Camila Alfonzo Meza is a communications and community engagement professional based in Northern Virginia. She currently serves as Engagement Manager at the Tysons Community Alliance, where she leads business and community programs, social media strategy, and partnership development. Active in Democratic politics, she serves as Co-President of Fairfax Young Democrats and has managed local campaigns in Fairfax County. A 2026 Northern Virginia 40 Under 40 honoree, Camila is bilingual in English and Spanish and is passionate about civic participation and inclusive community building.

I am ten years old in Caracas when my mom asks what I think about moving to the United States. “No thank you,” I say. All my friends and family are here. This is where I belong. I have never once considered the possibility of living somewhere else. I had already been to Disney World, so what more could America possibly offer? I don’t give it much thought. Six months later, my mom tells me we are moving. I cry for weeks.

I am eleven years old in America. The plane ride is long, but I am not worried. I have my backpack stuffed with coloring books and my Game Boy. I press my face to the oval window and watch Venezuela disappear beneath the clouds, not fully understanding that I am watching it disappear from my life. For my birthday, my grandma gave me a journal. I love the embossed flower pattern on the cover and the navy elastic band that keeps it from falling open. “So you can write about your new adventure,” reads the note inside. “I will miss you.” I kept reading those four words the whole flight. I haven’t seen my dad in weeks. He came ahead of us to find a place to live and to get things ready for our arrival, to find some version of a life we could step into. At the airport, my mom’s eyes scan the crowd nervously until she finds him. His hair is longer than I have ever seen it. He looks thinner, too, or maybe just tired. They hug for a long time. I stand beside them holding my backpack, not sure whether to cry or smile, so I do a little of both.

Everything changed after that. A new language that lived in my mouth like gravel, words I had to practice in the mirror before school, sentences I rehearsed so I wouldn’t be laughed at. A new culture with rules I couldn’t always see. New friends who were kind but couldn’t quite understand where I had come from, or what I had left behind. An unfamiliar, and at times unforgiving, landscape: strip malls and highways where I had expected something more like the movies. But also an opportunity: a path where the future held real options and room to grow, where my parents believed hard work would be met with something resembling fairness. It was not an easy choice for my parents to make. They left behind their careers, their friends, their language, the small comforts that make a place feel like yours. But it was a hopeful one, and a brave one, and I have never stopped being grateful for it.

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this journey. There is a profound sense of loss that comes with leaving your home country, a grief that doesn’t announce itself all at once but arrives in small, unexpected moments: a song on the radio, a smell that shouldn’t remind you of anything but does, a phone call with your grandmother where you realize you’ve started to forget the right words. You become a person who belongs fully to neither place: never quite American enough to avoid the question of where you’re really from, never quite Venezuelan enough for the family back home who have lived through things you only read about on your phone. Life moves on without you: the slang shifts, the inside jokes change, the relationships drift, until the place you feel homesick for no longer quite exists. It has become a version of home that lives only in you. You grow to love your new surroundings until they too become part of you, woven into who you are in ways you don’t always notice. But you remain always aware that your roots are elsewhere, that you carry a connection that cannot and should not be severed, and that this doubleness, this in-between-ness, is not a wound but a kind of inheritance.

Five years ago today, I became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I took the oath in a room with other hopeful new citizens, six feet apart, all of us masked, none of us touching. There was no fanfare. A government official read the words, and we repeated them, and then it was done. Fourteen years of paperwork, renewals, waiting rooms, and uncertainty collapsed into a single quiet moment. My family waited outside, straining to catch a glimpse of me through the thick bushes lining the USCIS building. I was handed a certificate and a small American flag to mark the occasion. I walked out into the afternoon light and immediately registered to vote. I was 25 years old, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I had arrived somewhere I was allowed to stay.

In 2016, I started speaking my mind about politics, about the state of the world, about the direction the country was headed: posting online, showing up to meetings, signing things, saying things out loud that felt dangerous to say. “Be careful,” my parents told me. “We are guests here. It’s not safe.” I couldn’t blame them for feeling that way. They had spent years making themselves small, learning not to attract attention, understanding that their right to be here was conditional in ways that mine, as a child, had never fully registered. Being an immigrant means navigating an endless maze of paperwork, scrutiny, and uncertainty, always one form, one missed deadline, one policy change away from having the ground shift beneath you. Citizenship changed that for me. It gave me a voice, and the legal right to use it. But the fear my parents carried didn’t disappear with my naturalization certificate. The way people look at us, the way they talk to us: it has changed. And now we have a president who signals, loudly and without apology, that this kind of treatment is not only acceptable, but welcome.

That is what makes what happens tomorrow so personal. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Barbara v.Trump, a case that could determine whether every child born in the United States is guaranteed citizenship — a right enshrined in the Constitution for over 150 years.

On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order targeting birthright citizenship, seeking to strip it from all babies born in the United States after February 19, 2025, to parents without permanent legal status. If the Supreme Court allows it to stand, the consequences will be immediate and devastating.

Ending birthright citizenship would deny U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents—regardless of their parents’ legal status—the right to citizenship. This would leave many in legal limbo, creating a permanent subclass denied citizenship, legal identity, and fundamental rights. Even children whose parents hold legal visas could be subject to deportation, fracturing families and tearing apart communities.

President Trump has targeted immigrants since his first day in office, and his efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship are at the center of his cruel agenda to redefine who gets to be an American. But the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born in the United States — and President Trump is not above the Constitution.

For more than 150 years, the 14th Amendment has been unambiguous: if you are born on U.S. soil, you are a citizen. That promise has protected millions of families and allowed new generations to put down roots, build lives, and secure a future for themselves and those who come after them.

I was ten years old when I didn’t want to leave my hometown. I was twenty-five when I raised my hand and swore an oath to the country that had become my home. Birthright citizenship is not a loophole — it is a promise, one that has made journeys like mine possible for millions of people across generations. Stripping it away does not make America stronger. It makes America smaller. That promise is worth defending.

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On March 7, a mailpiece bearing an alarming message hit the mailboxes of likely Democratic voters across the Commonwealth. The message was from an alleged PAC called “Democracy and Justice PAC,” which showed photos of people dressed in KKK robes marching through the street and Black people fleeing police officers, accompanied by the messages “Just like Jim Crow, they want to silence your voice” and “vote no and return your ballot immediately to ensure your voice is heard.”

The visceral reaction to these mailers was immediate and swift. Condemnation, along with social media posts refuting the claims that the redistricting amendment was harmful to communities of color, came at a mile a minute. But it all came down to the same questions: who was behind this campaign, and who thought these mailers were acceptable?

A cursory search of this PAC yielded no results on Virginia’s State Board of Elections or the Federal Election Commission’s database. This lack of campaign finance data and filings persisted even a week later

On the same day the mailer dropped, similar voters received a text message with graphics styled identically to the mail piece. This time the message read, “Our ancestors fought to represent us. Now Richmond politicians are trying to take our districts away.” This message came from a group named Justice for Democracy, which did have a paper trail.

Its treasurer was listed as Christopher Woodfin, and its address matches that of WoodfinLaw, which has been listed as “Legal Services” for various Republican candidates across Virginia, earning over $366K over the past eight years. According to their statement of organization — which is public on VA ELECT — the group was created just four days before the mailers dropped and had only one large contribution reported: a $10,000 donation from former GOP Delegate William Fralin Jr. of Roanoke, which was later found to have been mistakenly reported. That’s a significant sum to misreport.

This sparked inquiries from journalists in the Richmond press corps, including Markus Schmidt from the Virginia Mercury, who reached out to politicians in Richmond for comment and, more importantly, to the man listed as the group’s treasurer, Chris Woodfin.

“Due to attorney-client privilege concerns, I cannot speak on any of my client’s activities short of confirming that they are a client,” Woodfin wrote to Schmidt. “I will forward your information to my clients.”

The man behind it all then revealed himself when former Delegate AC Cordoza reached back out to Schmidt with a statement: “Richmond politicians have ripped apart majority minority districts in order to increase the number of white representatives from northern Virginia. Dan Helmer, Don Beyer, and others diluted the African American vote strength to increase their own power. Plain and simple, some things never change. They help themselves, my community gets left behind.”

Later that week, Cordoza held a solo press conference, where he continued delivering the same message. “This mailer is the backlash. And they’re having a hard time dealing with it because it reflects upon them, and they’re not used to being held accountable,” he said, referencing Virginia Democrats. “And one of the biggest messages I have for the people in Richmond who are upset about this mailer is, ‘grow up.’ This is what accountability looks like.”

But beyond the question of who was behind it came the question of how they were getting — and spending — so much money. A longer review of the group’s reports hit pay dirt when a new $425,000 contribution appeared on March 10, 2026, from the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) located in Des Moines with a very sparse website.

The American Future Fund was founded in 2007 by Nick Ryan, a former aide to Bush OMB Director Jim Nussle, and has reportedly taken money from the Koch Brothers, other energy industry interests, and a lobbying group for Big Pharma.

This same group sued the New York Board of Elections just last year because they did not want to disclose the donors behind a slew of anti-Mamdani ads calling the then-candidate an extremist. And that’s because 501(c)(4)s are frequently used to obscure large donations from wealthy donors, corporate interests, and sometimes nefarious organizations — essentially laundering money toward candidates. The funding won’t be linked to any specific influences until tax information is made available. So what incentive do they have to disclose those donors if the entire point is to hide them?

The group stated at the time in their lawsuit:

“AFF does not wish to comply with New York’s burdensome registration and enforcement requirements because AFF’s donors reasonably fear physical and professional reprisals, including threats, harassment, and reprisals, as well as economic retaliation, for their political speech and associations. By requiring AFF to disclose its donors simply because it proposes to speak on issues of local and national importance, AFF and its contributors’ ability to associate and speak through the act of contributing are unconstitutionally and unlawfully abridged.”

Virginia is a breeding ground for dark money campaigns like this, where the donors behind big-money spends are never exposed, thanks to the state’s lax campaign finance laws. And with money pouring in for Democrats from party leadership in DC and the National Democratic Redistricting Commission, the opposition is getting desperate. Earlier that same week, Virginians for Fair Maps moved $2.5 million from their affiliated 501(c)(4) to their PAC to skirt those same donor disclosures.

The result of this much dark money moving around elections is predictable: astroturfed campaigns that try so hard to mimic the authenticity of their targeted audience that they tip their hand. But when you scratch the surface, you find they’re propped up by nothing but large paydays and hollow values. A real, passionate candidacy resonates with voters when you can see that those advocating for it truly believe what they say. When you only have facetious talking points and paid-for faces, that passion doesn’t translate.

This is hardly the first time, and it won’t be the last — not until the Virginia General Assembly requires stricter campaign finance disclosures. And that begs a bigger question: why did it take investigative journalists to gain any real insight into a group spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an election? How can groups like these spin up in a matter of days and manipulate our elections without offering even the slightest transparency about who is funding them? And how is that dark money undermining our electoral process and progress — not just across the aisle, but in intra-party fights as well?

Digital Mercenaries against Abu

Around the same time this was unfolding in Virginia, another C4-funded campaign against a Democratic candidate was underway in Illinois. Journalist-turned-social-media-influencer Kat Abughazaleh, best known by her Twitter persona @KatAbu, was the progressive favorite in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District to replace retiring Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. About a week before the primary, the number of social media influencers posting content in opposition to her candidacy skyrocketed.

As Brandy Zadrozny from MSNow reported, social media influencers received emails from a group called Democracy Unmuted offering them $1,500 to participate in a “Voter Awareness Campaign” with the stated goal of encouraging “voters to look past viral personalities and ask real questions about who is running and why.” But the $1,500 was for a single post with a very specific message: go negative on Kat Abughazaleh.

Their now-archived website had no information on who was running the group or what its broader purpose was, and it had only been registered two weeks before the messages were sent out. It carried only the slogans: “Do the right thing,” “ICE raids in our neighborhoods,” “Strongmen plays in Venezuela,” “War drums in Iran,” and “this is what happens when power goes unchecked.”

A very odd message for an organization seemingly only involved in opposing one Democratic candidate in a crowded primary of 15.

Their call to action read: “We are all influencers. Your voice is a tool. Your feed is a megaphone. Your silence is a choice. Stand up. Speak out. Protect what’s left of democracy, and forge a better future together.

Again — this was directed against one Democratic woman who has a remarkably strong track record of opposing fascists in her hometown of Chicago. She was, in fact, under federal indictment at the time for protesting ICE’s overreach in October 2025. The people funding this campaign were not, however, using their money to oppose the fascist authoritarians in the streets they referenced — the ones Abughazaleh had actually been protesting

Conspicuously absent from the website: who was leading this organization and who was funding it.

The group sent influencers a brief asking them to “highlight more than one” of Abughazaleh’s alleged disqualifications: she is inexperienced, comes from a wealthy family, may live with her partner in a different neighborhood, and is too new to the area to serve. It continued, “Kat’s campaign appears designed for attention rather than impact.” In exchange for a single post, each influencer would receive $1,500 — a significant sum, especially for those with a modest following who may not be able to leverage in-platform monetization.

Upstart Factory, a digital marketing agency, was tasked with distributing the brief and recruiting influencers to post — adding yet another layer to the mounting coverup of who was actually behind the campaign, making the already opaque process even harder to see through.

Many of these influencers read word-for-word from the brief, sometimes not even knowing how to pronounce Abughazaleh’s name — as in a clip from Justin Kralemann, aka “thewokeginger,” whose entire shtick appears to be having red hair and wearing a hat that says “woke” on it. Kralemann notably lives in Missouri and has no connection to Illinois’s 9th Congressional District, raising more questions than answers about why he was weighing in so heavily and quoting the brief verbatim.

He removed the post shortly after receiving pushback online, and when reached for comment by Zadrozny, Kralemann stated that he “wasn’t paid for this content” and that “shortly after posting, I realized it did not meet the standards I’ve set for my platform, so I removed it. I want to sincerely apologize to Kat Abughazaleh and wish her the best of luck in the upcoming primaries.” Which raises the question: did he actually do the research he was urging his followers to do and realize he was wrong — or did the check just not clear?

It was Astroturfing 101, funded by large-scale dark money. But if you were a casual observer who didn’t know what you were looking at, you’d genuinely believe a large swath of the online population was against Kat and her candidacy. Yet one thing was never revealed: who was doing this and why.

Many speculated it was AIPAC or AIPAC-aligned groups cracking down on candidates in Illinois who had been vocal in their support for Palestine and their condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Others suspected it came from more centrist leadership within the DCCC in Washington, who didn’t want more progressive candidates winning out.

No one has claimed responsibility, and no one has been able to identify the funding sources behind the promised payments. But one thing is certain: the voters of IL-09 were kept in the dark, and Kat’s candidacy suffered for it. She came in second out of 15 candidates — by 4,141 votes.

Were the 11th-hour attacks the cause of her loss, or were the attacks launched in response to her surge in pre-election polling? It’s a difficult chicken-or-the-egg question, and the uncertainty only compounds when there’s no explanation and no accountability.

And unfortunately, this isn’t the only Democratic or centrist faction pushing dark money into the influencer world.

A Chorus of Moderates

On the heels of the 2024 presidential cycle, Democrats watched as the manosphere podcast and online dude bro brainrot meme strategy carried Trump to a second term and knew they were on the back foot. Many Democratic Party members, myself included, were clamoring for the party to exponentially expand what former Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign had attempted in 2024: reach deeper into the digital online world where so many young people first engage with politics. Harris’s team played it somewhat safely, but it was still a much-needed improvement over past campaigns that didn’t want to acknowledge “new media types” at all.

Democrats had struggled to court the online world throughout the Biden presidency. The push to ban TikTok had alienated many Gen Zers. The White House had turned away several content creators from collaborating because they had criticized the administration’s handling of climate change and the conflict in Gaza.

What people wanted wasn’t for Democrats or politicians to reinvent the wheel and produce solely online political content — they wanted engagement with established digital influencers who had young, impressionable audiences that trusted them and would listen when they introduced a candidate or an issue.

Democratic politicians started going on podcasts. The DNC and allied organizations began engaging in online discourse, using humor and memes the way their younger members did. Candidates and progressive organizations began reaching out to non-political social media influencers to collaborate on content. But it was clear that Democrats were at a serious monetary disadvantage to Republicans, who had spent decades cultivating a media landscape with a cult-like following — one that now reached directly into people’s phones.

Then, between 2024 and 2025, a wave of political social media influencers emerged seemingly out of nowhere. They talked exclusively about politics, but very few had any prior involvement in Democratic Party politics or activism. And almost uniformly, they were pushing a moderate position on most issues — sometimes clashing directly with more progressive accounts online who had criticized Biden and Harris for not doing enough. Some were even pushing lines you were more likely to hear on CNN than on Twitter or TikTok.

In August of 2025, Taylor Lorenz broke a long-suspected pay-for-play scheme involving many of these notable left-leaning influencers. Lorenz reported that dozens of Democratic political influencers and content creators had received contract proposals from a dark money group named Chorus, being offered “$8,000 per month to take part in a secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet.”

The influencers receiving these proposals included recognizable names like Aaron Parnas, Olivia Julianna, Suzanne Lambert, and Leigh McGowan (aka Politics Girl), along with many others you’d encounter scrolling your “For You” page as an engaged political Millennial or Gen Zer on Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram.

Among other stipulations, these influencers — whose combined follower count was at least 13 million — were not allowed to discuss the money they received from Chorus and were limited to the political content Chorus approved for them to create.

Unlike in the Illinois case, we do know where Chorus’s money came from: the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a notable C4 that, like others of its kind, does not disclose its donors. As Politico put it, this arrangement “illustrates the extent to which the left embraced the use of ‘dark money’ to fight for its causes in recent years.” The fund notably spent $410 million in the 2020 election to unseat President Donald Trump and win a Democratic majority in the Senate.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear. As long as there is money in politics and we have no limits on spending or on where money comes from, it will unfortunately be a game of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Disarming ourselves while Republican and Far Right groups utilize giant swaths of money to push their regressive messaging will only hurt us in the long run. But in the case of Chorus, it’s not so much the money as it is the lack of transparency and the messaging being dictated to those they contract with.

Creators in the program are not allowed to use any funds or resources they receive through the program to make content that supports or opposes any political candidate or campaign without express written authorization from Chorus in advance. Acccording to copies of the contract viewed by WIRED, influencers are also prohibited from disclosing their relationship with Chorus or the Sixteen Thirty Fund — or, functionally, that they’re being paid at all. They are further forbidden from “disclos[ing] the identity of any Funder,” and Chorus retains the ability to force creators to remove or correct content based solely on the organization’s discretion, if that content was produced at a Chorus-organized event.

Chorus is headed by another recognizable name: Brian Tyler Cohen, who co-founded the organization with Stuart Perelmuter, the former communications director for Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky. Cohen and Perelmuter saw an opportunity to leverage the online following amassed during and before the 2024 cycle to capitalize on an impressionable base still reeling from that loss.

Chorus initially used images of prominent online personalities to begin fundraising, without those creators having signed any contract. Faces like Kat Abughazaleh’s were used in pitch decks and alongside donation links to raise funds for this venture.

Many of these progressive influencers pushed back hard almost immediately. One accused Chorus of gatekeeping political leadership and said plainly, “What we need is for people to invest in independent media, and that doesn’t necessarily mean investing in a consulting group that is going to become a middleman for independent media.”

While some appreciated the effort behind what Chorus was attempting to do, the coordination around centrist messaging — messaging not aligned with the audience they were supposedly trying to reach, and ultimately dictated by the money backing it — wasn’t what political activists were looking for and wasn’t landing well with younger viewers.

Within a day of the article’s publication, the coordinated pushback to Lorenz’s reporting was like clockwork. Brian Tyler Cohen posted a long video on X pushing back against her reporting and even accusing her of accepting money from the same fund backing Chorus. Olivia Julianna posted a similarly long video defending the organization, describing it as more of a “seed fund” for content creators and pointing to two creators within Chorus who were, she said, “critical of the Democratic Party.” Many other accounts referenced by Lorenz in the story have attacked and continue to attack her to this day.

And as the saying goes, a hit dog will holler.

You can see that same coordination among these accounts in how they discuss certain candidates and issues. More than a few will take on an issue that’s become increasingly popular among younger people online and push back against it. Many have been critical of the online political left for standing up against Israel, or have defended the Biden administration during moments when even its most ardent supporters admitted it had fallen short — including now-deleted tweets where some influencers vowed to march on the DNC if Biden were removed as the candidate.

As I wrote with Garrett Readling back in July of 2025 — a month before the story about Chorus broke — it is incredibly frustrating to watch national Democrats and aligned groups pour money into influencer campaigns that ring hollow. It’s become routine: a young person goes viral once, and Democratic organizations fall over themselves to elevate them as a spokesperson.

All it does is make older centrist Democrats and party leaders feel validated. That’s the deeper problem here: party insiders seem far more invested in finding young people who will run cover for their shortcomings than in doing the harder work of actually reaching voters or developing the next generation of leaders.

And when a single secret funder controls the terms of your platform, genuine dissent becomes structurally impossible. You can’t allow younger voices to authentically push back when the money behind you depends on them not doing exactly that. What you get instead is a choreographed consensus — a manufactured buy-in for moderate positions that often run counter to the interests of the very people these influencers are supposed to be speaking to and for.

That’s what makes the entire project feel so hollow. That’s what makes the dream of engineering “a liberal Joe Rogan” not just naïve, but insulting — to the audience, and especially to the young people doing the real, unglamorous work that actually keeps this party breathing. Dark money doesn’t just fund the message; it fortifies it against challenge, making it nearly impossible for anyone without a secret backer to break through.

Garrett and I said it plainly last year: the people this party most needs to hear from are not the ones getting flown to conferences or handed monthly checks to stay on message. They’re the ones organizing in their communities after a full day of work, knocking doors in the rain, showing up for their neighbors without a camera crew. They’re having real conversations with real people — and those conversations are actually landing. But without millions in dark money behind them, every step forward feels like it costs twice as much.

Out of the Dark into the Light

Dark money doesn’t just influence elections — it corrupts the premise of them. It gives cover to actors on all sides of an issue, allowing millions of dollars to flow freely while the people pulling the strings remain completely invisible. That lack of transparency doesn’t just raise questions. It answers one very clearly: the system is working exactly as these donors intend it to.

Who are we letting influence our elections? Who is quietly shaping our opinions while we scroll? Who is bankrolling the effort to kneecap more progressive policies — and what do they get in return? These aren’t rhetorical questions. They’re the ones our campaign finance laws should be forcing into the open, and they aren’t.

The more money talks in our politics, the less everyone else does. Working-class people and those without three commas in their net worth get slowly pushed beneath the whims of billionaires who treat the democratic process like a personal portfolio — something to be managed, optimized, and protected from disruption.

Here in Virginia, we’ve watched this play out in real time. There are virtually no limits on what corporations and dark money groups can pour into a race, which means a single check from the right donor can erase everything every other candidate has built. Grassroots support, community organizing, earned trust — all of it can be rendered irrelevant overnight. That’s not democracy. That’s an auction.

So how do we call this a functioning democracy when money is the loudest voice in the room — often the only one anyone in power is actually listening to?

This is the fight in front of us if we don’t want the most prominent faces at future inaugurations to be the tech-billionaire oligarchs who’ve already started acting like they won something. Real, structural campaign finance reform — in Virginia and nationally — isn’t a wish list item. It’s a necessity. That means slashing donation limits. It means rolling back Citizens United, which handed corporations the political power of entire electorates and called it free speech. It means stripping the machinery that allows the ultra-wealthy to buy influence wholesale while regular people are capped at what they can scrape together.

And it means closing the 501(c)(4) loophole for good. No more shadow organizations laundering political money behind the shield of tax-exempt status. No more shell games where the real funders are three entities removed from the ad you just saw on your phone. Full disclosure, across the board — no matter which side of the aisle benefits from the darkness.

Because sunlight isn’t just good policy. At this point, it’s a matter of survival for what’s left of this democracy.

TL;DR

Three stories, one through line: dark money is rotting our democratic process from the inside out, and it’s happening on both sides of the aisle.

In Virginia, a Republican-linked PAC called Justice for Democracy spun up in four days, sent racially charged mailers to Democratic voters, and was ultimately bankrolled by the American Future Fund — a Koch-linked 501(c)(4) out of Des Moines that has a long history of spending big while hiding who’s writing the checks. In Illinois, an anonymous group called Democracy Unmuted paid social media influencers $1,500 a post to go negative on progressive congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh days before her primary — and to this day, nobody has claimed responsibility or disclosed where that money came from. And inside the Democratic Party itself, a group called Chorus was secretly paying a network of prominent online influencers $8,000 a month to push moderate messaging to young audiences, funded by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, while contractually forbidding those influencers from telling anyone about the arrangement.

The through line in all three cases is the same: secret money, manufactured messaging, and zero accountability to the voters these campaigns were targeting.

This is what our politics looks like when campaign finance laws have more holes than teeth. In Virginia especially, a single donation can swing an entire race — rendering grassroots organizing, community trust, and genuine voter support effectively meaningless against one well-placed check. Nationally, Citizens United handed corporations and the ultra-wealthy a bullhorn that no individual voter can match.

Until we demand real transparency — mandatory donor disclosure, tighter limits on 501(c)(4) political activity, and a serious rollback of Citizens United — the people shaping our elections will keep doing it from the shadows. And the people those elections are supposed to represent will keep being the last ones to know.

Everyone in politics is asking the same question right now: why are Democrats losing young men? More specifically, why are so many young men gravitating toward what people call the “manosphere”—the online ecosystem of influencers, podcasts, and personalities built around hyper-masculine identity, grievance politics, and reactionary culture.

A lot of people try to explain this through economics. They say young men feel left behind financially, that wages are stagnant, that housing is unaffordable, and that stable careers are harder to find. All of that is true. But I think the deeper issue is something more psychological. It is about the perceived opportunity to be successful in this country: successful financially, successful as someone who can take care of a family, and successful in terms of status and identity—strong instead of weak, respected instead of emasculated.

At its core, this whole dynamic is about belonging to the pack. The manosphere has become very good at reinforcing that pack mentality, tapping directly into one of the most primal fears young men have: the fear that if you fall behind, you will be left behind. Thrown out in the cold. Left out of the tribe.

For years Democrats have talked about leveling the playing field and expanding rights. Those are good goals and necessary ones. But while we were doing that, the Right—and an entire ecosystem of influencers—were telling young men a very different story. They told them something simple: that they are losing something before they ever even had the chance to have it. When you frame the world that way, it feels deeply unfair. The story these men hear over and over again is that society is designed to make sure they never succeed, and worse, that they will be left behind.

The Theology of Dominance

One of the ways these insecurities get reinforced is through religion. Over the past several decades, a particular strain of Christianity has become very influential in American politics, especially through the rise of the Evangelical Right, Christian Nationalism, and the Prosperity Gospel. Figures like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson helped popularize a worldview where masculinity is not simply natural but divinely ordained dominance.

Men are told they are supposed to lead, supposed to dominate, supposed to control. If that hierarchy is challenged, it is framed not merely as social change but as an attack on God’s design. And once you frame it that way, it becomes extremely difficult to argue against. After all, how do you argue with God?

This is not the same set of Christian values emphasized in many other traditions. In Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal communities, the emphasis is often placed on service, humility, and dignity for all people. But the version amplified in political media often sounds very different: God blessed me by letting me be born in the United States, and I have the freedom to do whatever I can to make it. Success becomes proof of righteousness. Power becomes proof of virtue. Hierarchy becomes holy.

The Fear of Replacement

Most of these men do not hate women. Many of them want the same things previous generations of men wanted: relationships, families, stability, and the sense that hard work will lead somewhere. But they are also being told that as women gain opportunities and advance professionally, their own chances at achieving those same dreams are shrinking. They fear they will be forced to step aside. They fear they will be replaced.

For decades, young men were raised with a fairly clear expectation of adulthood: work hard, earn a decent wage, support a family, and society will recognize your role as a provider. But the economic system that supported that model has been eroding for years. Wages have stagnated, housing costs have exploded, and stable careers are harder to find. The path to adulthood now feels far less certain than it did for their parents.

Into that uncertainty, right-wing media offers a very convenient explanation. You are not struggling because the system changed. You are struggling because someone else took your place.

Take the panic around the term DEI. Why does it scare so many men? Because they are told that DEI is not about expanding opportunity but about demoting them. The argument they hear constantly is simple: those opportunities have to come from somewhere, so they must be taken from you. In that narrative, every promotion given to a woman becomes proof that men are being pushed out, every scholarship aimed at historically excluded communities becomes evidence that the system is rigged, and every diversity initiative becomes another symbol of their supposed decline.

Emotionally, that translates into something very tangible: less money, less opportunity, less respect, and less likelihood of building a stable life. Perhaps most powerful of all is the fear of looking like a failure. For generations, masculinity has been tied to the ability to provide. When that role feels threatened, the fear becomes existential. If they cannot fulfill the version of manhood they were raised to expect, then who exactly are they supposed to be?

The Right does not try to resolve that anxiety. It weaponizes it. Young men are told something simple: you did not fall behind, you were pushed, and someone else took what should have been yours.

The Scarcity Mindset

The same psychological dynamic appears in immigration debates. If you asked most of these young men for a detailed policy solution to immigration, they probably would not have one. They are not thinking about visa systems, asylum law, or labor markets. What they are reacting to is something much older: the belief that someone unknown is coming to take what belongs to them.

Whenever people believe resources are limited, the instinct to guard what you have becomes powerful. Immigration is often framed through that lens. The emotional reaction is not really about the jobs immigrants take, but about what those jobs represent.

Their own families may have taken those same jobs generations ago, but history rarely feels relevant in moments of insecurity. What matters is perception. And the emotional logic becomes very simple: so what? It is mine now. If someone else gets it, that means I lost.

That kind of thinking turns opportunity into a zero-sum game. If someone else rises, it must mean you are falling. The Right has spent years reinforcing that narrative. Immigration becomes not a complex policy issue but a direct threat to personal stability and identity.

Masculinity and the Culture War

The same insecurity helps explain the intensity of today’s culture wars. Why do some men react so strongly to being called “gay” or “weak”? Why does the existence of trans people provoke such visceral reactions from people who insist it has nothing to do with them?

For many of these men, the answer comes down to hierarchy. They were raised with a model of masculinity that works like a ranking system. At the top sits the ideal man: strong, successful, emotionally unshakeable, and clearly in control. Everything else sits somewhere below that standard.

When cultural norms shift and those boundaries blur, it can feel like the structure itself is under attack. Being called weak is not simply an insult; it is an accusation that someone has fallen down the social ladder. Once someone believes their identity is under threat, the conversation stops being about policy or social norms and becomes about survival.

The Influencer Pipeline

This is where the internet becomes incredibly powerful. When young boys say something ignorant or make a bad joke—as kids often do—the reaction they receive can shape how they interpret the culture around them. Sometimes that reaction is constructive. But online, it is often immediate condemnation.

For a teenager trying to figure out where he fits in the world, that can feel less like correction and more like rejection. That moment of friction is exactly where the influencer pipeline begins. Right-wing content creators are extremely good at identifying that feeling and exploiting it. They step in and say: they hate you, but we don’t.

Suddenly someone who felt embarrassed or rejected finds an entire online culture celebrating the exact behavior he was criticized for. What was once criticism becomes validation. What was once embarrassment becomes identity.

Over time, podcasts, livestreams, and social media personalities build an ecosystem where exaggerated masculinity becomes entertainment. At first it is framed as comedy—just jokes, just guys being guys. But gradually humor turns into grievance, grievance turns into ideology, and the algorithm rewards whoever pushes the boundary further.

Eventually defensiveness hardens into identity.

The Political Validation

Eventually those cultural frustrations move into politics. That is where someone like Donald Trump enters the picture. For many young men already immersed in this ecosystem, Trump does not just look like a political candidate. He looks like validation.

He says the same things they have been hearing for years: that elites are mocking them, immigrants are taking their jobs, the system is rigged, and masculinity is under attack. The message resonates not because it is sophisticated but because it feels familiar.

Trump reinforces the deeper worldview at the center of the movement: that life is a competition between winners and losers. Strength is everything. Weakness deserves ridicule. Success is not something shared; it is something conquered.

Supporting him becomes less about policy and more about recognition. He speaks their language. He validates their frustration. He gives their insecurity a political home.

Where We Went Wrong

So where did we go wrong? The answer is complicated. Many of the social changes that expanded opportunity were necessary and long overdue. But somewhere along the line, our cultural conversation about masculinity shifted in a way that many young men interpreted as rejection rather than reform.

Instead of saying masculinity should evolve, the conversation sometimes sounded like masculinity itself was the problem. The difference between toxic masculinity and masculinity itself became blurred. What many young men heard was not “be better,” but “be less”—less aggressive, less competitive, less masculine.

When identity feels attacked, people rarely respond by embracing criticism. They search for spaces where that identity is validated. The Right stepped into that vacuum.

A Better Way Forward

Recognizing this dynamic does not mean abandoning progress. Equality is not the problem. Justice is not the problem. But messaging matters.

If the goal is to build a healthier society, we need to offer young men a vision of masculinity that includes dignity and purpose. Positive masculinity does not mean returning to rigid gender hierarchies. It means redefining strength in ways that include responsibility, empathy, and respect.

Young men should be told it is okay to work hard, to be ambitious, and to take pride in providing for the people they love. But success does not diminish when others succeed alongside them. Protecting the women you love does not mean controlling them. It means defending their right to make their own choices.

The deeper message young men need to hear is surprisingly simple: it is okay to be a man. No one is trying to erase masculinity. Strength, empathy, responsibility, and respect are not contradictions. They are the foundations of a healthy society.

Because when success is no longer treated as a zero-sum game—when people believe opportunity can expand rather than simply shift—the fear that drives so much resentment begins to lose its power.

And when that fear fades, the politics built on it begin to lose their grip as well.

TL;DR

Young men didn’t suddenly become reactionary. They were recruited. The manosphere, conservative media, and right-wing politics built a pipeline that takes insecurity about status, identity, and success and turns it into resentment. Democrats expanded rights and opportunity—but often failed to explain how young men still fit into that future. Until we offer a version of masculinity that includes strength, dignity, and purpose without domination, that pipeline will keep filling.

At the very end of February, the United States entered into—well, let’s just call a spade a spade—a war with Iran alongside Israel. The Trump Administration launched an operation they called “Epic Fury,” which many rightfully pointed out sounded like it was named by someone who had spent a little too much time on Fortnite.

And as we heard from Fox substitute anchor turned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Trump hater turned Trump fangirl Secretary Marco Rubio, the United States had successfully pulled off this war/not a war/end to a 47-year-long war/military operation without a hitch—despite having U.S. military members killed and one of our jets being shot down by friendly fire from Kuwait.

But as this was going on, there was another trend popping up time and time again from the White House down the chain of command, all the way to the online MAGA influencers.

It started on March 3 when a story broke that a unit commander told non-commissioned officers

that the Iran war was part of God’s plan to usher in the End Times and bring about Jesus Christ’s second coming, according to a complaint filed with a religious freedom watchdog.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has fielded more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the U.S. military between the war’s start on Saturday morning and March 2, reported journalist Jonathan Larson on his Substack page, and the group told him the complaints came from more than 40 different units stationed in at least 30 military installations.

The complaint stated:

“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.’ He had a big grin on his face when he said all of this, which made his message seem even more crazy.”

These are hardly the only instances of this.

Secretary Pete Hegseth has become the de facto preacher of the 2nd Trump Cabinet, starting off events at the White House with prayers to “King Jesus.”

He also stated at a press conference following the launch of Operation Epic Fury–where he also danced around not committing to keeping boots off the ground–that “when I pray every day for [our troops] and for this mission–I pray simply for the biblical wisdom to see what is right and the courage to do it.”

And even our elected leaders on Capitol Hill joined in on this rhetoric, with Speaker Mike Johnson—who has long held apocalyptic views and committed acts in that same vein, like helping to transport five red heifers from Texas to Tel Aviv—saying that Iranians have “a misguided religion.”

Senator Lindsey Graham didn’t even try to bury the lede, saying out and out to the press that “this is a religious war and we will determine the course of the Middle East for a thousand years.”

And then you had your religious leaders and influencers from around the MAGA universe chiming in and capitalizing on the moment.

Texan televangelist and chairman of Christians United for Israel—the largest Zionist organization in America—Pastor John Hagee led his congregation in thanking God “for the fabulous military victory over the enemies of Israel “ and “for our president, Donald Trump, whose wise courage has crushed the enemies of Zion.”

Lance Wallnau, another prominent Texas televangelist associated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and the Seven Mountain Mandate, celebrated the attack on Iran, declaring Trump to be “a prophetic instrument of God” who “has an assignment to protect Israel” and now “the return of Jesus is back on the menu.”

So if you haven’t been following this as closely as some of us have, you probably have one reaction right now, which is:

Yes, it’s hard not to feel like, despite everything these people are saying about religious fanaticism in the Middle East—and to quote Marco Rubio again, who said “Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics”—that we are in fact the ones in The Bad Place with the religious zealots running our country.

But you might be asking yourself a few questions, and with good reason:

Why is a religion based on peace so hell-bent on war and destruction?
Why are Christians so invested in the State of Israel and its defense?
And why are we all of a sudden centering Christianity in our military operations?

Well, if you will join me, let’s go once again down the rabbit hole of Evangelical Christian Nationalism and what it’s doing to our politics.

Fire and Brimstone

Modern-era Christianity, across most sects, has largely been seen as a peaceful religion. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world and is the provider of peace and goodwill to all who inhabit the Earth.

However, American Evangelicals often view Jesus much differently than that.

Similar to their choice between charity and the Prosperity Gospel, they do not view Jesus primarily as the peaceful lamb. They see Jesus as the Lion—the one who roared into the Temple, flipping over tables and ejecting the money changers.

As Kristin Kobes Du Mez details in her book Jesus and John Wayne, Evangelicals like Jerry Falwell “couldn’t stomach ‘effeminate’ depictions of Christ as a delicate man with ‘long hair and flowing robes.’ Jesus ‘was a man with muscles. . . . Christ was a he-man!’”

It’s why, during Iran-Contra, Falwell promised Reagan he would help get his message out “in layman’s language,” and he did so by taking out full-page ads in major newspapers deriding “freezeniks,” “ultralibs,” and “unilateral disarmers” who were undermining Reagan’s efforts to rebuild the nation’s military strength.

“We cannot afford to be number two in defense!” he warned.

Dr. Edwin Louis Cole, the father of the so-called Christian Men’s Movement, had no use for “sissified” portraits of Jesus that failed to reveal his true character.

“Christlikeness and manhood are synonymous,” he insisted, and to be Christlike—to be a man—required “a certain ruthlessness.”

These evangelicals want Christ as King and Warrior because they genuinely believe that Armageddon will be a physical battle in the Holy Land, and they want every ounce of force and strength imaginable to ensure victory over the forces of evil.

Those militant depictions of faith, mixed with apocalyptic theology, also led to movements preparing for this Great Battle.

The Quiverfull movement, which takes its name from Psalm 127:4-5, encourages members to have as many children as possible, because “culture wars and holy wars need as many soldiers as possible.”

Virginian evangelist Samuel Davies once said in 1758, speaking to Christians before the French and Indian War, that “even the God of peace proclaims by his providence to arms, and the art of war becomes part of our religion.”

Now you have modern Christian Nationalists like William Wolfe during the Biden Administration echoing Davies and saying “we are getting close” to a point where Christians will have to “heed the call to arms.”

“To be ruled by cowards in a time of war is a curse, because God hates cowards,” Wolfe added at a Jesus and Politics conference.

These depictions of Christ as warrior, militant faith, and the End Times-as-war mindset inextricably link Evangelicals’ male-dominated culture war to the real physical wars being waged by conservative administrations in the Middle East.

Just like those families building their ranks through large numbers of children, they believe the U.S. military should be as strong and as large as possible.

They do not believe that the meek shall inherit the Earth.

They believe the strong will take it by force at the end of the world.

The United States must maintain a large and powerful military to join Christ at the Mount of Olives at Armageddon.

And where is this battle supposed to take place?

Where is the Mount of Olives located?

In the modern-day Levant—where Israel is located.

And who was prophesied to be the enemy in this battle?

The nation of Elam, east of Babylon, was historically associated with the Persian Empire—modern-day Iran.

The Evangelical Obsession with Israel and the Middle East

Most people understand how important Israel is to the Jewish faith, as it is a Jewish state.

What many people are surprised to learn is that Israel’s existence is arguably even more important to American Evangelicals.

After all, the largest zionist organization in the US is Christians United for Israel.

A large part of American Evangelical Christianity is built upon apocalypticism and Zionism in order to fulfill that apocalyptic theology.

The Christian Far Right has a fanatical obsession with ensuring that the United States maintains a close alliance with Israel and guaranteeing Israel’s continued existence—because securing an ally in that region will mean direct access to the site of Armageddon once the end times begin.

And some already believe they have begun.

Why do these Christians consider themselves Zionists?

One word: dispensationalism.

Dispensationalism iis an evangelical theological system that interprets the Bible through a literal historical lens, dividing human history into distinct “dispensations,” or eras of God’s administration. It emphasizes a strict distinction between Israel and the Church, premillennialism, and a pre-tribulation rapture.

Within this framework, modern Israel is viewed through a prophetic lens.

The re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levant is seen as a necessary step toward the end times.

It is sometimes described as “Armageddon Theology”—a vision of the future where Jews and non-Christians are destroyed while believers ascend to heaven.

It’s why so many of these far-right Christians are comfortable sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel.

It’s why Donald Trump invested so much political capital in Israel, sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner as his emissary and even moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during his first term.

It’s why many far-right Christians openly call for wiping Palestine off the map—figuratively or literally—because they believe all of that land must ultimately fall under the control of a Western ally.

It’s why former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee is now the ambassador to Israel.

Many people scratched their heads at that decision.

But it makes complete sense when viewed through the lens of dispensationalism.

Their goal is not to support a Jewish state.

It’s not even truly to support Israel.

It’s an ends-justify-the-means arrangement.

Jesus Is Coming, Look Busy

You may have noticed a number of Evangelical influencers posting TikToks of themselves dancing with captions like:

“We’re at war with Iran! Me: Knowing Jesus is coming back.”

Former OnlyFans star turned conservative influencer Nala Ray posted one such video.

And maybe your reaction was simply: well that was weird.

Even putting aside the “let them eat cake” attitude toward the loss of human life in war.

But again, with dispensationalism, Evangelicals’ literal interpretation of the Bible leads them to believe the end of days and the return of Jesus Christ will come through a literal war in that region against a Middle Eastern power.

They believed it during Iran-Contra.

During Operation Desert Storm.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom.

During the Global War on Terror.

And now during Operation Epic Fury.

Some believe this so deeply that they think they can speed up the end times by creating conflict in the region.

They do this in several ways:

Many American Christians are actively trying to fund the rebuilding of the Third Temple in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount—an effort tied to eschatological expectations primarily within Orthodox Judaism.

Speaker Mike Johnson helped facilitate the delivery of red heifers to Israel while the country was carrying out a genocide in Gaza, because it is believed that a red heifer must be sacrificed during a war to initiate the end of days.

But the primary way they influence events is through political power.

Through positions inside presidential administrations.

Through alliances with lobbying groups and super PACs like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which support congressional candidates willing to sign blank checks for military aid to Israel and back U.S. intervention in the region.

Because war in the Middle East means Jesus might be returning soon.

And the more conflict there is, the more they believe prophecy is unfolding.

It becomes a kind of theological “hurry up and wait.”

Which is exactly why having a deeply ideological Christian at the head of the U.S. military—like Pete Hegseth—is such a liability.

We don’t know how far some of these actors are willing to go to bring this worldview to fruition.

And the more they use Christian-coded language and Bible verses on Department of Defense social media accounts—and the more the Secretary of Defense publicly leads prayer services tied to military action—the more it appears that they see the U.S. military as a vehicle to fulfill their theological prophecy.

It does not appear they are ending forever wars in the Middle East anytime soon.

And when those people also have influence over the man holding the nuclear codes, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Know Your Enemy

The more we understand how these people operate, the better we can work against their goals—no matter how fanatical those goals may be.

These self-described Christian Nationalists are not operating on the fringes of American politics anymore. They are continuing to make their way into the halls of Congress, state legislatures, federal agencies, and even the White House. Evangelical preachers now regularly pray over President Trump in the Oval Office, and their theological worldview increasingly bleeds into the language and policy priorities of the administration itself.

And the most important thing to understand about these movements is that they are not operating randomly.

They have a framework. They have institutions. They have funding.

And they have a worldview that tells them they are not simply participating in politics—they are participating in a cosmic struggle between good and evil.

These far-right Christian Nationalists are constantly searching for signs of the End Times, and they will frequently shoehorn almost any major cultural or political development into that framework.

When Social Security numbers were first proposed, evangelical preachers condemned them as “the mark of the beast.”

Many did the same thing with barcodes in grocery stores during the 1970s and 80s.

More recently, some claimed COVID-19 vaccine cards were the mark of the beast.

Others insisted the vaccine itself was the mark.

The “mark,” of course, comes from the Book of Revelation, where it is described as a sign of the impending apocalypse and the rise of the Antichrist.

Their literal interpretation of scripture leads them to believe that the Book of Revelation is not metaphor or allegory, but rather history written in advance.

And if Revelation is history told ahead of time, then every war, every technological development, every political shift must be interpreted through that lens.

Every generation of believers tends to assume they are living in the final chapter of human history. But within modern American Evangelicalism, that belief has been weaponized and turned into a political organizing tool.

Because if you genuinely believe that you are living in the final days before Armageddon, then normal political restraints stop mattering.

Compromise becomes weakness. Pluralism becomes betrayal. Democracy itself becomes optional.

After all, if you believe you are fighting the literal forces of evil before the end of the world, why would you feel obligated to follow the same rules as everyone else?

That is how a religious movement becomes a political one. And eventually, how it becomes a governing ideology.

The perversion of religious doctrine to fit political ambition has created a feedback loop that pulls more and more people into this worldview. Evangelical Christianity places enormous emphasis on conversion—bringing as many people as possible into the fold during one’s lifetime.

But for many believers shaped by apocalyptic theology, that mission carries an even deeper urgency.

A large portion of Evangelical Christians believe that at the end of the world there will be a literal battle between the armies of good and evil. Jesus will lead the army of Good, composed of every person who accepted Him during their lifetimes. Satan will lead the army of Evil, made up of everyone else.

That belief does not simply shape personal faith. It shapes how adherents view politics, diplomacy, war, and international alliances.

Every election becomes a battlefield. Every foreign policy decision becomes a step toward prophecy. Every conflict in the Middle East becomes a potential sign that the clock is running out.

And if that is how you interpret the world, then escalating conflict is not necessarily something to avoid. It might actually be something to encourage. Which is exactly why this ideology becomes so dangerous when it begins to influence the highest levels of government.

Because if the people making decisions about war, nuclear weapons, and global diplomacy genuinely believe they are helping to bring about the end of the world as part of God’s plan, then the consequences of those decisions become impossible to predict.

At that point, policy is no longer being guided by strategy, diplomacy, or even basic self-preservation.

It is being guided by prophecy.

And prophecy, unlike policy, does not require evidence.

It only requires belief.

The End (of Times) Justifies the Means

The danger of Christian Nationalism is not simply that it blurs the line between church and state.

It is that it replaces politics with theology.

When people who hold these beliefs gain power, war stops being a tragedy to avoid and starts becoming a sign that history is unfolding the way it is supposed to.

Conflict becomes validation. Escalation becomes faith. And peace becomes an inconvenience that delays the inevitable.

That is why the rhetoric surrounding Iran, Israel, and the Middle East coming out of the current administration should alarm anyone who believes in the basic principles of secular government.

Because when political leaders begin talking about foreign policy in the language of prophecy, they are no longer just governing a country.

They are trying to fulfill a story. And the problem with trying to fulfill an apocalyptic story is that it has only one ending.

The Book of Revelation does not end with diplomacy.

It ends with war.

Which means the more influence these movements gain over American politics, the more the rest of us may find ourselves dragged into a conflict that was never about national security, democracy, or even geopolitics.

It was about proving that the end of the world had finally arrived.

And that is not a foreign policy.

That is a death wish masquerading as faith.

TL;DR

Many American Evangelicals and Christian Nationalists do not just view the Middle East through the lens of geopolitics — they view it through the lens of prophecy.

Rooted in a theology called dispensationalism, they believe that wars involving Israel and Iran are signs that the biblical End Times are approaching and that Jesus Christ will soon return.

This belief helps explain why many on the Christian Right aggressively support Israeli expansion, escalating conflict in the region, and even frame modern wars as part of God’s plan.

When those beliefs begin influencing U.S. foreign policy and military leadership, the risk is no longer just bad strategy — it’s the possibility that global conflict is being justified as a step toward Armageddon.

On January 6th of this year, I was scrolling through social media expecting the usual statements commemorating the 2021 insurrection—the recycled discourse about violent protest versus peaceful demonstration, the performative condemnations, the same old scripts. But almost immediately, an announcement cut through the noise: former Republican operative George Conway was announcing his candidacy for New York’s 12th Congressional District… as a Democrat.

For the uninitiated, George Conway made his name in the 1990s as a Republican political operative. He helped funnel salacious material from Linda Tripp and other accusers to Ann Coulter and Matt Drudge to publicly smear President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. He represented Paula Jones in her lawsuit against Clinton, which led to Clinton’s deposition—where Clinton denied the affair with Monica Lewinsky—setting off the chain of events that culminated in impeachment.

Whatever one thinks about Clinton’s guilt or innocence, one thing is undeniable: Conway was a Republican operative through and through. He married Kellyanne Conway, a major Republican pollster and strategist. They lived together in Trump Tower. Kellyanne went on to become Donald Trump’s campaign adviser and White House press secretary while they were still married. George himself was even floated as a potential Solicitor General in a Trump administration. These were not passive participants. These were people who believed in Donald Trump—or at least in the machinery that elevated him—and helped usher him into power.

Eventually, in 2018, Conway publicly broke with Trump and helped found the Lincoln Project—more on that later. And yes, anti-Trump advocacy from figures like Conway was helpful in defeating Trump and electing Joe Biden two years later. But that still leaves an uncomfortable, unanswered question: had Donald Trump never been elected, would George Conway—and others like him—still be Republicans today?

It’s a sliding-doors question, but it matters. If your sole justification for joining the Democratic Party—or running as a Democrat after a career as a GOP operative—is opposition to Trump, what happens when Trump is no longer on the ballot? Do you actually believe in the principles of the party you now want to represent, or do you quietly drift back to the GOP once the emergency has passed?

And don’t get me wrong: building a coalition broad enough to win elections means welcoming former conservatives and Republicans who are willing to break ranks. That’s good politics. But that does not mean those individuals should be vaulted to the front of the line—elevated as party leaders or standard-bearers—simply because they exercised basic moral clarity at a late stage.

This is a tension Democrats have struggled with throughout the Trump era. And it raises a deeper question: what message does it send to the party’s most loyal members when the people we elevate fastest are the same people we were fighting just a few years ago?

Not Until It Happens To You

What makes this dynamic especially frustrating is that many of these former Republicans were either complacent with their party’s behavior for years—or actively benefited from it. It wasn’t until something happened to them, or to people they directly identified with, that the line was finally crossed.

Take former Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Her career—and her political standing—were built on the legacy of her father, Dick Cheney, and on her enthusiastic embrace of the GOP’s most regressive policies. At one point, she even publicly attacked her own sister for being gay to advance her career in Republican politics.

And yet it took a full-blown insurrection and an attack on the Capitol for her to finally say “enough.” Everything prior to January 6, 2021, was apparently acceptable. She often voted with Trump, defended his agenda, and only broke when the violence became undeniable and politically untenable.

So what did Democrats do in response? We bent over backwards to place her front and center—rolling her out as a surrogate for Democratic candidates in swing states, even alongside our own nominee in 2024.

That same pattern repeated itself at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Former Republican members of Congress and ex-Trump staffers were given more speaking time than grassroots Democratic activists who had spent years—sometimes decades—doing the unglamorous work of organizing, mobilizing, and holding the party together. Some of these speakers had remained inside Trump’s White House until January 6th itself, yet they were celebrated for what many Democrats would consider basic common sense.

We saw a similar phenomenon among white women voters. In 2016, white women voted for Trump 47–45. In 2020, that margin widened to 55–44. It wasn’t until Roe v. Wade was overturned that many began to meaningfully break with the GOP. While self-interest is a powerful political motivator, the timeline matters. Many of these voters dismissed warnings for years—insisting critics were overreacting when they said a Trump-packed Supreme Court would overturn Roe—until it actually happened.

One individual seized that moment in 2022 and built a platform around it. Suzanne Lambert, a former Republican and aspiring comedian, leveraged her political “conversion” into a large online following and a new role as a Democratic influencer. Just a few years earlier, she was writing about how feminism and conservatism aligned and criticizing Jezebel. Suddenly, she was being welcomed into Democratic congressional offices and invited to create content at Democratic campaign events.

There are thousands of young Democrats who have spent years doing movement work who will never receive that level of access or amplification—not because they lack talent or commitment, but because they don’t come with the novelty of a dramatic political face‑turn. That reality is demoralizing for people who didn’t need a personal reckoning to recognize injustice, who didn’t wait until Roe fell to understand that bodily autonomy outweighed tax policy.

Lambert has responded dismissively to critics, telling them she’s “not running for Best Liberal” and that people should “leave their hall monitor behavior at the door.”

Look, I appreciate the no-f**ks-given attitude and not letting your opps get you down. As a wise philosopher once said, “Let your haters be your waiters as you sit down at the table of success.”

But the defensive reaction from many on the Left isn’t hard to understand. From their perspective, someone just showed up, immediately started telling them what to do, and was handed access they’ve spent years working toward.

Call it jealousy. Call it envy. But if we consistently reward those who once opposed the party while overlooking those who have always been here, what lesson are we teaching?

The Shoehorn

Too often, former Republicans mistake gratitude for admiration. They confuse appreciation for their defection with an endorsement of their leadership. And too often, Democrats reinforce that mistake.

We see it in George Conway’s congressional run. We see it in the DNC’s obsession with spotlighting former Republicans at marquee events. The underlying assumption is that because these individuals “know the other side,” they must be uniquely qualified to lead or speak for Democrats.

This logic powered the Lincoln Project’s entire grift: the idea that a vast, untapped bloc of moderate Republicans was just waiting to abandon Trump, and that only former GOP operatives could unlock them. Democratic donors bought in. The results never materialized. (Also shout Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt who blocked me on Twitter for calling out that making Liz Cheney Speaker in 2022 would be incredibly stupid.)

Many Lincoln Project founders have since reinvented themselves as pundits, freely offering advice about what Democrats should and shouldn’t do—often while collecting donations from Democrats desperate to believe that conservative‑lite messaging was the path to victory. That worldview has left Democrats endlessly chasing a mythical centrist Republican who, after three Trump elections across more than a decade, simply does not exist.

And Conway isn’t alone. Former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan is now running for governor as a Democrat after breaking with Trump and supporting Kamala Harris in 2024—a move that led to his expulsion from the GOP. But in both cases, the core pitch is the same: opposition to Trump. Beyond a few buzzwords about affordability or healthcare, there’s little evidence of a substantive ideological shift.

One thing that has happened here in Virginia specifically is the Trump-era faceturns taken by some former Republican members of Congress and the General Assembly, and how they have become surrogates for our Democratic candidates to court the mythic “Republican swing voter.”. Some notable members of this class of Never Trumper Republicans are former Delegate David Ramadan, former Congressman Denver Riggleman, and former Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, all of whom stumped for Democrats on the campaign trail in 2024 and 2025.

However, they seem to forget how they created a name for themselves, which was on stepping on the necks of the same people they are courting and with policies we are actively working against. Congresswoman Comstock, for instance, worked hard to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act while she was in Congress, and before that, worked hard against Virginia’s labor force in the General Assembly, supporting Right to Work Legislation and the legislation that eliminated Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) for Phase 2 of the Metro Silver Line, which created massive delays in construction as well as many safety and maintenance concerns, estimated to end up costing the taxpayer millions more than she claimed hiring union labor would.

Opposing Trump is necessary. It’s just not sufficient.

Extremely Superficial

Voters want leaders with substance—people who have a reason to be here beyond occupying a role or playing a part. Some political converts struggle with that. They often perform what they think liberalism looks like rather than grounding their politics in a coherent set of values.

Like recent TradCath converts, these new Democrats can be hyper‑performative and overzealous, compensating for shallow roots with aggressive certainty. They police tone, lecture longtime activists, and hedge on policies that should be non‑negotiable—revealing a lack of loyalty when things get uncomfortable.

Virginia Democrats saw this dynamic play out during last year’s Attorney General race. When controversy emerged around now‑Attorney General Jay Jones, Democrats wrestled with it internally. Many condemned the behavior, recalibrated, and kept working.

After Politico broke the story on the Young Republican “I Love Hitler” group texts, the Republicans found it an easy target to go after Jones and his text messages. But instead of letting it lie, Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell decided to kick it up a notch by saying things like “Jay Jones sucks” and going as far as to tell Virginia Democrats that they should force Jones to drop out of the race or resign the Attorney General office if he won.

As Ta‑Nehisi Coates once asked: was silence not an option?

For Virginia Democrats, this kind of condemnation was not helpful. We had a candidate that we had to support, and as soon as there was a bump in the road, these Never Trumpers, who previously had supported and worked for the likes of Jeb Bush and the Log Cabin Republicans, wanted to throw him overboard. That left a bad taste in many Democrats’ mouths and showed a lack of real loyalty to the Party.

The Bulwark offers a more rational conservative viewpoint on many issues and helps outlets like Crooked Media appear more bipartisan, while reaching a new audience. I get that. But it doesn’t mean they necessarily know what’s best for the Democratic Party. So when these folks are pushing candidates like George Conway to be the face of the Democratic Party, we should always be wary of that.

For Virginia Democrats, that kind of intervention wasn’t helpful—it was revealing. At the first sign of turbulence, people who had once supported Jeb Bush and worked comfortably within Republican power structures were eager to throw a Democratic candidate overboard. That lack of loyalty left a sour taste.

There is value in engaging audiences across ideological lines. But that does not mean these voices know what’s best for the Democratic Party—or that they should decide who leads it.

The Bottom Line

After more than a decade of Donald Trump dominating American politics, Democrats—especially older liberals and institutional leaders—need to confront a hard truth: the Democratic Party is not merely a reactive vehicle designed to oppose one man. We are not a temporary coalition formed in response to a singular threat. We are a party with a governing philosophy, a moral framework, and a responsibility to deliver material change to people’s lives.

Trumpism exposed the rot inside the Republican Party, but it did not create it. Many of the policies Democrats fight against today—attacks on labor, reproductive freedom, voting rights, civil rights, and economic regulation—were championed long before Trump descended the escalator. If someone’s political awakening begins and ends with Trump, that should invite scrutiny, not automatic elevation.

Yes, we should welcome people who leave the GOP. Yes, building a winning coalition requires persuasion, grace, and room for growth. But welcoming someone into the coalition is not the same thing as handing them the microphone, the strategy memo, or the leadership mantle on day one. Trust, credibility, and leadership are earned through consistency, not proximity to power or novelty.

It is not enough to be anti-Trump. It is not enough to repeat liberal buzzwords, invoke the right villains, or mimic the aesthetic of Democratic politics. Opposition alone is not a platform. A handful of well-tested talking points does not equal a worldview. And parroting what Democrats want to hear is not the same as standing with Democrats when it is inconvenient, unpopular, or costly.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of Democrats—especially young Democrats—who have spent years organizing, losing races, rebuilding infrastructure, and staying engaged when it wasn’t politically fashionable or personally advantageous. They worked through cycles of disappointment, internal conflict, and thin resources. They believed in the party’s values before it was trending to do so. These are the people who understand the movement not as a brand, but as a commitment.

If Democrats continue to prioritize converts over the faithful, novelty over loyalty, and media-friendly defectors over movement builders, we risk hollowing out our own bench. We risk teaching the next generation that the fastest path to influence is not dedication or organizing, but rebranding.

We should celebrate genuine growth. We should acknowledge courage when people break from destructive ideologies. But celebration is not the same as deference. And gratitude is not a governing strategy.

The future of the Democratic Party depends on who we choose to elevate—and why. If we want a party that lasts beyond Trump, we need leaders who believe in something more enduring than opposition to him.

TL;DR: The Problem with Democratic Converts

✅ The Problem: Being anti-Trump is a baseline for moral clarity, not a qualification for leadership. Too often, the Democratic “old guard” vaults former Republican operatives to the front of the line simply because they had a late-stage epiphany, overlooking the “faithful” who have done the unglamorous work for decades.

✅ Novelty vs. Consistency: We are teaching the next generation that the fastest path to influence isn’t organizing—it’s rebranding. Figures like George Conway or Liz Cheney are celebrated for “basic common sense” while grassroots activists are sidelined for the “novelty of a dramatic political face-turn”.

✅ Substance Over “Vibes”: Many of these “converts” haven’t actually shifted their ideology. For example, former Congresswoman Barbara Comstock stumped for Democrats despite a career spent trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and attacking Virginia’s labor force. Opposing one man is not a governing philosophy.

✅ The Loyalty Gap: These newcomers are often “hyper-performative” but show a distinct lack of loyalty when things get uncomfortable. We saw this when Never-Trumpers like Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller were eager to “throw Jay Jones overboard” at the first sign of a campaign bump, revealing they don’t actually know—or care—what’s best for the party’s long-term success.

🏛 Bottom line: The Democratic Party is not a temporary reactive vehicle; it is a party with a moral framework and a responsibility to deliver material change. Trust, credibility, and leadership must be earned through consistency, not proximity to power or a sudden change in “aesthetic”. We need leaders who believe in something more enduring than just being against Donald Trump.

Last week, Discord announced it will begin requiring users to submit either a face scan or a government-issued ID to verify their age before receiving full access to the platform. Users who opt out will face restrictions designed to create what the company calls a “teen-friendly environment.”

On paper, that sounds reasonable. Protect kids. Reduce harm. Make platforms safer.

But it also signals something bigger: a rapid shift toward tying real-world identity to online activity across the internet.

This isn’t happening in isolation. More platforms are rolling out age verification systems in response to mounting political pressure around youth mental health, algorithmic harms, and online safety. And lawmakers are increasingly treating ID verification as the easy policy answer — even when the consequences are anything but simple.

Virginia has already been down this road. During the first two years of the Glenn Youngkin administration, the General Assembly passed laws requiring adult-content websites to collect government IDs from users. The stated goal was to protect children. The real outcome? Many sites simply blocked access statewide, while others were forced to store enormous amounts of personally identifiable information with questionable security safeguards. Enforcement proved inconsistent, and some sites ignored the law altogether.

Now, under renewed federal pressure and cultural momentum from conservative movements centered on online morality, more social platforms are adopting similar verification systems. The message is clear: prove who you are, or lose access.

Meta has required ID verification for political advertisers since the fallout of the 2016 election interference scandal In late 2025, the company expanded cross-app age verification features. Reddit requires verification in certain states. Google is experimenting with similar controls for YouTube.

Step by step, anonymity — once a foundational feature of the internet — is becoming a liability instead of a right.

The Security Problem:

Here’s the part nobody really wants to talk about: asking millions of users to upload IDs creates an entirely new security risk — and one we already know many companies struggle to manage.

Many of the platforms now requesting government IDs simply do not have the sophisticated data and information security infrastructure needed to protect them. Handing over your license, passport, or facial scan may feel like a quick step to unlock features, but it also creates a high-value target for cyberattacks and identity theft.

And this isn’t hypothetical.

Discord itself has already experienced security issues. In 2025, a malicious actor reportedly gained access to sensitive information through a third-party customer service vendor — the exact type of “back door” cybersecurity experts warn about constantly. Of the accounts impacted globally, roughly 70,000 users may have had government-issued photos exposed, because those images were being used to review age-related appeals.

So the obvious question becomes: why on earth would users feel comfortable handing over more ID data now if the system has already been compromised once?

Even the biggest players aren’t immune. Meta — arguably one of the most well-resourced tech companies on the planet — has faced repeated criticism over internal security practices. Allegations in 2025 suggested broad internal access to user data at WhatsApp despite the company’s end-to-end encryption branding, raising concerns about who inside a company can see sensitive information and how closely that access is monitored.

As someone who participated in Meta’s political verification beta back in 2018 — handing over both my ID and Social Security information — I can tell you this isn’t some abstract concern. Once that data exists in a corporate system, users lose meaningful control over how it’s stored, shared, or exposed when something inevitably goes wrong.

If companies operating at Meta’s scale still struggle to lock down sensitive data, imagine how difficult it will be for smaller platforms — often without dedicated cybersecurity teams — to handle millions of IDs responsibly.

Age verification doesn’t eliminate risk. It centralizes it. And centralized data has a way of eventually being leaked, breached, or misused.

And that’s the bigger issue that rarely gets acknowledged: data collection isn’t just a safety tool — it’s a business model. The more information companies hold, the more valuable they become to advertisers, investors, and, increasingly, governments. Every new verification system expands the pool of data that can be monetized, subpoenaed, or repurposed later. What begins as a policy meant to “protect children” often ends up reinforcing the same data economy that made the internet feel unsafe in the first place.

I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me

Security risks are only part of the story. The more prescient issue — especially for anyone involved in organizing or political activism — is surveillance.

Recent reporting from The New York Times described how the Department of Homeland Security issued hundreds of subpoenas seeking names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information tied to social media accounts that track or criticize immigration enforcement activities. The requests reportedly targeted platforms including Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta.

While companies have offered different levels of transparency around how they respond to these requests, the larger reality remains: once your online identity is verified by government-issued ID, connecting your speech to your real-world identity becomes significantly easier.

That matters because the accounts reportedly under scrutiny weren’t shadowy criminal networks — they included local community groups sharing public information. One example involved accounts tracking ICE activity in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where community members posted updates in both English and Spanish to alert neighbors about enforcement activity in their area. Regardless of where you stand politically, that kind of monitoring raises serious questions about how online civic participation may be treated under heightened enforcement environments.

Those who remember will have flashbacks to the Sinclair-led hysteria over the Facebook Group “Loudoun Love Warriors” just a couple of years ago.

Discord’s age verification rollout is also reportedly tied to Palantir and MAGA sycophant, Peter Thiel. The company informed users that they would be testing out the use of Persona, which is an age verification vendor whose investors include–you guessed it–Peter Thiel. As you may or may not know, Palantir houses the data-harvesting and surveillance technology that fuels ICE’s deportation efforts and compiles databases from American citizens’ private information.

Discord announced they had ended their trial partnership with Persona on February 21 due to public outrage.

(Lmao, “deleted.” Yeah sure totally.)

However, So just know that if you use these age-verification services like Persona, there is a high likelihood that they will be shared with companies like Palantir, which means they will be shared with the government.

Being in an opposing administration now poses a greater risk than usual for Democratic party members and activists online, especially in one that has had authoritarian tendencies and close ties to the Billionaire tech bros that hold every data point out there. Don’t believe that Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Tim Cook, and especially Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Larry Ellison will have your best interest at heart when it comes to solidifying their place in the President and White House’s good graces.

For Democrats, organizers, and activists operating under administrations they may view as hostile or authoritarian-leaning, this creates a new layer of risk. The issue isn’t simply whether someone is actively watching every post. It’s that the possibility of being watched changes behavior. When people know their accounts are tied directly to their IDs, speech becomes more cautious, organizing becomes quieter, and online spaces that once felt open start to feel like they’re under glass.

Surveillance doesn’t always arrive as censorship. Sometimes it arrives as friction — subtle enough to make people self-censor before anyone ever tells them to.

And if that feels familiar, it should. After 9/11, many Americans accepted expanded monitoring powers because they were framed as temporary protections against harm. Two decades later, much of that infrastructure became permanent. The lesson is simple: once surveillance systems are built, they rarely shrink — they just find new justifications to grow.

The Solutions: Four Rules for Digital Safety in the Age of Verification

The reality is that Democratic committees, activist networks, and everyday organizers aren’t leaving the internet anytime soon. Platforms like WhatsApp, Discord, Facebook, and Instagram remain essential for coordinating events, sharing information, and building movements — especially during moments of rising activism and anti–White House sentiment.

So the goal isn’t to disappear. The goal is to adapt.

If age verification and digital identity systems are becoming normalized, then political organizers need a new set of operating principles. Think of these as simple rules for navigating an internet that is increasingly tied to real-world identity.

Rule #1: Choose Your Tools Intentionally

Not every platform treats your data the same way.

If privacy matters, look for tools designed around encryption and minimal data retention rather than advertising and engagement metrics.

• Signal remains one of the strongest options for secure communication. Messages can disappear automatically, and the platform stores minimal user data.

• Slack can also provide secure collaboration spaces for teams, though higher-level security features often require paid plans.
  

No app is perfect. But choosing tools intentionally — rather than sticking with whatever platform everyone else uses — can dramatically reduce exposure.

Rule #2: Post Like Your Name Is Attached — Because It Probably Is

Algorithms reward conflict, humor, and outrage. But as verification systems expand, the distance between your online persona and your real-world identity is shrinking fast.

This doesn’t mean you should stop speaking out. Sharing protest information, criticizing elected officials, and organizing politically are protected activities. But context doesn’t always survive online. Sarcasm can be misunderstood, jokes can be weaponized, and posts can travel far beyond their intended audience.

While we don’t believe that you will get raided for saying something like “Donald Trump sucks” or “Orange Man Bad,” there are other things that can be interpreted as a threat even if you didn’t mean to.

Just three years ago, local Richmond activist Jimmie Lee Jarvis who many of us know was arrested and charged with a felony for a tweet directed at conservative internet provocateur Andy Ngo. When Ngo was scheduled to speak at the Richmond Omni, Jarvis said he was “on his way” and posted a picture of actor Jason Schwartzman carrying a box labeled “DYNAMITE.” While most normal people and those who know Jimmie could see this was a joke, the Henrico County Police did not and arrested him and held him in jail.

The new reality is simple: if your friends can see it, authorities potentially can too — and verified IDs make attribution easier than ever.

Being politically active online shouldn’t require fear. But it does require strategy.

Rule #3: Know Your Rights in the Online World

As the digital landscape gets more complicated, understanding your legal protections becomes just as important as choosing the right apps.

Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union provide resources explaining what speech is protected, how online investigations typically work, and where platform rules end and constitutional protections begin.

Knowing your rights doesn’t make you reckless — it makes you prepared. Activists and organizers don’t need to retreat from online spaces, but they do need to understand the legal terrain they’re operating within.

• Twitter

• Instagram

• Facebook

• TikTok

Rule #4: Fight for an Internet That Doesn’t Require Permission to Participate

Policies like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) are framed as child-protection measures, and that framing understandably resonates with parents and communities worried about online harms.

Taylor Lorenz has done extensive coverage on KOSA and argues that these laws risk creating a de facto digital ID system — one where anonymity disappears and participation online requires government-backed verification. Similar laws abroad have been used to restrict journalism and marginalize vulnerable communities under the banner of safety.

Lorenz has pointed to the UK’s Online Safety Act and similar restrictive laws in Sri Lanka to illustrate the devastating effects of these policies, which she claims have been used to curb independent journalism and marginalize groups. These would most likely be used to censor and monitor content related to LGBTQ+ issues, reproductive health, immigration, and other sensitive topics, under the banner of protecting minors.

Virginia’s own experience with age-verification policies shows how quickly good intentions can produce messy consequences: inconsistent enforcement, expanded data collection, and limited effectiveness.

Protecting children online is important. But building a permission-based internet where every user must verify their identity is a much bigger and more permanent change than most people realize.

The Real Goal

The answer isn’t silence. The answer isn’t abandoning digital organizing. It’s learning to operate smarter inside a system that is changing fast.

Digital safety today looks a lot like field organizing has always looked: know the terrain, understand the risks, and protect the people around you while still doing the work.

Because the internet isn’t going away — but the rules of participation are being rewritten in real time.

The debate over age verification is often framed as a simple choice: protect children or protect privacy. But that framing misses the larger reality. What’s being built isn’t just a safer internet for kids — it’s a new infrastructure where identity verification becomes the price of participation.

And once those systems exist, they rarely stay limited to their original purpose.

Every new verification requirement creates another database. Every database becomes a potential target for hackers, advertisers, or governments. And every step that ties our online speech more closely to our real-world identities shifts the balance of power away from users and toward institutions that already hold enormous influence over public discourse.

For organizers, activists, and everyday people who rely on digital spaces to advocate, mobilize, and build community, this moment demands clarity. The goal isn’t to retreat from the internet or surrender the tools that make modern civic engagement possible. The goal is to understand the terrain we’re operating in — and to push back against policies that treat surveillance as the default solution to every social problem.

The internet was never perfect. But for decades, it allowed people to explore ideas, find community, and challenge power without first having to show a passport at the door. That freedom is worth protecting, even as we work to make online spaces safer for younger users.

Because the real question isn’t whether safety matters. It does.

The question is whether we can protect people without building a system where being watched becomes the cost of being heard.

And that’s a question we should answer carefully — before the infrastructure becomes permanent, and before silence becomes the safer option.

The moment identity becomes the price of participation, the internet stops being a public square and starts becoming a checkpoint.

TL;DR

Age verification laws and platform policies are being sold as ways to protect kids online — but they’re also accelerating a shift toward tying real-world identity to everyday internet use. That creates two major risks: security vulnerabilities as more companies collect sensitive ID data, and expanded surveillance possibilities as governments increasingly request user information from social platforms.

For organizers, activists, and politically active users, the stakes are higher. When accounts are linked to verified identities, speech becomes easier to monitor and harder to separate from real-world consequences. The solution isn’t retreating from the internet — it’s using more secure tools, posting with greater awareness, knowing your rights, and pushing back against policies that normalize mandatory digital IDs.

The real question isn’t whether safety matters. It’s whether we can make the internet safer without turning it into a system where being watched becomes the cost of being heard.

American consistent traditions: apple pie, baseball, Tom Hanks, and the most anticipated part of any Super Bowl — the advertisements.

During Super Bowl LX, the ads were definitely… something. Beyond the uncanny valley of AI face-tuning and digital de-aging, one thing stood out: our economy increasingly looks propped up by a narrow set of pillars — crypto, artificial intelligence, weight-loss drugs, and of course, gambling.

As I’ve written before, gambling is becoming an ever-growing and ingratiating presence in this country. A presence fleecing younger generations of hard-earned money under the false promise of an easy win. Whether it’s overly complex parlays in sports betting, the rise of event contracts, or the pervasiveness of neighborhood slot machines, gambling is metastasizing in the bones of the United States.

What began with sports betting has seeped into nearly every facet of daily life. What started as slot machines and games of chance confined to casinos has made its way into corner stores. What once required physical travel, pit bosses, and oversight is now one tap away — on a phone that never leaves your side.

It is time to confront this growing problem before it becomes irreversible.

Sports Betting: When the Game is No Longer Fun

There was a time when sports betting was considered about as low as it got in athletics. Scandal after scandal — athletes rigging games, shaving points, throwing outcomes for payouts.

The 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when Chicago White Sox players fixed games at the direction of organized crime. Pete Rose wagering on himself in the 1970s — even if it was to win. Michael Jordan stepping away from basketball amid swirling gambling controversies.

For decades, once there was a federal ban on sports betting, those scandals became fewer and farther between. But when the Supreme Court struck down that federal ban in 2018, the pendulum swung back — and this time in a fully digitized, hyper-accessible environment.

In 2024, former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA for violating league gaming rules. Investigators found he disclosed confidential information to bettors, limited his playing time to influence outcomes, and bet on NBA games. He even left games early on January 26 and March 20 to ensure “under” bets on his performance would hit.

Just this year, 39 players across 17 NCAA Division I basketball programs were charged in a multi-million-dollar point-shaving scheme.

And that’s just what we know about.

In 2018, Americans wagered less than $5 billion on sports.
By 2024, that number had exploded to $150 billion.

Today, roughly 90% of bets are placed on phones. More than half are live bets placed during games. Open any app and you’ll see hundreds of options per matchup — not just who wins, but whether the next pitch will be a ball or strike, whether Shohei Ohtani will hit a home run and record five strikeouts, whether LeBron James will score 30 points.

You don’t need to drive anywhere.
You don’t need cash.
You don’t even need to get out of bed.

It has never been easier to gamble.

And that ease — combined with how deeply embedded betting has become in sports culture — is taking its toll, particularly on young men.

Betting is marketed as entertainment. A bonding experience. A harmless add-on to the game. But beneath the surface, mounting evidence shows serious mental health risks — risks that often go unnoticed until they begin damaging relationships, finances, and emotional stability.

Betting apps are engineered the same way social media platforms are engineered — bright colors, bonus bets, push notifications, rapid outcomes. Each win or near-win triggers dopamine. For those wired for competition and instant feedback loops, it becomes incredibly difficult to step away.

And it’s no longer just simple win-or-loss wagers. Companies aggressively promote complicated parlays promising massive payouts. But parlays carry extremely low probabilities and a steep house edge — often generating negative returns between 15% and 30%. Every added leg increases the odds of total loss exponentially.

They look thrilling.
They are mathematically brutal.

And somewhere along the way, the game stops being fun.

You’re no longer rooting for your team — you’re rooting for an obscure stat line. A rebound total. A coin toss. You’re hoping a player you’ve never cared about misses a free throw because your “under” depends on it.

Team loyalty fades. The communal experience erodes. The sport becomes a financial instrument instead of shared culture.

That’s when normalized betting culture veers into something far more dangerous.

Event Contracts: Nothing in Life Is Guaranteed — Or Is It?

On January 7, 2026, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly ended what had been a relatively routine press conference at 64 minutes and 30 seconds — just under 65 minutes.

Normally, the exact duration of a White House briefing would be trivial. Anecdotal. Forgettable.

But to a handful of “predictive market traders,” it was extremely important.

On Kalshi, contracts had been purchased betting that the briefing would not exceed 65 minutes — an outcome that, based on pricing, had roughly a 2% chance of occurring. Those who bet against the over reportedly made 50 times their money.

The story gained traction on X after a user highlighted the trade. What made it more than internet gossip was the overlap: Donald Trump Jr. sits on the boards of both Kalshi and Polymarket. To many observers, it reeked of insider trading — the possibility that a White House press secretary could be influencing a market tied to a platform advised by the President’s son.

Maybe it was coincidence.

Maybe it wasn’t.

But the structure allows for it.

And that’s the deeper problem.

There have been darker examples.

One Polymarket account wagered that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be removed from power before the end of January — netting roughly $400,000 when U.S. forces captured him on drug trafficking charges the very next day. The wager was so far out of left field that it’s hard to imagine someone placing it without knowledge of military operations about to unfold.

This is where event contracts stop looking like novelty bets and start resembling information arbitrage.

In response, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, which would bar federal elected officials, executive branch employees, political appointees, and congressional staff from betting on government policy, action, or political outcomes when they have access to material non-public information.

These may sound like extreme examples. But they illustrate how political and governmental outcomes can be gamified — manipulated the same way point-shaving corrupts sports.

And it’s not just the predictive side that’s dangerous.

It’s the perception.

When major media outlets — like CNN partnering with Kalshi as its official predictive market partner — legitimize these platforms, they gain credibility with the public. Increasingly, political insiders and observers treat these markets as de facto polls. But they are not polls. They are thinly traded financial instruments vulnerable to concentrated capital.

If a candidate wants to appear more viable in a race, they could simply pump money into contracts bearing their name, artificially inflating implied odds.

If an administration wants to change public perception about how popular or unpopular a policy is, they could buy contracts reflecting the narrative they want.

If someone with access to non-public information wants quick, easy cash, they can wager on military operations, legislative maneuvers, regulatory actions — and walk away richer before the public even knows what happened.

And in every scenario, the people on the other side of that trade lose.

No matter how misguided or ill-advised some users may be, manipulation of these systems amounts to picking their pockets.

Approximately 70% of users on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have lost money, with profits heavily concentrated among a tiny fraction of elite traders. Users frequently report losing large sums rapidly, with some traders losing over on single events. Recent data indicates $500 million was lost in a single day on Kalshi, while 1.1 million Polymarket addresses recorded losses with some losing over 1 million. While millions lose, roughly 700 accounts managed to secure about $1 million each in profits, showing that very unbalanced distribution of wealth.

So again, the question becomes unavoidable:

What are they winning — and what are we losing?

There is a reason Kalshi and Polymarket advertise during events like the Super Bowl. There is a reason they recruit celebrity endorsers and attach their logos to major political accounts across X. Legitimacy drives participation. Participation drives deposits.

And deposits drive profit.

Mostly extracted from young adults betting on everything from award shows to Supreme Court decisions to geopolitical crises.

Right now, lawsuits are pending alleging these platforms operate as unregulated sports betting entities, avoiding taxes and oversight that traditional casinos face. But lawsuits alone are not sufficient.

Without clear regulation and enforcement, we are allowing political reality itself to become another casino floor — one where those closest to power can tilt the odds.

Skill games: Easy to play, hard to escape

There are currently thousands of illegal skill game machines that are operating within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Working Virginia Families are currently losing thousands of dollars a day on them from their hard earned pay checks. These have been illegal for years now and yet they have not gone away. Proponents of these machines will say that we are missing out on all the revenue but they are missing the broader point: who pays for that revenue.

I live in Herndon in Western Fairfax County where I grew up, and over the past couple of years, I have seen these machines pop up in convenience stores, barber shops, and local businesses.

For example, there is a 7/11 on the corner of Elden St and Alabama Dr and for those who grew up in Herndon like me, we know that this is the 7/11 where folks go to look for day labor and that neighborhood has a massive immigrant population in the surrounding developments. And since these machines have popped up, the guys who get off at work on Friday and are paid in cash go into that 7/11 and pump whatever money they got into those machines. They line up sometimes out the door and sit there watching as person after person loses and walks off with nothing. Maybe 1 person hits but that allure keeps them coming back. That’s where this revenue comes from.

And this is, at its core, a matter of equity.

Are we really willing to allow a business model that siphons money out of lower-income neighborhoods and funnels it to out-of-state investors — all while pretending it’s good for “small businesses”?

That is not a justice-oriented approach. It’s exploitation with a friendly marketing veneer. For too long, companies like Pace-O-Matic have operated as though Virginia’s laws are optional — exploiting gray areas, pushing enforcement boundaries, and expanding while regulators play catch-up. The solution is not complicated.

• Strengthen the existing ban.

• Prohibit new terminals.

• Enforce the laws already on the books.

The data is clear: these machines disproportionately target vulnerable communities. They offer limited long-term benefit to the Commonwealth. They create public safety concerns, fuel addiction, and destabilize local economies far more than they support them.

This is not economic development. It is extraction.

Virginia has a real opportunity to reverse course before this becomes permanent infrastructure — before convenience store gambling becomes normalized in every community.

And our communities deserve nothing less.

Conclusion: What Are They Winning — and What Are We Losing?

At minimum, we need a single, empowered entity capable of regulating — or stopping — this entire ecosystem before it spins further out of control.

Because if we allow these services to continue operating unchecked, the outcome is not abstract. It is predictable. Thousands more people will lose money. Mental health crises will deepen. Debt will pile up quietly in bedrooms and dorm rooms and break rooms across the Commonwealth.

As the Virginia Agriculture and Forestry Secretary Katie Frazier stated in a testimony last week,

“Our patchwork approach is inefficient. It creates gaps in oversight and makes it more difficult to protect consumers, collect reliable data and ensure fair and responsible gameplay.” Governor Spanberger is deeply concerned about any discussions of gaming expansion in Virginia without first establishing a single entity with clear authority, consistent standards and strong compliance and enforcement capabilities.”

That is not anti-business.
It is pro-consumer.
It is pro-family.
It is pro-common sense.

Gambling revenue is not a panacea for budget gaps. It is not an economic development strategy. It is not a substitute for responsible fiscal policy.

It is, more often than not, a regressive tax — one extracted from working families in communities like mine.

There’s a reason Gamblers Anonymous says there is no such thing as a sure thing. Betting on gambling to fix revenue shortfalls is itself a gamble — one paid for by those least able to afford it.

It is an injustice to claim we are “supporting small businesses” or “generating revenue for the Commonwealth” while building that revenue on the backs of day laborers feeding cash into corner-store machines, young men chasing parlays at 2 a.m., or families quietly juggling debt they can no longer manage.

So if you live in Virginia, contact your representatives. Urge them to oppose the legalization of skill machines and unchecked i-gambling. Support Delegate Krizek’s proposal for a dedicated Gambling Commission with real authority and oversight.

Virginia should not profit off private ruin and vice.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about entertainment. It isn’t about innovation. It isn’t about modernization.

It’s about whether we are going to let our sports, our politics, and our communities be turned into casino floors — where the house always wins.

And the house is not you.

Virginia Democrats rolled out their proposed 10–1 redrawn congressional maps yesterday, capping off a months-long internal debate that followed the special session of the General Assembly called ahead of the 2025 election. For weeks, Election Twitter and Reddit threads had been ablaze with amateur and semi-professional mapmaking exercises promising everything from incremental Democratic gains to outright congressional domination. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders—most notably Senate Pro Tem L. Louise Lucas—were unapologetic about their goals, loudly and repeatedly rallying behind a simple message: “10 fucking 1.”

Leading up to this week, reporting out of Richmond painted a picture of a party very much at odds with itself over how to get there. Ally Mutnick of Punchbowl News and Brandon Jarvis of Virginia Scope documented the blow-by-blow as tensions flared between the Senate Caucus and the House Caucus over which lines should be drawn, who should benefit, and how aggressively Democrats should push the envelope

House of Delegates leadership appeared to favor a map proposed by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), chaired by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. That map would have resulted in nine Democratic districts, one genuinely competitive district, and one Republican district—a configuration that many viewed as aggressive but still defensible. Senate Democrats, however, raised objections, particularly over a Northern Virginia seat in western Fairfax that was reportedly designed to favor Delegate Dan Helmer, the current campaign chair of the House Caucus and a two-time congressional candidate in Virginia’s 10th District.

The Senate countered with its own proposal: maps that carved out new Democratic-leaning districts in Loudoun County and the Richmond area, which reporting suggested would favor Senator Russet Perry and Senator Lamont Bagby, respectively. In keeping with the Senate Pro Tem’s stated preference, this approach would have produced ten solidly Democratic districts and one Republican district—no ambiguity, no coin flips, no apologies.

After weeks of speculation, public posturing, and private negotiations, Speaker of the House Don Scott and Senate Pro Tem Louise Lucas announced that the two chambers had reached an agreement and unveiled the final map.

Lucas was quick to defend the outcome. “If you get out and work, you can win it,” she said, stressing that Democrats were not coronating candidates and insisting that no consideration was given to specific individuals—not even incumbents—when drawing the districts.

But reporting from Mutnick and Jarvis, as well as accounts from those close to the process, complicate that narrative.

There is something about the phrasing these reporters use that should give anyone paying attention pause. “District for” is not an accidental choice of words. It’s a term loaded with historical baggage in redistricting fights, one that has long been associated with maps deliberately drawn to advantage particular candidates. When journalists with deep experience covering redistricting use language like that, it’s worth taking seriously.

Reaction to the map has been predictably mixed. Some party activists are thrilled by the raw math. Others who proposed alternative maps feel sidelined. And conservative critics—many of whom spent the last decade defending far more grotesque gerrymanders—are suddenly clutching pearls. But setting all of that aside, here’s where I land.

What we ended up with looks like a horse designed by committee—which is to say, a camel.

There are two lenses through which this has to be evaluated: political and electoral.

Politically, the argument for a 10–1 map is straightforward. Control of the House of Representatives is routinely decided by a handful of seats. In that environment, maximizing Democratic representation is not just understandable—it’s responsible.

Electorally, however, I still believe a cleaner 9–2 map would have been an easier lift with the public, particularly in passing the required referendum.

When normal, everyday voters—people who don’t live on Election Twitter or obsess over Cook PVI—see this map, their reaction is not going to be analytical. It’s going to be visceral. After at least six years of hearing, over and over again, how corrosive gerrymandering is to democracy, this map looks like exactly the kind of thing they were warned about.

Put the two options side by side, and one is clearly more palatable. The final map smoothed over many internal egos and ambitions, as reflected in the reporting leading up to its release. And I don’t discount the reality that even a single additional seat could mean the difference between governing and gridlock in Congress.

But voters still have to approve this. And that approval would have been easier to secure with a map that felt cleaner, more coherent, and more defensible on its face.

My lingering concern with the cleaner alternative, however, is what it means for rural Democrats. In theory, giving rural areas a Democratic representative is ideal. In practice, it’s hard to believe that Democrats elected out of Northern Virginia—where the numbers are—will consistently and authentically represent rural Virginia on Capitol Hill. That tension is real, and it deserves more consideration than it often gets.

All that said, there’s a deeper issue here that can’t be ignored.

While I’m excited about drawing maps that finally stop unilaterally disarming Democrats, districts that appear to be drawn for a single individual are deeply shortsighted. Districts outlast candidates. They should not be tailored to one person’s political ambitions. They belong to the people, and they should be able to function no matter who eventually holds the seat.

No disrespect to anyone named in the reporting, but favoring elected officials who are actively involved in drawing the maps—especially when they are not even nominees yet—is a dangerous precedent. It narrows the field before it opens and undercuts the deep bench of talent Democrats have worked hard to build in Virginia.

I hear Senator Lucas when she says these districts are competitive if you work them. That may be true. But optics matter. Process matters. And this approach makes it harder to argue that the door is truly open for new voices, challengers, and grassroots candidates to step forward.

At the same time, we are where we are. And we cannot afford to blow up the entire effort in pursuit of theoretical perfection. One would hope we could have produced a map that favored Democrats without undermining its own credibility—but that opportunity has passed.

So now the task is clear.

We fight like hell to win these seats. We pass the referendum. And we make sure Democrats hold and expand their congressional majority—because stopping the regressive MAGA agenda and positioning ourselves for victory in 2028 is bigger than any one map, any one district, or any one candidate.

TL;DR:

Virginia Democrats landed on a 10–1 congressional map after weeks of internal infighting. Politically, maximizing seats makes sense in a razor-thin House. Electorally, this map is a tougher sell to voters who’ve spent years being told gerrymandering is bad—and it risks undermining the referendum needed to approve it. A cleaner 9–2 map may have been more defensible. Worse, districts that appear drawn for specific individuals are shortsighted and bad optics; districts should outlast candidates and invite competition, not pre-decide outcomes. That said, we’re here now—so the job is to pass the referendum, win the seats, stop the MAGA agenda, and move toward 2028.

There is currently an infestation in Virginia. Its growth spans thousands of acres across our Commonwealth, consuming land, draining water, polluting air, and devouring electricity. It zaps enormous amounts of energy every day — and sends Virginians’ power bills through the roof.

I am — of course — talking about data centers.

There are nearly 700 data centers already operating in Virginia, with almost 600 more in the planning stages. Together, they consume as much electricity as roughly 70 million homes. About 35% of the world’s data centers are now located right here in our state, meaning much of the country’s internet runs through Northern Virginia.

With proximity to Washington, D.C., major fiber networks, abundant energy, and generous tax incentives, Virginia has become the ideal location for tech giants like Amazon Web Services and Google. Western Fairfax County and Eastern Loudoun County — now known as “Data Center Alley” — are ground zero.

But are Virginians getting the same benefits in return?

Are we giving away land, water, clean air, and affordable electricity for pennies on the dollar? And what unintended consequences are already hitting families across the Commonwealth?

More More More

Almost a decade ago, Virginia’s legislature opened the doors to this development as they raced to be the “best state for business.” But in doing so, they never accounted for the reality of today’s world — one where Artificial Intelligence, streaming, cloud storage, and constant digital consumption require more and more data every single day.

Now lawmakers in Virginia — and across the country — are being actively undermined by the Trump Administration, which has promised Tech Billionaire Bros like Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Altman that the safety rails are coming off.

Trump’s early Executive Order aimed at blocking limits on AI development made clear that federal action would supersede any state regulation. And while it’s “just” an EO for now, there’s already a bill from Republican Congressman Michael Baumgartner (WA-5) to codify it into law — meaning a congressman from Washington state could soon be dictating what Virginia does with its land while every major tech company races to build on it.

What most people still don’t realize is that the “internet” and the “cloud” are not some ethereal energy floating around in the sky.

Every single thing you do online requires a physical place to live.

Every email, every Google search, every TikTok, every AI prompt, every image, every video — even the words you are reading on this page right now — exist on servers stored in massive warehouse-sized data centers somewhere in America.

As public use grows, more storage is needed.

As AI grows, exponentially more computing power is needed.

And that means more data centers.

Those data centers need two things to function: electricity and water.

Traditional facilities average around 20 to 100 megawatts (MW). But the new AI-driven hyperscale centers are climbing to — and sometimes exceeding — 1,000 megawatts.

That’s one gigawatt.

Enough to power a small city.

And the water use is just as staggering.

A single 1 MW facility uses roughly 6.7 (don’t say it) million gallons of water per year for cooling. If everything scales evenly, a 1 GW facility can consume more than 6.7 (seriously don’t) billion gallons annually.

To put that into perspective, global projections estimate that AI-related water consumption could reach 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters per year by 2027 — not for one building, but across the entire sector.

Now I know what you’re thinking:

“I barely use it.”

“I only made a funny image once.”

“It just helps me with emails.”

“It’s easier than Googling.”

“It’s so nice to me.”

First off, stop it. Get some help.

Second, even light, casual AI use has a real resource cost.

A single ChatGPT query uses roughly 0.3 to 0.34 watt-hours of electricity — about ten times the energy of a Google search.

A 100-word prompt can consume around half a liter of water just for cooling.

Generating one AI image can use up to a bottle of water and enough electricity to run lights for over an hour.

A five-second AI video can use nearly one kilowatt-hour of electricity and about a gallon of water.

So those silly AI clips, those quick prompts, those “just for fun” images?

They’re burning through electricity and water faster than you can refresh your feed.

And when millions of people do it every day, it adds up to entire power plants and reservoirs worth of demand.

And you know who bears the brunt of that cost? You do.

The Financial Costs

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers in Virginia is not just some abstract infrastructure issue — it is already driving up energy demand and showing up directly on your electric bill.

Nationally, data center growth is projected to contribute to roughly an 8% increase in average U.S. electricity rates by 2030. But that figure hides just how concentrated the damage is in places like Northern Virginia, where the majority of this development is happening.

In the PJM regional power grid — which serves Virginia and much of the Mid-Atlantic — data centers were responsible for 63% of the entire $9.3 billion increase in capacity costs in the 2025–2026 auction alone. That’s not households. That’s not small businesses. That’s overwhelmingly data centers driving the spike.

Wholesale electricity costs in areas near major data center clusters are now 267% higher than they were just five years ago.

And yet, while your bill has steadily climbed — rising about 25% between 2020 and 2024 — these same massive facilities were able to plug into the grid at deeply discounted industrial rates, often with little transparency and minimal regulatory oversight.

For Virginians, the consequences are already locked in.

To keep up with the exploding demand, Dominion Energy has approved a 2026 rate hike that will add about $16 per month to the average residential customer’s bill for the next two years — roughly a 10% increase right out of the gate.

But that’s only the beginning.

A 2024 JLARC study found that a typical Dominion customer could see generation and transmission costs increase by an additional $14 to $37 per month by 2040 (in real dollars, not even counting inflation).

To put that into normal human language:

If you live in Virginia, your electric bill is going to keep rising — year after year — largely to subsidize the power appetite of massive data centers you never voted for and never approved.

Even if you never use AI.

Even if you hate tech.

Even if you’re trying to conserve energy.

You’re still paying for it.

The Environmental Costs

Data centers aren’t just draining our wallets — they’re draining our natural resources.

One of the biggest myths pushed by data center developers is that water usage is a “closed loop.” They’ll tell you they pull water for cooling and simply return it to municipal wastewater systems.

That’s not how it works.

Roughly 80% of the water used by data centers evaporates during cooling. Only about 20% ever return to local treatment facilities. Once that water is pulled from rivers and reservoirs, most of it is effectively gone.

So while companies frame their usage as temporary, the reality is that data centers permanently deplete local water supplies — in a state already facing growing drought risks and population pressure.

And the environmental damage doesn’t stop there.

Data centers dramatically increase electricity demand, and in the U.S., about 56% of our power grid still runs on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. To keep up with exploding energy needs, utilities like Dominion Energy are already proposing new gas-fired power plants across Virginia.

More data centers mean more fossil fuel infrastructure.
More fossil fuel infrastructure means more emissions.

And those power plants consume massive amounts of water too.

A federal report estimated that the indirect water footprint from electricity used by data centers totaled roughly 211 billion gallons in 2023 alone. That works out to about 1.2 gallons of water per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

As data centers are projected to consume up to 1,050 terawatt-hours annually by 2030, that water use will skyrocket right alongside emissions.

But it gets worse.

The enormous wastewater volumes produced by these facilities can overwhelm local treatment plants that were never designed to handle industrial-scale discharge. In some cases, this overload backs up into waterways — polluting rivers and potentially contaminating local drinking water supplies.

Then there’s the air.

We’re already seeing what happens when AI-scale power demand is allowed to run unchecked.

In Memphis, Tennessee, Elon Musk’s xAI “Colossus” supercomputer facility — built to train his AI chatbot Grok (you know? the one that’s been generating nonconsensual explicit images of women and minors on X) — is powered by 33 methane gas turbines running nonstop.

Those turbines pump nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde into surrounding neighborhoods 24/7.

The result?

Smog levels around the facility jumped nearly 60%.

Peak nitrogen dioxide concentrations increased by 79%.

This single AI complex now produces more nitrogen oxides than the county’s chemical plant, oil refinery, power station, and international airport combined.

And the community paying the price is Boxtown — a historically Black neighborhood now experiencing some of the highest asthma-related hospital visits in Tennessee.

One resident stood up at a health department hearing in tears and asked:

“I can’t breathe at home. It smells like gas outside. How come I can’t breathe at home and y’all get to breathe at home?”

That is the future we’re inviting into Virginia.

And air and water aren’t the only concerns.

There’s a more invisible pollutant too.pollutant too. As the Grinch put, “Oh the noise. Noise. Noise.”

Data centers operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their diesel generators and HVAC systems produce constant low-frequency humming — with internal noise levels reaching up to 96 decibels, well above the threshold known to damage hearing.

People living nearby report:

• chronic headaches
• sleep disruption
• anxiety and stress
• cardiovascular risks
• tinnitus and hearing loss

And these facilities aren’t tucked away in industrial wastelands.

They’re built across from neighborhoods.
Next to schools
Beside apartment complexes.
And — in the case of my own grandparents in Loudoun County — next to nursing homes.

We still don’t even have long-term data on what this level of constant industrial noise does to communities over years.

Yet Virginia continues approving these projects at breakneck speed.

We are inviting massive, resource-intensive, pollution-producing infrastructure into the heart of our communities without fully understanding — or regulating — the consequences.

What Do We Get?

In theory, all of this development is supposed to be worth it because of the tax revenue data centers promise to bring into the Commonwealth.

That’s the sales pitch every time a new facility is proposed: jobs, economic growth, and billions flowing into state and local budgets.

In reality, Virginians have been quietly footing the bill.

Over the past decade, the Youngkin Administration and previous leaders aggressively courted data center developers with massive tax incentives — handing out exemptions on equipment, servers, and software that are the backbone of these facilities.

From FY 2015 through FY 2024, Virginia granted more than $2.7 billion in data center tax exemptions.

That is $2.7 billion in revenue that could have gone to schools, infrastructure, water systems, public health, or lowering energy costs — instead redirected straight into the pockets of some of the richest corporations in the world.

And the giveaways are accelerating.

In FY 2025 alone, Virginia taxpayers lost an estimated $1.6 billion in sales and use tax revenue to data centers — a staggering 118% increase over the previous year.

Let that sink in.

In one year, Virginians lost more in tax revenue than in the previous decade combined.

These exemptions allow data centers to avoid paying taxes on the very equipment that consumes our electricity, drains our water, and strains our infrastructure. And they’re currently set to remain in place until June 30, 2035, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

That means taxpayers are on the hook for billions more over the next nine years — at minimum.

So when proponents tout “economic development,” it’s worth asking:

Development for who?

Families pay higher electric bills.

Communities absorb pollution and noise.

Local infrastructure takes the hit.

Meanwhile, trillion-dollar tech companies get sweetheart tax deals.

We’re paying once through higher utility costs — and paying again through lost public revenue.

What Can We Do?

To make matters worse, the same tech companies building these massive facilities — and the developers partnering with them — are running aggressive lobbying campaigns in Richmond to keep this system exactly as it is.

Estimates suggest that for every single member of the Virginia General Assembly, there are roughly three data center lobbyists working full-time to protect industry profits.

Three lobbyists for every one person elected to represent you.

And unsurprisingly, many of those lobbyists live as far away from these facilities as possible — while communities across Northern Virginia and beyond deal with the noise, pollution, traffic, and rising utility bills.

But Virginians are not powerless.

There are currently multiple bills moving through the General Assembly aimed at finally putting guardrails on this out-of-control development — not to ban technology, not to push the problem onto rural or Appalachian communities, and not to stall economic progress, but to make data center growth responsible, sustainable, and fair.

Because “best for business” should not mean worst for neighborhoods.

Here are just a few of the measures lawmakers are considering. And you can find your legislator at whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/ to urge them to vote for these:

• HB 153 (Del. Thomas) — Requires sound profile assessments before approving new high-energy-use facilities near homes and schools, forcing developers to measure and mitigate noise impacts instead of ignoring them.

• HB 155 (Del. Thomas) — Prohibits new high-load facilities from operating without state certification, giving regulators real oversight over massive energy consumers plugging into the grid.

• HB 511 (Del. McAuliff) — Pushes localities to rezone data centers as industrial uses, limit proximity to residential areas, strengthen setback and height requirements, require noise modeling, and mandate mitigation commitments from developers.

• HB 591 (Del. Simonds) — Establishes a state policy framework encouraging responsible data center operation while protecting grid reliability, affordability, and renewable deployment.

• HB 615 (Del. Krizek) — Creates a land preservation tax of $3 per square foot on data center footprints, directing hundreds of millions into conservation, land protection, and the Virginia Tribal Commitment Fund.

• SB 467 (Sen. Deeds) — Blocks final approvals for high-load facilities until the State Corporation Commission confirms minimal impact on grid reliability and infrastructure.

These bills represent the beginning of balance — putting communities, affordability, and environmental responsibility back into the equation.

They recognize a simple truth:

Data centers aren’t inherently bad.
Unchecked development is.

Virginia can lead in technology without sacrificing clean air, clean water, affordable power, and livable communities.

But only if lawmakers stand up to an industry that has grown accustomed to getting everything it wants — while everyone else pays the price.

The Bottom Line

Virginia didn’t stumble into this problem by accident.

We made a series of policy choices that prioritized being “business-friendly” over being community-conscious. We handed out massive tax breaks without building guardrails. We invited in some of the most resource-intensive facilities on earth without fully accounting for what they would cost everyday Virginians.

And now we’re paying for it — in higher electric bills, depleted water supplies, polluted air, strained infrastructure, and billions in lost public revenue.

Data centers are not some invisible backend of modern life. They are physical, massive, and incredibly demanding pieces of industrial infrastructure. Treating them like harmless tech offices instead of what they actually are has allowed their impacts to spiral out of control.

None of this means Virginia has to reject innovation or technology. But it does mean we have to stop pretending that unchecked corporate expansion automatically benefits the public.

Growth without responsibility is not progress.

Economic development that privatizes profit and socializes harm is not success.

It’s a subsidy — one paid for by families who never agreed to it.

The good news is that this trajectory isn’t locked in. Lawmakers are finally beginning to confront the real costs of data center development and propose solutions that protect communities, affordability, and our environment.

But those efforts will only succeed if Virginians pay attention, speak up, and demand better.

Because the question isn’t whether data centers will continue to exist in Virginia.

The question is who they will serve.

Mega-corporations chasing profit — or the people who live here.

And right now, it’s time to rebalance that equation.

TL;DR

Virginia has become the world’s data center capital — and everyday Virginians are paying the price.

AI-driven data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and billions of gallons of water, driving up power bills, draining local resources, increasing pollution, and straining infrastructure. While families see rising utility costs, tech giants lock in discounted energy rates and avoid billions in taxes through state giveaways.

The environmental impacts are already showing up in polluted air, depleted waterways, noise pollution, and public health risks — with examples like Memphis offering a warning of what unchecked development can bring.

Meanwhile, Virginia has handed data centers more than $2.7 billion in tax exemptions and continues losing billions more each year in revenue.

Lawmakers are finally proposing guardrails to regulate growth, protect communities, and make these companies pay their fair share — but industry lobbying remains intense.

Bottom line: Data centers aren’t “free economic development.” They’re a massive public subsidy that’s raising your bills, harming communities, and enriching some of the richest corporations in the world — unless Virginia acts now to rein them in.

If you have ever held a magnifying glass up to the teachings of today’s far Christian Right, you may have noticed a stark departure from the traditional teachings of Christianity. Where charity and service were once emphasized, they have increasingly been replaced by a “winner-take-all” prosperity gospel under the guise of the American Dream—tragically and ironically fitting for a hyper-capitalistic society like the United States. Their mantra is simple: “God helps those who help themselves.”

It is a faith rooted in the belief that no matter how wealth is acquired, it is inherently God’s plan for you to have it—even if it comes at the expense of your fellow human beings—and that no one has the right to take it away. Charity and good works are at best optional. It is your divine right to hoard as much wealth as possible because, as one of their for-profit prophets, Norman Vincent Peale, once stated, “Empty pockets never held anyone back—only empty heads and empty hearts.”

It is no coincidence that this theology is embraced most enthusiastically by wealthy billionaires, right-wing politicians, and the conmen who orbit them in and around Washington. It has been carefully manufactured to justify widening wealth inequality and the political and legislative decisions that reinforce it. After all, if God has ordained the outcome, how can anyone argue with it?

From trickle-down economics to tariffs, Republican economic strategies over the past half-century have frequently been coated in the holy veneer of evangelical Christianity—framed as helping others while overwhelmingly enriching those at the top. The prosperity gospel also fueled decades of “hustle and grind” grifts through multi-level marketing schemes, with companies like Amway and Mary Kay opening conventions with prayer so attendees might continue to be “blessed” with wealth from above.

The logical conclusion of this theological movement is—of course—its newest religious text: Project 2025, which is now informing the policy direction of the current administration as it moves to strip food assistance, health care access, and retirement security from millions of Americans. The underlying logic is simple: I should only have to help myself, not others, because my faith tells me that wealth is next to holiness.

So how the hell did we get here—and how is this shaping our politics? If you’ll join me, let’s take our fourth deep dive into the fantastical world of far-right evangelical Christianity.

Roots of Prosperity Gospel

Prosperity theology—commonly known as the Prosperity Gospel—is a belief among some Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God, and that faith, positive scriptural confession, and giving to charitable causes will increase one’s material wealth. Success is interpreted as proof of divine grace, favor, and blessing, while failure is viewed as judgment from on high. Adherents treat the Bible as a covenant between God and humanity: if they have faith in God, God will, in turn, deliver security and prosperity.

Almost all other Christian denominations consider this theology heretical and deeply exploitative of the poor, particularly because much of the wealth it generates is accrued at the expense of lower-income and vulnerable communities. But the uniquely American combination of capitalism and American exceptionalism—discussed in Part 2—created the perfect environment for this belief system to take root and flourish.

While its philosophical roots can be traced back to the 19th-century New Thought movement, prosperity theology did not gain significant traction until the mid-20th century. In the aftermath of World War II, charismatic Christian leaders found fertile ground among Americans eager for stability, success, and upward mobility in a rapidly expanding consumer economy.

One of the earliest and most explicit political expressions of this theology was Spiritual Mobilization, founded in 1935 by Rev. James W. Fifield Jr. The organization functioned as a religious-political movement funded by corporate leaders who sought to oppose Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal by merging Christianity with free-market capitalism. Fifield argued that the expansive government programs of the New Deal represented a form of “pagan statism” that threatened spiritual freedom, individual liberty, and private enterprise.

Fifield sought to mobilize clergy across the country to defend what he framed as God-given rights against what the movement described as a “godless, collectivist state.” The organization’s credo reflected the everyday politics of the millionaires in Fifield’s congregation, asserting that men were creatures of God endowed with “inalienable rights and responsibilities,” explicitly enumerated as “the liberty and dignity of the individual, in which freedom of choice, of enterprise, and of property is inherent.”

Spiritual Mobilization promoted what it called a “Gospel of Free Enterprise,” positioning capitalism as not only compatible with Christianity, but as its natural economic expression. This was framed in direct opposition to the Social Gospel movement, which emphasized collective responsibility, labor protections, and care for the poor.

Former President Herbert Hoover—vilified by Roosevelt and his allies—became a prominent opponent of the New Deal and a key ally of Fifield. Hoover advised and encouraged the minister through personal meetings and regular correspondence. In a 1938 letter, Hoover warned that if the Church were to conduct a moral investigation of the federal government, it would find “everywhere the old negation of Christianity—that the end justifies the means.”

These ideas did not remain confined to elite congregations or policy salons. They would soon be popularized, simplified, and sold to mass audiences through revival tents, television screens, and eventually the political mainstream.

Televangelism and the Sales Pitch of Faith

In 1947, Oral Roberts began preaching the Prosperity Gospel just as Dwight D. Eisenhower was rising through the ranks of the U.S. military and federal government. As discussed in earlier installments, Eisenhower would later cloak America’s fight against communism abroad in religious language during the 1950s. At the same time, Roberts and other charismatic Christian leaders were waging a parallel war at home—using prosperity theology to combat anti-capitalist sentiment and portray free-market ideology as divinely ordained.

Roberts framed faith as a contractual “blessing pact,” promising followers that God would return their donations sevenfold. Donors were assured that money would come back to them from mysterious, unseen sources if they demonstrated sufficient faith by giving generously. What followed was a wave of financial support from middle-class Americans eager to secure prosperity in the post-war economy—money that overwhelmingly enriched those preaching the gospel while delivering little material benefit to those funding it. This transactional model of faith laid the foundation for the next evolutionary stage of evangelical Christianity: televangelism.

With the rapid expansion of television in the mid-20th century, charismatic preachers found a powerful new tool for scaling their message—and their fundraising. By the 1960s, prosperity gospel teachers had fully embraced televangelism and came to dominate religious programming across the United States. Oral Roberts was among the first to develop a nationally syndicated weekly television program, which soon became the most-watched religious show in the country. By 1968, television had supplanted the tent revival as the central vehicle of his ministry.

Between the 1960s and 1980s, televangelists became some of the most influential figures in American religious life, amplifying prosperity theology to millions of households each week. Among the most prominent were Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, who helped bring networks like Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) to national prominence through programs such as The 700 Club, and later co-founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) through their own show, Praise the Lord (PTL).

By the late 1980s, the Bakkers’ programming reached an estimated 13 million viewers worldwide. Their ministry expanded far beyond television into sprawling business ventures, most notably Heritage USA—a Christian theme park that, at its peak in the mid-1980s, was the third-largest theme park in the United States, behind only Disney’s properties. The line between ministry, entertainment, and enterprise had all but vanished.

Though the Bakkers would eventually become synonymous with scandal, their broader impact on American evangelicalism and mass-media religion remains undeniable. They demonstrated that faith could be packaged, branded, and sold at scale—and that religious devotion could be leveraged into immense political and financial power.

Other prosperity gospel figures quickly followed their lead. Televangelists such as Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer refined the model for a new generation, while Paula White—perhaps the clearest inheritor of this tradition—would go on to become Donald Trump’s personal pastor and spiritual adviser.

Yet televangelism alone did not explain how a prosperity-gospel preacher could move from a television studio to the inner circle of a sitting president. For that leap to occur, prosperity theology needed to fully merge with American self-help culture, salesmanship, and political ambition.

Preachers and Prose

As prosperity theology was taking the country by storm religiously, the ideas it spurred inspired countless books, think pieces, and schemes in the worlds of business and politics. Around the same time, Rev. James W. Fifield began mobilizing clergy, and Oral Roberts was drawing crowds to his healing tent revivals. The self-help genre was gaining popularity among Americans looking for a roadmap to personal success in a rapidly changing economy.

The most famous of these early works was Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie began as a night-class instructor at a YMCA in New York City, teaching aspiring salesmen how to secure more business and be more effective in their roles. He focused on improving conversational skills, relating to people’s personal lives, and appearing empathetic to make selling easier. When one of his students, Leon Shimkin of Simon & Schuster, persuaded Carnegie to transcribe his fourteen-week course into a book, the result became one of the most influential nonfiction titles in American history.

As one of his most prominent critics, Sinclair Lewis described Carnegie’s method as teaching people to “smile and nod and pretend to be interested in other people’s hobbies precisely so that you may screw things out of them.” That was, of course, the premise of Carnegie’s course in the first place: a lengthy program designed to keep people paying for lessons that could have been summarized in a half-hour conversation. It was a business model that twenty-first-century coaching schemes and multi-level marketing operations would later refine and monetize.

In 1937, Napoleon Hill published Think and Grow Rich, outlining a so-called “Philosophy of Achievement” based on thirteen principles for success, drawn from the lives of wealthy figures like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford. Hill’s central message was that the only thing keeping someone from becoming rich was the wrong mindset. Change how you think, and wealth will follow. The result was a worldview that elevated individualism, rejected collaboration, and framed economic failure as a personal moral shortcoming rather than a structural reality.

Thinly veiled as self-help, Hill’s work amounted to anti-labor propaganda, repackaging the ideology of fiercely anti-union industrialists as universal wisdom. This mindset helped fuel hostility toward organized labor throughout the mid-twentieth century, culminating in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which curtailed union power nationwide by allowing states to enact so-called Right-to-Work laws (more on why we should repeal these laws here).

Norman Vincent Peale completed the fusion in 1952 with The Power of Positive Thinking: A Practical Guide to Mastering the Problems of Everyday Living. Peale taught readers that happiness, success, and fulfillment could be achieved by reshaping one’s mindset through faith, affirmation, and visualization. His ten-step method encouraged followers to repeat scriptural affirmations daily, suppress doubt, and believe without reservation that God would deliver success.

For years, Peale preached these principles from the pulpit at Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church, where Fred Trump regularly brought his wife and children to hear him speak. Donald Trump later referred to Peale as “his pastor” and credited him with shaping his business philosophy, even claiming that Peale’s teachings helped him survive nearly a billion dollars in debt.

This mindset—absolute belief untethered from material reality—would come to define Trump’s public life. If he believed strongly enough, success was inevitable. If it failed, it simply was not meant to be. Facts became flexible, failure became unspeakable, and confidence itself became the product. In that worldview, faith, salesmanship, and political power are not just aligned—they are interchangeable.

From Multi-Level Marketing Meritocracy to a Salesman for President

The prosperity gospel crashing headlong into the “Greed Is Good” ethos of the 1980s created an almost perfect breeding ground for something uniquely American. You will often hear the Right prattle on relentlessly about how America is a “meritocracy,” where everyday citizens are told to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” to achieve success. Nothing should be handed to anyone—an irony that becomes hard to ignore when so much of their leadership, including the head of their party, Donald Trump, comes from inherited wealth.

This fixation on meritocracy also explains why so many Americans became uniquely susceptible to pyramid and multi-level marketing schemes beginning in the mid-20th century. People across every tax bracket were drawn in by the siren song of “being your own boss” and “making your own hours.” The promise that anyone could will themselves into success was so intoxicating that millions put themselves into financial ruin chasing it, all while funneling wealth upward to a small group of people who became extraordinarily rich and politically powerful.

Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel founded Amway in 1959 after finding early success as distributors for the first major MLM, Nutrilite. After building an organization of more than 5,000 distributors and realizing they would never profit as much as those at the top, they applied the same multi-level marketing strategy to their own company. The result was Amway—one of the largest direct-sales corporations in the world and, for many, the clearest embodiment of the so-called American Dream: proof that any ordinary citizen could strike it rich if they simply worked hard enough.

Amway’s direct-sales model—exported to more than one hundred countries—became a ubiquitous feature of the modern economy. Even Donald Trump experimented with the approach; his short-lived Trump Network in 2009 used an Amway-style pitch to recruit sellers for nutritional supplements, snack foods, and skincare products.

Amway’s success was deeply intertwined with evangelical Christianity. Both DeVos and Van Andel were devout Christians who relied heavily on church communities as recruitment hubs. Major conventions and meetings routinely opened with prayer, and company rhetoric leaned heavily on themes of family, faith, and personal salvation. Terms like “conversion,” “belief,” and “commitment” were used interchangeably with business success, encouraging near-total loyalty to the brand. Leaving the organization often came with significant financial and social consequences, creating a high exit cost for those who wanted out once the math stopped working.

And eventually, the math stopped working for most of them. Beneath the surface, Amway operated exactly like the pyramid schemes it so carefully avoided being labeled as. The vast majority of distributors discovered that no amount of effort could overcome the structural reality: they couldn’t sell enough product or recruit enough people to turn a profit. Required fees, inventory purchases, and qualification thresholds ensured that losses piled up at the bottom, while those at the top rolled in millions. Many distributors went into debt simply trying to keep up.

With that accumulated wealth, DeVos and Van Andel translated economic power directly into political influence. Both became major donors to the Republican Party at the state and national levels. They forged close relationships with Ronald Reagan, who addressed thousands of Amway distributors at the company’s 1984 “Spirit of America” rally. Their financial support for Reagan’s 1980 and 1984 campaigns proved invaluable—particularly as Amway faced investigations and fines abroad for pyramid-scheme-like practices.

Despite being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission in 1969 and even after the FTC’s 1979 ruling that Amway was not technically a pyramid scheme, the company flourished domestically during the Reagan years. Jay Van Andel went on to serve as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and maintained close ties with President Gerald Ford, though he largely confined his political involvement to Michigan until he died in 2004.

Richard DeVos and his family, however, kept their hands firmly on the levers of political power. DeVos served as national finance chairman for the Republican National Committee and became a major donor to Focus on the Family, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. Through their wealth and influence, the DeVos family helped engineer an environment in Michigan that allowed unregulated charter schools to proliferate and transformed the birthplace of the American labor movement into a right-to-work state.

They exported this model nationwide—to Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, New Jersey, Virginia, Louisiana, and beyond—fueling hundreds of PACs and independent expenditure campaigns under the banner of “school choice” and “religious freedom.” In practice, these efforts worked to dismantle public education, weaken labor protections, and embed evangelical Christian values into public institutions.

The DeVos family’s influence now spans three generations, from ownership of the Orlando Magic to leadership roles across Amway’s corporate structure. And finally, there is Dick DeVos and his wife, Betsy DeVos—whose family, the Princes, share the belief that Christianity, capitalism, and patriotism are inseparable.

Together, the DeVos and Prince families used their combined wealth to wage a decades-long campaign against public education. Schools became the primary battleground for reshaping American society into a more rigidly Christian, prosperity-driven order. Their efforts culminated in Betsy DeVos’s appointment as Secretary of Education under Donald Trump, placing her in charge of dismantling the very system her family had spent years trying to undermine.

Without the prosperity gospel, Richard DeVos never would have amassed the wealth he did. Without that wealth, his family could not have exerted the political influence they wield today. And without a culture steeped in meritocratic mythology—where everyone is a “boss,” and failure is always personal—America would not have been nearly as primed for a slick salesman, reality-TV star, and serial grifter to ascend to the presidency.

Project 2025

All of these strands ultimately converge in Project 2025, the governing framework written by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation—an institution deeply entwined with the very prosperity theology and political machinery that produced it. Roberts’ appointment in 2021 was announced by Heritage board chair Barb Van Andel-Gaby, the daughter of Jay Van Andel, one of Amway’s co-founders. The lineage is not incidental. It is the point.

The ideological foundations of Project 2025 are unmistakably reinforced by the prosperity gospel that has animated modern conservative movements for decades. The document lays out an explicit plan to radically shrink the federal government, strip away social protections, and consolidate power in the executive branch. Its policy prescriptions include ending access to the abortion pill Mifepristone, easing child labor laws, dismantling the administrative state, weakening environmental and labor regulations, and completing Betsy DeVos’s long-standing project to eliminate the Department of Education.

Much like the theology and business models that preceded it, Project 2025 systematically downplays the importance of labor, collective bargaining, and fair compensation. The document includes an entire section devoted to “independent contractors,” recommending a return to Trump-era rules that made it easier for employers to classify workers as temporary or contract labor rather than full-time employees with benefits and protections. The language is revealing:

“Roughly 60 million Americans across all income groups, ages, education levels, races, and household types participate in independent work, including full-time, part-time, or as a ‘side hustle.’ People choose independent work for a variety of reasons, including flexibility, earnings potential, and the desire to be one’s own boss.”

This rhetoric is lifted directly from the prosperity gospel and the multi-level marketing playbook: flexibility over stability, aspiration over security, and personal belief over material reality. It treats precarity as freedom and casts exploitation as choice.

In his foreword, Roberts invokes the year 1979—the same year the FTC ruled that Amway was not technically a pyramid scheme—arguing that both 1979 and 2023 represented moments when the country and the conservative movement were “in dire straits” before being rescued by Ronald Reagan. In Roberts’ telling, Reagan’s triumph came from championing “the dynamic genius of free enterprise against the grim miseries of elite-directed socialism.” The language could have been lifted directly from the speeches, columns, and donor memos circulated by the DeVos and Van Andel families in the 1980s.

Though Donald Trump initially attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 during the campaign, the document ultimately appealed to him because it articulated the society he has always envisioned. In this world, power is autocratic and centralized, ordered around insular family dynasties overwhelmingly led by white men. Oversight is minimal or nonexistent. Work is constant, temporary, and unpredictable. Social obligation disappears. People do not owe one another anything.

These tenets are not merely political preferences—they are the direct inheritance of prosperity theology. They flow from a belief system that treats wealth as moral proof, poverty as personal failure, and hierarchy as divinely ordained. What we are witnessing now is the exertion of political power steeped in that religious dogma, made flesh through policy and governance.

And Americans are suffering for it.

The more clearly we understand the ideological architecture we are up against—not just a party or a candidate, but a decades-long fusion of theology, media, money, and power—the more obvious it becomes that incremental responses will not suffice. Countering this movement requires boldness, clarity, and a willingness to confront the religious fanaticism that continues to justify greed, cruelty, and authoritarianism in the name of God.

Conclusion: The Gospel They Preach

The prosperity gospel did not merely distort Christianity—it hollowed it out and refilled it with the moral logic of the marketplace. In doing so, it transformed faith from a call to mutual responsibility into a license for accumulation, hierarchy, and indifference. Wealth became virtue. Poverty became failure. And power, once sanctified, became untouchable.

Over decades, this theology was professionalized, broadcast, and monetized. It moved from pulpits to television studios, from revival tents to boardrooms, from self-help paperbacks to political platforms. Along the way, it taught generations of Americans that suffering is deserved, that help is weakness, and that anyone promising salvation—financial or spiritual—should be trusted if they sound confident enough. This is how a nation becomes susceptible to conmen: not because people are foolish, but because they are trained to confuse belief with truth and success with righteousness. It’s why so many people in the MAGA orbit can be seen hawking diet supplements, skin care products, and merchandise where everything has a monetary value, just like their predecessors in Nutrilite, Amway, and Mary Kay.

Project 2025 is not an aberration. It is the logical endpoint of this belief system made policy—an attempt to codify a society where obligation disappears, labor is disposable, and the powerful are shielded by both money and God. It reflects a worldview in which democracy is an inconvenience, empathy is a liability, and governance is merely another sales pitch.

What makes this moment dangerous is not simply the extremism of the policy proposals, but the moral framework that sustains them. When greed is baptized, and cruelty is reframed as discipline, there is no internal limit—only escalation. That is why technocratic fixes or half-measures cannot counter this movement. It must be confronted at the level of values, story, and moral clarity.

This is not a fight between religion and secularism. It is a fight over what kind of society we believe we owe one another. One vision says your worth is measured by what you accumulate, and your failures are yours alone. The other insists that dignity is not earned, that community is not charity, and that no economy—no matter how profitable—can justify abandoning its people.

Understanding how we got here is not an academic exercise. It is a warning. And whether we heed it will determine whether the next chapter of American politics is written by solidarity and accountability—or by the next salesman who knows how to tell us exactly what we want to hear.

Thank you all for reading and listening to By the Ballot. Looking back on 2025, we have had a wonderful year since we started this journey. As we head into 2026, we are focused on what Democrats can do in the Virginia General Assembly Session and in the 2026 midterms. By The Ballot will be taking a brief hiatus to spend time with family before we gavel in in Richmond. We will be back in the new year to continue our regularly scheduled programming.

By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

A couple weeks ago I wrote an article that appeared in the Virginia Capital newsletter for Dogwood News but the message bears repeating.

Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger and Virginia Democrats were deliberate and strategic in their 2025 campaigns, centering affordability and economic security at every level. House Democrats even called a special session in the final days of the cycle to revisit redistricting. This bold, eleventh-hour move will pay dividends for Democrats nationwide. Now it’s time to bring that same boldness to governing on the economy.

Throughout the 2025 cycle, Democrats across Virginia recognized a simple truth: the economy remains the number one issue on voters’ minds. The cost of living has never been higher, and housing affordability feels increasingly out of reach for Millennials and Gen Z.

Virginians have been hit hard under this presidency. Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs after Elon Musk and DOGE gutted the federal government, hurting not only federal workers but also the contractors who keep our economy running. During the last Democratic governorship, Virginia ranked as the nation’s top state for business. Under Glenn Youngkin’s final year, unemployment reached its highest level in years. Yet the current governor and the Republican nominee continued to cheer on Trump’s every move. Winsome Sears’ campaign slogan was “Let’s keep a good thing going.” But Virginians knew we couldn’t afford four more years of complicity.

At the top of the ticket, Spanberger’s “Affordable Virginia” plan contrasted sharply with Sears’ record of supporting Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill — legislation that raised costs for everyday Americans. Sears’ response? More culture-war ads about trans kids and athletes, completely divorced from the issues voters cared about most.

Spanberger, by contrast, stayed laser-focused on housing, healthcare, and energy costs — issues that resonate with every Virginian. And voters responded. Affordability was the defining factor of Election Day victories, which is precisely why Trump and the national GOP are already trying to co-opt the term ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Down-ballot, the pattern held.

• Delegate Joshua Cole built his campaign around “affordable housing, good-paying jobs, excellent schools, & affordable prescriptions.”

• Delegate Michael Feggans leveraged his veteran background to expose how Trump’s cuts hurt Virginia’s workforce, veterans’ healthcare, and military families.

• Lily Franklin, running in one of the Commonwealth’s most competitive districts, leaned into her working-class roots rather than shying away — proving that authenticity still wins.

This strategy worked. Democrats expanded their majority from 51 to 64 seats by running on a platform of tangible economic improvement for working Virginians.

At the same time, we showed the nation that Trump’s actions — from ICE agents abducting residents to withholding federal services during the GOP-induced shutdown — are deeply unpopular. Voters rejected the chaos. The polls made that clear.

We were riding high — for about five days.

Then, just as the reality of governing set in, eight Democratic US senators broke ranks, including Virginia’s own Tim Kaine, to broker a deal reopening the government in exchange for almost nothing. Democrats had forced the shutdown over Republicans’ refusal to extend ACA subsidies, with millions of Americans facing skyrocketing premiums.

While Senator Kaine’s desire to protect federal workers is understandable, it’s frustrating that Senate Democrats walked away with nothing but a promise to vote on subsidies in the Senate in December — a promise House Speaker Mike Johnson has already dismissed for his chamber.

That cave-in underscores why Virginia Democrats must now lead with urgency and conviction in the state capital. They proved their mettle just weeks ago; now they must bring that same bulldog spirit to governing. As the General Assembly prepares to gavel in, here are four key opportunities to deliver for working Virginians:

1. Right to Work Repeal

The first issue on everyone’s mind should be repealing Virginia’s so-called Right to Work law. ““Right-to-Work” laws trace back to the backlash of the 1940s, when employers and segregationists sold it as a means of protecting “worker freedom.” It was really about weakening unions and maintaining racial and economic hierarchies.

Today, Virginia’s adherence to that legacy still harms working families by leaving unions at a disadvantage. Workers have no real leverage or legal recourse, leaving collective bargaining as the only tool that ensures fair pay, safety, and dignity on the job.“Right-to-Work” laws trace back to the backlash of the 1940s, when employers and segregationists, threatened by the growing power of organized labor and multiracial unions, pushed through the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman’s veto. Sold as protecting “worker freedom,” it was really about weakening unions and maintaining racial and economic hierarchies.

The last time Democrats had a trifecta, they refused even to take it up — a decision that frustrated labor organizers across the Commonwealth. It took a novel procedural strategy by former Delegate Lee Carter just to force a vote on the floor. That hesitation didn’t go unnoticed, and it cost Democrats some labor support heading into 2021.

Now, the landscape has changed. Labor unions are enjoying their highest approval ratings in decades — around 70% nationwide — and Virginians themselves rejected efforts to enshrine Right to Work in the state constitution back in 2016. The message has been clear for years: working people want stronger protections, fair wages, and the right to organize without fear or interference.

We’ve already seen that it’s possible to be bold when reclaiming a trifecta. Michigan repealed its own Right-to-Work law in 2023 under Governor Gretchen Whitmer — and her approval rating reached a commanding 63% earlier this year. It didn’t hurt her politically; it strengthened her coalition. Virginia Democrats should take note.

Yes, Governor-elect Spanberger has signaled she may be hesitant to sign a total repeal, but politically, there’s value in drawing that line early. Sending a pro-worker bill to her desk and signing it would set the tone for this administration: we fight for working families first. As Spanberger said in her victory speech, she’ll “do everything possible to protect our workers and ensure that teachers receive a fair wage.” This is how you fulfill that promise.

2. Get Minimum Wage Hike Back on Track

In response to the stagnant federal minimum wage, Democrats passed a step plan to reach $15 by 2027. Youngkin vetoed the 2025 increase to $12.41 — a crucial step that would’ve kept Virginia on schedule.

Democrats should not just restore the hike — they should modernize it. The Fight for $15 began in 2012; a decade later, inflation and cost-of-living pressures make that target outdated. Adjusted for 2025 dollars, the equivalent is $21.49. Alternatively, Democrats could adopt a prevailing wage model that ties pay to industry benchmarks. Either path would honor the campaign’s promise to make life more affordable.

3. Healthcare and Prescription Drug Costs

With ACA subsidies in limbo and rural clinics shuttering after Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, too many Virginians are losing coverage or access to affordable care.

In 2018, Democrats and Republicans worked together to expand Medicaid in Virginia under the ACA. In 2020, they capped insulin costs at $50 a month — a move later matched by Congress at $35 for Medicare recipients. Virginia can once again lead by expanding Medicaid eligibility and further capping prescription costs for seniors and low-income families.

When people don’t have to choose between their health and their job, the economy benefits. Healthier workers are more productive, families are more stable, and communities thrive.

4. Data Centers and the Cost of Energy

The explosion of data centers across Virginia — especially in Northern Virginia — has created a political and environmental flashpoint. Suburban communities push them out; rural ones are left with pollution, noise, and massive energy demands.

We’ve already seen the consequences across the country and here at home. Musk’s “Grok” facility in Arkansas contaminated air and water across state lines. Loudoun County’s unchecked expansion sparked local resistance and led to a decline in the county’s population growth.

Virginia Democrats can lead nationally by enacting smart regulation:

1. Protect water tables and local ecosystems.

2. Invest in renewable power sources.

3. Stabilize consumer energy costs.

4. Ensure host communities share in the economic gains.

These steps show voters that Democrats can balance growth with accountability.

Be Bold in Richmond

Virginians voted overwhelmingly for Democrats to act, not to triangulate. For two years, it was easy to blame a Republican governor for inaction. Now, with complete control, Democrats must follow through.

Virginians expect their newly elected leaders to deliver on their promises, not retreat to the timid incrementalism that has too often plagued our party.

This isn’t about being “too progressive.” It’s about keeping your word. Prove to the voters who showed up that they were right — and give those who stayed home a reason to join them in 2027.

We finally have the momentum. We cannot afford to take our foot off the gas now as we head into 2026. The voters have put their faith in you to do the hard work of tackling the big battles, including the cost of living, protecting the health of the commonwealth, and preserving a future for all Virginians. Now it’s time to prove them right.

By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

Over the past few months, I’ve been getting a barrage of calls from unknown numbers. Because I work directly with clients and am involved in politics, I answer most calls that aren’t marked as obvious spam. Yes, I’ve gotten the usual fake loan approvals and robotic scams. But one name has kept coming up again and again:

MGM Sportsbook.

I’m not a regular gambler. I used the MGM app once or twice for small Super Bowl bets — less than $200 total. So when the first call came, I declined and moved on. Then came the second. The third. The fourth. And on it went.

I’ve long been wary of how pervasive gambling has become in our society, but these calls snapped things into focus: how easy it is to get sucked in, and how hard it is to get out.

Across the country, e-gambling apps now let you place thousands of dollars in bets with a single tap. And here in Virginia, we’ve been debating multiple forms of legalized gambling that are spreading faster than our laws can keep up.

At a moment of extreme wealth inequality and rising prices, people — especially young men — are desperate for ways to stretch a paycheck. That’s why it’s no accident that gambling companies ramp up their marketing around the holidays with “Get Rich Quick” sign-up bonuses like “Get $200 when you play for the first time,” conveniently hiding that you must spend $200 to get it.

And we need our elected officials — many of whom previously voted to relax gambling regulations — to realize that the house isn’t just winning; it’s expanding.

Skill Games: A False Promise

I had an op-ed published on this recently in the Richmond Times Dispatch but allow me to reiterate: In Virginia, we’re grappling with a rapid flood of so-called “skill” game machines — slot-style terminals showing up in gas stations, truck stops, bars, and convenience stores across the Commonwealth. Their supporters like to argue that these machines “help small businesses” and “bring in tax revenue.” But once you scratch beneath the surface, it becomes clear that this entire industry is designed to concentrate profit in the hands of out-of-state operators. At the same time, the harms fall squarely on low-income and vulnerable communities right here in Virginia.

And if we want to see what happens when this industry goes unchecked, just look to Pennsylvania. A jury there recently found that one of the companies behind these machines played a direct role in the death of a store employee, awarding his estate $15.3 million in damages after he was fatally shot during a robbery targeting the cash inside one of the terminals. That incident pulled back the curtain: the same corporate forces pushing these machines here in Virginia are not looking out for everyday people or small business owners. They’re looking out for themselves.

Let’s lay out the facts. During the brief window when these machines were temporarily legal under the Virginia ABC scheme (July 2020 through May 2021), roughly 8,000 machines were in operation. And according to the state’s own data, more than 70% of those machines were placed in lower-income ZIP codes. That’s not a coincidence — that’s the business model. These companies know exactly where people are most vulnerable to predatory gambling, and that is where they set up shop.

Meanwhile, the primary operator behind these terminals in Virginia, Pace-O-Matic, has left a clear paper trail of lobbying, regulatory avoidance, and attempts to write the rules in ways that benefit them and only them. They love to claim they’re “coming through the front door” and “doing business the right way,” but their track record tells a very different story. When Virginia lawmakers put forward a reasonable proposal in 2024 to regulate these machines and bring them under state oversight, Pace-O-Matic fought it tooth and nail — because real oversight would slow down their profits.

The safety risks are not hypothetical. In 2022, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) found that businesses hosting these machines experienced higher rates of robbery, violence, and public safety incidents. Pennsylvania’s jury verdict said the same thing out loud: these machines create “unsafe environments” for workers because they function as unprotected, cash-rich magnets for crime. And anyone who has walked into a corner store with one of these machines sitting in the back knows that it does not look or feel like something designed to protect people.

And those rosy revenue projections the industry keeps touting? Don’t buy it. The claims that these machines could generate up to $200 million annually rely on an unrealistic scenario in which the terminals spread everywhere, with thousands of mini-casinos scattered across the Commonwealth. They also rely on pre-2020 assumptions that don’t reflect Virginia’s now-expanded legal gaming industry. Without strict limits and serious regulation, that revenue isn’t new money — it’s just money drained from communities that can least afford to lose it.

This is, at its core, a matter of equity. Are we really willing to allow a business model that siphons money from lower-income neighborhoods and funnels it to out-of-state investors — all while pretending it’s good for “small businesses”? That is not a justice-oriented approach. It’s exploitation with a friendly marketing veneer.

The solution is straightforward: put a stop to the deliberate defiance that has fueled the spread of these machines. For too long, companies like Pace-O-Matic have operated as though Virginia’s laws are optional. It’s time for the General Assembly to strengthen the existing ban, prohibit any new terminals, and enforce the laws already on the books.

The data is clear: these machines are predatory, they target vulnerable communities, they offer limited benefit to the state, and they create long-term risks for public safety, addiction, and local economies. Virginia has a real opportunity to reverse this trend.

And our communities deserve nothing less.

Casinos: The Mirage of Economic Revival

In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly opened the door to casino gaming in the Commonwealth. Since then, four cities — Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, and Portsmouth — have voted to approve casinos. Richmond voters rejected it twice, and legislators killed efforts to put one in Tysons. Now the push has reached Roanoke, where residents and local elected officials are already sounding the alarm.

So why have casinos been so appealing to lawmakers for so long? Much like the proponents of “skill” games, casino advocates and lobbyists promise the world: massive tax revenue for schools and infrastructure, new jobs, a boost to local businesses, and even assurances that property values won’t take a hit. But when you look at the history of casinos in the United States—and where the money actually comes from—it’s far from the glamorous picture being sold.

Take Atlantic City as the clearest example. When New Jersey legalized casinos in 1977, the pitch was nearly identical to what we hear today: casinos would revive a struggling economy, bring in jobs, and attract tourism. Yes, the jobs came. But the broader revival never arrived. The money that flowed into the casinos stayed there. The once-thriving Atlantic Avenue business district never saw the promised foot traffic; instead, it deteriorated into a stretch of liquor stores and cash-for-gold shops. Local merchants got left behind.

And it’s not just Atlantic City. The National Association of Realtors found that casinos have an “unambiguously” negative impact on property values. Communities located within ten miles of a casino experience double the rate of problem gambling. And unsurprisingly, these same communities also see higher rates of home foreclosures, economic distress, and domestic violence.

These concerns were all raised repeatedly during the Richmond casino referenda and the Tysons debate. A review by P.J. O’Gilvie in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications found that casinos are typically located in lower-socioeconomic communities that already have some gambling presence. Developers promise economic improvements for these neighborhoods, but the benefits are rarely sustained. In fact, increased accessibility to gambling tends to drive up rates of gambling addiction—and with it, the negative social and economic consequences.

Before, the high barrier of traveling to Las Vegas or another destination made it harder for gambling addictions to take root. Now, with casinos popping up across the country, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, that barrier is gone. These communities—many of which are already struggling—are being hit the hardest.

A report by the Institute for American Values stated:

“Modern slot machines are highly addictive because they get into people’s heads as well as their wallets. They engineer the psychological experience of being in the ‘zone’ - a trance-like state that numbs feeling and blots out time/space. For some heavy players, the goal is not winning money. It’s staying in the zone. To maintain this intensely desirable state, players prolong their time on the machine until they run out of money - a phenomenon that people in the industry call ‘playing to extinction.’”

Gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate of any addiction. Unlike substance abuse recovery, where you might still have some financial footing left, gambling can wipe out everything—savings, credit, retirement funds—leaving people with massive debt, housing instability, and nowhere to turn. Meanwhile, gaming companies reap enormous profits from that devastation.

And here’s the final truth casino advocates don’t like to say out loud: the revenue they promise comes straight from the pockets of local residents. These aren’t destination casinos drawing tourists from out of state. They’re neighborhood casinos drawing money from people who live nearby—many of whom already pay high local taxes and struggle to make ends meet. In practice, casinos function as yet another tax on the poor, while the profits flow upward to gaming corporations.

Digital Betting: A New Frontier of Harm

Even if Virginia were to contain physical gambling locations, the truth is that digital betting has already blown the doors wide open. Over the past few years, online gambling platforms have spread across the country at a pace our laws simply can’t keep up with. And while we’ve been busy fighting over casinos and “skill” machines, an entirely new—and in some ways even more dangerous—form of gambling has taken hold.

Apps like Kalshi now allow people to bet on everything from sports outcomes to what someone might wear on a given day, all under the sanitized label of “trading.” But this isn’t the stock market. It’s gambling dressed up in financial language, and it’s drawing in younger and younger users who see it as a quick way to make money.

Many states have already taken notice. Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, and Ohio have all taken legal action against Kalshi, arguing that it operates illegally by failing to follow state-specific gambling and sports betting regulations. Kalshi has managed to win injunctions in some states and lose them in others, leaving behind a patchwork of rulings and confusion. That’s the environment we’re operating in now—a Wild West where the industry moves faster than regulators can react.

But it goes deeper than that. The rise of platforms like Polymarket, where people can literally bet on election outcomes, takes the gamification of daily life to a new—and troubling—level. It turns our political system into a casino, where civic participation competes with the lure of a payout. For younger generations already feeling disconnected from politics, the temptation to place a bet rather than cast a thoughtful vote is real. And once money enters the equation, decision-making changes. Voting becomes a financial wager, not a civic duty.

That’s not just irresponsible. It’s dangerous.

And here’s the larger issue: these services don’t need a physical presence in Virginia to cause harm. They’re always in our pockets. They’re available 24/7. There’s no bartender or clerk noticing someone struggling, no family member watching a spiral unfold. It’s just a screen, an app, a push notification, and a credit card.

This is how addiction grows in the dark.

Digital gambling has created an environment where the barriers that once slowed gambling addiction—distance, cost, stigma—have vanished. Instead of driving hours to a casino, people can now bet their savings away on their couch. Instead of one or two casinos in a state, every smartphone becomes one. And instead of communities having time to see the warning signs, the harms spread quietly, invisibly, until they’re impossible to ignore.

For young adults, especially, this is uncharted territory. Countless studies have shown how harmful gambling can be to mental health, financial stability, and long-term well-being. But digital betting goes a step further: it blends entertainment, finance, and competition into a single addictive feedback loop that is nearly impossible to escape once you’re in it.

While state governments have allowed traditional gaming to run wild across the country, the digital side has grown even faster—and with far fewer safeguards. This is the new frontier of gambling harm, and it’s already here. The question now is whether we’re willing to acknowledge that reality before the damage becomes irreversible.

When the Risks Outweigh the Benefits

Virginia has already seen the early warning signs of what unchecked gambling can do to communities, but the fight is far from over. As new proposals pop up—like the most recent casino push in Roanoke—residents and elected officials are speaking out, and for good reason.

Gamblers Anonymous has a simple mantra: “There’s no such thing as a sure thing.” That wisdom doesn’t just apply to the person placing a bet. It applies to local and state governments, hoping that gambling will be the magic revenue source that fixes budget holes and revitalizes neighborhoods. Time after time, study after study, the results are the same: there are no guaranteed wins for communities when the gaming industry moves in.

What is guaranteed, however, is that the house always wins—and they win big.

Every day across Virginia, low-income families and people battling addiction pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into slot machines, casinos, digital apps, and convenience-store terminals, hoping that this time things might turn around. Meanwhile, gaming companies rake in huge profits, dangling flashy incentives and tiny, intermittent payouts to keep people hooked. They sell legislators a vision of economic growth, when in reality they’re draining wealth directly from the communities least able to afford it.

Local governments have a responsibility to revisit the presence of both “skill” games and casinos in their jurisdictions—and to think long and hard before approving any new proposals. A short-term cash infusion isn’t worth long-term community harm.

And Virginians should be watching the General Assembly closely. Future sessions will determine whether we continue expanding this industry or finally put guardrails in place. Lawmakers must take the decades of research showing how harmful gambling can be to public health, safety, and economic stability—especially for young adults, who are being aggressively targeted by online gambling platforms.

Physical gambling venues can be limited and monitored. Digital gambling is another story. It has exploded with almost no oversight, and it is reaching young adults at record levels. Apps like Kalshi and Polymarket are taking things even further, turning everything—from sports outcomes to elections—into a betting market. This isn’t harmless entertainment. It’s a direct threat to long-term financial stability, mental health, and, in the case of political betting, our democratic process itself.

We cannot afford to be complacent.

We Can Still Change Course

Our state has allowed gambling—physical and digital—to run rampant across the Commonwealth. But it is not too late to reverse course. Virginia can choose to protect people rather than expose them to industries designed to extract as much money as possible from those who can least afford to lose it.

Because the truth is simple: the house only wins when the rules favor the house.

We can change those rules.

We can strengthen bans on predatory machines.

We can reject casino proposals that prey on vulnerable neighborhoods.

We can regulate or prohibit digital platforms that lure young people with promises of easy money.

We can insist that economic development means real investment—not corporate extraction dressed up as opportunity.

Most importantly, we can decide that our communities, our workers, and our young people are worth protecting.

Gambling companies want us to believe that their success is our success. But we know better.

They say the house always wins. Virginia doesn’t have to let it.

By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

Andrew Payton was the Democratic nominee for HD-34 during the 2025 Cycle. He’s a dad of two, an education specialist, and a climate advocate. You may recall Andrew from an earlier piece I wrote at the beginning of the Fall on flipping districts around college towns like Harrisonburg, where he ran. Here he is to give us his 2 cents on the race:

257 votes. Less than 1%. That’s how close our campaign came here in Virginia’s 34th House of Delegates district to unseating an entrenched 15-year incumbent Republican in a Trump +7 district that hasn’t elected a Democrat to this office since 1985.

Virginia Democrats saw incredible wins this year, flipping all three statewide offices, electing our first female governor, and the first Muslim woman elected to any statewide office in the United States. We also gained 64 seats in the House, the most in nearly four decades, amid a substantial shift to the left across the Commonwealth, including in rural areas like mine. We may not have won our particular seat, but we built on decades of local political organizing and turned a race that no one was talking about earlier in 2025, in a deep red area of western Virginia, into the closest race in the Commonwealth.

My district, the 34th, is in the heart of the stunningly beautiful Shenandoah Valley and includes the eastern and western parts of Rockingham County and the small city of Harrisonburg, a refugee resettlement community with a large state university. The folks here are hard-working, resilient, loyal, and proud. We have families who have been farming this Valley for generations, and a diverse immigrant community that helps define who we have become. I decided to run for this seat–just a few days before the April filing deadline, when it appeared no one else was ready to step forward–because I love this land, I love my neighbors, and I am sick of seeing corporations bleed both land and people dry to increase their profits. I saw policies coming out of Washington and Richmond exacerbating systemic harms and pain–the inhumane kidnappings that were breaking apart families, the closure of rural health clinics that put lives at risk, the generational wealth and health disparities, the disregard for the economic and health risks of unchecked climate change, the cuts to programs and benefits that literally feed our children when wages are not enough–and I decided to step up for the place and the people I care about.

On the campaign trail, I knocked on thousands of doors. I heard stories about medications families could no longer afford and the multiple jobs needed to pay rent, fears of being racially profiled by ICE and of the dismal job market students would meet once they graduated, and about the tariffs and economic policies hurting our small businesses and making the kitchen table math harder and harder to do. Stories like this aren’t unique to this place, of course, because the system we are a part of is deeply unfair. That’s because this system is designed to favor a few rich and privileged folks who use the rest of us as disposable resources. Communities like mine deserve leaders willing to fight for us, the people powering our economy.

My opponent, now elected to his eighth term, has watched prices rise and wages stagnate, and continues to prioritize big businesses over the working folks that make up his constituency. He fashions himself a bipartisan negotiator with an open-door policy, but despite his nearly two decades in the state legislature, he has shockingly little to show for it beyond a history of party-line votes to defend the profit margins of his corporate donors.

While we came up short–only 257 votes short–we built on decades of work from Harrisonburg and Rockingham Democrats and proved that winning here, in rural places and small cities like this, is possible, and that we can have representation that prioritizes working people. We need representation that won’t abandon our immigrant neighbors, treating them as political inconveniences, and believes economic opportunity doesn’t have to come at the expense of our land and water. We deserve a leader who sees everyone’s value, no matter where they’ve come from and no matter whether they live at the end of a long gravel road or four stories up in a housing complex.

I got into this race late and with an unknown name, and with a hunch that folks would share my vision for an affordable, equitable, and sustainable community, from the campus of James Madison University, to the historically black Northeast Neighborhood, to the working-class town of Elkton, to the tree-lined drives in Massanetta Springs. It turned out I was right: we are ready for representation that represents us–all of us–and I can promise you that we will continue to grow our coalition and fight for a future that is more fair to the folks who call the Shenandoah Valley their home.

We deserve better, and we’re going to keep fighting for it.

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By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

On the night of October 21st, 2025, the Republican nominee for Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor beamed behind a podium at an event he never thought would actually happen. After nearly 10 challenges to his opponent, Democratic Virginia State Senator Ghazala Hashmi, John Reid finally got the debate he’d been demanding for months—after being the only statewide race to not have one.

The two “candidates” traded turns answering questions in what was, on its face, one of the more cordial debates of the season. Reid laid out his conservative positions on book bans, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, and workers’ rights. Hashmi’s “responses” aligned cleanly with her actual record as a Democratic nominee.

The only problem was that Senator Hashmi wasn’t in the room. In fact, she wasn’t even participating.

Miles away in Fredericksburg, Hashmi was attending a stop on the “Bills Are Too Damn High” tour, an event hosted by Clean Virginia to highlight rising utility bills. She hadn’t agreed to any debate at all.

With only 13 days left in the cycle—and desperate to avoid being the lone candidate without a single debate—Reid’s campaign unveiled what they deemed “the next best alternative.” A monitor stood on the podium across from him displaying a photo of Senator Hashmi. But the voice answering the questions did not belong to her, but to an AI-generated simulation built from her public statements and questionnaires.

While the words didn’t technically misrepresent her platform, the stunt raised major questions about the use of artificial intelligence in politics—particularly around consent and manipulation of likeness. Debates are, by definition, mutual agreements. When one side writes the rules, picks the questions, and fabricates the participation of the other candidate, the event becomes little more than performance art.

One would expect some mechanism to regulate AI applications in campaigns. Instead, most states—including Virginia—have none. Despite multiple attempts in recent years to rein in the use of synthesized media, all have failed.

During the 2025 session alone, lawmakers attempted to address the issue. Senator Adam Ebbin introduced SB571 and Delegate Michelle Maldonado introduced HB697—bills that would have made it a Class I misdemeanor to use synthetic media for fraud, defamation, or libel by manipulating another person’s voice or likeness. Both died in committee.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell introduced SB775, and Delegate Mark Sickles carried its House companion, HB2479, requiring disclaimers on political ads that use synthetic media. A basic disclosure—simply acknowledging the use of AI. The legislature passed both. Governor Youngkin vetoed them, citing fears that the regulations were “too broad” and would stifle innovation.

Killing these bills opened the door for Reid’s AI “debate” and others like it. Reid may not have crossed into outright fabrication or slander, but the line is perilously thin—and absolutely nothing in Virginia law prevents a future campaign from crossing it as the technology becomes more realistic.

Political operatives and candidates of all parties now have to confront the same question: How much will innovation cost us in political integrity—and what are we willing to do to maintain the public’s trust?

Innovation before Integrity

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing America’s AI Action Plan. The order stripped away regulatory barriers, promoted open-source large language models, and fast-tracked data center permitting. But its most consequential—and often overlooked—provision prohibits states from regulating artificial intelligence at all.

Trump’s directive argues for a “single federal standard” to avoid a patchwork of state rules and directs federal agencies to weigh a state’s “AI regulatory environment” when allocating discretionary funds.

Soon after, Congressman Michael Baumgartner of Washington introduced legislation to codify the executive order and formally block states from imposing their own AI restrictions.

With the guardrails gone, AI development has exploded. The “AI slop” your parents share on Facebook has become disturbingly realistic. You might remember the viral clip of a woman smashing a glass bridge with a cartoonishly giant boulder. While ridiculous, thousands believed it—proving that realism can override reason. If absurd content can fool so many, imagine what happens when the videos are plausible and politically explosive.

AI content that was once easy to suss out has now taken an ultrarealistic face that many people with limited technological literacy–and unfortunately, a significant part of our nation’s electorate–believe.

Political and Campaign Abuse

During the 2025 cycle here in Virginia, we saw a small but telling preview of just how quickly this can spiral. Posts and replies on social media became breeding grounds for AI-driven misinformation. The Spanberger campaign even said they had to field angry calls from top donors and long-time supporters about an AI-generated video circulating online that featured Abigail Spanberger saying incredibly reprehensible things. The clip was entirely fabricated. And while X eventually removed it, the damage had already been done — and the election had already passed.

Situations like this are only going to get worse and harder to detect as guardrails remain nonexistent and self-described “innovationphiles” insist that any regulation is an attack on progress. Here in Virginia, we’re watching it unfold in real time as data centers grow like weeds throughout the Commonwealth. With rapid development comes more accessibility; with more accessibility comes more opportunities to both dupe and be duped by artificially generated content.

And this isn’t isolated to state races. AI has already impacted the 2026 midterm elections in one of the most competitive U.S. Senate races in the country. On November 10, the campaign account for Mike Collins — a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia — posted an AI-generated video of Senator Jon Ossoff after the Senate voted to reopen the government. Ossoff had voted against the bill due to the lack of a vote on ACA subsidies. The video, at first glance, looked incredibly realistic, showing Ossoff casually admitting that he voted against reopening the government despite hurting farmers and SNAP beneficiaries.

And people bought it. A lot of people. Outrage piled up in the comments, accusing Ossoff of callousness, incompetence, and even corruption. Then the outrage shifted to Mike Collins after the video was debunked — though by then, it had already done its damage.

The problem here isn’t just ethical, though it is deeply unethical. It’s structural. As of right now, nothing illegal has occurred. There is currently no mechanism at the Federal Election Commission to regulate AI-generated political content. No requirement that campaigns disclose altered or synthetic footage. No rules governing distribution.

The most we can be grateful for are the crowdsourced “community notes” on X. This volunteer-run fact-check system is now, absurdly, one of the only real-time defenses against electoral misinformation.

But the actual danger is the speed and willingness with which voters believed these videos. The visceral reactions these fakes triggered — anger, panic, resentment, distrust — are an unfortunate preview of how hostile the electoral terrain is about to become.

Fake News’ Fake News?

However, it’s not just everyday civilians getting duped by these increasingly realistic videos — even major media players are falling for them. Fox News was recently caught running an entire news story based on footage they believed was real, only to discover that it was completely AI-generated.

After OpenAI released Sora 2 on September 30, social media was flooded with thousands of hyperrealistic videos created with the new text-to-video model. The explosion of content coincided with a noticeable uptick in what can only be described as “AI slop” circulating across Facebook, X, and TikTok. Some of it was harmless nonsense, but a disturbing amount followed a clear pattern.

A trend emerged showing AI-generated clips made to look like shaky iPhone videos inside grocery stores, gas stations, or fast-food restaurants, as well as mock interviews with supposed SNAP beneficiaries. These videos depicted people bragging about selling food stamps for cash or using EBT to purchase decadent meals — all designed to “confirm” existing right-wing narratives about food stamp fraud.

Fox News took the bait. One video in particular, showing a woman yelling at a cashier — “They cut my food stamps. I ain’t paying for none of this s**t. I got babies at home that gotta eat.” — was treated as legitimate and turned into an entire segment pushing the idea of rampant SNAP abuse. In reality, the clip was created by several racist, right-wing influencers who have been seeding these fakes as part of a coordinated effort to inflame outrage.

But this is precisely what these AI content creators are banking on: that confirmation bias is so strong, and the videos are now so realistic, that people will believe something if it aligns with the narrative they already carry in their heads. And once they believe it, they’ll share it — spreading misinformation like an infectious disease.

The frightening part is not just that everyday people fall for these videos, but that major media outlets — ones with the power to shape national opinion — are being fooled, too. The line between genuine reporting and synthetic fiction is blurring, and the people producing these deepfakes know precisely how to exploit that vulnerability.

Artificial Plausible Deniability

There’s another side to this coin — one that might be even more dangerous than manufactured scandals: the growing ability for people to deny real wrongdoing by blaming it on AI. As synthetic media gets more realistic, we’re entering an era where anyone caught on camera or in a recording can simply shrug and say, “That wasn’t me. That was AI.”

AI is generating a level of distrust so pervasive that genuine evidence risks becoming meaningless. Frankly, it’s surprising that Donald Trump — the PR spinner-in-chief — or his allies haven’t leaned harder into this strategy already in response to the Jeffrey Epstein investigations. It would be easy for them to claim that photos, emails, or references connecting Epstein to Trump were artificially generated. We’re likely only a few news cycles away from this exact defense.

We’ve already seen hints of this tactic online. After footage surfaced from the No Kings Rallies, countless right-wing accounts claimed the images were AI-generated or just altered footage from the 2017 Women’s March. This emerging line of reasoning can be weaponized to delegitimize genuine public demonstrations, especially those pushing back against authoritarianism — something we’ve already witnessed during Trump’s presidency.

The problem is that AI detection itself is still in its infancy. The tools used to verify manipulated content are already struggling to keep pace with the new models released every few months. The technology used to fabricate reality is accelerating far faster than the technology designed to distinguish real from fake.

And that raises several critical, unsettling questions:

Will more politicians start denying criminal, corrupt, or inappropriate behavior by exploiting the public’s growing distrust and claiming real evidence is synthesized?

Will citizen-led protests and grassroots movements be delegitimized — not through propaganda, but through the insinuation that any photo or video of them is altered media?

Could we see another January 6th — in America or abroad — brushed aside by claiming the footage wasn’t real, that rioters were AI-generated, that the chaos never happened?

These are not hypothetical risks. They are the natural progression when we allow algorithms and large language models to blur, distort, and rewrite our reality on a screen — and when we fail to build the guardrails that protect truth itself.

Constructing the Guardrails

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence in 2025 has had a cascade of negative impacts on the country — informational, environmental, and economic. And while Trump’s executive order attempts to block a patchwork of state regulations and may lack real teeth without congressional action, what states can and should do is begin by regulating AI’s use in politics.

Big Tech already knows the stakes. Between 2024 and 2025, Silicon Valley companies spent $1.1 billion on political ads and lobbying campaigns to stop these regulations before they take root. And Trump knows precisely how much influence these tech billionaires have, which is why he placed them front and center at his inauguration. Their opposition isn’t subtle: meaningful regulation would cut directly into their bottom line, even at the expense of democratic stability. So they are spending enormous political and financial capital to stop it.

Despite that pressure — and the federal government’s refusal to act — many states have already begun making significant strides. As of 2025, all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C. have introduced legislation on AI generation. Thirty-eight states have adopted or enacted laws. Twenty-three now have statutes governing AI use in political advertising, though many are already facing legal challenges claiming they infringe on the First Amendment.

Most of these laws apply only during a defined window near an election — typically 60 to 120 days beforehand — and specifically target “deepfake” content that falsely depicts candidates saying or doing things they never said or did. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a start.

One of the strongest examples comes from Minnesota, which passed one of the most robust, enforceable deepfake statutes in the country. Under this Minnesota law, anyone who widely shares a deepfake within 90 days of an election is guilty of a crime if:

1. They know or should have known the content was a deepfake created without the depicted person’s consent; and

2. They acted with the intent to harm a candidate or influence the result of an election.

The penalties escalate based on severity:

• Repeat offenders (within 5 years): Up to 5 years in prison or a fine up to $10,000, or both.

• Intent to cause violence or bodily harm: Up to 364 days in jail or a fine up to $3,000, or both.

• Other cases: Up to 90 days in jail or a fine up to $1,000, or both.

Tech industry groups are already challenging the law, but its passage underscores the seriousness of the threat — and how deeply states recognize the damage deepfake videos can inflict on elections. When synthetic content influences outcomes, the consequences aren’t abstract or hypothetical. They’re immediate, real, and far-reaching. So the punishments must be equally serious.

If we genuinely want to counteract the adverse effects this technology is having on our democracy, states cannot afford half-measures. They must be willing to act boldly. These proposals should be bipartisan no-brainers — guardrails that protect every candidate, every party, and every voter.

And I hope that the bills the Virginia General Assembly passed before — the very same ones Governor Youngkin vetoed — will be taken up again, sent to Governor-elect Spanberger’s desk, and signed into law, so that more candidates can’t use Artificial Intelligence in bad faith like John Reid or Mike Collins already have.

Because we need these laws to be enacted. Then strengthened. Then expanded. Because the threat is not slowing down, and neither should we.

TL;DR

AI is exploding faster than our political system can keep up — and campaigns are already exploiting the lack of guardrails. In Virginia, a candidate even “debated” an AI-generated version of his opponent. Across the country, deepfakes are spreading misinformation, fooling voters, warping media coverage, and influencing elections with zero legal consequences. Trump’s executive order blocks states from regulating AI, Big Tech is spending billions to stop reforms, and federal agencies have no mechanisms to police synthetic political content.

Some states are acting anyway, passing laws to punish deepfake misuse near elections — but many are facing legal challenges, and Virginia’s attempts were vetoed. Without bold actions in state governments, AI-driven deception will overwhelm our campaigns, our media ecosystem, and our democracy.

By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

In political advertising, every cycle is a race to find the next best way to reach voters. As new platforms emerge each year, campaigns scramble to keep up — but too often, they end up chasing trends rather than shaping them.

For nearly a decade, Facebook was the gold standard for digital persuasion. Mark Zuckerberg’s platform allowed advertisers to microtarget, test, and optimize like never before. But the post-2016 reckoning — the Cambridge Analytica scandal, congressional hearings, and a wave of privacy reforms — changed everything. Meta rolled back political targeting capabilities, kneecapping one of the most powerful persuasion tools in modern politics.

YouTube became the next frontier, with 62% of all internet users watching daily. But as Google faced similar scrutiny, it too restricted ad targeting. Meanwhile, streaming TV surged ahead — 82% of Americans now use streaming services, compared to just 36% with cable or satellite.

And yet, there’s an even bigger opportunity we’re ignoring: digital audio.

Did Video Really Kill the Radio Star?

It may clash with where everyone thought media was heading — and yes, cue “Video Killed the Radio Star” — but think about it for a second. Ever since the rise of the iPhone and the explosion of wireless headphones, the most common sight in public isn’t people glued to a TV or even a phone screen. It’s people walking, working, commuting, or cleaning — with headphones in.

Digital audio has quietly become the soundtrack of modern life. It makes long commutes tolerable, workouts easier, chores bearable, and everyday life just a little less dull. Multi-tasking is the norm now — and digital audio makes it possible to stay constantly plugged into news, entertainment, and conversation without needing to look at a screen.

I myself am a voracious podcast listener for this reason. I predictably listen to Pod Save America and the Weekly Show because of course I do but also I listen to Last Podcast on the Left, Behind the Bastards, the Adam Friedland Show, Stavvy’s World, Sounds like a Cult and Maintenance Phase religiously week after week because I contain multitudes and I enjoy it. I also listen to the Ezra Klein Show because I’m a masochist.

Gone are the days of rewinding tapes, burning CDs, or hoping your radio signal holds through a tunnel. Now, with a couple of taps, you can download a podcast episode, stream hours of music, or listen to an audiobook while folding laundry.

And the numbers don’t lie:

• 228 million Americans (nearly 80% of everyone over 13) listen to some form of audio every month.

• 210 million listen every single week.

• 70% of Americans have listened to a podcast at least once.

• 55% listen monthly — a number that keeps growing year after year.

• In early 2025, the average American spent 3 hours and 54 minutes per day listening to audio — radio, podcasts, streaming music, and even satellite.

Here’s what’s most important: 63% of all that listening is ad-supported.

That means while we’re chasing people’s eyeballs across TV, CTV, and social feeds, there’s an audience of more than 200 million Americans who are literally inviting us into their ears — and they’re already used to hearing ads.

So no, video didn’t kill the radio star. If anything, radio evolved, adapted, and went digital — and now it’s sitting right in the center of the attention economy, waiting for us to use it.

Gather Round Youths and I’ll Tell You a Tale

But you know who loves digital audio more than any other generation? Gen Z

Eighty-six percent of Gen Z say they listen to music or podcasts to boost their mood. They spend 42% of their audio time streaming music, 20% listening to YouTube, 16% on AM/FM or radio streams, 8% with podcasts, and 14% with other audio sources. Basically: if it plays sound, they’re tuned in.

And here’s the wild part — they actually prefer audio-only content.

Seventy-six percent of Gen Z podcast listeners say they’d rather listen than watch, even as more shows add video versions. For a generation raised on TikTok and YouTube, that’s surprising — and telling. Audio isn’t background noise for them; it’s a comfort zone.

Right now, about 35 million Gen Zers are podcast listeners. And they’re loyal. Once they find a podcast host or show that clicks with them, they stick with it.

As for where they’re listening — Spotify is king. Over half of Gen Z (56%) say it’s their main app, up from 47% in 2021. YouTube trails far behind at 21%, and Apple Podcasts keeps falling — now down to 10%.

And don’t think they’re doing all this in the car.

Most Gen Z listening happens at home and on mobile. They’re streaming while getting ready for class, cooking dinner, or zoning out after work. Twelve percent listen on public transit, another 10% while walking or biking — but wherever they are, they’re not staring at a TV screen.

So if you’re trying to reach young voters, you don’t need another shiny video ad or viral stunt. You need to be where they already are — in their headphones, in their daily routines, and in their playlists.

Whisper In My Ear, Tell Me All the Things You Want Me to Hear

Here’s the thing: audio ads work — and they work better than almost anything else in your toolkit.

One study from Veritonic found that 60% of consumers remember audio and podcast ads more than billboards. Another showed that nearly half of all listeners recall audio ads more than display or video ads.

And it’s not just recall — it’s attention.

A Dentsu study revealed that people pay 128% more attention to audio ads than to TV commercials. Think about that for a second: in an age of constant distraction, people are actually listening.

When you’re literally in someone’s ear — on their walk, in their car, while they’re cooking dinner — your message doesn’t compete with a million visuals on a feed. It’s direct, personal, and intimate. You’re not interrupting their routine — you’re part of it.

And it’s cost-effective.

Podcast ads are 43% more cost-efficient per CPM than other platforms, according to Dentsu. That means you can get better recall, more attention, and deeper engagement — for less money.

That’s an equation that any campaign manager or media buyer should love.

Audio also has another advantage most don’t think about: trust.
Listeners build a bond with podcast hosts — it’s the modern version of appointment radio. When those hosts read or endorse an ad, the message lands differently. It doesn’t feel transactional; it feels conversational. That’s why small brands (and political outsiders) have thrived on audio — the connection is real.

So while we’re spending billions trying to chase eyeballs, there’s an entire ecosystem of ears waiting — focused, loyal, and ready to engage.

Ear Piercing (Through the Clutter)

Let’s face it — we are drowning in ads. Everywhere you scroll, tap, or swipe, there’s another video trying to sell you something, another campaign “reaching out,” another sponsored post wedged between your playlists. In politics, it’s even worse.

The 2024 cycle was the most expensive in history — with Democrats spending $6.7 billion, Republicans $7.6 billion, and another $500 million from third-party candidates. That’s more than $14 billion collectively, and what did most of that money go toward? TV spots, social ads, and every other place people are already sick of being sold to.

We’re competing for attention in the noisiest marketplace in human history. And persuasion now takes more than a clever tagline or a viral video. People are tuning out — or actively muting us.

That’s why audio is such an opportunity.
It’s not just another channel; it’s an escape hatch. While everyone else is screaming visually, audio lets us whisper directly to voters who actually want to listen.

Think about it: when you’re on a run, driving home, cleaning the kitchen, or commuting — that’s the one time you’re not doom-scrolling. You’re focused. You’re open. You’re listening. That’s where persuasion still works.

By investing more in audio advertising — podcasts, streaming radio, in-app placements, and even the new wave of AI-narrated articles that are popping up across major outlets — Democrats can reach audiences who have completely tuned out of traditional visual ads. More and more publishers are monetizing their text-to-speech features with 15- and 30-second ad slots at the start or midpoint of each piece. That’s inventory we’re barely even touching.

And this shouldn’t stop at paid placements. Campaigns should be thinking organically, too. That means candidates guesting on popular podcasts, campaign managers doing longform interviews, and yes — even starting their own shows. People want authenticity, and audio gives it room to breathe.

You’re already seeing this shift. Former operatives like Ezra Klein have built entire media ecosystems around their voices. Governors like Andy Beshear are launching their own podcasts to speak directly to voters — unfiltered, without a journalist acting as a middleman. That’s the model.

So it’s time to stop thinking about what’s “eye-catching” and start thinking about what’s ear-grabbing.

TL;DR

Campaigns are still fighting for attention where voters have long stopped listening. While billions pour into TV, video, and social media ads, the real untapped frontier in political communication is digital audio.

Nearly 80% of Americans listen to some form of digital audio weekly, and Gen Z leads the charge — spending hours a day streaming music and podcasts. Audio ads don’t just reach them; they stick. Studies show they’re 128% more engaging than TV ads, drive better recall, and cost less per impression.

For Democrats especially, this is the next great messaging opportunity. In an oversaturated visual landscape, audio cuts through the noise — literally. It’s intimate, portable, and trusted. Whether through ads on Spotify, podcast sponsorships, or candidates hosting their own shows, the campaigns that speak directly into voters’ headphones will shape the next generation of persuasion.

Bottom line: stop asking what’s eye-catching — start thinking about what’s ear-grabbing.

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By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

We explore how Christian Nationalism has evolved from a political force to a separatist movement, backed not only by far-right religious leaders but increasingly by Silicon Valley venture capital and figures aligned with JD Vance, Peter Thiel, and the online Christian Right.

Matt and Chuck trace the historical parallels to extremist enclaves like the Branch Davidians, the Covenant, Sword & Arm of the Lord, and the Posse Comitatus movement — showing how today’s “heritage communities” echo past attempts to secede from society, reject civil rights progress, and build white-only theocratic enclaves.

We also look at what these developments mean for Appalachian communities: land prices, political radicalization, and the rising threat of modern militia-style organizing.

Finally, we discuss what can be done — from local journalism and policy guardrails to public awareness — to push back before these projects reshape the region.

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Also, a quick shout-out to Olivia Hathaway from the Blue Ridge Young Democrats for sending along this intreactive Virginia Local Food Map, as folks are struggling with prices during Trump’s ongoing tariff,s and people are looking to buy locally: https://forms.gle/YY14vXyKMRn6xRss8

This week’s By the Ballot is written by Michael O’Connor from Dogwood News. Michael is an award-winning journalist who started covering Virginia news in 2013 with reporting stints at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia Business, and Richmond BizSense. A graduate of William & Mary and Northern Virginia Community College, he also covered financial news for S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Michael is the author of the Virginia Capital, a two-times-a-week newsletter that explores the landscape of Virginia’s policy disputes and labor battles and why they matter. I highly encourage you all to subscribe if you haven’t already, to stay up to date, especially as we head into the 2026 Virginia General Assembly Session. Sign up here.

Without further ado, I’ll let Michael take it from here.

As the dust settles on Virginia’s historic elections earlier this month, one thing that’s becoming clear is that unions helped fuel significant gains for Democrats on election night, even as many of these winning candidates did not make expanding worker power a focus of their campaigns.

I witnessed this as a reporter covering campaign events leading up to Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s landslide 14-point victory in the governor’s race over MAGA Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

Whether it was at the raucous Spanberger rally in Norfolk headlined by former President Barack Obama, rallies in downtown Richmond, or small panel discussions featuring Democrats seeking seats in the House of Delegates: I could always spot union members, most often in the purple-and-yellow shirts of members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) or from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), along with carpenters and kitchen workers.

And, as the publication NOTUS reported, federal layoffs, shutdown furloughs, and rising health care costs energized union members with AFGE, which endorsed Spanberger, to get out and vote and volunteer with campaigns in a massive way.

More often than not, these workers and unions got a shout-out from candidates, and they raised their concerns when they were allowed to do so.

But the question now is what pro-worker policy changes can we expect from Virginia Democrats now that they’ve been given full control of the General Assembly and Governor’s Mansion in historic fashion?

It’s worth noting that on Friday, Spanberger announced the members of her transition team’s policy committees.

The co-chairs of the labor committee are: Greg Akerman, president of the Baltimore-D.C. Metro Building Trades Council; Shawn Avery, president and CEO, Hampton Roads Workforce Council; David Broder, executive director, SEIU Virginia State Council; and Paige Shevlin, a former strategic advisor for infrastructure workforce development in the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Still, readers of By the Ballot are likely aware that Spanberger’s position on repealing “Right-to-Work” in Virginia is squishy, to put it politely.

As a candidate, she was clear that she didn’t support rolling back “Right-to-Work,” even though it’s a law that has been shown to hurt union power, and repealing it would strengthen workers’ position at negotiating tables across the commonwealth. (P.S. If you want to learn more about the history of right-to-work and its roots in the Jim Crow South, I recommend this piece.)

And, despite the broad mandate voters handed him with a 13-seat gain in his chamber, Democratic House Speaker Don Scott was preaching restraint the day after the election and warning against overreach.

Taken together, that probably doesn’t bode well for a “Right-to-Work” repeal in the upcoming session. I wouldn’t be surprised if a legislator filed a bill to do so, but odds are, and Matt can correct me if I’m wrong, it gets bogged down in debate and dies in committee.

However, such a debate, especially one spearheaded by an experienced legislator, could help set the stage for actually getting something to Spanberger’s desk before her term is up. What she would do with it at that point would almost certainly be a flashpoint in her tenure.

Much more likely in the near term is that Spanberger and Democrats will quickly raise the minimum wage.

Spanberger has always been on board with raising the minimum wage. The tougher question is by how much she will support doing so.

Anyone who’s been to the grocery store or pays rent can tell you that $15 an hour is not a living wage. Workers I’ve spoken to tell me they need “$25 to thrive.” (Democrat Leslie Mehta told me she supported that goal before she went on to flip her Chesterfield-area House seat).

The other thing workers, especially public school teachers and home care workers, need is a statewide right to collectively bargain. Right now, whether most public sector workers have that right is subject to the whims of local school boards and city councils that may be getting advice from anti-union consultants.

Candidate Spanberger said she would work with the General Assembly to expand collective bargaining rights, so odds are good that more Virginia workers will win this right.

Beyond fairness in the workplace, another area worth watching is creating fairness in the tax code. But it’s less clear, at least to me, how much political will there is around this. This could look like, as The Commonwealth Institute recently highlighted, raising taxes on wealthy Virginians with a 10% tax on income over $1 million, something that was attempted in the previous session but failed.

Currently, Virginia’s top income tax rate of 5.75% applies to anyone making more than $17,001—so most Virginia taxpayers. That means the income of the average teacher in Virginia, making $70,441 in 2024, is taxed at the same rate as the income of, say, Robert Blue, the CEO of Dominion, whose base salary was $1.2 million last year.

It seems uncontroversial to try to change that, and a similar law proved successful in Massachusetts without resulting in a mass exodus of wealthy New Englanders from the state.

I’m going to tell you something that the most successful candidates in Virginia this year —and successful Democrats nationwide—already know: we will never win the Presidency or lasting majorities again, at any level, without Rural America.

Look at the electoral maps from the last few cycles. Rural counties have swung key states red—or simply stayed home. But this year, something changed in Virginia. Democrats made historic gains in both the House of Delegates and statewide races, thanks in no small part to Rural Virginia. Compared to 2024, every county except four moved more Democratic. Compared to 2021, every single county swung our way.

That wasn’t luck. It was strategy. For the first time, Virginia Democrats fielded a candidate in every one of the 100 House districts. That kind of local presence built the infrastructure that helped carry Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger to victory—by one of the largest margins in decades—and deliver the first Democratic trifecta in almost forty years, with the biggest legislative majority since 1989.

If Democrats want to win in 2026 and beyond, we can’t just refine our message. We have to rethink where and how we deliver it.

The Abandoned but Mighty Minority.

By 2040, seventy percent of Americans will be represented by just thirty senators from fifteen states, while the other thirty percent will be represented by seventy senators from the remaining thirty-five. Yet, as recently as a few years ago, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said: “For every blue-collar rural Democrat we lose, we pick up a moderate Republican in the suburbs.”

That trade-off never materialized. Swing voters haven’t replaced the working-class base we’ve lost. Partisan tribalism runs deeper each cycle. The problem isn’t that rural Democrats are voting Republican—it’s that they’re not voting at all.

Disillusionment runs deep. Donald Trump tapped into that with his brand of angry populism, but he didn’t create it. Roughly one-third of Americans didn’t vote in 2024, and many of them live in rural communities. These are Democrats in waiting—voters who share our values but feel abandoned.

The party’s current playbook—focusing on densely populated urban and suburban centers—is unsustainable. Rural Americans increasingly feel invisible to both parties, especially when Democratic leadership is dominated by members from coastal metro areas. It doesn’t help that both our Senate and House leaders hail from New York City—the symbolic opposite of rural America.

This alienation runs deep. Many rural voters opposed NAFTA decades ago as factories shuttered and jobs moved overseas. Today, even though rural America produces more than ever, its communities see none of the benefits. Their productivity has tripled, yet the profits flow to urban and corporate centers. Add Trump-era tariffs and bailouts that punished small farmers, and you get a political landscape ripe for Democratic renewal—if we’re willing to show up and fight for it.

An Aside on Rural America

Before going further, it’s worth dispelling some of the most ill-conceived notions about what Rural America actually looks like.

Rural America is too often portrayed as monolithic—conservative, white, and politically homogeneous. Commentators sometimes use “rural” and “working class” as coded language for white voters. But that stereotype misses the real story.

The percentage of non-Hispanic white residents in rural areas declined by four percentage points between 2010 and 2020, a shift equivalent to two million more people of color calling rural America home. Today, people of color make up roughly 24% of rural communities, compared to 43% in urban areas.

• Hispanic and Latino residents represent the largest share of the rural minority population—about 4.1 million people, or 9% of the total.

• The Census counted 3.5 million non-Hispanic Black residents (7.7%), a slight decline from 2010.

• The population identifying as Native Peoples or “Some Other Race” rose to 1.1 million (2.5%), and Asians make up about 1% of the rural population.

Here in Virginia, nearly half of the rural population is non-white. The Commonwealth’s Southside region, for example, is home to large and historic Black rural communities—including Prince Edward County, where a student-led strike at a rural high school helped spark the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, the Shenandoah Valley is one of only six federally designated refugee resettlement areas in the country. Its towns have become home to families from Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Palestine, China, and beyond—people who have built new lives, businesses, and faith communities in the heart of rural Virginia.

Rural America is changing. It’s diverse, dynamic, and far more complex than the caricature we see in headlines. The next time someone insists that rural means white, you can tell them—with confidence—they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Numbers Don’t Lie

Redistricting may shift district lines, but it can’t change geography—and geography still shapes power. Look at the past three presidential elections: Donald Trump has won the majority of U.S. counties each time, by a staggering margin of roughly 85 to 15.

Now, land doesn’t vote—but representation is built on land. And when you examine the numbers, the imbalance becomes clear. In 2016, it became a running joke that Trump somehow lost the popular vote but still won the presidency. But when you look closer, he carried 230 congressional districts, while Hillary Clinton won 206. Those numbers matter, because congressional districts—not national vote totals—decide who holds the gavel in Washington.

Since then, those district lines have shifted through redistricting, but the geographic divide has only hardened. And if Democrats don’t invest in rural organizing now, the next round of Republican gerrymandering will only make that imbalance worse.

Right now, the GOP holds a 219-seat majority in the House, with 214 Democrats and two vacancies. Once those are filled—Adelita Grijalva for Democrats and a Republican successor for Mark Green—we’ll be at roughly 220–215. That means the majority could flip with just three seats. That’s not a fantasy. It’s math.

And look at where those opportunities exist: in rural and exurban America.

Ten rural or semi-rural congressional districts are currently rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report:

• Democratic-held:

  • CA-13 – Gray

  • ME-02 – Golden

  • NM-02 – Vasquez

  • WA-03 – Gluesenkamp Perez

• Republican-held:

  • CA-22 – Valadao

  • CA-48 – Issa

  • CO-08 – Evans

  • IA-02 – Miller-Meeks

  • PA-10 – Perry

Those ten seats could determine the balance of power in Congress—and almost all of them run through rural America.

The same holds true for the Senate. Unless Democrats eliminate the filibuster, we’ll need every possible seat to clear the 60-vote threshold. The last time we had a supermajority was in 2008 under Senator Harry Reid. That coalition included rural Democrats like Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller (WV), Max Baucus (MT), Tom Harkin (IA), Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan (ND), Tim Johnson (SD), Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Sherrod Brown (OH), and Mark Begich (AK)—all from states that Democrats have since written off.

We can’t govern boldly without reclaiming at least some of that territory. And make no mistake: the states that will decide Senate control in 2026—Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Ohio—are all heavily rural.

If Democrats want to pass big, generational reforms—on campaign finance, voting rights, or the courts—they can’t do it without the people who live beyond the interstates and the skylines. Because no one is reforming the Senate anytime soon—and the map won’t change itself.

Looking down to the states, six state legislatures are within a few seats of a majority, as I outlined in a prior piece. These are going to be the places where the gerrymandering mentioned above could be reversed at the end of this decade:

• Arizona

  • House - 14 D - 21 R

  • Senate- 13 D - 17 R

• Maine

  • House - 76 D - 73 R

  • Senate - 20 D - 15 R

• Michigan

  • House - 52 D - 58 R

  • Senate - 19 D - 18 R

• Minnesota

  • House - 67 D - 67 R

  • Senate - 33 D - 32 R

• Pennsylvania

  • House - 102 D - 101 R

  • Senate - 23 D - 27 R

Rural districts will determine these state legislatures, as we saw on Tuesday in Virginia, where Democrats were poised to expand their 51-seat majority by four seats. After they ran in all 100 districts and threw their weight behind more rural districts, they grew their majority by 13 seats.

Reverse Coatails

While Abigail Spanberger and her campaign deserve enormous credit for their disciplined, empathetic, and statewide-focused message, her victory didn’t happen in isolation. It was powered by a bottom-up movement that flipped the traditional coattail effect on its head.

House candidates across Virginia didn’t just ride Spanberger’s wave—they created it.

Almost every county in the Commonwealth—all but four—moved further left than in 2024. And compared to 2021, every single county and every single House district shifted more Democratic. That level of movement doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the product of candidates running everywhere, meeting voters where they live, and refusing to concede any community.

The Spanberger campaign, the Virginia House Democratic Caucus, and the coordinated campaign learned the lessons of 2021 the hard way. That year, Democrats lost by just 1.9 percentage points—a heartbreakingly narrow margin. A few more trips to rural regions, a few more organizers on the ground, and the outcome could have been different. This time, they didn’t make the same mistake.

By fielding candidates in all 100 House districts, Democrats built local credibility and visibility that extended far beyond any one race. Even in districts where the odds were long, having a Democrat on the ballot made a difference. Those candidates became the local face of the ticket—the trusted neighbor voters saw at the farmers’ market, the PTA meeting, or Sunday service.

And it paid off.

Democrats didn’t just win the governorship by nearly 15 points—they won their largest legislative majority in 36 years. That kind of structural gain doesn’t happen without local infrastructure. When voters saw a Democrat running in every corner of the state—from the coalfields of Southwest Virginia to the Shenandoah Valley and the Eastern Shore—they saw a party that hadn’t given up on them.

That’s the real lesson of 2025: it’s not just about statewide charisma or messaging. It’s about creating reverse coattails—where local candidates lift the ticket from the bottom up.

Because even if many of those rural Democrats didn’t win their own races, they helped bring in thousands of additional Democratic votes. They changed the culture of participation. And that momentum—built on trust, presence, and persistence—will carry into 2026 and beyond.

Democrats need those local candidates, committee chairs, and organizers to keep serving as megaphones for the party’s values. They are the connective tissue between the national message and local reality. They remind rural voters that Democrats aren’t an abstract idea—they’re neighbors.

And if we keep investing in them, we can keep winning.

Our rural Democrats are hurting. They’re trying to organize with almost no resources—no paid staff, no headquarters, sometimes not even a mailing list. The few volunteers they have are often veterans of twenty cycles, doing it all on their own. If Democrats are serious about winning again, we have to start by rebuilding the basic infrastructure these committees have lost—member recruitment, volunteer training, and the consistent financial support to sustain local leadership.

Because right now, without those tools, rural Democrats are being drowned out by a megaphone of misinformation.

When politicians, pundits, and even pastors tell people every Sunday that Democrats are demonic or anti-American, that message sticks. In communities where trust in government and media has collapsed, the pulpit and the local news anchor become the arbiters of truth. And when both are echoing conservative talking points, Democrats don’t stand a chance unless we’re physically present to push back.

Evangelical megachurch networks have become de facto political machines—using their vast communications systems to amplify right-wing narratives. Gun rights groups, farm bureaus, hunting clubs, fraternal lodges, and homeschool networks are not inherently political, but they often carry conservative messages to enormous audiences. Add to that the dominance of corporate-owned local media, particularly outlets under Sinclair Broadcast Group, which flood rural markets with fear-based, anti-Democratic rhetoric.

Republicans don’t win rural America on party infrastructure alone—they win through culture. Through networks that already exist in daily life. Democrats once had those networks too—union halls, farmers’ cooperatives, local party clubs—but too many have disappeared or been left to wither.

We’ve spent decades pulling our resources into the “Urban Crescent” and the suburban ring around it, hoping the numbers there would offset the losses elsewhere. That strategy has reached its ceiling. Rural communities are done waiting to be seen.

Democrats need to start organizing in these communities—politically and socially. It’s not enough to drop in at election time. We need a presence at the county fair, the food drive, the volunteer firehouse fundraiser. We need to show up as part of the community, not as outsiders parachuting in from D.C.

Precinct-level organizing is a lofty goal, but it wasn’t that long ago that Democratic precinct captains were the most trusted mouthpieces in American politics. We can recapture that model. Start small: fund local chairs, train precinct leaders, and give them the tools to succeed—updated voter lists, materials, and messaging that actually fits their community.

If we pour money and attention into rural committees early—not six months before an election—it will pay off. Visibility attracts volunteers. Volunteers attract donors. And over time, it becomes normal—not risky—to be an active Democrat in a rural county again.

That visibility also builds authenticity. It’s one thing for a national figure to tell rural voters what they should care about—it’s another when it comes from someone they’ve known their whole life. That’s what “authenticity” really means. Not a carefully branded candidate from inside the Beltway, but a neighbor who knows what it’s like when the mill closes or the hospital cuts services.

We can’t parachute in polished candidates who fit a demographic spreadsheet and expect voters not to notice they’ve never seen them before. We need to elevate local voices, and in doing so, educate the national pundit class about what these voters actually care about. The wisdom of rural communities should shape our strategy, not the other way around.

The Democratic Party’s future in rural America depends on rebuilding trust, re-establishing networks, and empowering the people already there. Because if we invest in them, we don’t just build campaigns—we build communities that can sustain themselves long after Election Day.

Not vice versa.

The Issues To Amplify

Right to Repair

In today’s world of disposable consumerism, manufacturers design products to break—forcing people to buy replacements instead of fixing what they already own. It’s called planned obsolescence, and it hits farmers especially hard. When a $300,000 tractor stops working, they can’t just “take it in.” Many manufacturers make repairs exclusive to their own technicians or brand-specific parts, locking out independent mechanics and driving up costs.

While there has been progress—such as the Memorandums of Understanding between the American Farm Bureau Federation and major manufacturers like Deere & Co.—the problem isn’t solved. Those MOUs aren’t legally binding and don’t extend to the wide range of equipment that rural communities rely on daily. We need legislation to guarantee the right to repair—not just for tractors, but for everything from smartphones to refrigerators.

When farmers and consumers can fix their tools affordably, it saves them money and passes those savings on to everyone, including the urban and suburban consumers who buy what they produce. That’s a win for everyone, not just the countryside.

Investments in Agriculture

While Trump’s administration used taxpayer dollars to bail out foreign soybean competitors, Democrats should be reinvesting that money into American family farms. Rural economies don’t need more subsidies for multinational agribusiness—they need targeted support for generational farmers who sustain their local economies.

Breaking up corporate monopolies in agriculture would restore fairness to the market, ensuring that the people doing the work aren’t squeezed out by the corporations that dominate processing, shipping, and retail. Democrats should champion local food systems, community-supported agriculture, and regional co-ops that keep profits in the community instead of Wall Street.

FEMA and Natural Disaster Relief

Rural America has borne the brunt of the climate crisis—record flooding in the Midwest, wildfires across the West, and landslides throughout Appalachia. And while the need for federal support has skyrocketed, Trump’s administration gutted FEMA’s budget and stripped away its already limited capacity to respond.

We saw this clearly during Hurricane Helene, which devastated communities from Florida all the way through Appalachia, leaving small towns destroyed and federal aid delayed. Rebuilding FEMA funding and ensuring timely disaster relief isn’t just policy—it’s survival. These are the investments that keep people from abandoning their hometowns after the next storm.

Protecting these communities means stopping the exodus from rural America and giving families confidence that they can rebuild and thrive where they ar

Pushing Back Against Suburban NIMBYism

The explosion of data centers, particularly across the South and mid-Atlantic, has become a flashpoint between suburban and rural communities. Suburban residents often push these facilities out of their neighborhoods due to their enormous energy demands, water use, and emissions. As a result, they get built in rural areas with fewer regulations and less local resistance—leaving those communities to deal with the fallout.

We’ve already seen what happens when this goes unchecked. Elon Musk’s “Grok” facility in Arkansas polluted local air and water, with effects stretching all the way to Memphis. In Loudoun County, Virginia, uncontrolled data center expansion has sparked an environmental crisis and forced residents to fight back against overdevelopment.

Democrats can lead here by calling for common-sense regulations on both the facilities and the AI-driven industries fueling their growth. That means protecting local water tables, investing in cleaner energy sources, and ensuring that any community hosting these projects sees real economic benefits—not just environmental costs.

Following Through on Rural Broadband

One of the Biden administration’s biggest achievements—the $42.5 billion investment in rural broadband—was a historic step toward bridging the digital divide. But too much of that funding remains tied up in bureaucracy. The promises haven’t yet reached the people who need it most.

It’s not enough to allocate money; Democrats must ensure implementation, oversight, and transparency. That means tracking where funds go, cutting through red tape, and holding contractors accountable for results.

When rural broadband becomes reality, it’s not just about faster internet—it’s about equal access to education, healthcare, and opportunity. A student in Wythe County deserves the same online classroom access as one in Arlington. A small business in Pulaski should be able to sell its products online as easily as one in Fairfax.

Seeing these projects through—and making sure people know who delivered them—will do more to restore faith in government than any slogan or ad campaign ever could.

A Rural Roadmap for Renewal

These aren’t niche policies. They’re the foundation for rebuilding a Democratic coalition that listens to and delivers for every community. Rural voters don’t want pity or platitudes—they want proof.

If Democrats fight for these issues—repair rights, fair agriculture, reliable disaster relief, responsible development, and functional broadband—we can show rural America that we’re not just visiting for votes. We’re building a future with them, not for them.Conclusion: The Road Runs Through Rural America

The path to the next Democratic majority won’t be paved by consultants in D.C. or data models from Brooklyn—it will be built on dirt roads, at kitchen tables, and in county fairs across Rural America.

If this year’s results in Virginia proved anything, it’s that the story of Democratic resurgence starts where too many in our party stopped looking. When we invest in people—not just ad buys—when we organize instead of agonize, and when we put local faces on national values, voters notice. They don’t need perfect messaging; they need proof that we’re still listening.

Rural voters aren’t asking for special treatment—they’re asking for partnership. They want a seat at the table, not a lecture from it. And when Democrats show up, listen, and deliver, they respond in kind.

For too long, we’ve talked about Rural America as a problem to solve instead of a partner to build with. But the truth is simple: there is no lasting Democratic majority without the hills, the hollers, and the plains.

If we want to move this country forward—on climate, on healthcare, on democracy itself—we need to rebuild trust where we’ve lost it, organize where we’ve been silent, and keep showing up long after the election signs come down.

The road to 2026, and to the future of the Democratic Party, runs straight through Rural America. The only question now is whether we’ll take it.

TL;DR

Democrats can’t win lasting majorities—or govern boldly—without Rural America.

Virginia proved what happens when we stop writing off rural voters and start organizing everywhere: historic margins, a new trifecta, and the biggest Democratic majority in nearly four decades.

The road to 2026 runs through the hills, hollers, and plains—through local candidates who know their neighbors, through investment in rural infrastructure, and through policies that actually matter to working people: right to repair, fair agriculture, disaster relief, broadband access, and responsible development.

Rural voters don’t need pity. They need presence. If Democrats show up, listen, and deliver, we won’t just rebuild a coalition—we’ll rebuild trust.

By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

It feels like every year we say the same thing: this is the most consequential election of our lives. But this time, the weight feels heavier. With an authoritarian-style power grab unfolding in Washington, this election will be the first real test of Democratic strength during the second Trump presidency.

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Virginia has always been a political bellwether, but this moment feels different.

Tomorrow, we will make history one way or another. For the first time in 237 years, Virginia will elect a woman as Governor. In the Lieutenant Governor’s race, we’ll either elect the first Muslim and first AAPI woman to statewide office—or the first openly gay person to statewide office. In the Attorney General’s race, we could elect the first Black Attorney General in our Commonwealth’s history or re-elect our first Latino Attorney General.

And with a stronger House majority, we’ll have the chance to enshrine abortion rights and marriage equality into the Constitution—and to draw fair maps that counteract the gerrymandering pushed by red states under pressure from Washington.

Whoever wins tomorrow will make history. But God, I pray we don’t have to sit through another round of Republican smugness like we’ve endured for the past four years since they elected the first Black woman to office statewide and the first Latino to office statewide.

Four years ago, Republicans convinced themselves that Virginia was in play after Youngkin’s 2021 win. But year after year, Democrats have proved them wrong—defending House seats in the 2022 midterms, flipping the House of Delegates back to blue, electing our first Black Speaker in 2023, and delivering Virginia for our Democratic presidential nominee in 2024. Tomorrow, we have a chance to complete the cycle and put to rest the notion that Virginia is anything but a blue state.

We have an outstanding candidate in Abigail Spanberger, who proved why she cleared the field in the gubernatorial primary. She’s kept affordability front and center while her opponent—and too often the press—try to make this election about trans students in bathrooms, just like how Glenn Youngkin used the threat of Critical Race Theory in 2021 and we never heard it again. Only 27% of Virginians see transgender related issues as “very important,” and 23% say it’s “somewhat important.”

Spanberger’s campaign has done what Democrats failed to do in 2021: go everywhere. She’s toured every region of the Commonwealth—twice—including deep Southwest Virginia, showing that she’ll be a governor for every Virginian, not just those in the Urban Crescent. The energy at her stops has been palpable.

She talks about the issues that actually matter: the economy, education, and empathy for your neighbors. She meets voters where they are. She speaks their language, even holding a fully Spanish-language town hall with Latinos for Spanberger.

Spanberger is showing that as Virginia is facing economic challenges under Republican leadership, Democrats will come in and be able to right the ship. And in the time of a government shutdown and chaos on Capitol Hill, Abigail Spanberger is the exact leader we need to protect Virginians and make our commonwealth thrive.

Virginians have been hit hard under this presidency. Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs after Elon Musk and DOGE took a chainsaw to the federal government—hurting not only federal workers but also the contractors who keep our economy running. During our last Democratic governorship, Virginia was the top state for business. Now, we’re facing the highest unemployment rates in years. Yet the current governor and the Republican nominee cheer on Trump’s every move. Winsome Sears’ campaign slogan is “Let’s keep a good thing going,” but we can’t afford four more years of complicity.

Winsome Sears has relied heavily on both culture war bullshit and gaslighting voters. She’s said Virginians aren’t losing jobs or healthcare—and even if they are, “losing your job is just part of life.” Her and Youngkin’s solution for displaced workers? A webpage linking to LinkedIn and Indeed. That’s not leadership.

We especially don’t need a governor who’ll roll over for whatever Trump wants. Sears has turned into a political “pick-me,” offering loyalty while Trump repays her with a tele-townhall rally even though he makes the commutes for rounds of golf in Virginia every other week.

When you compare to the reception that Abigail Spanberger got with President Barack Obama in Norfolk over the weekend, it shows a lot about what the highest ranking members of the party think of Winsome Sears.

Sears has even mimicked Trump’s 2024 campaign playbook—focusing almost entirely on trans women in sports and trans kids in bathrooms. But unlike Trump’s ad, which weaponized a Harris-era policy quote, Spanberger hasn’t given them anything to twist. Her position is simple and mainstream: LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.

Sears, meanwhile, signed a bill declaring she’s “morally opposed to gay marriage and workplace protections.” She even said in a debate that banning gay marriage and firing someone for being gay weren’t discrimination—an awkward stance for her running mate, John Reid, who’s gay. The two barely appear together, and when they do, it’s strained.

Reid has branded himself as “the gay guy who doesn’t want to talk about being gay”—because he knows much of his own party would weaponize it. Instead, his campaign revolves around Senator Ghazala Hashmi’s refusal to debate him.

And honestly, can you blame her? Reid has leaned on Islamophobic tropes, portraying her as an “angry, elusive Muslim woman.” He and the Virginia GOP even tried tying her and New York’s Zohran Mamdani to so-called “Islamic terror cells.”

When your opponent boils you down to your faith, why should you debate someone who despises you for it.

The Washington Post recently profiled both candidates—Reid as “the gay man who wants to talk about something else,” and Hashmi as “the Muslim candidate who wants to break barriers.” And that’s accurate. Hashmi actually believes in something. She entered politics after Trump’s Muslim travel ban, determined to fight for her community. Reid, on the other hand, is a conservative sellout willing to throw LGBTQ+ people under the bus for power.

Senator Hashmi has led with compassion and conviction while in the Virginia General Assembly. She has the legislative wherewithal to be able to work within the Virginia State Senate to help pass legislation with a slim majority for the Democrats. She is incredibly well versed in the issues that are affecting Virginians, and will be a leader who looks like a large portion of our population who do not feel seen or feel continually demonized by national politics since 9/11 and now in the era of the ongoing turmoil and genocide in Gaza.

As a former educator and mother, Hashmi understands the fear parents feel as Republicans dismantle the Department of Education and strip WIC and SNAP benefits from families. She knows that sometimes, school lunches are the only reliable meals kids get. Her compassion and legislative skill make her the kind of leader we desperately need in Richmond.

Contrast that with Reid’s theatrics—like debating an AI version of Hashmi with softball questions.

And speaking of stunts and distraction: let’s talk about Jason Miyares. The Attorney General’s race should have been his to lose, but instead of touting accomplishments, he’s leaning on outrage—manufactured scandals about community service hours and text messages.

When you lean on controversy and outrage like a crutch instead of presenting the work you have already done in office as an incumbent, you have nothing. After his opinion that he offered in the face of redistricting, Jason Miyares has proven that he will just roll over for whatever Donald Trump wants him to. He has welcomed Kristi Noem and her ICE agents into Virginia to round up immigrants, both undocumented and naturalized, without even batting an eye. Though the Attorney General should be the lawyer for the people, Miyares has shown that he is only the lawyer for the people in power and special interests.

Jay Jones on the other hand is a man of honor and conviction. Just like all of us, he is human. He made mistakes in his past that he has apologized and atoned for. In one of those cases, he let his anger and frustration over the slow movement of government and hypocrisy of elected officials cloud his judgment and said something foolish to a colleague. Who hasn’t?

But I know Jay Jones. I have known Jay Jones for years now and consider him a friend. I have shared public stages and candid conversations with him and I know who he is. He is not the monster that the Right would paint him to be over one foolish conversation he had in the heat of the moment. He will lead the Attorney General’s office in the best interest of the public and will join those other Attorneys General who have sued the Trump Administration for their unlawful acts. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever.

Jones will also protect Democrats’ efforts to counteract Republican gerrymandering nationwide. We finally have leaders willing to be bold—and we need people like Jay to back them up.

But that only matters if we hold and expand our majority. This weekend, I was in Harrisonburg for Andrew Payton and in Blacksburg for Lily Franklin—and the energy is electric. Lily’s determined to flip those 183 votes she lost by in 2023, and Andrew’s smartly targeting the college vote. Students live in these districts for four years—of course they deserve a say.

We’ve got strong challengers like Kimberly Pope Adams (HD-82), Jessica Anderson (HD-71), May Nivar (HD-57), Lindsey Dougherty (HD-75), and John McAuliff (HD-30)—and we’re defending crucial incumbents like Joshua Cole (HD-65), Michael Feggans (HD-97), Nadarius Clark (HD-84), and Josh Thomas (HD-21). The path to progress runs through these races.

The real battleground isn’t Congress—it’s the state legislatures. They’re our last line of defense. With a Democratic governor and AG, Virginia can join states like California, Illinois, and Maryland in standing firm against Trump’s abuses—and if we control redistricting, we can keep Virginia blue for generations.

Beyond our borders, tomorrow is also an existential test for Democrats in places like New York and Minneapolis, where progressive candidates like Zohran Mamdani and Omar Fateh face last-minute establishment pushback. These eleventh-hour centrist pivots only expose the party’s hypocrisy.

Democrats must live up to “Blue No Matter Who” and reject Islamophobic and anti-socialist fearmongering. Leaders like Mamdani and Fateh represent the future—a movement that includes everyone, in how they look, pray, and think.

Like the proverbial red wheelbarrow, so much depends on tomorrow. It’s our chance to show that we can organize, win, and build something stronger despite the chaos in DC. To prove that America still has a conscience. To remind the world that not everyone here supports authoritarianism—and that there’s still hope.

So go out there. Knock those last packets. Make those final calls. Greet voters at the polls.

Let’s show them how it’s done.

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By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

I—like many of you in the Democratic space—read through Deciding to Win, created by Welcome, the centrist organization that hosts WelcomeFest every year. WelcomeFest featured some interesting takes, most notably where guests said they believed unions were the most significant detriment to the Abundance Agenda — confirming what many feared about the anti-labor sentiments behind it — and included a who’s who of centrist, moderate Congresspeople.

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According to authors Simon Bazelon, Lauren Harper Pope, and Liam Kerr, Deciding to Win “aims to provide the most comprehensive account to date of why Democrats lost and what our party needs to do to win again.” They claim to draw on hundreds of polls and academic papers, dozens of case studies, and 500,000 survey responses to compile their findings to “give ourselves the best chance to win.”

They recommended five changes Democrats should make:

1️⃣ Focus on an economic agenda centered on lowering costs, growing the economy, creating jobs, and expanding the social safety net.

2️⃣ Advocate for popular economic policies (drug price negotiation, making the wealthy pay their fair share, $15 minimum wage) rather than unpopular ones (student loan forgiveness, EV subsidies, Medicare for All).

3️⃣ Convince voters we share their priorities — the economy, cost of living, health care, border security, public safety — and focus less on issues voters think we emphasize too much (climate change, democracy, abortion, identity and cultural issues).

4️⃣ Moderate positions on immigration, public safety, energy production, and identity/culture issues.

5️⃣ Criticize the outsized influence of corporations and the ultra-wealthy — but without sounding like socialists.

I have to admit, I went into this already biased — expecting repurposed Third Way takes and a condescending chastising of progressive politics. But I dug in anyway because I’m interested in an all-of-the-above approach to winning on the Left. So — like many of you — I have thoughts. Here’s what they got right and what they got wrong.

Credit where credit is due. The authors make some excellent points — many of which I do agree with.

Focusing our policy agenda on economic growth and opportunity is essential if we want to win back working-class Americans again. Expanding prescription drug negotiation, making the wealthy pay their fair share, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour — all extremely popular and entirely achievable.

But here’s the real issue:
Democrats have talked about these things for years… just too cautiously and too conservatively. We nibble around the edges. We propose half-measures. We water down the bold ideas that would actually close the obscene wealth gap in this country.

As I wrote previously: the blueprint exists — FDR’s New Deal, labor-forward populism, economic justice — but we’ve spent too long governing like we’re still terrified of Ronald Reagan’s ghost.

The report also correctly points out something that should ring in every strategist’s ears:

Most voters think Democrats don’t share their priorities.

And that’s not because we don’t care — it’s because we spend so much time reacting to Republican cultural attacks that we bury our strongest message: “We want you to thrive.”

But this isn’t black-and-white.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

We don’t need to throw LGBTQ+ people under the bus just to talk about inflation. We don’t need to sacrifice immigrant communities to show we care about the economy. We don’t need to pretend public safety and racial justice are mutually exclusive.

We can lead with affordability and wages and still stand proudly in our values. The authors say we should defend our morals — and they’re right! But then they turn around and imply we should mute those morals whenever the polling dips. That’s not courage. That’s fear.

Another point where they’re spot-on:
Corporate power is rotting our democracy from the inside out.
Money has warped policy outcomes against working people for decades.

But the report badly misinterprets what that means. Wealthy donors don’t drive progressive policies — they’re driven by popular demand. Billionaires didn’t invent movements like the Fight for $15; workers won them.

Finally — hallelujah — the authors admit Democrats rely too heavily on old-guard consultants and message-tested political Mad Libs. We keep falling for the Magic Word Fallacy — believing there’s some perfect sentence that will unlock the electorate.

Meanwhile, Republicans are:

✅ Dominating digital

✅ Setting the agenda

✅ Taking risks

✅ Investing everywhere

Democrats need to be bolder, faster, and less afraid of new tactics — not hiding behind the Clinton-era playbook like it’s sacred scripture.

Bold ideas + bold messaging = winning energy.

Timid ideas + timid messaging = “Why bother voting?”

On the whole, Welcome does name the right challenges. But they still prescribe the same cautious centrism that keeps causing them.

❌ What It Gets Wrong

Okay, now that we’ve given them credit, let’s talk about where the analysis… falls apart.

First, and this is a big one: they only looked at voters. Like, literally only the people who already participate in elections. What about the one-third of the country that didn’t vote last year? Tens of millions of Americans — many of whom are working class — didn’t show up because they believe politics doesn’t help them. They see Congress spend billions on foreign aid, while they struggle to afford groceries, rent, child care, and healthcare. They are not “lazy nonvoters.” They’re people who feel the government has failed them. If we want to expand the electorate, we need to understand what will bring them back into the fold — not just cater to those who already show up.

And then there’s the claim that Democrats have “moved too far Left.” I’m sorry, but… have they looked around? The Overton window has shifted. Issues once deemed “radical” — like marriage equality — are now standard Democratic Party planks. Progress is not extremism. Support for LGBTQ+ rights is up. Support for abortion rights surged post-Dobbs. Labor organizing is at its most popular point in decades. Americans aren’t recoiling at progressive values — they’re frustrated that Democrats aren’t fighting hard enough for them.

The report also oversimplifies some incredibly complicated issues. Just saying “immigration” doesn’t capture the nuance of what voters believe. Most people support legal immigration and don’t think families should be torn apart. They’re mad that the system is broken, not that immigrants exist—same thing with student debt. People don’t hate debt relief because they hate students — they hate that the system got so predatory that millions were forced into lifelong financial crisis just to pursue higher education.

And here’s the big messaging failure they ignore: priority isn’t the same as popularity. Just because voters rank cost of living above climate change doesn’t mean climate isn’t important to them. It just means rent is due on the first of every month, while sea level rise feels abstract by comparison. We need to be able to walk and chew gum.

Which leads to another glaring issue: they seriously underestimate media distortion and the gap between perception and reality. If all you ever hear about Democrats is from Fox News, far-right influencers, and conspiracy-driven Facebook groups calling us “anti-American Marxists,” then yes — you might think Democrats don’t share your values. Biden didn’t become unpopular because his policies were unpopular — he became unpopular because he never effectively countered the constant right-wing messaging machine.

This goes beyond candidates and labels. It includes policies and ideas as well.

“Socialism” is an evil, dirty form of government that sinks foreign corrupt countries and was what the Nazis were trying to enact, according to what people are told and spew on the internet. To them, it’s anti-American, but those same people still wouldn’t want to overpay to use privatized roads, emergency services, schools, or any other public service that stems from socialist ideas. They fully embrace the freedom that those public services give them.

“Medicare for All” is communism that will make everyone sick and overcrowd our hospitals. But those same people want to be able to receive medical care without going into debt and embrace the idea of free preventative care during times of epidemics.

“Regulation” prevents growth that only a free market can provide. Yet all these same people still lose their minds when prices go up at the grocery store and want to know what the government is doing about it.

That is not the same as “Democrats went too far left.” It’s a communications war we keep losing.

They also ignore the “Democratic Penalty” entirely. In red-leaning states, having a “D” next to your name is sometimes the kiss of death — even if your policies are popular. We’ve seen it repeatedly: Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Heidi Heitkamp… Candidates who should’ve been a natural fit for working-class voters — but lost or nearly lost because the brand has been successfully demonized.

What it means is that Democrats need to build more organizational power in these areas and ensure they are visible in everyday life to refute those claims. It’s easier for someone to vilify a stranger than to demonize a neighbor.

And please — the perfect-candidate mythology has to die. The authors list a bunch of centrist Democrats they think we should replicate everywhere — but AOC can’t win in rural Washington, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez can’t win in the Bronx. The country is not a monolith. People vote for someone they know, someone who shows up, someone who listens. We need more people who look like, talk like, and live like the people they want to represent from their communities. Not a poll-tested Frankenstein candidate engineered and parachuted in from a D.C. lab.

Finally, on money in politics, they are right that voters hate the corrupting influence of wealthy elites. But then they bizarrely imply that progressive ideas are only popular because big donors fund them — which is just not true. Billionaires didn’t build movements like union power, racial justice, and reproductive freedom. They were built by people organizing. Meanwhile, corporate interests have spent decades rigging the economy against workers — and Republicans have successfully branded us as the out-of-touch elitists. If Democrats want to reclaim economic populism, we should be pointing out who’s actually hoarding wealth and rigging the rules.

✅ To sum it up:

The problem isn’t that Democrats are too progressive.

The problem is that Democrats sometimes sound like they don’t believe in their own agenda.

We don’t lose because we fight for too much.

We lose because we fight for too little — and let Republicans define us.

✅ Conclusion: Bold or Bust

So while I commend the authors of Deciding-to-win on what they are trying to do, there is much left to be desired — and this feels very much like running to the middle and punching left again. And that has never worked, especially not last year for Vice President Harris.

Because here’s the truth: America isn’t asking for smaller dreams. They’re asking for leaders who will fight like hell for them — not for shareholders or lobbyists or whatever consultant said the “safe” thing polls best with suburban dads.

We can’t fix a system that’s rigged against working people by nibbling around the edges. We can’t build a multiracial working-class coalition by telling parts of that coalition to sit quietly in the back. We can’t win back trust by sounding like we’re afraid of our own values.

Democrats must lead with conviction — not apology.

We win when:

• We name who’s screwing people over (corporate landlords, private equity, price-gouging monopolies)

• We fight for broad, visible improvements in people’s daily lives (lower costs, higher wages, good housing, safe communities)

• We show up everywhere, not just where it’s comfortable

• We expand the electorate, not just chase the fraction who already vote

We are the party that built Social Security, Medicare, the 40-hour work week, the Civil Rights Act, marriage equality, and the first major climate legislation in history. That’s not “too left.” That’s popular. That’s the majority. That’s winning.

So yes, Democrats need to be bolder in their approaches and braver in their fights — and that doesn’t mean retreating to old habits of centrist, moderate politics. It means remembering who we are at our best: the party that takes on entrenched power and delivers for working people.

Not a party trying to squeeze into whatever polling box the consultants drew up this week.

If we choose boldness, clarity, and economic justice, we can build a coalition big enough to win — and win big.

If we don’t?

Well, the authors of Deciding to Win already gave us the title of the sequel:

Choosing-to-Lose.

As always, thank you for reading By the Ballot. Please remember to like, subscribe, and share on Substack, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We’re also up on TikTok now if that’s your sort of thing to get more content from us.

We will be back next week, one final time ahead of the Elections on Tuesday, November 4th, with our closing argument to the 2025 cycle. So tune in and we’ll see y’all there.

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