Economic populism helped deliver impressive victories for Democrats across the nation, but those gains might not last. Where do Democrats go from here?

Between affordability crises and broken political promises, Americans have been failed by the Trump administration. Democratic midterm candidates seized the opportunity to create a platform centering economic populist ideals and prioritizing working-class voters.

Across Texas, the Carolinas, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, and many others, Democrats and progressive candidates rallied the voters who felt abandoned by politics, and it paid off. Big time. Democrats now control the House and the Senate, multiple states’ legislatures, and elected Democratic Socialists to lead major cities. But this blue midterm tsunami is meaningless if Democrats don’t follow through.

More Perfect Union founder Faiz Shakir lays out a five-step plan for Democrats to fulfill promises to the working-class voters they spent a year courting. Voters showed up for Democrats. It’s time for Democrats to show up for us.

1. End the forever wars: Cut funding for military action and demand an immediate end to foreign wars.

2. Tax the wealthy: Raise the cap on taxable income on Social Security to keep essential social programs sustainably funded into the future.

3. Raise the minimum wage: Ensure everyone is paid a living wage across the country.

4. Provide affordable healthcare: Break up Big Medicine’s corporate monopolies to provide better healthcare for all people.

5. Rein in Big Tech: Put a pause on destructive data centers and limit Silicon Valley’s political control.

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TRANSCRIPT

FAIZ SHAKIR, MORE PERFECT UNION: To understand what happened in the midterm elections, take a look at this chart:

Two years ago, Trump made his biggest gains where wages had fallen the most.

In this election, low-income counties shifted democratic by over 20 points. Republicans’ advantage in rural America shrank by double digits. So what happened?

The media story is that Trump lost working people. That’s true, but if you follow More Perfect Union, that’s pretty obvious. On the surface, Democrats seem to be the party of the working class again,

JAMES TALARICO, TEXAS SEN.-ELECT SPEECH: The real fight in this country is not left versus right. It is top versus bottom.

ABDUL EL-SAYED, MICHIGAN SEN.-ELECT, CSPAN CLIP: We showed that in a battle between the money and the many — that the many really can win…

ANNIE ANDREWS, SOUTH CAROLINA SEN.-ELECT SPEECH: …in a politics dominated by billionaires and special interest groups. We will not bow down.

SHAKIR: But this movement could be either short-lived or durable. From what I’ve seen, on the ground, in exit polls and in campaign spending, we’ll discuss what could make this a political realignment rather than a reaction and what Democrats could do right now to deliver on their biggest campaign promise:

Video by Trevor Hayes and Anthony Mascorro

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TRANSCRIPT

TREVOR HAYES, MORE PERFECT UNION: There is a corruption scandal at the heart of the American federal government right now that nobody is talking about. A cycle in which corporate donations secure government policy, contracts, and legal cover. Donations that then get spent on ads directed by the President that attack anyone who might threaten the future of this system, reinforcing its power.

And it’s all funneled through one financial entity: a super PAC called MAGA Inc. MAGA Inc. is connected to some of the wealthiest members of society, most powerful business executives, and several Epstein-connected billionaires, all of whom regularly attend gilded dinners at Mar-a-Lago. It’s a familiar picture, but what you need to understand is that this system is different. The amounts being donated are bigger than ever before. The favors being granted are more profitable than you can imagine.

TRUMP C-SPAN CLIP: This is my money that I control. Now, this is separate from the [Republican National Committee], and I think it’s not even counted in terms of the media. I’m not sure that they ever talk about it.

HAYES: I wanna show you using three particular donors that represent three issues Americans are most upset by right now: healthcare, [artificial intelligence], and the U.S. relationship with Israel. And by the end of this story, you’ll understand how the American president has turned our government into a system of patronage meant to extract value from the American people and why this should be the biggest corruption scandal in American history.

Video by Dan Lieberman and David McCaw

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TRANSCRIPT

DAN LIEBERMAN, MORE PERFECT UNION: For decades, Nebraska has been a reliably red state — where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 2-1. But like many things in 2026, it’s turned out to be a battleground.

FOX NEWS CLIP: The [Senate] race is now one to watch.

THE HILL PODCAST CLIP: Because of the polls, the state of Nebraska. Nebraska!

CNN NEWS CLIP: Nebraska, which has come on board for a pickup opportunity for independent candidate Dan Osborn — up 58 percent.

LIEBERMAN: Almost a year ago, Tyson announced it was closing one of its biggest plants in the country — in the central Nebraska town of Lexington, laying off half of the town’s workers.

MORE PERFECT UNION CLIP: The first thing you think is like, ‘I’m gonna lose my house.’ This plant was the one who gives life to this town.

LIEBERMAN: We learned it was all about maximizing profit.

BASEL MUSHARBASH, ANTITRUST LAWYER IN MORE PERFECT UNION CLIP: Those big four meatpackers work together to fix prices, fix wages, and control the market so they don’t have to face any real competition in the market.

LIEBERMAN, DRIVING THROUGH THE TYSON PLANT PARKING LOT: When we were here last year, this parking lot was full of cars, and now it’s completely empty. This entire plant is now a ghost town.

JUAN LAGUNA, FORMER NEBRASKA TYSON PLANT WORKER, TO LIEBERMAN: Tyson was everything for my family.

ALEX PINEDO, BAR OWNER, TO LIEBERMAN: What this town needs is work. We need to feed our families. We need to pay our bills.

DAN OSBORN, NEBRASKA SENATE CANDIDATE, FOX NEWS CLIP: Costs are extremely high. We’re trying not to sink here.

LIEBERMAN: DAN OSBORN is a Navy vet[eran] and mechanic, running as an independent in what was once considered a long shot against incumbent Pete Ricketts.

OSBORN, TO LIEBERMAN: I think this election is going to show that people are tired of getting sold out.

SEN. PETE RICKETTS (R-NE) KETV NEWS CLIP: People know where I stand. My opponent [DAN OSBORN] is just the opposite.

LIEBERMAN, TO DR. KEVIN SMITH, POLITICAL SCIENTIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA: How is this moment sort of maybe different?

SMITH: Yeah, I think the story in Nebraska is no different from a lot of similar states around us.

LIEBERMAN: With affordability and corporate power front and center in the midterms, I wanted to find out to what extent another once-predictable Senate race is up for grabs.

Video by Beth Meadows and Ian McKenna

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GARY JOHNSON, NORTHWEST ARKANSAS DISTRICT FAIR ATTENDEE: I’m really upset with our president. You know, he was for the farmers, supposedly. And he’s let them hang out to dry, pretty much now.

BETH MEADOWS, MORE PERFECT UNION: It’s been 9 months since . . .

TRUMP CLIP: …major combat operations in Iran…

MEADOWS: And the entire country has been suffering the consequences.

NEWS ANCHOR CLIP MONTAGE: Gas prices here in the U.S. hit a new high. Oil prices are soaring. Airlines hiking their ticket prices. Diesel is skyrocketing. Putting food on your table through the fall and the winter hinges on what happens with this war right now.

MEADOWS: But people here in Arkansas have even more reason to complain.

HOOVER, TO COTTON: You have long been defined as a hawk on Iran.

COTTON, ON CNN: The answer to most questions in the Middle East is Iran.

COTTON, TO HOOVER: Two strikes: The first strike and the last strike.

MEADOWS: Tom Cotton has held this Senate seat for 11 years but a shocking poll showed Democrats might actually have a chance at it this year.

MEADOWS: Cotton’s donors are spending millions on ads . . .

MEADOWS: …and he’s back up in the latest polling — but it seems like anything could happen in Arkansas this year.

VELMA, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: I feel like he might get beat this time.

MEADOW TO CLYDE BOWLING, NORTHWEST ARKANSAS DISTRICT FAIR ATTENDEE: Would you vote for him again?

BOWLING: Not now.

JOHNSON, TO MEADOWS: We need different legislators.

MEADOWS: We talked to the Democrat and sixth-generation farmer taking on Tom Cotton — HALLIE SHOFFNER.

HALLIE SHOFFNER, ARKANSAS DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE, TO MEADOWS: Tom Cotton has wanted to go to war with Iran for 15 years. He finally got the war he wanted. We are paying the cost.

MEADOWS: The question is: Are things bad enough in this deeply red state to flip a Senate seat? That’s what we’re here to find out.

Angie Nixon pitched Medicare for All to Trump voters, a message she’s hoping will take her to Congress in November.

Video by Natasha Del Toro and Matt Belen

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TRANSCRIPT

NATASHA DEL TORO, MORE PERFECT UNION: We came to Putnam County in northeast Florida because it’s places like these where America’s healthcare debate gets really interesting.

This is a county where about one in five people live in poverty, thousands are uninsured, and doctors are few and far between. It’s also a county that voted heavily for Trump every time he was on the ballot.

And since those elections, getting care has only become more challenging.

MALCOM, PUTNAM HOSPITAL PATIENT: We are in a state of emergency. We’re Americans. We’re supposed to be free, and we’re not.

DEL TORO: Nearly 450,000 people in Florida lost their Affordable Care Act coverage this year, the most of any state in the country.

AUTOMATED OPERATOR: What can I help you with?

MICHAEL DEPEW, PART TIME WALMART EMPLOYEE: Insurance.

AUTOMATED OPERATOR: There are 17 callers ahead of you.

DEPEW: Right now, just to get enrolled in the insurance, I have to wait, and if I’m not mistaken, I’ll be dead in November.

Video by Liz Scheltens, Sam Quigley, and Noah Johnson

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TRANSCRIPT

“There is too much damn money in politics.”

“It’s corrupting the system.”

LIZ SCHELTENS, MORE PERFECT UNION: We hear all the time about how impossibly divided Americans are.

PBS News Hour CLIP: A dramatic rise in partisan animosity

MSNBC CLIP: Where we are as a nation, how we’re so politically divided

JONATHAN HAIDT DEBATE CLIP: We’re tribal. We evolved for tribalism.

SCHELTENS: Which is why I was surprised when I came across this poll. It shows more than 70 percent approval for a bunch of different ideas — cracking down on corporations buying up our housing stock, a $15 minimum wage, capping insulin costs, ending junk fees — everywhere we go, people tell us the same thing about why none of this universally popular stuff gets done.

MORE PERFECT UNION CLIP: People can run on a certain platform, but I have a feeling that even if you do get elected, at the end of the day a guy in a suit with a briefcase full of money shows up and tells you how it’s going to be

MORE PERFECT UNION CLIP: Some people are taking a lot of money from the industry. They’re getting paid a lot of money to keep their mouth shut.

MORE PERFECT UNION CLIP: That’s what kind of influence money buys.

MORE PERFECT UNION CLIP: It’s just more corporate greed and big companies thinking they can do whatever they want.

SCHELTENS: Ever since Citizens United came down in 2010, corporations and the wealthy have had a chokehold on our politics. But what if I told you that regular people in states across the country had come up with an ingenious fix?

Video by Mae Ryan and Meg Herschlein

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TRANSCRIPT

“KEVIN,” LAID-OFF META EMPLOYEE: I hate everything Meta has done. I hate that I work for psychopaths. I despise that I’m part of the machine.

MAE RYAN, MORE PERFECT UNION: Workers inside Big Tech companies are getting increasingly disillusioned with the world they helped build.

“SAM,” RETIRED MICROSOFT EMPLOYEE: I can’t keep selling my soul like this. This is a prison in its own way.

RYAN: Tech CEOs are going all in on the future of [artificial intelligence], even if they think it could eventually kill us all. But this doomerism is obscuring what AI is doing to workers right now. So I spoke to over a dozen tech workers to hear what it’s like on the inside. These are not their real voices.

“PETER,” META WORKER: Zuck thinking that we could replace 60 percent of the company with AI agents. It’s like you’re insane.

“SAM,” MICROSOFT WORKER: It doesn’t matter how much money you make for them, they will turn on you.

RYAN: And the more people I spoke to, the more I realized something weirder was going on.

“LUCY,” AMAZON WORKER We didn’t really know how, but I knew somebody was watching.

“PETER,” META WORKER: This thing records your screen, records clicks. It just seems like their goal is to automate us away.

RYAN: Tech workers aren’t the only ones being watched. About two thirds of all workers in the US say they are being surveilled by technology known as Bossware. And now it’s getting supercharged by AI.

CHRIS SING, AMAZON DELIVERY DRIVER, YOUTUBE: “Here at Amazon, they only treat us by the metrics and numbers. They don’t give a shit about you as a human.”

RYAN: So I wanted to know, how is this AI-powered surveillance affecting workers today? Is all this worker data going to train our AI replacements? And what does Bossware think of me?

Video by Paul Blest, Alzo Slade, and David McCaw

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TRANSCRIPT

ALZO SLADE: Across the country, another backlash is brewing.

MOORE COUNTY, NC CITY COUNCIL CLIP: “You didn’t even inform us, you just put them up!”

NEW BEDFORD, MA, CITY COUNCIL CLIP: “Take them down!”

SPRINGFIELD, IL, CITY COUNCIL CLIP: “Worthless!”

PFLUGERVILLE CITY COUNCIL CLIP: “You all have the power to do something about it. Why don’t you guys do something about it?”

MILFORD, CT, CITY COUNCIL CLIP: I demand the immediate removal of all of these cameras and in summation, this program needs to go flock itself.

SLADE: Behind me is a Flock camera. This is what all the fuss is about.

PFLUGERVILLE CITY COUNCIL CLIP: I do not think that they belong in our cities.

DAVID MOSS, PFLUGERVILLE CITY RESIDENT: They start to feel this umbrella that’s just over them everywhere they go.

SLADE: The vast majority of police love them.

JEFF BARNETT, KYLE POLICE CHIEF: They are absolutely a tool that helps law enforcement solve crime.

WILLIE RICHARDS, PFLUGERVILLE POLICE CHIEF, CITY COUNCIL CLIP: There are times when it’s helped us identify and engage someone who’s experiencing a health trauma.

SLADE: But some police like them too much.

Video by Sean Morrow, Anthony Mascorro, and Sydney Guthrie

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TRANSCRIPT

SEAN MORROW, MORE PERFECT UNION: Okay, am I crazy, or is it starting to smell a lot like robot apocalypse in here?

Sean looking up from a television or computer, watching the news.

MORROW: We have AI companies releasing news that they supposedly lost control of their product, employees quitting the labs in existential protest, and the CEOs themselves doing much of the hand-wringing.

MORROW: And yet, they keep building it. Faster and faster, no matter how much they talk about the need to…

AMODEI, ABC NEWS LIVE PRIME CLIP: … pause or more likely slow the pace of AI progress.

MORROW: Oh, great. That’s Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic. He totally has the power to take a pause or slow the pace. Right?

In July, we sat Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) down with 15 Gen Z students to talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) affects their lives. Today, we’re releasing the full 90-minute conversation in response to many requests in our comment section.

More Perfect Union will release more …

Read more

We found two private equity firms, Carlyle Group and Patient Square Capital, backing this process.

Video by Eric Gardner and Eric Schuman

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TRANSCRIPT

ERIC GARDNER, MORE PERFECT UNION: I’ve been trying to figure out: What is AI actually doing to American healthcare? I didn’t expect to find the answer on a utility bill from India.

I’ve always been very interested in how AI is reshaping American healthcare, and I found an answer in an unlikely place. A utility bill. From India.

It’s for an address here, which connects back to a company hired by the federal government to harness ‘artificial intelligence and machine learning’ to improve American healthcare.

GARDNER: That’s what we’re being promised. But how is AI being used in healthcare today?

In January, the government launched a program that uses artificial intelligence to help make decisions for hundreds of thousands of patients.

CAREL EDGERLY, MICHAEL EDGERLY’S WIFE: The AI apparently did not read the chart notes.

MICHAEL EDGERLY, CAREL’S HUSBAND: Chances are maybe I could be, I could be walking instead of using a walker.

GARDNER: When I started to investigate, I realized how little the public actually knew about the program.

ZENA WOLF, SENIOR ADVISOR AT THE CENTER FOR HEALTH AND DEMOCRACY: There is so little information about the companies, the contracts [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid] has, and the algorithms that they’re using.

GARDNER: And when I tried to find out who built the system making some of these decisions, I discovered a maze of companies, some that barely exist, and investors behind it making money no matter the patient outcomes.

The whole thing led me here.

A very strange place to ask the question: What is AI actually doing to American healthcare?

Video by John Gallen and Anthony Mascorro

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TRANSCRIPT

JOHN GALLEN, MORE PERFECT UNION: There’s a town in Louisiana where people have been left behind. So the government threw them a lifeline.

BRIAN VO, CONNECT HUMANITY CEO: Right now there are anywhere from 20 to 30 million Americans with no internet at all.

LEATRICE HAWKINS, RESIDENT: I’m paying around $84 a month. You could be online and doing something — and all of a sudden [the internet] goes off.

GALLEN: In 2021, the Biden administration created a program to finally build high-speed internet in rural areas across the country.

NATHANIEL WILLS, DELTA INTERFAITH PREACHER: We announced this last December $6 million to finish it.

GALLEN: Then the Democrats lost.

GALLEN: And when Trump was reelected…

WILLS:... all the rules were rewritten. For the next round, we’re only awarded $150,000 for 204 Starlinks.

GALLEN: The new winner was Elon Musk’s Starlink.

LINDA MILLIKIN, DELTA INTERFAITH ORGANIZER, TO GALLEN: You’re not gonna get fiber, but we’re gonna give you satellite. And to me, that’s secondary stuff.

NATHAN JOHNSON, TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL CANDIDATE: It is a government handout to Elon Musk, but worse than that, it’s a whole shift in the favor of a technology that he dominates.

GIGI SOHN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC BROADBAND: When I see the richest man in the world profiting from government subsidy, it’s supremely ironic and frustrating. It’s a tale as old as time, right?

GALLEN: How did Elon Musk end up with taxpayer-funded money that was supposed to go toward providing fiber internet for the country’s poorest rural areas?

Video by Faiz Shakir and Addison Post

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TRANSCRIPT

FAIZ SHAKIR, MORE PERFECT UNION: We know the problem.

SHAKIR: For at least five decades now, America has created a tax code that favors wealth accumulation by the rich over the income earned by workers, resulting in a record-setting wealth gap.

SHAKIR: Fortunately, the American public is loud and clear as to what needs to happen.

PROTEST CLIPS: Tax the rich! Tax the rich!

SHAKIR: But How? How specifically are we going to tax the rich? I traveled to meet with the ultra-wealthy…

NICK HANAUER, ENTREPENUR AND VENTURE CAPITALIST, TO SHAKIR: I mean I know a bunch of these people personally. A lot of these people are narcissistic sociopaths. They just don’t give a rip about anyone but themselves.

SHAKIR: …tax and budget experts…

MICHAEL LINDEN, TAX AND BUDGET PROFESSOR AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, TO SHAKIR: We know for a fact that some of these very, very wealthy people and corporations are literally paying zero.

SHAKIR: …and even anti-tax conservatives to better understand how our tax code works.

SHAKIR, TO GROVER NORQUITS, ANTI-TAX ADVOCATE: In your view, trickle down does work.

NORQUITS: Well, it does trickle down.

SHAKIR: What I learned is that making our tax code work for everyone is not so complicated and that if we want to solve it, we can draw inspiration from the very man whose ‘Reagonomics’ led us into this mess.

SHAKIR: We’ll discuss three key ways to put a big tax on extreme wealth, so that we produce less of it. Let’s get into it.

This is Big Ideas, from More Perfect Union.

Corporations discard millions of pounds of fish every year while people lose access to rivers, and the media is sleeping on the story. Now the working class is fighting back, and their rage could flip the U.S. Senate.

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TRANSCRIPT

LIZ SCHELTENS, MORE PERFECT UNION: These ships have a secret.

BILL HILL, COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN AND INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS: This is hidden. You can’t see it because it’s underwater.

SCHELTENS: This is some of the first high-definition underwater footage of an industrial bottom-trawler at work, and ships like these have become the focus of intense political debate here in Alaska.

ALASKAN FISHERMAN TO SCHELTENS: Eventually, when there’s just no fish, what do they do?

ALASKAN BUSINESS OWNER: They’re raping the seas.

SCHELTENS: Over the last four decades, the corporate owners of these trawl ships built a political empire to help protect their profit margins. But in recent years, some of Alaska’s most important fish stocks have collapsed.

And people here are demanding answers and action.

ALEXUS KWACHKA, COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN: People are losing their way of life!

CHARLIE WRIGHT, ALASKA NATIVE FISHERMAN: It’s all for money, and it’s all political. Letting the trawlers take the fish and starving us along the river. I call it a modern-day genocide.

LOUIS KENDRICK, COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN: Who’s representing the common fisherman? No one! We don’t have any lobbyists.

SCHELTENS: I came to Alaska because I wanted to understand this anger. Was this just social media outrage spilling over into real life, as some critics have argued?

McDonald’s prices have doubled in the last ten years. The profits have gone mostly to shareholders, who got nearly $40 billion in dividends over the past decade while customers suffer and workers are underpaid.

▶️ Watch on YouTube

TRANSCRIPT

SANYA DOSANI, MORE PERFECT UNION: I came to McDonald’s for a quick, cheap, and easy meal, but McDonald’s has changed a lot since the last time I was here. $5 for a medium french fry. You pretty much can’t get anything for less than $10.

My food took a lot longer than I expected. And while I waited, I noticed how boring and bland the restaurant looked. Remember when McDonald’s used to be fun?

DOSANI, AT THE TABLE WITH MCDONALD’S MEAL: Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Do you think that’s really a quarter pound of beef?

Only one pickle.

DOSANI, EATING QUARTER POUNDER: Honestly, that’s good

DOSANI, EATING FRIES: That slaps. Not going to lie, the [burger] is a lot smaller than I thought it would be.

Back in 2014, these were the average prices of some popular McDonald’s menu items. And here are the prices ten years later. Everything rose by at least 50 percent. The Quarter Pounder meal more than doubled in price. Over that same decade, prices for other consumer goods only rose 31 percent.

It’s not just McDonald’s. All fast food prices are way outpacing inflation.

And what are we getting for that increased cost?

To find out what’s really going on in the kitchens, I reached out to a former McDonald’s corporate chef.

MIKE HARACZ, FORMER MCDONALD’S CORPORATE CHEF: They are willing to serve not as good of a product because I can make more money and serve more people. Make it as cheap as possible so they can get more profit.

DOSANI: Fast food used to be cheap, filling, and obviously fast. But not anymore. So, why does fast food suck now?

Video by Dan Lieberman and Paul Blest

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TRANSCRIPT

DAN LIEBERMAN, MORE PERFECT UNION: We’ve heard a lot about waste and fraud in programs like Medicaid and SNAP. But what if I told you that the biggest waste of taxpayer money isn’t due to people like this:

NORMA HUFFMAN, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: Him and I fight on who’s going to eat that day. Him and I fight on how my medicine is gonna get paid for.

LIEBERMAN: It’s this.

LIEBERMAN: And behind the political rhetoric…

LIEBERMAN: …there is a lot of money being made.

SARAH GRUSIN, SENIOR ATTORNEY AT THE NATIONAL HEALTH LAW PROGRAM: We’re easily talking billions of dollars.

LUKE FARRELL, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR FOR TECHNOLOGY AND DELIVERY, WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POLICY COUNCIL: The more complicated it is to make a change, the more profitable it is.

LIEBERMAN: So we looked into the companies hired to run the systems standing between Americans getting the help they need…

HUFFMAN: They’re wanting so many pieces of proof that I have no money.

LIEBERMAN: …or falling through the cracks.

OLIVIA CLEAVELAND, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: I’ve been struggling with this for years. You’ll get it, it’ll get cut off, you’ll have to redo the process all over again.

LIEBERMAN: Because in this system, working families are set up to fail, while corporations reap the benefits.

STATE SEN. BRYAN KING (R-AR): It makes bank robbers look like at least honest crooks in this deal.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): We need a system with accountability.

HUFFMAN: Who’s running this system? That’s the problem.

INSIDE THE BUSINESS OF WELFARE

Video by John Russell and Josh Hirschfeld-Kroen

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TRANSCRIPT

KENNY, SOFTWARE ENGINEER AND ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANT: You would think [Artificial Intelligence] would make my job easier. But it’s actually harder. I’m doing more work.

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): And by the way, are you getting paid more for that more work you’re doing?

KENNY: No.

KHANNA: So you’re more productive, you’re using the tools of AI, you’re doing more work, and who’s benefiting?

CHRIS, FORMER VERIZON EMPLOYEE AND ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANT: [The] CEO.

KENNY: Yep.

JOHN RUSSELL, MORE PERFECT UNION: You say CEOs?

KHANNA: That’s the whole problem.

RUSSELL: The world is changing, fast —

RUSSELL, SEARCHING FOR WAYMO: There it is. Right there. Oh my gosh, it’s in the middle of the road.

RUSSELL: — and nowhere is that more obvious than Silicon Valley…

RUSSELL, RUNNING AFTER WAYMO: No, wait. That’s me. I’m here. Okay.

RUSSELL GETS INSIDE OF THE WAYMO

RUSSELL, TO THE WAYMO AI: Hey, for John?

RUSSELL: …where the cars drive you, AI is everywhere you look, and the CEOs sound like this:

RUSSELL: But thousands of miles away, in parts of the country that have lived through massive job loss before, all this talk of automation hits a little different.

CHRIS, TO RUSSELL: What is a data center? Where’s that mark on history? The industry that killed jobs?

KHANNA, TO RUSSELL: We are ready to make the same mistake we made in globalization, only at a much bigger scale.

RUSSELL: RO KHANNA represents Silicon Valley in Congress.

KHANNA: One-third of the nation’s wealth value is sitting in a 50-mile radius around where we are.

RUSSELL: And he’s also emerged as one of their biggest critics.

RUSSELL: So when I found out that RO KHANNA was coming to Pennsylvania, I wanted to sit him down with blue-collar and white-collar workers to find out: Are we just sitting ducks?

KENNY, TO ROUNDTABLE: Is it too late? Like AI is already here — every day, a new model is coming out, and it’s getting better and better.

RUSSELL: Why does all of this feel so familiar and so inevitable?

CHRIS, TO ROUNDTABLE: I feel like we’re playing whack-a-mole, because these data centers are just popping up all over the state.

RUSSELL: And can a Silicon Valley congressman really be trusted to take on the industry, making his district so rich?

RUSSELL, TO ROUNDTABLE: This is like we walked into the weirdest bar possible —

KHANNA: In a semicircle.

RUSSELL: — in a semicircle, sitting at a bar discussing what we’re gonna do about an absolutely massive issue. Let’s start with the obvious question: How bad is this really gonna get?

Video by: Trevor Hayes and Addison Post, with additional reporting by Ben McKenzie

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TRANSCRIPT

TREVOR HAYES, MORE PERFECT UNION: Just a few weeks ago, President Trump gathered a group of powerful cryptocurrency executives for a press conference:

HAYES: He has good reason to be happy with these guys. Just in the last year, the Trump family made $1.4 billion off of their Cryptocurrency business, while their investors lost nearly $4 billion.

On its surface, the gap between those two numbers doesn’t look like the ‘democratized future of finance’ that cryptocurrency proponents have been promising for years. It looks much more like… a massive wealth transfer.

At the same time, the crypto industry, including the executives standing next to the president, are dumping nearly $200 million into midterm races so far.

HAYES: I wanted to know why. What did they want? Why spend all this money? Well, the industry’s answer to that question is that they really want regulation: To regulate their own industry and do right by their retail investors.

But of course, that’s not the real story. It never is.

We sat Bernie Sanders down with them for a messy debate that isn’t happening in the public right now. If we’re going to live with AI and push for a future that benefits working people, we need more conversations like this one.

▶️ WATCH ON YOUTUBE

TRANSCRIPT

AIDAN WALKER, MORE PERFECT UNION: Lately, it seems like nobody can shut up about how AI will change the world.

WALKER: But the young people who are inheriting that world sure would like them to.

WALKER: A recent study polling adults between 18 and 34 showed that they had overwhelmingly negative opinions on AI CEOs, and a recent Pew [Research Center] study found a majority are more concerned than excited about AI. But there’s a kind of paradox in these scenes that’s easy to miss from the outside looking in.

It’s this: Gen Z is the generation that uses AI the most, and yet has the most negative opinion on it.

That contradiction isn’t represented in the mainstream conversation about AI — which is framed online as a binary debate between Luddites who’ll never touch it, and diehard power users who are looking forward to superintelligent AI solving all their problems.

We wanted to hold a real conversation that gets into all of those messy contradictions and doesn’t simplify them into a shape that’s easier to swallow. To do that, we got 15 young people, ages 18 to 25, and Senator Bernie Sanders together in a room to see what they would say.

We got into their views on AI as it relates to dating, friendship, school, the job market, and the future. Whether they’re luddites or avid AI users, pro-market Conservatives or Socialists, pessimists or optimists;

Gen Z is doing something weirder and harder than just debating whether AI is good or not. They’re figuring out how to live with it

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), TO ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS: [AI is] kind of like building a plane as it flies — nobody really knows where it’s gonna land.

CHASE, 19, WILLISTON, VA: AI is, without a doubt, this incredible tool and it’s like ‘How are we gonna use it?’

LIAM, 20, DALLAS, PA: [AI] could be all doom and gloom, or it could be beautiful.

SANDERS: [AI] could be [beautiful] but you’re sitting here with a bystander from Mars.

SILAS, 20, WASHINGTON D.C: Senator, I actually disagree with the statement that we should have the government directly take a stake in AI companies.

WALKER: We started by asking everyone some questions about AI to get a sense of their views.

▶️ WATCH ON YOUTUBE

America’s biggest berry empire doesn’t actually grow berries. A whistleblower alleges the Canadian government repeatedly flagged Driscoll’s berries for exceeding pesticide limits.

TRANSCRIPT

ALEC OPPERMAN, MORE PERFECT UNION: Is produce getting worse?

TRISTAN KWONG: This tastes like an unripe tomato

OPPERMAN: That’s what I’ve been hearing, especially about berries. But — I’ll be honest — I’m skeptical. So I wanted to put this idea to the test.

TRISTAN KWONG: I could crush like 55 of these. No problem.

ADDISON POST, MORE PERFECT UNION: This one tastes more grassy. This one tastes like…

OPPERMAN, TO POST: And is grassy a good thing or a bad thing?

OPPERMAN: I started out with a simple question: If fruits and vegetables are getting worse now, who’s to blame, and what can we do about it? It led me to the heart of a berry empire whose produce you probably encounter in most grocery stores, and a disturbing conversation with an insider who worked for them.

DAVID HARADA, WHISTLEBLOWER: [Produce companies] had gotten rid of their own internal audit systems from the food safety department.

OPPERMAN: And to all kinds of ways that agricultural giants are stacking the deck against American farmers —

HUGH KENT, BLUEBERRY FARMER: We’ve gotten away from a place where innovative, intelligent, hardworking farmers can make a living.

OPPERMAN: — while remaking the food system in ways that land on all of our plates.

The story starts with [HUGH KENT] — a blueberry farmer — but you won’t find his blueberries in any supermarket, and I wanted to know why.