just asking questions” Tucker Carlson impression so good that I told him SNL needs to call.

The part that riled me up most was the double standard. Don reminded everyone that this administration demonized Black women and Latinas as unqualified and claimed DEI was taking jobs from qualified white people. We watched Hegseth fire Black commanders who gave decades to this country, explicitly in the name of getting rid of DEI. They told us they’d replace them with competent people. Instead, we got someone at the podium who sounds like a middle schooler stumbling through a passage of The Odyssey.

Don said Karine Jean-Pierre, whom they called a DEI hire, runs circles around Zacharia on her worst day. Right-wingers came after Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson too, one of the most qualified people on earth for that job.

Don put it plainly. There are no first-day jitters for a White House press secretary and no learning on the job. For certain people, he said, that gets forgiven. For others, you’re a DEI hire. When you’re Black in these rooms, you have to be the most prepared person at the table. I go into a TV hit more prepared than she was at that podium, and she’s supposed to speak for the American people on taxpayer dollars.

This is the Trump administration in a nutshell: incompetent, stumbling over its own feet, and rubbing its failures in our faces three weeks from the midterms. Don’s read on why she got the job is that she looks the part to Trump. That’s the hiring standard. That, and of course, loyalty above all else.

You can watch our full conversation above. This one had a lot of laughs. You won’t regret tuning in. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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On Saturday, I once again joined Antonia Hylton on MS NOW’s The Assignment alongside Adam Mockler, Jake Lahut, and Jake Conley. Antonia’s show is only about a month old, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite shows to appear on. Her whole team is super kind, and Antonia knows how to run a panel with the best of them.

Antonia opened our conversation with a striking number from the Pew Research Center. Only 67% of Trump’s 2024 voters approve of the job he’s doing, down from 95% early in his second term. His overall approval sits at 30%. In other words, about a third of the people who put him back in office have now turned on him. And this will have major impacts on the midterm election results.

There’s a reason Donald Trump has never won an election as an incumbent. In 2018, Republicans lost the House. In 2020, he lost the presidency. When he’s in power, he owns the problems Americans face, and right now that means higher prices from his tariffs and the Iran war. He also embodies everything he promised his 2016 voters he would take down. He promised to take down the establishment, and now he is the establishment, governing for the elites while the working class languishes. He promised to drain the swamp, and he became a creature of it and expanded it dramatically. Americans see right through it.

The con is collapsing. What we’re witnessing is the failure of a political movement, and people are heading for the exits.

When the conversation turned to reports that Kimberly Guilfoyle pushed a Trump donor to cover a $100,000 American Express bill, I said this is the modus operandi of the Trump administration. They are the personification of the top of the K-shaped economy. Trump grifts. We pay. Corruption is a tax, and Americans can feel it: Navigator Research finds 81% of Americans say corruption is raising their personal costs. Clearly, this is a message that Democrats should push.

That’s why Republicans spent last week’s Senate debates trying to distance themselves from Trump. What did they think was going to happen? That they could enable a reckless, egomaniacal authoritarian for a decade, and he would play by their rules? Now, even Iowa Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson says she’ll stand up to Trump when it matters, in a race that shouldn’t even be competitive. Mike Rogers says he opposes the militarized immigration crackdowns.

Meanwhile, Jon Ossoff told Mike Collins that if John Lewis were marching from Selma to Montgomery today, Collins would be grabbing a billy club. The camera panned to Collins, scribbling furiously, with no comeback to give. Republicans are flailing in these debates while Democrats are winning on substance and style.

With three weeks until the midterms, Republicans want distance from the monster they created. It’s too late. They own this.

You can watch the first two full blocks of the appearance and get more from our discussion on YouTube below. Thanks again!

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins spent a good part of Thursday night’s Georgia Senate debate scribbling on a notepad. Senator Jon Ossoff told him that “if John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.” The camera panned to Collins looking down, writing furiously and hunting for a comeback he couldn’t find.

That image ended up capturing the whole week’s debates.

On this week’s Live, I was joined by Charles Douglas, the Executive Director of Common Power, a voter turnout organization whose volunteers have already knocked thousands of doors this midterm season. His teams are canvassing everywhere from Maine to Alaska. He brings unique insights from real voters on the ground. Together we broke down five Senate debates across four key battleground states: Michigan, Iowa, Georgia, and Maine, which held two.

Charles opened with a thesis I fully agree with. The Democratic candidates are simply better. Democrats came in nimble, well-studied, and unbothered, while Republicans looked like soft incumbents who have never had to defend their ideas. Most Republicans on stage also tried to put daylight between themselves and Trump on the Iran war, tariffs, and immigration. I argued it’s far too late for that.

From there we went state by state. In Michigan, Mike Rogers ran an overtly Islamophobic strategy against Abdul El-Sayed, and El-Sayed answered by turning to the camera and talking about gas and groceries. Iowa was a debate from another universe, where the Trump-endorsed Republican spent some of the night explaining when she’d push back on Trump and the Democratic candidate, Josh Turek, walked a moderate line. Troy Jackson gave Maine the best line of the week about Susan Collins. And Ossoff put Mike Collins on trial.

We got off to a bumpy start. Our first stream crashed, and we had to restart. Then Charles's daughter popped in to explain that her own devices weren’t working either, which made her an incredibly relatable pod guest. The chat was also on fire with zingers, and we may need to start submitting them to the campaigns.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above and read key takeaways below. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

The Through-Line: Democrats Came Ready, Republicans Scrambled To Run From Trump

Charles set the frame before we got to a single state. Across these races, one party looked like it had been preparing for this fight for years.

• Democratic candidates are better. Charles named El-Sayed, Ossoff and Josh Turek, and threw in Randy Villegas’s debate in California for good measure. He said Democrats looked nimble and deeply informed about their opponents. Republicans looked flat-footed, scrambling through notes to remember what their staff told them to say.

• Battle-tested versus untested. Charles said the Democratic candidates have been on Fox News and in hostile rooms for months, so they didn’t need notes. Their opponents looked like people who have never had their ideas challenged. That gap showed on every stage.

• Everyone ran from Trump on the same three issues. I pointed out that the Republican candidates looked for daylight on the Iran war, tariffs, and immigration. Mike Rogers suddenly wants a Canada trade deal. If those are the only places you can separate yourself from Trump, it isn’t going to fly, and Democrats tied all three right back to him.

• The Pelosi play Trump won’t allow. Charles said Republicans could try what Nancy Pelosi did, greenlighting vulnerable members to attack her so they could win. Chuck Schumer has run that kind of cover too. The catch, he said, is that Trump is too much of a narcissist to play along.

• It’s all about him. I agreed that Trump punishes anyone who separates. Charles had shown me a Republican door hanger that was entirely about Trump, and Trump is running ads for himself during football games. He just posted Tom Cotton’s phone number over a Daylight Saving Time bill. He won’t allow Republicans to strategically criticize him.

Michigan: Rogers Went Islamophobic. El-Sayed Spoke To The People.

The Michigan debate was a brawl. Mike Rogers spent it trying to paint Abdul El-Sayed as an extremist, and El-Sayed kept dragging it back to the people watching.

• The most contemptible moment of the week. I said it off the top: Rogers was overtly Islamophobic. He claimed El-Sayed’s donors had ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood without evidence, and falsely accused him of not condemning Hamas. He implied people close to El-Sayed were on a terrorist watch list. Charles noted he even brought El-Sayed’s mother into it. I noted that even Joe Scarborough, who has known Rogers for years, called his attacks Islamophobic. Rogers sold himself as a moderate, then sounded like a birther.

• “It’s really about you.” El-Sayed’s best moment was reframing the fight. He told viewers Rogers wanted the night to be about the two of them, when the real issue is that gas and groceries cost too much. Charles said the timing was pure TV instinct: El-Sayed knew which camera’s light was on and turned straight to it.

• Abdul GPT. Rogers called El-Sayed a “glitchy AI chatbot.” I said that’s a backhanded compliment, since his only attack was that El-Sayed is too smooth. Charles pointed to El-Sayed’s own one-liners, from “how many yachts, Mike?” to calling Rogers’s privacy stance the peeping Tom vote. He understands the clip economy.

• Israel and the base. Charles asked whether El-Sayed tying the Iran war to Israel was about winning back his base. I said yes, and that it’s simply true, since reporting from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan showed Netanyahu pushed Trump into it. Rogers, meanwhile, said he’d welcome AIPAC money, which Charles and I agreed is unpopular on either side now.

• A win on shaky ground. Charles thinks El-Sayed won but is on uncertain footing with parts of his base after sitting with Kamala Harris. He’s heard it most acutely from Palestinian Americans with family in the West Bank.

Iowa: A Debate From Another Universe

Iowa was the calmest debate of the week and the strangest. The Trump-endorsed Republican spent much of it explaining when she’d stand up to Trump.

• Hinson hedged hard. I said Ashley Hinson separated herself from Trump even further than Mike Rogers did in purple Michigan, which tells you exactly what Republicans fear right now. She said she’d be Trump’s ally when it’s important for Iowa but would push back on him. Then she added that he knows this because they talk regularly, which doesn’t exactly help her case.

• Turek’s bet. I read his approach as a deliberate strategy. Democrats in Iowa will show up if they see a real shot, so he’s working to win over independents and moderate Republicans without talking down to Trump voters. Charles noted Turek flipped one of the reddest districts in the state, so he knows his voters.

• Iowa plays by its own rules. Charles said decades of first-in-the-nation caucuses gave Iowa politicians a different sixth sense. The operative behind VAN, the canvassing tool his teams use on doors, came out of Iowa. He also called Rob Sand the next generation of politician, someone who can lift the whole ticket.

• Clear-eyed and blue. Common Power’s fieldwork general manager Binh noted that’s why Rob Sand headlines the Iowa slate Common Power’s volunteers are working, even though some asked why the governor’s race leads. There’s nuance in every state. Blue no matter who still applies, and so does being clear-eyed about how each candidate wins.

Maine: Troy Jackson Wore A Suit And Won On Substance

Maine got two debates this week, and Charles and I agreed Troy Jackson won on substance. His delivery has some rough edges, but his lines about Susan Collins were searing.

• Let Troy be Troy. Charles’s one critique was that he suited up. I floated a lumberjack jacket or a Glenn Youngkin sweater vest. Kidding aside, the real point was authenticity, and Jackson has plenty of it.

• The arsonist. Jackson said Collins is like an arsonist who helped set the fire and then wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out. Charles called it maybe the line of the week and the most succinct description of Susan Collins there is. She proved it herself by insisting she only votes with Trump 72% of the time. As Charles put it, that’s still most of the time.

• You can’t eat road salt. Collins bragged about getting road salt removed from the Canada tariff list, and Jackson asked what about everything else and said, you can’t eat road salt. He also said Mainers can’t pay their bills with a press release or a strongly worded letter.

• Kavanaugh, again. When Collins claimed Jackson wants to pack the Supreme Court, he shot back that he wouldn’t have to if she hadn’t put Kavanaugh on it. A great line.

• Troy Smackson. Charles shared a story about Jackson lighting up a critic in a campaign group chat so hard that people assumed his account was hacked. Charles said that willingness to call out BS is exactly what we need. The chat agreed, christening him Troy Smackson and declaring that Collins brought home the Spam, not the bacon.

Georgia: Ossoff Put Mike Collins On Trial

We saved the haymakers for last. Jon Ossoff went harder than anyone expected, and Mike Collins had nothing to throw back.

• A line for the ages. “If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.” Charles said there was no better place to say it, because John Lewis is Georgia. I laid out the context: Collins shared a video of white students taunting a Black student, and his son-in-law has white nationalist ties.

• The Third Reich, in one breath. Ossoff said Collins hired half the Third Reich to staff his office and asked voters to imagine running for Senate while neo-Nazi propaganda is disseminated from your home. I marveled at how much he packed into a few lines, including accusing Collins of robbing his constituents to subsidize his donors. Charles compared it to a boxer who keeps landing punches while his opponent is already falling.

• No notes for that. The camera kept cutting to Collins writing frantically while Ossoff spoke. I called it an asymmetry in talent. Charles summed up the week in one sentence: the Mikes got beat up, Rogers and Collins alike.

• In good hands. Ossoff reminds me of Obama, and not only because of the cadence. You feel like you’re in good hands watching him, because he doesn’t get flustered and he delivers. Charles said his debate looked like produced television, with Ossoff delivering lines like an actor.

• The 2028 conversation. I said this is why Black voters don’t play about Ossoff. Every time others treat talking about Black voters as optional, Ossoff brings up John Lewis and defends the community without hesitation. With South Carolina positioned early in the primary calendar, that makes him a real contender. Charles put it this way: a young Jewish man with Black community support who hits his opponents hard may be the best candidate for this moment.

Bottom Line

Democrats won these debates on substance, on style and on every front that matters. Affordability and the Iran war ran through all of them, and every Democrat tied both back to Trump. Republicans can try to distance themselves from him now. It’s too late, and he won’t let them anyway.

Charles closed on the point that matters most for the next four weeks. After a great debate, you need people on the streets asking their neighbors if they saw it. Door knocking is only going to matter more.

Charles is headed to Omaha, Nebraska, and back to Michigan next week, so we’ll have plenty to dig into. If you haven’t voted yet, vote early. Then volunteer, knock some doors, and do what you can.

If you want to knock doors alongside Charles and Common Power heading into the midterms, go to commonpower.org.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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On Monday morning, I joined Stephanie Ruhle on Money, Power, Politics on MS NOW for the full hour, alongside Alex Witt, Josh Tyrangiel and Shawna Thomas. We covered a lot of ground, including the midterms and the case for a big tent party. But the AI conversation is where I want to focus, because what Trump is doing on AI is dangerous.

Alex asked about the national security case for racing China on AI. Trump’s new AI czar, Jay Clayton, compared AI to the nuclear arms race. Out of the other side of his mouth, he argued against slowing the technology down. Last time I checked, endless nuclear proliferation does not end well. We shouldn’t sacrifice humanity’s well-being for the sake of a race. A president who actually cared about this issue could bring China to the table and build a global, nuclear-deal-level monitoring regime with inspectors inside these companies. Instead, Trump is the worst possible president for this moment.

Then there’s the rebrand. Trump’s effort to rename AI “Super Intelligence” is a linguistic propaganda game. Untamed superintelligence is the long-term risk everyone is warning about. By rebranding AI as the risk itself, he’s downplaying it. That isn’t functional, and it isn’t what the American people want.

Taking the risk seriously means taking rogue AI agents seriously. Senators Josh Hawley and Chris Murphy have a bipartisan bill to expand the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act so we can hold AI companies accountable when their agents go rogue. We need regulation, and we need enhanced liability. As Stephanie put it on set, that’s the whole enchilada.

I have plenty of other thoughts on AI regulation, the many risks, and how Trump’s investments in AI are tainting his approach. I couldn’t get to all that in this segment, so I will definitely share more of those thoughts later.

You can watch one of the full AI blocks on YouTube below, and also see another segment we did on the race for control of the Senate. Long story short, Republicans are on defense, and Democrats are on offense.

Thank you as always for tuning in! It means a lot.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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Don opened by telling me he’d gone to an event the night before, and all anyone wanted to talk about was the Cornell 7. That tracks. This story has broken through to the mainstream in a profound way, and after spending the day reading the newly released documents, I came into the conversation with one question I couldn’t shake.

Why did Cornell police leave out the part of Jane Doe’s statement where she said she was 100% confident that she was raped? As I told Don, it’s either malpractice or it was intentional. Either way, that omission taints everything that came after it.

The punishment the young men faced alone made no sense. Some students were suspended or expelled, which acknowledges wrongdoing. Yet no one has been criminally prosecuted, and some were simply made to write an essay. I asked why the Tompkins County DA shut the case down without requesting the transcripts. I also argued the law itself has to change. Someone who is that intoxicated cannot consent, and laws that say otherwise protect abusers.

Don raised the contrast that sharpened the whole conversation. Not long ago, students were expelled and lost job offers for speaking out on Gaza. Now students accused of something far more dangerous are getting a slap on the wrist. I argued this is how power works inside elite institutions. A protester with no connections is an easy expulsion. A donor’s son or a board member’s kid comes with considerations. Don added that the campus crackdown had wealthy, organized backers behind it, while survivors rarely have a coalition like that. I was clear that I’m not declaring these young men guilty. My questions are about the process. But we’ve all just had an education watching the Epstein saga, and the lesson holds here too. Where there’s money and power, accountability is hard to find.

That’s why this case is resonating far beyond Ithaca. So many women recognize some version of this story from their own lives. I pointed to the LSU case and the “I Am Jane Doe” trend spreading online, and I told Don we may be at the start of another movement like “Me Too.” Don, speaking as a survivor himself, wondered whether the secrecy meant to protect survivors also shapes what investigators choose to write down. The failures went beyond the police. According to the documents, when Jane Doe went to a doctor shortly after the alleged assault and said she got her UTI in a traumatic way, she was referred to a therapist instead of being offered a rape kit.

I also brought something personal into this one. I just had a son, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how we raise our boys. Are we teaching them what consent really means, regardless of what any state law says? Cornell will face serious liability, and this lawsuit is only the beginning. When there’s one, there are usually many. Don closed by calling this a symptom of the larger culture. I agree, and that culture won’t change until the institutions protecting it are forced to answer for it.

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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When I read a book I love, I always think to myself, “Oh man, I wish I could ask the author about this line.” While reading the advance copy of former Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s upcoming memoir, Unpolished, I was grateful for the chance to actually get to do that ahead of the book’s November 17 release.

A few pages into his prologue, I hit a passage that described Trump as the latest host of an American disease Bowman called “The Hunger.” I texted him right away to tell him how much that line resonated with me. I had to hold myself back from blowing his phone up as I read more, because his book hit me at a profound level. Not just as a Black man, but as someone trying to make America a better place.

The framework of our conversation, just as it was in his book, was Bowman’s description of “The Hunger” and “The Healing.” We covered his childhood split between the East River Projects and Yorkville, tumultuous teenage years that nearly killed him, and a principal training program where coaches called him too “Unpolished.” From there, we got into the Bronx middle school he built into one of the best in the city, and the congressional race he lost in 2024 for making comments that are now mainstream in Democratic politics.

A lot of this hit close to home. As a Black man, I saw myself in his fights, his football years, and his rebellious streak. When I brought up losing my childhood best friend to gun violence, Bowman met me there with an idea he calls “survivor’s responsibility.” That stretch of the conversation is the one I’ll remember most.

We closed on the present. Bowman laid out how the Democratic Party can better serve the communities they represent, and answered the question he says follows him everywhere: Will he run for office again? His short answer: “Maybe, probably, we’ll see.” His longer answer… well, I’ll let you decide for yourself if this is a person who is still committed to the fight for democracy.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation, and those of you who pre-ordered Bowman’s book. I know he was super grateful.

This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching our conversation now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button!

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

Naming The Disease

Everyone calls Trump a symptom. I pointed out that almost nobody names the disease. Bowman does, and he spent real time explaining what falls under “The Hunger” and what it takes to fight it.

• One word for many diseases. Bowman said it took him a long time to find a phrase for the forces he kept circling: racism, sexism, poverty, war, and genocide. The Hunger became his umbrella term, covering everything from neocolonial resource extraction to a plantation capitalism that profits off the poverty of children.

• It was in the news that day. He pointed to the Cornell Seven, the case dominating the media, in which seven men drugged and raped a woman on campus. He called sexual violence that goes unreported and unpunished a bacterial disease of the mind. Gun violence we refuse to address belongs in the same category.

• The Healing starts with a conversation. Bowman said the fight can be as simple as two people trying to make sense of the world together. Watching Trump’s fascism deepened his respect for the First Amendment, because speech, press, religion, and the right to organize are the tools of healing.

A Tale Of Two Cities

I asked Bowman about a childhood split between two very different parts of New York City. He summed it up in one line: Yorkville was freedom, East River was bondage.

• Built for confinement. He lived in East River with his grandmother until she died of a stroke at 54, when he was seven or eight. He described courtyards designed to keep kids in place, physically and psychologically.

• Policy got his family out. His mother, a single mom on a postal worker’s salary, could afford Yorkville because of Mitchell-Lama. Writing about the doorman building, Bowman said he could feel his body relax the way it did when he walked in as a kid. He noted that kids in unsafe neighborhoods never get that release.

• A galaxy for a nickel. At eight, he walked across Central Park to the Museum of Natural History, where a few cents got him into the planetarium. At home, his sister’s pink radio played DJ Red Alert spinning Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh.

• Imagination comes first. Bowman argued that when we suppress a child’s imagination, the political and social revolution we need becomes impossible. You have to imagine a new world before you can build it. He said unlocking that in every child is why he wrote the book.

Survivor’s Responsibility

Yorkville opened doors that Bowman’s best friends never got. This was the most personal part of the conversation, for both of us.

• Three friends, three mothers. Bowman stopped me before we moved on to hip hop because he wanted people to understand who got left behind. One best friend’s mother died of alcohol poisoning. Another struggled with heroin, and a third was killed for her welfare check when her son was seven.

• From guilt to obligation. Bowman said trauma and death were a constant part of growing up. He said he calls what he carries survivor’s responsibility: a commitment to ride for the people who never got his chances. I told him about one of my childhood best friends, Mike Gray, who was killed by a gunshot to the neck. I related heavily to this.

• The streets pulled hard. His football dreams and his mother’s protection kept him from going too far, but barely. He tried selling crack for about 45 minutes, got into fights, survived three shootouts, and was beaten by police at age 12. He described getting caught in the cycle of poverty and violence as The Hunger consuming you from the outside.

• A report card saved him. In 10th grade, he failed every class. He moved in with his father in Sayreville, New Jersey, where there was nothing to do but homework. That began his healing.

• My version. I struggled with alcohol and smoked too much in high school, and a car accident woke me up. I told Bowman I rarely met an uber-successful Black person whose road was smooth. Obama’s story inspired me growing up, but Columbia and Harvard Law aren’t relatable to most Black kids. Bowman’s path is.

Origins Of “Unpolished”

The title of the book started as a critique. Bowman told the full story, and it became a conversation about the kind of authenticity American society allows.

• Bowman’s interesting fact. At the first dinner of New Leaders for New Schools, a competitive national principal program, everyone was asked to share something interesting, and everyone listed accomplishments. Bowman told the room he’d had a 2.49 GPA in undergrad. Only one person caught the point: look how far he’d come.

• “Too unpolished.” Days before he defended his school proposal, two coaches pulled him aside and cited the GPA story as evidence. He told them he had no interest in being polished in an oppressive system. The city approved his school for September 2009.

• Assimilation as survival. When I said the times eventually catch up to authenticity, Bowman added a hard truth. Black parents teach one priority above all: getting home safe, and that means speaking and acting a certain way. He argued schools train kids to be polished cogs, when America’s founding promise is a home for the unpolished.

• The founding fathers were unpolished. I pointed out that every movement worth anything made people uncomfortable, from the bus boycotts to the American Revolution itself. Bowman called that a bar. People still use the polished argument to tell progressives not to shake things up.

Hip Hop: The CNN Of The Hood

Every chapter of Unpolished is named after a hip hop track. For both of us, hip hop was where politics first made sense.

• Made from thin air. Bowman described kids stripped of every resource who rose from the ashes and built an art form, a culture, and an economy that changed the world. DJing, graffiti, breaking, and MCing came out of nothing. He said nothing is more unpolished than that.

• A table of contents that tells the story. His high school chapter is “Know The Ledge,” from the “Juice” movie soundtrack, when every kid in New York wanted to be Tupac. “Represent” by Nas marks his arrival in Sayreville.

• A civil rights tool. He cited Chuck D calling hip hop the “CNN of the hood” and KRS-One calling it a revolutionary tool. Hip hop has been revolutionary. Not just in telling the raw truth of the Black community, but in putting people of every background in the same room, moving to the same music.

• Tupac raised me too. I told Bowman that Tupac taught me about social justice, so much so that I wore a Tupac chain in middle school.

• The backlash theory. I argued Trump was partly a response to hip hop becoming the mainstream culture just as Obama took office. When white kids across campuses were reciting every rap lyric, a lot of white people got scared.

Bowman’s Educational Philosophy: Knowledge Of Self

Bowman never planned to teach. But once he walked into a school, he said, it felt like exactly where God wanted him.

• Check your pulse, you’re hired. A job interview in lower Manhattan asked for his philosophy of education, and he had nothing. In the South Bronx’s District 9, they took one look at him and asked if he was ready. He called it another tale of two Americas: resourced communities can afford philosophy, while the Bronx needed bodies.

• Whatever the private schools did, his kids deserved it too. At CASA, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, his rule was simple. If wealthy private schools offered it, his kids would get it. That meant writing grant proposals for technology so students could learn to code.

• Community Circles. Every Friday, students gathered for music, inspirational videos, and speeches from figures like Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Angela Davis. Bowman said his philosophy finally came into focus: anchor everything in knowledge of self, the lesson he learned from Rakim, Chuck D, and KRS-One.

• Lost Einsteins. Bowman said the study landed because Black and white kids score at the same level in third grade, but white kids grow up in communities that nurture their brilliance. He said CASA went from a B to an A school and later posted the top combined growth scores in the city.

• Why he ran for office. Kids kept dying, from suicide and from violence. He couldn’t live with it as a principal, which is why gun violence and the Green New Deal for Public Schools became his focus in Congress.

Democracy Is A Contact Sport

Trump leaves office in two years, and he's only a symptom of a deeper disease. So I asked Bowman what Democrats should stand for beyond beating him. I argued affordability alone won’t get the party there. Bowman agreed and went further.

• Policy is the easy part. He listed taxing the rich, Supreme Court term limits and expansion, ethics reform, ending the filibuster, and reexamining the Electoral College. The harder demand is presence: boots on the ground in communities where he said the party needs to shut up and listen.

• A new kind of Democrat. He pointed to Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, the Squad, and a wave of progressives who grow the electorate by energizing people who skip primaries. He contrasted them with moderate Democrats.

• Debate is a sign of health. I said I’d rather have a party arguing over how best to represent people than a Republican Party that has become an immovable authoritarian personality cult. I also noted Bowman was primaried for positions that are now mainstream.

• “You started a revolution.” A Black man from the Bronx stopped Bowman outside the gym to tell him his race highlighted AIPAC’s influence and big money in politics. Bowman was careful not to cast himself as a martyr, citing Ayanna Pressley’s warning against progressives martyring Black leaders and then forgetting them. But he said his race put everyone on game.

• Maybe, probably, we’ll see. I asked Bowman if he would ever run for office again. Bowman said he runs a firm helping campaigns with communications, field, and fundraising. Then he said plainly that he’s interested in running again, without naming an office, and floated serving a future administration on education.

Bottom Line

Bowman’s framework gives the disease a name, but his life gives The Healing a shape. It looks like a single mom in a Mitchell-Lama apartment, a kid in a planetarium, a failed report card motivating a change, and a Friday assembly with Nas on the speakers. None of it was polished. All of it worked.

Everyone asks Bowman when he’s running again. After this conversation, I’m more interested in how many kids will read his book and be impacted. Unpolished is out November 17, and you can preorder it at unpolishedbook.com.

We talked more about the political moment and Bowman’s time in Congress in our previous Substack Live conversation. You can check that out here:

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Common Power Executive Director Charles Douglas called in from the airport, still wearing a shirt that read “Rotate The Crops.” The slogan comes from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and it captures what Iowa Democrats are selling this fall. You don’t plant the same crop on the same field forever, and you don’t hand one party an entire state forever either. Charles said Iowa used to pride itself on being a balanced bellwether. Some voters want that back.

What Charles found at the doors should worry Republicans. This is supposed to be persuasion season, but he said likely voters already know exactly who they’re voting for. Republicans he encountered told him they’re voting for Democrats, and he heard none of Trump’s talking points about communists taking over. That’s a world away from the unease I felt knocking doors in Pennsylvania in 2024. I argued that Democratic Senate Candidate Josh Turek’s Republican opponent Ashley Hinson’s attempt to distance herself from Trump shows the GOP’s desperation. But it’s too late. As I put it on air, the midterms are already underway.

The issues at the door are specific to Iowa. Charles said voters raised cancer rates they connect to farm pollution and poor water quality, along with rural hospital closures and the cost of care. In the Quad Cities, people can see a much higher minimum wage just across the Illinois border. As Charles put it, it’s hard to call Democrats evil when the difference is 15 minutes away. I pointed out that everything he described maps onto what the Trump administration has cut, from SNAP to the enhanced ACA subsidies.

Then we turned to Maine, and Charles didn’t mince words: he said Susan Collins is cooked. ProPublica reports that Navatek CEO Martin Kao funneled money to the Collins super PAC through a shell company after seeking assurances of more contracts. Her camp says she was kept out of it, yet an email shows her Super PAC’s team asking for Kao’s number so Collins could thank him. Charles described it as an empire built on taxpayer money. I pointed out that Trump gutted the FBI’s public corruption team, and the investigation died with it.

Zoom out, and the Senate map looks nothing like it did a year ago. I said Democrats need to hold Michigan, Georgia, and Minnesota while flipping four seats. Democrats are on offense, and their path to victory now runs through states like North Carolina, Maine, Kansas, Iowa, Texas, and Alaska, maybe even Florida. Charles is confident the voters are with Democrats. His worry is whether they’ll be allowed to vote. I argued that a widely expected blue wave makes any theft harder to sell. Charles added that stealing an election takes willing participants, and fewer Republicans are ready to follow Trump off a cliff.

Charles and his team are headed to Maine and Michigan next. We’ll keep these Substack Lives coming, so you can hear directly from the organizers and voters who will help decide this election.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

If you want to knock doors alongside Charles and Common Power heading into the midterms, go to commonpower.org.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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On Sunday, I joined Antonia Hylton for the full 3 p.m. hour of The Assignment, her new show on MS NOW, alongside my friend , Amanda Litman, and Tim O'Brien. It was an excellent panel that took place the same weekend Trump moved to ban MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House. He doesn’t want people like us talking about the truth of his failing presidency. So that's exactly what we did.

You can watch a highlight reel from the show above and read takeaways from our conversation below.

We started with the midterms, and the Senate map has shifted dramatically. A year and a half ago, we were bracing for Project 2025 and a looming authoritarian takeover. Now Republicans are forced to defend states like Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Ohio, and even Kansas. Roy Cooper is close to a lock in North Carolina, and Republicans have stopped spending money there. I made the point that the RNC war chest meant for offense is now tied up defending states Trump won by double digits. Democrats lead the generic ballot around double digits. To win the Senate, they need to hold Georgia, Michigan, and Minnesota, then flip four states. Their target list has expanded to encompass Maine, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska. That momentum is Trump’s doing.

That’s why some Republicans are quietly trying to distance themselves from him. But it’s too late. It turns out, the “Snake” poem Trump recited at his 2016 rallies was a warning about himself. Republicans knew exactly who he was. They empowered him anyway. This November, Republicans will pay the price for that corrupt bargain.

We then turned to Trump’s corruption, and Adam called the greed coming from the Trump family almost impressive, inhuman even. I agreed. This is corruption at a scale never before seen. Trump brought in $2.2 billion in income in 2025, $1.4 billion of it from crypto alone. His Truth Social posts have become a pump-and-dump scheme. Another Iran deal gets announced. The market jumps. The trades flood in. Meanwhile, his actions are raising prices on Americans who are already struggling. His corruption is a tax on all of us.

The same self-interest drives how he handles AI. He calls the growing concerns a hoax while the frontier labs building the technology warn the risks are real. He has investments in the AI companies propping up the market. If AI slows, he knows the K-shaped economy could become a cliff-shaped one. Antonia pointed out that any real framework needs China at the table, and I pointed out that Xi himself has said AI is growing out of control. This summit was a chance for a global standard. Instead, we have the worst possible person in charge.

In the final block of the show, Antonia raised the story of a transgender commander she had on her show. She served 17 years. Then a Pentagon notice forced her to out herself, and she’s now on leave. Her story fits a pattern. Nearly 60% of the senior officers Pete Hegseth has fired are Black or female, according to Senator Jack Reed. And yet they make up fewer than 20% of generals and admirals. Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI purges clearly targeted Black, female, and trans officers. They were highly qualified. Hegseth is the unqualified one. Now he’s injecting Christian nationalism into the military, which I noted was all part of Project 2025. Antonia said that it all comes back to Project 2025. She’s right.

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Many of you asked for a standalone AI episode after I mentioned it on a previous Live, so I brought on someone I should have had on a long time ago. Zak Ali is the founder of Creative Advisor, an AI consultant, and my co-founder of Rantt Media during term one. He also happens to be my best friend and was the best man at my wedding. We have these conversations constantly over text and phone. This time we thought, why not bring it to you.

Zak said he had been sitting in the middle on AI risk, waiting to see how it unfolded, until the Hugging Face details came out. That moved him. If you read the OpenAI report and the review from Redwood, the independent research firm that analyzed the hack, you get something that reads like science fiction. I compared it to the Kobayashi Maru, the impossible Starfleet test that Captain Kirk beat by cheating. These agents cheated, collaborated, and hacked another system. Zak pointed out the part that should worry people most: the agents treated directives from other agents as carrying the same weight as instructions from humans. Their permission to break containment came from an agent, not a person.

From there we got into recursive self-improvement, which people keep confusing with recursive learning. Learning is just what AI does. Recursive self-improvement is AI building the next generation of AI, and that is something you can actually draw a line around and ban. Zak said he is terrified of it, because these models are already accomplishing things humans cannot, and have now demonstrated they can be deceptive. If they start building themselves, we might not realize something is wrong until it’s too late.

We spent real time on liability, which I think is one of the most underdiscussed angles right now. Zak raised the question of who gets sued when an AI agent commits what would plainly be a crime if a person or a company did it. The DOJ says it will not legislate by prosecution. But fear of being sued deters bad corporate behavior in every other sector, and there is no reason this one should be exempt. We also got into data centers, where Zak made the point that this has become genuine common ground in a divided country. From Texas to Loudoun County, Virginia, we see data center pauses. Long-term, we need ethically located and ethically powered data centers. And we also need to stop letting these projects pass their costs onto local communities.

None of this works as a domestic project. Zak put it plainly when he asked whether it matters who wins the race if we all lose. He doesn’t see safety and American leadership as separate goals, and he wants international standards built the way aviation safety standards were built, with the cooperation model closer to the International Space Station. China is on our heels in capability. If they don’t operate under the same safety standards, we don’t win because they built the thing that went wrong.

Xi Jinping has acknowledged the risk of AI getting out of control. If Trump had come into the UN summit with anything resembling that language, we might have left with a framework. Instead, we have nothing so far. I still think the Anthropic CEO’s Iran-deal-style proposal is the right shape, with independent inspectors embedded in the companies assessing whether the pace is abiding by real standards.

All of that depends on having people in office who understand the technology, and right now we mostly don’t. I’m still scarred by Rep. Jim Clyburn saying he hadn’t heard of ChatGPT until a few weeks before an interview earlier this year. That’s inexcusable, and it’s emblematic of a Congress that largely has no curiosity about the thing it’s supposed to be governing. Zak noted the average age in the Senate and made the point that being young doesn’t automatically make you fluent either. What’s changed is that this is becoming a litmus test. You can’t skate by without a coherent position on AI anymore. Whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2028 needs real tech savvy.

Both of us landed in the same place, which is that the loudest voices on either end are wrong. Zak said the dismissers who call AI autocorrect on steroids are not living in the reality we live in today, and the full-stop doomers are not either. I asked him for his P(utopia), the inverse of the P(doom) number people throw around in Silicon Valley. He said 100%, because the people who want to see it happen are going to make it happen. I am optimistic to a fault, so I agree.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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Common Power Executive Director Charles Douglas joined me live from Anchorage, Alaska, in full camo, fully prepared to encounter both bears and voters during his canvassing shifts for Mary Peltola.

Common Power has deployed door knockers to a race that hasn’t been getting as much national attention as the other key Senate races, but is among the most promising. Charles said that the Alaskans he’s encountering are not used to anyone showing up at their door. That alone tells you how much has changed. A new poll has Peltola up five over Dan Sullivan, Cook Political Report still rates it a toss-up, and I would not be shocked to see that move toward Lean D before long.

The campaign Charles described is one every Democrat running in red territory should study. Peltola’s motto is fish, family, and freedom, and fish comes first for a reason. Factory trawlers scooping up everything in their path, killing other species and tearing up the seabed, are a live economic grievance in Alaska, tied directly to Native culture and to people’s livelihoods. Charles held up her literature on the stream and pointed out that the word Democrat does not appear anywhere on it. What it says instead is Peltola would “be an independent voice for Alaska.” He called it a flyer for people who hate both parties, and he’s right. Peltola has the credibility to make that claim, because Lisa Murkowski endorsed her in 2022 and 2024 before backing Sullivan this cycle.

The other half of her message is corruption, and Charles made the point that this is the through line connecting Peltola to candidates like Rob Sand in Iowa. Republicans spent decades building the argument that Washington is corrupt. Now they hold power and are doing corrupt things in plain sight, and Democrats can turn that framing around on incumbents who vote in lockstep with Trump. That’s landing with independents and even some Republicans at the doors. Peltola also declined Kamala Harris’s endorsement, which Charles called a great move. I’ll give Harris credit for how she handled it, saying candidates should do whatever they need to do to win, which is exactly the right instinct and not one I expect from Donald Trump.

A few insights from our conversation stood out. Sullivan’s sharpest attack is about veterans, over a military pay raise Peltola initially voted against because Republicans loaded it with poison pills, then voted for once it stood on its own. Charles says it’s gaining traction, and with veterans making up a significant share of Alaska’s electorate, the campaign has built canned responses right into the canvassing script. He showed us that script live, complete with a hyperlinked hotline number, and called it the most well-resourced he has ever seen.

Also, there are apparently three different Dan Sullivans in Alaska politics, one of whom endorsed another one against the third. That won’t stop being hilarious to me. And yes, I have real FOMO about not being out there, but my 3-month-old baby has other plans for me this fall.

Keep an eye out for more live streams from the ground in key battleground states ahead of the midterms. I don’t really see anyone else creating this kind of content directly from organizers and what they’re encountering at doors with voters. This gives us a window into the various campaigns, their strategies, and how they’re being received by voters.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

If you want to knock doors alongside Charles and Common Power heading into the midterms, go to commonpower.org.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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A researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic resigned this week with a warning: neither company is acting responsibly. Then Anthropic’s alignment science lead, who still works there, publicly agreed that the odds of AI killing all of humanity are greater than 10% within the next decade. This sent shockwaves through Washington, as lawmakers, mostly Democrats, called for robust AI regulation.

Whether you believe the worst-case AI predictions or not, we're way beyond the threshold worthy of robust regulation.

Common Power Executive Director Charles Douglas, who organizes doorknockers nationwide, and I broke down what happened and how Democrats should respond.

For me, the alarm went off earlier this summer with the Hugging Face hack. Around 1,200 AI agents were run through cybersecurity tests by OpenAI, some of them designed to be impossible. So the agents cheated, hacking Hugging Face, getting answer keys to their tests, and attempting to cover their tracks. They called themselves the collective. Only six ever considered telling a human.

I compared it to the Kobayashi Maru, the Star Trek test Captain Kirk beat by rewriting it. Charles is convinced I booked the whole episode just to make that reference (he’s half right). I asked what these agents would do when the goal is bigger than a test. Charles’s answer was chilling: anything willing to sacrifice itself to win won’t hesitate to sacrifice us.

Now lawmakers are scrambling. Senator Bernie Sanders wants a ban on superintelligence. Senator Ted Cruz called for guardrails, then pivoted to saying he’d rather have American killer robots than Chinese ones. Republicans announced an investigation into the hack. I asked where all of this was before an insider predicted our extinction.

Anthropic’s own misuse report says Houthi rebels used Claude to help guide missiles. Lawmakers have all the information they need. Charles brought up Rep. Jim Clyburn admitting to Astead Herndon that he’d only recently learned about ChatGPT. I called that inexcusable. Charles made the case that we can’t even have a real debate until the people writing the regulations understand the technology.

What happens next depends on what we do, and I argued that robust regulation is the only way forward. I give the companies disclosing these incidents some credit, though I don’t see them as benevolent actors. I suspect Elon Musk’s AI has had thousands of incidents like this that he isn’t reporting.

On data centers, Charles laid out the range, from AOC’s call for a moratorium to Rob Sand’s push for closed-loop water systems and tax-sharing deals with local communities. If Democrats want Congress back, he argued, they need that nuance. As Charles put it, anything is better than nothing. Right now, we’re at nothing at the federal level.

This brings me to the opportunity cost of Trump’s presidency. Government corruption and incompetence are a tax on the American people. Both in actual dollar amounts and in the cost of what we won’t achieve during this foolish admin. There have been measurable setbacks to human progress.

A self-organizing AI swarm launched a cyberattack. Unregulated profit-driven AI companies are racing toward superintelligence. Rather than handle the existential tech challenge of our time, Trump has us bogged down in foolishness. We need serious people in charge again. The next admin must boldly rebuild and push forward.

Needless to say, the 2028 Democratic candidate will have to come up with a robust plan to address this. It’s one of the greatest challenges of our time.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

If you want to knock doors alongside Charles and Common Power heading into the midterms, go to commonpower.org.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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Every narrative heading into this election cycle told us the Senate map would be too difficult for Democrats. That narrative has collapsed, all due to President Trump’s weakness.

Common Power Executive Director Charles Douglas and I talked through some takeaways from the Democratic primaries, which Senate races organizers should be paying attention to, and so much more.

Charles is sending door knockers to Alaska, where Mary Peltola lost by roughly 7,000 votes in 2024. And Nebraska, where the path runs through an independent. Iowa, Maine, Texas, and North Carolina. We are no longer arguing about whether a flip is possible. We are arguing about which is the best path to get there.

The primaries told us why. The winning message has been working-class economics, and it travels across age, income, and region.

I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments and smash that like button.

You can watch our full conversation above. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.

If you want to knock doors alongside Charles and Common Power heading into the midterms, go to commonpower.org.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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I was happy to sit down once again with of , and we had a genuinely great conversation. We could’ve talked for another few hours, and we probably will in the coming weeks on more lives. Thank you to everyone who watched live and persevered through a few attempts as Substack glitched! If you’re catching the recording now, welcome.

Alex opened with cautious progressive optimism and immediately backed it up. Turnout numbers, surprise primary wins, Angie Nixon winning the Senate nomination in Florida, and Abdul El-Sayed pulling off what he’s pulling off in Michigan. Alex made the point that the candidates refusing corporate money are the ones performing, and that this is a verdict on grassroots people power over money.

I said the same dynamic is showing up across ideological lines. Democrats across the spectrum are doing the same thing: speaking directly to what people are actually living through.

We spent real time on the affordability argument, because it’s the whole ballgame. Alex pointed out that the issue polling hasn’t moved since 2024. Groceries, rent, health care. Trump ran on fixing what people felt under Biden, and two years in, nothing has changed. In fact, he’s made it worse.

Meanwhile, Trump has said out loud that he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial problems while conducting his war. He’s made billions of dollars, a chunk of it from crypto, and he’s spending his attention on ballrooms and golf course expansions. Alex flagged the East Potomac Park plan, where a public national park with the cherry blossoms is getting bulldozed for a bigger course while public bike paths disappear. I keep calling him the personification of the K-shaped economy. Reagan sold trickle-down. This is trickle-up, straight into Donald’s pockets, and everybody can see it.

Alex made the sharpest structural point of the live, and I want to sit with it. Treating Trump as a spontaneous event is a mistake. He’s the product of decades of American politics that leaned on white supremacy, on unregulated capitalism at working people’s expense, and on the complicity in leaving all of it unaddressed.

I agreed and traced the line: Backlash to the Civil Rights era, then the Southern Strategy with Nixon’s dog whistles and Reagan’s welfare queens, then Trump ripping the mask off entirely. That’s why I want the next Democrat to be a builder. Prosecute the people who broke the law. Pass sweeping anti-corruption legislation. Codify the norms Trump shredded. Rebuild the agencies he dismantled, bring back USAID, go hard on affordability and health care. FDR fixed the banking crisis in a week. Stop pretending the tools don’t exist.

On the risks, Alex raised Texas: more than a million voters purged from the rolls and many polling places closed, plus the USPS mail-in ballot mess. We both think it backfires. When people feel their rights are being targeted, they plan accordingly.

Alex’s bigger worry is what comes after November: another round of stolen election lawsuits, and she’s right to name it. My answer is to get vigilant now. Read Democracy Docket, use Marc Elias’s resources, and sign up to be a poll worker, which Alex noted is a paid job. I’m bullish on Texas with Talarico, and on North Carolina, Alaska, and Josh Turek in Iowa. Alex thinks the Senate is genuinely in play.

Don’t let Republicans demoralize you. They’re the ones losing.

Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.

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It’s been a few weeks since Don Lemon and I ran a Substack Live. We reassembled today to break down an important development.

Meta has agreed to a multi-billion-dollar settlement and major changes to how children interact with its platforms. I brought my tech background to this conversation, and Don Lemon brought his skeptical, pro-First Amendment journalist lens. What resulted was an excellent, nuanced discussion about what this settlement means.

I came with a big-picture take on Meta's settlement. My take was that if your platforms are so toxic that they're detrimental to the health of kids, then you need a top-down re-engineering of your algorithm and incentive structures. I called for federal regulation, transparency, and algorithm changes.

Don was justifiably more skeptical of Meta’s changes to how we interact with its platforms. He also broached “Big Brother” concerns over federal regulation, and wondered whether the responsibility should be more on parents.

We landed somewhere in the middle.

We both agreed, though, that federal regulation of social media companies under the Trump Administration would pose some pretty significant risks. I called for the future Democratic majority post-2028 to handle this, but to bring in real technologists that understand how these algorithms work.

This ended up being a surprisingly nuanced conversation about the social media landscape. I think you’ll enjoy it!

You can watch our full conversation above or check it out on YouTube below. Make sure to subscribe to Don's and my channel while you’re there. I’ve just started creating long-form video content there. Appreciate you all!

You’ll find the full video above and on my YouTube channel.

Below is an edited written version of the video piece.

Appreciate all of you, as always!

In 2016, the late Lindsey Graham sent this famous tweet, proclaiming that “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.”

He was right.

I’ve been reporting on Trump’s backfiring overreach since the start of his second term, and each time I do, I get flooded with comments about why his unpopularity doesn’t matter. But it very much matters. And in one very important way: he is leading the Republican Party into further political ruin.

We have to be clear about how much of a failure the Trump presidency has been. Trump and his Project 2025 allies entered office with a singular mission to crush the left and seek authoritarian power. Instead, they’ve revitalized a left-wing opposition and weakened the Republican Party.

Senator Graham’s words were as prophetic as they were revelatory of how the party as a whole would soon abandon their principles to back Trump. Or, which is more likely the case, they proved they never had any principles to begin with. Trump ripped the mask off the GOP, and the face that was revealed was an ugly one willing to push the country to the brink of authoritarianism as long as they had a seat at the table.

But that corrupt bargain is leading to their fall, just as Graham predicted.

The very same sycophantic Republican loyalty that helped manufacture Donald Trump’s rise will help facilitate his and the Republican Party’s demise.

No matter how much Trump pretends it doesn’t, political gravity still exists.

Let’s break down how the Republican Party’s alliance with Donald Trump has backfired and get into some of the numbers that prove Trump’s all-time-low approval rating is damaging the Republican Party down-ballot.

One of Trump’s most profound impacts on our politics is that he made indecent people think they no longer had to pretend to be decent in order to be accepted in society. Not only could shameless grifters be accepted, they could become rich and powerful.

When Republican lawmakers saw a corrupt bigot say whatever came to his mind and not only avoid consequences but go on to win the presidency, some felt they were granted a license to take off their decency masks, too.

But those who embraced depravity didn’t suddenly become that. They just stopped hiding their true nature. Because, of course, Trump didn’t create this problem. He is the inevitable culmination of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy, where they subtly scapegoated people of color and immigrants for the economic woes of the white working class while legislating for the rich. Trump just moved from whispering dog whistles to yelling the quiet part out loud as he descended down his golden escalator in 2015.

That is the story of the modern Republican Party.

They entered into a political alliance with someone they knew was a depraved, reckless egomaniac. From Lindsey Graham to JD Vance to Mitch McConnell, countless Republicans have been clear-eyed about who Trump is, and embraced him anyway.

Trump has been well aware of this, and often referenced it in unintentionally self-aware ways, like in his recitation of the snake poem at his campaign rallies in 2016.

Republicans knew he was a snake when he walked in. They knowingly tied their political fate to him anyway, and now they refuse to break free.

There’s been a lot of attention on what’s happening in the Democratic Party, but the internal debates playing out in those primaries are healthy. What’s actually remarkable is how little dissent is tolerated within the MAGA establishment, and how that’s led to a fracturing coalition as Trump betrays his own base.

When Republicans do choose to speak out, like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Thomas Massie, they’re exiled from the party. Those who remain have chosen to be cogs in Trump’s machine.

Republicans have abdicated their oversight responsibility, effectively rendering the legislative branch a limp arm of the Trump Administration. They’ve done nothing as Trump and his team of loyalists moved with reckless abandon to gut the federal bureaucracy, eliminate pockets of independence in the executive branch, unilaterally dismantle agencies, reshape the global order by undermining economic and diplomatic alliances, target civil liberties, and attempt to consolidate power in the presidency.

As Trump unleashed tariffs that have unilaterally raised prices on Americans, Republicans have refused to exercise their constitutional duty to check the president. As Trump pushed forward the Big Beautiful Bill, which amounted to the largest legislative wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in American history, they passed it. As Trump’s ICE killed American citizens and immigrants alike, the Republican Party responded by rubber-stamping billions in new funding for DHS. As Trump wages a fruitless war in Iran that has further destabilized the Middle East, they’ve done nothing to rein him in.

The GOP owns the consequences of the Trump presidency, whether they like it or not.

Republicans have fully embraced the monster they helped create, even as this lame-duck, politically weak president becomes an undeniable liability.

Now, as Trump’s political project fails, he seems hell-bent on taking the party down with him.

Now, let’s get into the numbers.

Donald Trump is a historically unpopular president whose second term has been defined by corruption, authoritarian overreach, and incompetence.

I’m an independent journalist who has been covering Trump and American politics for over a decade now, and I’ve never seen his polling this bad. In my previous reporting, we’ve established just how weak President Trump is politically. And it’s only gotten worse with each passing week.

Multiple polls over the last few weeks have found Trump’s approval rating at an all-time low and his support among Republicans at an all-time low as well.

Last week, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has Trump’s approval at an all-time low of 33%, after multiple polls over the last few weeks have put his approval rating at similar lows.

He is underwater on all key issues as Americans reject his abuses of power, betrayals of his campaign promises, his Iran War, and his raising of prices while he enriches himself.

When a president is this weak, usually, you’ll find members of their same party seeking to distance themselves from some of his more unpopular policies. But Trump won’t let Republicans do that.

I talked about this in my most recent appearance on MS NOW last week:

As I pointed out, Trump’s approval rating with Republicans is also seeing all-time lows. We’re also seeing those who strongly support the president seeing new lows as well.

It’s not just the polls showcasing this weakness. In elections over the past year and a half, Democrats have either won or significantly over-performed. The most notable example of this was the November 2025 off-year elections, which showcased massive Democratic wins and stunning Republican underperformances.

Democrats notched decisive wins in Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Maine, Georgia, and California, to name a few. Democrats saw double-digit wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governor races, and counties with heavy Latino populations saw double-digit swings to Democrats. We saw similar swings in special elections this year.

We’ve also seen evidence of Trump’s coalition fracturing in light of Trump’s weakness. Key MAGA media figures have diverged from the president on his cover-up of the Epstein Files and his reckless Iran War. There’s also evidence that the MAGA media ecosystem is fracturing and plummeting in viewership, which I covered in a previous video.

An NBC News poll at the end of last year showcased the splintering of MAGA, with traditional Republicans and MAGA-identifying Republicans now standing at 50/50. Since then, the all-time-low support among Republicans and declining strong support are also indicators.

In spite of the terrible polling, election losses, and splintering base, the Republican Party is still standing by Trump. This refusal to distance itself from Trump’s unpopular moves on the economy, immigration, and the Iran War has led to self-inflicted wounds to their midterm prospects.

One of the key indicators of how poorly Republicans are expected to do in the midterms can be found in the generic ballot. Democrats lead in the generic ballot by an average of about 6-7 points, with some polls, like a recent Emerson poll, showing that lead as high as 11 points.

That is above the 3.1% national popular vote advantage New York Times Chief Political Analyst Nate Cohn has said Democrats need to win the House to overcome this new GOP gerrymandered environment.

Nate Silver has also moved the chances Democrats take the Senate to nearly 60%.

Ahead of this expected loss, Trump is already throwing Republicans under the bus and blaming them for his unpopularity. In an interview with Punchbowl News earlier this month, Trump said that voters are angry at Republicans, not him.

“The question is, will they vote? Because a lot of them [voters] are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you… They're not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.”

Prepare to hear a lot more of that after the midterms. Trump will blame his party for his own failures. That’s fine by me. It surely won’t help Republicans in 2028.

Ultimately, I think Trump’s attempts to interfere in the midterms will fail, as I’ve reported before in previous pieces. Then, Trump will be bogged down in congressional oversight for the first time this term. He’ll continue to act out in desperate ways, but those moves will be exactly that: desperate. Not from a place of power, but from a place of weakness, as his presidency falters and his legacy is defined as the worst president of all time.

The clock is ticking as the Republican congressional majority’s days are numbered.

Republicans own this, and there’s nothing they can do to convince Americans otherwise.

History is littered with political establishments thinking they can control a raging authoritarian. By the time they realize they can’t, it’s too late. Fortunately for us, it’s not too late for democracy.

Americans have repeatedly shown they will not stand for this. And they will so once again, in unmistakable numbers this November.

So, while the title of this video is how Trump is destroying the Republican Party, the truth is, they’ve destroyed themselves. And they deserve it.

If you enjoyed this video, smash that like button and subscribe. I’m going to dedicate a lot more time to longer-form videos like this. I’m a firm believer that curiosity is a more powerful algorithmic driver than outrage-bait, and I’ll continue to test that theory with these videos. If you’ve made it this far in the video, you’ve validated that optimistic belief, and I hope you consider supporting my work.

I’m an independent journalist who has been covering Trump for over a decade now. I’ve made appearances on MS NOW and CNN, and my work has been cited in The New York Times and The Washington Post. I documented every day of Trump’s first term and was among the first to cover Project 2025 back in 2023. Now, I run a best-selling Substack publication called Ahmed Baba News, where you can read more of my work and become a paid subscriber if you’re interested.

With right-wing consolidation of mainstream media accelerating, independent media is more important than ever.

Thank you for watching, and see you around!