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I just finished digging through the new “Deciding to Win” memo from the Democratic establishment — the one where they all tell us the answer is to “move to the center.” Which we all know really means move to the right.

In this video, I break down why that’s dead wrong, how healthcare shows exactly what’s broken in their thinking, and why America’s real crisis isn’t left vs. right — it’s that we stopped building and providing for the American people.

If you’re interested in affordability, rebuilding capacity, and actually winning again, give this one a watch and share it around.

Thanks, Corbin

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Hope Is Not a Villain—But This Kind of Hope Is

We need a movement ready to restore America to the path of becoming the country we’ve dreamed of being for centuries. Not the fantasy of individual escape, but the reality of collective power.

I dropped out of high school. Got my GED. Worked as a general contractor in East Tennessee. Built things with my hands. Fixed busted systems. Lived paycheck to paycheck. That was my life, and for most of it, hope meant something real. Hope that a decent day’s work would pay the bills. That a roof over your head and a future for your kids wasn’t too much to ask.

But somewhere along the way, hope got hijacked.

Now hope looks like scratching off lottery tickets. Buying crypto hoping to get rich quick. Praying your side hustle turns into the next big thing. We don’t hope to fix the system anymore.

We hope to escape it. And that kind of hope will kill us.

You see it everywhere. People identify with billionaires instead of their neighbors. They defend the rich because maybe someday they’ll be rich too. They talk about taxes like they’re one lucky break away from needing a tax shelter. The Hunger Games tried to warn us, and instead we started dressing like the Capitol.

I don’t want to kill hope. I want to reclaim it.

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Look at the numbers. The average person has a better chance of getting struck by lightning than becoming a billionaire. The odds of winning the lottery? About 1 in 292 million. Meanwhile, the odds of having medical debt? Nearly 1 in 3 Americans. The odds of being laid off or priced out or wiped out by rent? Closer to 1 in 2.

So why do we still believe? Because facing the truth is harder. The truth that the game is rigged. That the rungs of the ladder we were promised have been sawed off; the American Dream got replaced by American Denial.

Hope used to mean something different. It used to mean collective progress. Solidarity. We marched for better wages. We fought for civil rights. We built schools and unions and co-ops. We didn’t dream of becoming the landlord. We fought to make rent fair for everyone. But now even our dreams are privatized. We traded shared ambition for selfish aspiration. And we’re losing the plot.

I grew up hearing stories from my grandfather, who was one of 13 kids in a sharecropping family. One generation later, he owned 40 acres, grew tobacco, raised cattle, had houses to rent out to his kids. That wasn’t just personal grit. That happened because America was actually building things back then. The TVA brought electricity to our region. The interstate highways connected us to the world. There were pathways to a better life that didn’t require winning the lottery.

The pathways to prosperity were dismantled. I know because I watched it happen. My woodworking company made furniture components for Lazy Boy, Berkline, Universal, and Vaughn Furniture before NAFTA and CAFTA gutted us. It wasn’t just my business. Our whole region got hollowed out while corporate America chased cheap labor overseas.

The pathways to prosperity were dismantled… Our whole region got hollowed out while corporate America chased cheap labor overseas.

The knowledge walked out the door with the last shift supervisor. Towns that had built middle-class prosperity around making things became ghost towns. Skills that took generations to develop got thrown away because some MBA in New York decided labor was cheaper in Mexico. We went from a country that made things to a country that made money off money. From building wealth to extracting it.

Now what do we have? The gig economy. Work three jobs and still can’t afford rent. Get told to hustle harder while billionaires build rocket ships. We’re supposed to be grateful for the privilege of driving for Uber while the guy who owns Uber buys his fourth mansion.

The whole system is designed to keep us hoping for individual escape instead of collective change. Keep buying those scratch-offs. Keep believing that if you just work hard enough, grind long enough, maybe you’ll hit it big. Meanwhile, the people who rigged the game are laughing all the way to the bank.

They want us to think like temporary embarrassed millionaires instead of permanent working people. They want us to defend their tax cuts because someday we might need them too. They want us to vote against our own interests because we’ve been sold a dream that we’re all just one good idea away from joining the club.

The whole system is designed to keep us hoping for individual escape instead of collective change.

But here’s what they don’t want us to figure out—we’re stronger together than any of us could ever be alone. The TVA didn’t happen because one guy got lucky. The interstate highways didn’t get built because somebody won the lottery. Social Security didn’t happen because workers hoped to get rich. These things happened because people organized, fought, and built something together.

I don’t want to kill hope. I want to reclaim it. I want a hope that says we can fix this country, not just get rich enough to escape its problems. I want a hope that builds instead of bets. That organizes instead of idolizes. That sees neighbors instead of competitors.

These things happened because people organized, fought, and built something together.

I want hope that understands we don’t need to wait for permission from billionaires to make things better. We don’t need to hope they’ll trickle some wealth down to us. We can build our own wealth by building things that matter. We can create our own prosperity by investing in each other.

What we need is a movement that’s ready to do the big things, the hard things. A movement that understands you have to impeach Supreme Court justices who violate constitutional norms or are corrupt. That you have to take a DOGE-like approach to removing revolving door lobbyists from corrupted institutions like the FDA and the SEC. That you have to go hard against the very people who will stand in your way—the same people we’re going to see standing in the way of Zohran Mamdani in New York if he’s elected mayor. And too often those folks have a D by their name.

We need a movement ready to restore America to the path of becoming the country we’ve dreamed of being for centuries. Not the fantasy of individual escape, but the realityu of collective power. Not lottery tickets and crypto dreams, but the hard work of building something that actually serves the people who live here.

That’s the kind of hope worth having. That’s the kind of hope that actually works. And that’s the kind of hope that scares the hell out of the people running things now.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Thanks for reading. I’ve put out more than 100 pieces so going through the deep tracks would be an undertaking. Here are a few that get to the core of what I am trying to say.

10 Truths and the Idea

Beyond Medicare for All

Why Nobody Trusts Anything

Affordability

Public Competition

Noah's response? We're "living like kings" compared to the 1950s because we have bigger houses and more food.

This conversation showed me it's not a policy tweak problem - it's about understanding how far from affordable life actually is. If politicians don't understand how far from affordability people are, there's no chance of them fixing the problem because they won't understand the scale of it.

It's like the difference between a candle you can blow out versus a house fire that needs the fire department. The scale of the problem determines the scale of your solution. But according to most economists, we don't really have a problem at all. When they talk about affordability, they mean minor price adjustments, not making life actually affordable again. There's no real solution required because economically speaking, we're in a prime spot.

When families spend more than they earn on necessities while experts celebrate progress, you get Trump. You get January 6th. You get people willing to burn it all down because the math of their lives doesn't add up, and the people who understand economics keep telling them they're wrong about their own reality.

The purchasing power of the median income has collapsed across every necessity. Housing now requires 5.6 years of median wage to purchase, compared to 2-4 years from the 1940s through 1970s. Healthcare costs have increased 10-fold per capita relative to median income. College costs have risen 252% in real terms since the 1960s. Childcare now consumes 27% of typical household income, nearly four times what experts consider affordable.

But here's what makes this crisis deeper than individual household budgets: we're also facing a public affordability crisis. Healthcare exemplifies both problems simultaneously. Those costs don't just hit families directly - they're dispersed across multiple sources: personal payments, employer contributions, government programs. Combined, our healthcare system will cost $77 trillion over the next 10 years, reaching 20% of GDP by 2033.

That's unsustainable because healthcare is pure expense - it's a service, not an exportable good that builds wealth. And our return on investment is declining. We spend more than twice as much as other OECD nations while getting worse outcomes - declining life expectancy, rising maternal mortality, worse results across the board.

To restore affordability, we need to cut healthcare costs by roughly 50%. That requires public competition, single-payer delivery, and reducing administrative costs from the mid-30% range down to single digits like other countries achieve. But here's the challenge: when you're reducing something that accounts for 20% of GDP by half, that economic activity has to be replaced or you'll trigger a depression.

That's where abundance comes in. Affordability and abundance must work together. To restore 1950s-level affordability - where median income could actually purchase middle-class life - we need to either double incomes or halve costs, probably both. That means dramatically increasing supply across multiple sectors simultaneously.

Take housing. We must increase supply to bring prices down, but how do you do that without destroying the home equity that represents most families' wealth? You create new forms of wealth. We could establish a domestic investment fund giving Americans ownership shares in manufacturing and green energy production - think Alaska's oil revenue sharing applied nationally. We could do revenue sharing on renewable energy installations. The goal is transitioning away from housing as families' primary investment vehicle, since that's driving unaffordable price increases.

These problems can't be solved piecemeal. Healthcare, housing, childcare, and education involve huge portions of our GDP and are deeply tied to our stock market. Think of it this way: if you're ripping up roads to replace water lines in Flint, Michigan, that's the perfect time to run fiber, upgrade electrical systems, and resurface the road. A Mission for America does everything simultaneously because handling these crises one at a time is hazardous to economic growth and people's daily lives.

We've done this before during major crises - the Great Depression, World War II's Arsenal of Democracy, the space race. But this requires a political moment that seems impossible in our current environment. Here's the thing: we're already in that moment. What we've seen with the Trump administration, DOGE, and attempts to completely rejigger federal offices shows that Americans are willing to accept radical government restructuring. The courts seem willing too. If that same capacity were directed toward productive ends, we could create the coordinated entities we need - agencies with power to control pricing like the War Production Board, build factories, and override patents for national interest like we did with synthetic rubber during WWII.

The pieces are falling into place. More people recognize that completely outsourcing our productivity and industrial capacity hurts this country. We need to make our own water system components, electrical equipment, solar panels, wind turbines. We need to innovate and build because shop floors connect directly to engineering rooms. That's why China leads in innovation and patent development - production, universities, engineering, and manufacturing happen in integrated ecosystems.

Building new productive capacity with coordinated housing and infrastructure - like China did over the past 20 years - increases affordability by expanding supply faster than costs rise. Combined with targeted price controls like those used during WWII, this approach works.

We can't just be a service economy because that only moves money around without creating wealth. True wealth comes from producing goods and services we need, fighting challenges like poverty, inadequate education, and climate change. Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables isn't just environmental necessity - it's economic survival. There's no point living in the past while the rest of the world moves toward the future. We don't want to become Cuba, driving 1950s cars because our economy broke down. And it won't be communism that puts us there - it will be broken capitalism.

The growing unrest we see - from Trump's election to January 6th to widespread protests - reflects working people's recognition that the old promises no longer add up. But that discontent could be mobilized toward prosperity if people believed there was a real path forward for their families, communities, and nation.

The math of middle-class life is broken. We can't sit around hoping the market fixes things - it won't. These interconnected crises require coordinated solutions at the scale of our greatest national mobilizations. The question isn't whether we need a Mission for America. The question is whether we'll build one that serves working families or continue to think we're living like kings while everything falls apart.

You should watch the whole thing, because there's a lot we unpacked that's worth hearing in full. But here are some of the key points that stuck with me.

From the Factory Floor to the Hill

Look, my story isn't unique, but it's worth telling because it's the story of millions of Americans whose lives got steamrolled by trade deals and corporate greed. As I told Grace:

"I started off in manufacturing. I had a manufacturing plant. I had two of them that were started by my grandfather in the Hills of East Tennessee. NAFTA, CAFTA, you know, permanent trade relations and various other things sort of killed that. We manufactured component parts for furniture and that whole industry died."

What followed was a familiar American tale: pivoting to import/export, culinary school, restaurants where I watched rich people drink expensive wine while working families couldn't afford healthcare. That's when my dad's old saying hit me:

"You should use your talents and energy comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable."

I was doing the exact opposite.

So I started food trucks. And it was during a break between lunch rushes in 2015, listening to Bernie Sanders on the radio, that everything clicked. Here was someone describing exactly what I'd lived—the decimation of entire regions, the opioid crisis, the way corporate power had hollowed out communities like mine.

"He's like describing what I've lived, right? The loss of this industry, the loss of my businesses, the loss of the entire region's economic capacity, the drug addiction that's ravaged not only my community, but my family."

That's when I decided if Bernie ran, I was selling everything and getting on the road. And that's exactly what I did.

The Media Circus and What It Actually Does

Grace and I spent time talking about our experiences in the media ecosystem—her defending Corbyn's economic policies on British TV, me doing the rounds as AOC's communications director. There's this fantasy that if you just make the right argument on the right show, you'll change minds.

But as Grace put it: "The role that you play when you go on a TV show or post a video on social media is not to change minds, it's to give the people who agree with you a sense of, wow, my views are actually being represented, maybe I'm not crazy."

I agreed: "That is the key, right? Is to let people know that there's an alternative path and they aren't crazy and that this is supported by thinking people... For whatever reason, being on TV gives you a little more credibility. Just being inside of that box, right?"

It's absurd, but it's real.

The Corruption of Power

One of the most important things Grace brought up was research on what power does to the human brain. She explained how it "basically made you exhibit traits that are associated generally with narcissism or like an extreme extent psychopathy. You stop believing that you have the capacity to be wrong. You stop being able to hear people contradicting you."

I've seen this firsthand. As I told her: "People that are pulled out of a place that they're accustomed to being in and put into a different position... they conform to what they've seen. So their own internalized expectations of how they're supposed to behave, how they're supposed to think, how they're supposed to sound, and even how they're supposed to use their hands."

You know that politician hand gesture thing? Yeah, that's real and it drives me crazy.

But it goes deeper than gestures. When I got to DC, I met with two Congress members early on - Raul Grijalva and Steve Cohen. And what I got from both of them was this defeated sense, this despair. Steve Cohen told me how much more effective he was as a state leader, but now:

"I'm just one of 435. I've got no voice here. I've got nothing, you know, I can't make a difference."

And I thought, well if you're one of 435 and I'm one of 330 million, what the heck am I going to do? But here's the thing - they wanted to make things better, they just gave up and still held the seat. That's not enough.

Why the Squad Never Really Existed

People ask me about AOC, about why she's "changed." Here's the truth:

"Well, there was no squad. There was no squad. They didn't work together on anything. They, you know, I mean, I had more arguments with squad comms directors about who was going to say what where than anything else."

We never built the infrastructure to protect people like her from the corrupting ecosystem. Justice Democrats was supposed to create cohesion, but as I admitted: "What we missed early on... is how important it was to develop relationships between the candidates early on... We weren't actually bonding them."

The system is designed to isolate politicians. "The cloakroom, you can't get into the cloakroom. Staff can't go in there. That's for members only... It's built to isolate them."

And then there's all the practical stuff. You win an election, now you need two houses, your spouse needs work, your kids need schools. Guess what? The DCCC has got you covered. They become your welcome committee, help you find everything you need. And suddenly you're part of the machine.

Politics Runs on Fear

Here's something most people don't understand about electoral politics, and I told Grace this directly:

"America runs on Dunkin, which is Dunkin Donuts... and politics runs on fear. People in politics are motivated by money and fear. The two things that motivate them. And the money actually is still just a defense against the fear, fear of losing their jobs."

That's why you win power through primaries. The reelection rate for incumbents in America is higher than turnover in European monarchies. That's not democracy—that's oligarchy.

But here's the problem - Bernie and AOC and others believe this is a grassroots thing that needs to come from the bottom. As I told Grace:

"I'm not here to impose my political ideology or political will upon you. This just has to happen and I will wait until it does. And then I will all march with you or whatever."

But you're missing steps because of that reluctance to lead, that reluctance to be out in front. You need to go after the Hakeem Jeffries and the Nancy Pelosis. You need to make them afraid.

Grace had a great way of putting this - it's what she called "a dialectic between the movement and the leaders." As she explained: "You have to have both... the times in history that we've had this relationship and it's worked were basically times when you had strong labor movements and leaders."

The kind of candidates we need are ones who understand how fundamentally broken the system is. As I put it: "The sort of the litmus test that I'm using now is if you're a candidate that doesn't think that we need to impeach Supreme Court justices, then you're probably not going to get there." If you think we can leave institutions like they are and change this country, you're not there yet.

The Healthcare Racket

We talked about healthcare because it's such a perfect example of how broken things are:

"Right now the American healthcare system is projected to cost $77 trillion over the next 10 years. $77 trillion. And it's going to be about 20% of our entire GDP."

This isn't about market efficiency. As I explained: "I don't think, I know these are massively inflated numbers, heart transplants, bypasses, none of this stuff costs what it costs in America anywhere else in the world. It's corruption. It's 30% being spent on administrative middlemen doing nothing."

The solution isn't just single-payer. We need to go back to direct ownership like we had from the 1950s through the 1980s when 53% of Tennessee's hospitals were owned by state and local governments.

Americans Aren't Conservative—They're Pissed

One of my core arguments, and I wrote about this recently, is that "Americans aren't conservative. We're just pissed."

As I told Grace: "You got Matthew Yglesias and a lot of these folks that sort of attribute votes to Donald Trump as meaning something about policy... but Trump's policies are random. You don't know what they're going to be from day to day. This is a completely emotional thing."

Grace nailed the whole thing when she talked about Trump's approach: "He's inflicting short-term pain for the long-term protection of the American empire. And this is actually what the capitalist state is designed to do." She pointed out that Trump knows this, maybe not Trump himself, "certainly the people backing him."

Meanwhile, people are "facing unaccountable power" everywhere they go, and "how do you reclaim that power? You project that agency onto a politician or political movement who says, I am going to mess with the people who have made your life hard. It doesn't even need to be the right people."

The same energy that went into Obama's first campaign, into Bernie's campaigns twice - it's people who want to say screw you to unaccountable power. The tragedy is they've been convinced that immigrants are the enemy instead of the capitalist class actually making their lives miserable.

What Comes Next

Neither Grace nor I have easy answers, but we know the current approach isn't working. You can't build lasting change through individual politicians in an inherently corrupt system. You need movements, infrastructure, and the willingness to cause short-term pain for long-term transformation.

Most importantly, you need to be willing to go to war with your own party when it's captured by corporate interests.

But here's something Grace said that really stuck with me - we can't just build movements around individual politicians because "everything is built to turn you into a commodity, to turn you into the story." Whether it's because you're terrible and they're digging up dirt, or because you're amazing and everyone needs to follow you. As she put it: "We need to be able to make sure those people are accountable and that we don't invest in like a kind of cult of personality, basically, because it ruins the people and it ruins the movement."

Grace also put it perfectly when talking about the anti-authoritarian spirit we need to recover: "Capitalism has come to depend on obedience and hierarchy and doing as you're told. And we need to recover that anti-authoritarian spirit that used to be the core of the left."

That spirit is still alive in places like Appalachia, in immigrant communities. Hell, the immigrants my right-wing neighbors complain about actually embody the values they claim to care about—hard work, family, community, taking risks for a better life.

The conversation reminded me why I got into this work—not to play politics, but to build power for working people. Watch the full thing to hear us dig deeper into all of this. It's the kind of conversation we need more of if we're serious about change instead of just performance.

More of the abundant moderate, moderate, moderate agenda.

The Wall Street-friendly Josh Gottheimer and formerly disgraced Rahm Emanuel are back with their tired playbook: Move to the center. Get tough on the border. Stop being so woke.

Meanwhile, AIPAC just sent Democrats their marching orders—complete with the exact script they're supposed to recite about "standing with Israel." According to Drop Site News, 28 House Democrats have already parroted the magic words. More Democrats are calling for war than calling for peace. More standing with Netanyahu than standing against another trillion-dollar desert massacre. So far, only 20 House members have signed onto a bill proposed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that asserts the requirement of Congress’ approval if Trump wants to commit armed forces to military action in the region.

But if you wanted to moderate this could be a shot. Trump's base doesn't want this war.

Tucker Carlson just went on Steve Bannon's show to warn that bombing Iran would "end Trump's presidency." His exact words? "You're not going to convince me that the Iranian people are my enemy. It's Orwell, man. I'm a free man. You're not going to tell me who to hate." He also went HAM on Sen. Ted Cruz.

Bannon himself says war with Iran would "blow up the coalition" and derail Trump's entire agenda. Charlie fuckin’ Kirk said, "No issue currently divides the right as much as foreign policy." Even Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling foreign wars "America Last."

The Guardian reports this could be an "inflection point" for the MAGA movement. These aren't peaceniks—they're Trump's most loyal supporters saying war with Iran betrays everything they voted for.

So if Democrats want to be moderate, they can join the majority of Americans who are against our being involved in this war. They can moderate in ways that may save hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Stop this war before it starts. Take the war powers away from Trump and return them to Congress.

Say no to AIPAC. No to genocide in Gaza. No to bombing Iran over nuclear weapons that our intelligence says don't exist. Netanyahu's been claiming Iran is "weeks away" from nukes for 20 years. It was bullshit then, it's bullshit now.

And moderate on economics. Right now, Trump is normalizing public ownership with his U.S. Steel deal—demanding America get a "golden share" to approve the merger with Japanese company Nippon Steel. Steve Bannon's floating nationalizing SpaceX. Meanwhile, Democrats act like public ownership is communist heresy.

Moderate on building things. Here's a perfect example: Susan Collins just told Spectrum News she wants to create "some sort of fund" to bail out rural hospitals that are "barely making it financially."

Some sort of fund? That's the best we can do?

We're on track to spend $77 trillion on healthcare in the next decade. Seventy-seven trillion. And Collins wants another band-aid fund to prop up a failing system that's extracting maximum profit while delivering minimum care.

Here's a thought: Instead of bailing out broken hospitals, buy them. Run them. Make them public. In 1985, 33% of hospitals in my home state of Tennessee were publicly owned. Make rural and inner-city public clinics the best care you can get. Fund the hell out of them. Show people what government can do when it's not just subsidizing corporate failure.

But no—the establishment wants us to moderate on pronouns or ICE raids or some other culture war shit while they’re cheerleading for war. Get tough on immigrants while billionaires loot the country. Create funds to bail out entire sectors that are failing to deliver and are at risk of collapse.

Recent polling tells the real story: 72% of Democrats prefer leaders like Bernie and AOC who want to "fight harder." Only 18% want the party to become "more moderate" in the establishment sense. People want bold action, not capitulation.

The American people are drowning. They're watching AI threaten their jobs, their towns crumble, and their kids' futures evaporate. They're not begging for another Middle East war. They're not excited about spending trillions to fulfill Netanyahu's fever dreams. And they're sure as hell not asking for "some sort of fund" to keep a predatory healthcare system on life support.

Real moderation means meeting people where they are: sick of war, sick of corporate rule, sick of watching their communities die while politicians write thousand-page bills instead of improving lives.

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Let’s moderate our way back to greatness—by listening to people, not donors. Or we can keep taking cues from the same “moderates” who made the party less popular than a convicted felon.

So, do we keep reciting AIPAC's scripts and creating bailout funds, or become the party that finally says enough?

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There is energy, folks.

The crowd was wild - not wild like crazy, but wild in it’s energy. People passing would honk and holler in support. It was an amazing mix of people too. You had your old hippies with their fans around their necks and folding chairs (the smart ones). But then you had bodybuilders, construction workers, and college kids. I talked to four or five Trump voters who were out there.

"This isn't what I voted for"

That's what they were telling me. They thought mass deportation meant MS-13 and criminals. Now they're watching ICE raids hit the guys doing sheetrock, the welders putting up steel buildings. I walked by a construction site today - at least half the crew was Latino. These are the people literally building our communities.

Lenoir City, just down the road where I live, is 12-13% Latino. These aren't numbers to people here - they're neighbors.

One guy, WWII vet on a walker, really got to me. Said he fought fascism once and he's here to do it again. Too old to do it any other way, but he showed up.

asked if Democrats could win statewide in Tennessee again. I told him what I think - only if they run against the current Democratic Party.

Even with everything Trump's doing - Marines in LA, open corruption, the whole nine - Democrats are still less popular than Republicans. How the hell does that happen?

I'll tell you how. The party has no identity. What does the Democratic Party want to do? I asked Steve and he couldn't tell me. I can't tell you. Democrats can’t tell you until they do a focus group. The only thing they know for sure is that they are not Trump.

That ain’t a plan though. It’s not a vision. That's nothing.

We Used to Build Shit Here

I think people forget - East Tennessee exists because the federal government built things. Real things. The TVA powered this entire region. There's a TVA office 25 feet from where I'm sitting. Oak Ridge is 10 miles from my house - whole city built by the Manhattan Project. Still prosperous, still educated, still wealthy because of it.

The Rural Electrification Act transformed these mountains.

But I'm 44 years old and outside of the interstate system, I've never seen the federal government build anything lasting and useful in my area. Not once.

We Can Build Again

Too many Democrats seem convinced that America's best days are behind us. Like we're just here to manage the decline. That's complete bullshit. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I was talking to a SpaceX engineer the other day. He told me 90% of what SpaceX uses is NASA technology. The math was developed by NASA. Some of it by the Greeks 2000 years ago. We just have better computers now.

We built the TVA. We won World War II with American manufacturing. There's nothing inherently incapable about us as a people. We can build again.

But we need a party that believes that. Not a party trying to "return to normal" - because normal is what got us Trump. He's not the disease, he's the symptom.

So What Now?

2,000 places had protests today. Millions of people. In deep red Tennessee, 5,000 people said "enough."

The MAGA movement needs to be defeated - buried under concrete like the Chernobyl reactor, as Steve put it. But the mechanism we have to do that is broken in places like Tennessee.

And it's not going to get fixed with $20 million studies where DNC staffers observe working men like we're some rare species of chimpanzee. (Steve made that joke but damn if it doesn't feel true sometimes.)

We need to meet people where they are. Speak to what we actually want to build, not just what we're against.

We're not here to manage decline. We're here to rebuild something meaningful.

That's what I saw in those 5,000 faces today. That's what I'm holding onto.

-Corbin

P.S. - Next time somebody tells you what Tennessee Democrats should stand for, tell them to drive through East Tennessee. Look at every dam, every power line, every piece of infrastructure that transformed this region from nothing into something. Then ask why we stopped building. That's where the answer starts.

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But we didn't spend much time on the news cycle. Instead, we got into why Democrats keep getting their asses kicked by a guy like Trump.

The $150,000 Question

Chris asked why nobody in the party spoke up about Biden's age and unpopularity. Here's my answer:

"In 2022, I was a communications consultant. I got quoted saying Joe Biden was deeply unpopular and old as shit and that we should be looking for a primary challenger. I lost a bunch of contracts. Cost me about $150,000 a year."

That's why people don't speak up.

The College Degree Problem

I'd been researching the makeup of Congress for my Substack. Here's what I found:

• Senate today: 99% have college degrees

• Senate in 1945: 72% had college degrees

• House in 1945: 54% had college degrees

"How are you going to relate to that block of people if you don't have any of those people around you?" I asked Chris. "If you're this insular party surrounded by Harvard, Yale, Princeton?"

Chris jumped in: "How many journalists today have Ivy League degrees and don't know anybody like that? They actually don't know anybody who voted for Trump."

He gets it. The bubble around Washington and the New York West Side is so thick they can't see through it. As somebody said in a book Chris had just read: "If you ignore half the country, don't be surprised when it turns the tables on you."

The Inflation Lie

This is where Chris and I really connected. Democrats keep looking at GDP, real wage growth, all these figures that tell them everything is great.

"If you believe that data is impenetrably true," I told him, "then you have to wonder, I guess it's just a perception problem. We need to be better at communicating. But the fact is, that's not the reality people live in. You can't talk to people if you believe they're full of shit."

Chris agreed completely. He talked about relatives in Pennsylvania - sophisticated suburbanites around Philly who read the Times, then you drive two hours to Reading and they're listening to country music. Different worlds.

My Political Journey

When Chris asked about my political heroes, the answer told the whole story:

1. Al Gore - First vote I ever cast. That election turned me against politics for a while.

2. Barack Obama - Candidate Obama was definitely a hero. President Obama less so. "The influence of Rahm Emanuel and the sort of triangulation they tried to do, I found to be a disservice to the Democratic Party."

3. Bernie Sanders - "I'm standing on my food truck listening to Tom Hartman on the radio. I hear Bernie for the first time. He's describing my town - the closing factories, the opiate crisis. He's describing the decay of people's capacity to make a living."

The Master's Degree Making $15/Hour

I told Chris I was looking for a producer for my show. Paying $15 an hour because I'm not well-funded. "I got people with master's degrees applying for that job. That's insane, right? It's not a living wage."

People entering the workforce now don't have the same capacity our grandparents had. In 1950-1960, one income could support a family, buy a house, buy a car. That's gone.

The Pattern Is Clear

Look at the last few elections:

• Bernie Sanders - change candidate

• Donald Trump - change candidate

• Barack Obama - change candidate

"You've got tons of evidence that shows the electorate wants something different. Not just year by year or election by election. They're looking for something fundamentally different."

Chris Gets It

What surprised me was how much Chris Matthews - the ultimate DC insider - understood this. He talked about his own relatives who he can't discuss politics with because they'll think he's condescending. He ran against the Democratic machine in Philadelphia at 28 and still has to explain it to people.

We ended talking about Republicans passing their budget in the middle of the night, letting their hardliners vote "present" so they don't have to own the Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the rich.

"What can you say about a party that has to operate by moonlight?" Chris asked.

But honestly? At least they know what they're doing is unpopular. Democrats keep doing unpopular shit while insisting it's actually great and we're just too stupid to understand.

That's the difference.

Watch the full interview where a Hardball host and a Bernie guy figure out they're mad about the same things.

When did you realize the Democratic Party had lost touch with regular people? Let me know in the comments.

My name is Corbin Trent. I'm an East Tennessean from a little town in the Appalachian Mountains called Morristown. Right now I'm a general contractor in Lenoir City, but that's not the whole story.

The Voice on the Radio

In 2015, I was working on a food truck when I heard this gravelly, gruff voice on the radio. This guy was talking about factories closing, people struggling to pay bills, struggling to get medicines and see doctors. He'd seen a country being exploited by oligarchs and a working class that had been dumped by the ruling class.

That guy was Bernie Sanders. And he was describing my hometown.

I got so excited I sold the food trucks and started volunteering. Started a thing called Tennessee for Bernie. Eventually got hired by the campaign and traveled around the country preaching the gospel of Bernie, doing barnstorms, getting people involved.

When it became clear Bernie wasn't going to win, some of us started Brand New Congress, then Justice Democrats. We recruited 12 candidates. Only one won.

That was AOC.

From the Hills to the Hill

I went from the hills of East Tennessee to Capitol Hill as Alexandria's communications director. Helped launch the Green New Deal. Did some pretty transformational stuff that had big impacts.

After eight years in politics, I'd had enough. Came back to Tennessee and became a general contractor. Been flipping houses, building decks and porches for about three years.

Then Donald Trump got reelected.

Why I Can't Sit This Out

I realized I couldn't just sit on the sidelines anymore. But what do you do? So I started writing at americasundoing.com. Now I'm starting this podcast because I like to ramble and chat, and there's stuff that needs explaining.

Like the disconnect between the stories I heard growing up and the reality I lived. My aunt went to East Tennessee State University, worked part-time, and paid as she went. That's not reality anymore. My uncle got out of high school, went to work as a bag boy at A&P, and on that salary alone had an apartment, a new Camaro, and money left over.

Different economic reality.

My papaw was born into a sharecropping family, one of 13 kids. He built from that to owning 40 acres and multiple houses, working at American Enka. That was the story of East Tennessee - people building better lives generation after generation.

But they tell us we're doing better than ever. Wages are up. Life's getting easier.

Bullshit.

What You'll Hear on This Podcast

I'm going to show you the adjustments and manipulations they use to tell a different story. Like when the Census wanted to count Chinese manufacturing as American manufacturing if Apple owned the patents. That kind of pressure changes how policy gets made.

We'll talk political strategy too. I've worked on some pretty transformational projects. Got some ideas about organizing and building movements from a working class Appalachian who feels like the party left him.

Sometimes I'll take you around East Tennessee. Show you the industrial parks with neither industry nor park - just empty shells collapsing, parking lots grown over. Show you the poverty. But also the good stuff - the beauty, the wealth, what we built as a people. The Tennessee Valley Authority that electrified the South. Oak Ridge where they built the bomb and transformed a region with science and ambition.

We'll tell stories from the Hill, from AOC's campaigns. Look at headlines and give the occasional hot take when the New York Times or whoever can't see their complicity in how we got Trump twice.

The Journey Ahead

We're going to cover America's decline - socially, economically, democratically. But also that it's reversible. We'll look at how we functioned as a growing nation before, how China's functioning as one now. They're about to fly around in autonomous taxis while we're living in the Flintstones.

Then we'll get to the barriers - why we can't have nice things. Politics is one. Our economic structure is another. We'll discuss how to get over those walls, how to mobilize political will and offer an alternative to this unregulated, unchecked, uncompetitive capitalism that's paralyzed our capacity to do more.

That's what America's Undoing is about. Understanding the decline. Seeing through the lies. Finding the path forward.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Episode Zero is available now. Come for the economic analysis, stay for the stories about abandoned factories and the time we launched the Green New Deal.

What pulled you back into politics after stepping away? Let me know in the comments.

My daughter Abigail stopped by the office while I was recording the first episode of America's Undoing. She's 17, works multiple jobs, and argues with Trump supporters on TikTok. Perfect co-host material.

"Do you like listening to old people talk?" I asked her.

"Not really," she said. Then added: "I like hearing Bernie Sanders talk. He's really old."

"What is it about Bernie?"

"He's just so cute and squishy. Like his little chair picture with the mittens."

That's my kid.

The Journey Here

Ten years ago, I was running a food truck in Tennessee, listening to Bernie Sanders on the radio talking about the struggles of working people. It sounded like he was describing my hometown of Morristown. So I sold the truck and hit the road for his campaign.

That led to starting Brand New Congress with some friends. We wanted to recruit hundreds of candidates to replace Congress all at once. We ended up recruiting 12. Only one won.

That was AOC.

Abigail was there the night she won - at the bar in the Bronx. "I lost my Nintendo there," she reminds me. "I still think about that to this day."

Why I Left (And Why I'm Back)

After working as AOC's communications director and helping launch the Green New Deal, I burned out. The political revolution we hoped for kind of dissipated. So I came back to East Tennessee, became a general contractor, and tried to forget about politics.

Then Trump won again.

The other night, police showed up at my Mexican neighbors' house. Their kids came running to our place crying - three girls ranging from 17 to 11, terrified their parents were being taken. That's when I knew I couldn't stay on the sidelines.

"They've fired more federal American workers than they've deported people," I told Abigail during the recording.

"Is this true?"

"Yes."

"Oh my God."

What This Podcast Is About

America's Undoing is going to cover a lot:

• Why the economic statistics are lying to you (I spent a month and a half on a study proving inflation metrics are bullshit)

• What happened to American manufacturing

• Why we're spending $77 trillion on healthcare over the next 10 years

• Stories from the Hill and the hills of East Tennessee

But mostly, it's about how we got here and how we get out.

"Even with somebody that's this hell-bent on getting a thing done and ignoring all the rules," I explained to Abigail about Trump, "he's not able to do it. So things are hard. That's why you need a big political movement."

The Kids Are Watching

One thing that struck me during recording - Abigail sees her peers getting pumped about Trump on TikTok. When she argues with them and they make good points, she says "yeah, that's a good point." When she presents facts, they say "no, that's not real. Trump says no."

That's why I want to bring high schoolers on the podcast. Not to debate them Charlie Kirk style, but to understand what's developing in their minds. These are the people whose political opinions are being formed right now.

"I think they're terrified of him," Abigail said about Bernie's presence.

"But like when I see pictures of him... oh, he's so cute."

That's the thing about politics - it's personal. It's emotional. It's about who you trust and who speaks to your experience.

The Plan

I'm going to film the abandoned industrial parks, show you the contrast between poverty and wealth in East Tennessee, bring on everyone from my MAGA father-in-law to local high school Trump supporters.

Because here's what I learned from helping elect AOC: Politicians run on fear. Win one big primary against someone like Joe Crowley, and suddenly a hundred members of Congress are signing onto the Green New Deal without even reading it.

That's power. That's what movements can do.

So yeah, I'm back. The general contractor is hanging up his tool belt (not really, I still have bills to pay) and diving back into the fight.

As Abigail would say: "What the fuck is happening?"

Indeed, kid. Indeed.

Episode One of America's Undoing is available now. Come for the economic analysis, stay for my daughter roasting my tomato farming dreams.

What brought you back into politics after stepping away? Drop a comment and let's talk about it.

Rick Wilson and I shouldn't agree on much. He's a Never Trump Republican who helped build the Lincoln Project. I'm the guy who helped start Justice Democrats and got AOC elected. But here's the thing - we spent half an hour agreeing on almost everything that's broken in America.

And that should tell you something about where the real divides are in this country.

The Troops in LA Are Just the Beginning

We started with Trump sending federal troops into LA. Nobody asked for them - not the mayors, not the governor, not law enforcement. The LAPD had it handled. This isn't about immigration or crime. It's about normalizing federal troops in American cities.

Rick called it right: "The immigration stuff is like the through line, but that's the excuse, not the reason."

And now Trump's planning a military parade for his birthday. North Korea shit. The message is clear - don't come to DC and protest. Which of course means the opposite.

Democrats Lost the Plot on Immigration

Here's where it got interesting. Rick asked what I'd advise Democrats on immigration. My answer? We fucked up going back to Bill Clinton. We let the vilification happen. We tried to triangulate instead of standing up for people who come here to build better lives.

I'm in Lenoir City, Tennessee. We've got about 13-14% Spanish-speaking immigrant population. They're not just good neighbors who help when your trees fall down - they're running businesses, making things happen. They're vital to this community.

But Democrats got scared and tried to be Republican-lite on immigration. Now we've lost our brand completely.

The Working Class Doesn't Give a Shit About Your 500-Page Plan

Rick brought up focus groups he's done with working-class Democrats. They all say the same thing: "Don't come to me with a 500-page plan. I'm not going to read it. And it's also bullshit."

Trump won because he talked to Latino voters as working-class voters, not as some special demographic category. Meanwhile, Democrats are up at 30,000 feet talking about their 750-page economic plans.

My crews are mostly Latino guys. During the last election, every single one was for Trump. When I asked why, they'd do the little money fingers. They thought because he made money, he'd help them make money. Simple as that.

We Don't Make Shit Anymore

This is where Rick and I really connected. America needs to manufacture things again. Not shuffle money around. Not manage other countries' production. Actually build.

We went from 23 aluminum smelters to three. Apple's putting $50 million a year into training Chinese workers, not American ones. And when people like me say we need to bring manufacturing back, Democrats on Twitter think I'm MAGA.

It's not about nostalgia. It's about national capability. You need to be able to make your own silicon chips, your own industrial materials. Not everything - global supply chains are great. But core functionalities? Yeah, you need those.

The $77 Trillion Healthcare Disaster

Here's where I tested Rick's free-market ideology. I hit him with the CMS report: We're on track to spend $77 trillion on healthcare over the next 10 years. Declining outcomes. More consolidation. More monopolization.

My solution? The only thing powerful enough to compete with these massive healthcare monopolies is the government. Not to own everything - just enough to create real competition. Like Tennessee in the 1960s when about 50% of healthcare infrastructure was publicly owned. It kept the private system in check.

Rick's response surprised me. He agreed the system is completely broken. Rural America is fucked on healthcare - highest prices, lowest service. He thinks government could provide the backstop for new competitors, like when a third cable company enters a duopoly market and prices drop 60% overnight.

Both Parties Are Corrupt as Hell

We ended on the corruption issue. Members of Congress trading stocks based on inside information. Bob Menendez with gold bars in his backyard. The revolving door between Congress and lobbyists.

Rick came at it from the right as "a free market guy who realized about 10 years ago that it was all a lie." Washington has been captured by lobbyists who control the regulatory process to advantage their companies.

AOC's been right about banning stock trading for Congress members. It's so obviously corrupt that 95% of Americans - who don't have portfolios with thousands of NVIDIA shares - would support ending it immediately.

The Real Divide

Here's what this conversation taught me: The divide isn't really left vs right anymore. It's between people who see the system is broken and want to fix it, versus people who benefit from it staying broken.

A Never Trump Republican and a Bernie Democrat can agree on:

• Bringing back manufacturing

• Breaking up healthcare monopolies

• Ending Congressional corruption

• Not trusting either party's leadership

• Putting working people first

Rick said something that stuck with me: "I came at this from the right as a free market guy who realized about 10 years ago that it was all a lie."

I came at it from the left realizing the Democratic Party would rather manage decline than fight for real change.

Maybe it's time we stop letting them divide us by culture war bullshit and start building coalitions around fixing what's actually broken.

Because when a Lincoln Project founder and a Justice Democrats founder spend 30 minutes agreeing on everything, the problem isn't partisan. It's systemic.

And systems can be changed.

Watch the full conversation if you want to see two people from "opposite sides" realize they're on the same side against a broken system.

What surprised you most about this conversation? Are you seeing similar unlikely agreements in your own life?

This don’t jive with Smith's "50% real wage growth" when that same job today won't even cover rent in a shared apartment.

Smith's fundamental mistake is believing numbers on spreadsheets reflect reality.

Eugene Ludwig served as U.S. Comptroller of the Currency. Washington insider, decades trusting government statistics.

Now he's saying what I've been screaming from East Tennessee: the numbers are bullshit.

Ludwig's team found real unemployment is 23.7% when you count people who can't find full-time work or make poverty wages. Not 4.2%.

The median wage isn't $61,900. It's $52,300 when you include everyone trying to work.

Cost of living for working Americans rose 35% faster than the CPI admits.

RAND Corporation just updated their study. $79 trillion transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1% since 1975.

Seventy-nine trillion dollars. From people who work for a living to people who own for a living.

My Years of Work analysis shows the same thing.

In 1950, one median income bought a house in 3.7 years. Today, it takes more than 10 years. Nearly tripling the time cost of a median home.

Noah wants you to believe this doesn't matter. That we’re richer than ever.

At 19, I inherited my grandfather's manufacturing business and watched our customers die one by one. I learned then that you can make numbers say anything you want, but you can't make a closed factory produce furniture.

My region used to bustle. I don’t mean way back in the 50’s. Even as a kid, standing at the end of our driveway in Lowland, TN on Enka Highway, waiting for the school bus.

That road went to BASF plant where my Papaw worked. The river of cars heading to and from that plant went on for half an hour. Just endless.

10,000 people worked there. Had its own power generation, its own bank - Lowland Credit Union. Made nylons and fibers for parachutes during the war, then transitioned to domestic production.

Now grass grows through the parking lot cracks. The contaminants leak into the river that used to power it.

Smith celebrates Americans "flooding into higher-skilled professional service jobs."

My grandfather could diagnose an engine by sound and fix it with basic tools. That knowledge created real value.

Today's "knowledge workers" create financial instruments that extract value from people like him.

When Smith cites wage growth, he's using government statistics with hedonic quality adjustments. A $48,000 car counts as "cheaper" than a 1970s model because it has more features. Tell that to someone trying to make the payment.

These adjustments are economic gaslighting. The BLS openly admits they adjust prices down for "quality improvements." Your payment is real. Their discount is imaginary.

Share

Smith argues imports are "only" 4% of GDP, so trade couldn't have hollowed out manufacturing.

Like saying bullets are only 0.001% of body mass, so getting shot can't be that bad.

When my furniture business went under after NAFTA, we didn't just lose sales. We lost the tool and die makers who kept our equipment running. The engineers who understood wood grain optimization. The suppliers who made specialized components. The knowledge that only comes from actually making things.

China now produces 95% of rare earth magnets, dominates solar panels and batteries.

But sure, Noah, tell me again how this is only 4% of GDP.

Smith brags Americans have the highest median disposable income.

In France, that lower income includes healthcare that won't bankrupt you, college without lifelong debt, childcare that doesn't cost more than rent, pensions that actually exist.

In America, that "higher" income gets devoured by $14,570 per person healthcare costs versus ~$5,000 in France, $100,000+ college degrees versus nearly free, $15,000 annual childcare versus subsidized.

We pay individually for what other countries provide collectively.

The smoking gun all three analyses found: productivity and wages decoupled in the 1970s.

Workers kept getting more productive. Owners kept getting richer. The gains stopped flowing to the people doing the work.

In 1950, household debt was $47 billion - 8 weeks of median income. In 2023, $18.2 trillion - 63 weeks of median income.

We went from working 2 months to pay debt to working over a year.

Smith admits China cost 2 million manufacturing jobs but says that's "only 1.5% of the workforce."

Those were the jobs that anchored entire communities. When the plant closes, the restaurants that fed them close. The suppliers that served them close. The tax base that funded schools and roads disappears. Factory closures cost far more than just factory jobs.

I watched it happen in real time. Not in statistics. In obituaries. In foreclosure notices. In kids I went to school with dying from opioids because there was nothing left to do and nowhere left to go.

My uncle John was a fuel pump mechanic. Worked all over East Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia.

He watched the industry change from things you could repair to things you just replaced. He'd tell me about Reagan busting unions while we fished for bluegill on the lakes. About how coders and programmers weren't going to save us.

He was right. We didn't just lose manufacturing. We lost the ability to solve problems with our hands.

When China restricts rare earth minerals, Smith's "knowledge economy" can't code its way out of it. When we need ventilators in a pandemic, we can't financial engineer them into existence. When the bridges collapse, McKinsey consultants can't PowerPoint them back up.

Smith celebrates we're only 10% manufacturing, as if making things is beneath us.

Every great power in history fell when it stopped building and started shuffling paper. Rome imported Egyptian grain and Chinese silk before it fell. We're importing our antibiotics and our ammunition.

In 2015, I'm sitting on my food truck listening to Bernie Sanders on the radio.

He's describing what I'd witnessed my whole life. The closing of factories. Trade deals that destroyed us. People addicted to opiates. No healthcare. Living in the richest nation in history.

I'd gone from inheriting my grandfather's companies at 19 to watching it die by 25. From culinary school at the CIA to coming home to build food trucks because there was nothing else left to build.

Bernie was the first politician who seemed to see what I saw.

Smith wants you to accept this is evolution. Being dependent on other countries for everything from medicine to microchips is just efficient markets at work.

I'm telling you it's collapse in slow motion. Now even the Washington insiders are admitting it.

We can keep pretending GDP growth means prosperity while people finance groceries on payment plans. We can keep believing "knowledge work" can replace actually making things. We can keep trusting economists who've never held a wrench to explain why the factory closures were good for us.

Or we can admit what's obvious to anyone who's watched their community die:

We traded our ability to build for the ability to borrow. We traded production for consumption. We traded power for comfort.

The numbers lie. The closed plants don't.

Don't believe Smith. Believe your eyes. Believe your grocery bill. Believe your kid's student loans. Believe the empty factories and the full prisons.

We didn't lose our manufacturing. We gave it away.

And all of Smith's charts can't hide what that cost us.

Tell me about your stories in the comments.

Leave a comment

Aircraft Carriers and $300,000 Missiles

This is where it got really interesting. Tim's a hawk - his dad fought in the Pacific, he's got Japanese rifles on the wall from soldiers his dad killed. But even he thinks we're building the wrong shit.

"We're building aircraft carriers, dude. And everybody will tell you aircraft carriers are the way out."

Why are we building them? Because components are made in powerful legislators' districts. They literally point out which jet engine gets made where, which armaments come from which district. It's accepted behavior.

Meanwhile, somebody with a $300,000 missile can take out half a trillion dollars worth of equipment on that carrier's deck. Or a swarm of $2,000 drones can create a net that knocks out every aircraft.

"We're building apparatus that will be mothballed the day it's created."

The Lobbyist Playbook

Tim told me about Tom Hensley, the "Golden Goose" - a liquor lobbyist in Tennessee who said something that stuck with him: "I don't need the House or the Senate. I just need one chairman."

Now it's worse. Lobbyists don't even need a chairman. They just need a key staffer on a committee. Tim's heard Democrats and Republicans say they couldn't push a bill forward because "the staff didn't approve."

Here's how the scam works:

1. Legislator brings their bill thinking they'll get it passed

2. Lobbyist bends the ear of a staff member

3. Staff member says "this won't work, but how about we get a report on it?"

4. Bill becomes a "reporting bill" - do a study, report back to Congress

5. Nothing ever happens

"I've been in Congress almost eight years, and I've never seen a report."

Where We Split

I asked Tim straight up - when healthcare becomes 20% of GDP and it's unsustainable, shouldn't government compete directly with these monopolies? Maybe run some hospitals to keep prices honest?

His answer: "It's a real slippery slope."

He thinks government inherently breeds corruption - your cousin works the scales, accountability drops to near zero. When he was Knox County mayor, his rule was if Knox County was in any business that's in the Yellow Pages, they'd get out of it.

I pushed back - isn't the same nepotism happening in business? His counter: stockholders hold businesses accountable. With 12% voter turnout, nobody's holding government accountable.

The $77 Trillion Question

I hit Tim with the number that's been keeping me up at night: We're on track to spend $77 trillion on healthcare over the next 10 years. That's going to be 20% of GDP.

His response? The bureaucracy's taking advantage. The middlemen are getting their cut. And their cut keeps getting bigger while their mission gets more watered down.

Here's the kicker - Japan spends 1.6% on healthcare administration. We spend 25-33%. Tim didn't even blink when I told him that. He just said "lobbyists."

The Part That Matters

Here's what struck me most. Tim's as frustrated as I am. He sees the corruption in both parties. He knows the system's broken. We're just coming at solutions from different angles.

He thinks government's too corrupt to fix anything. I think concentrated private power is just as corrupt and needs government competition. But we both see the same problems:

• Healthcare eating America alive

• Military-industrial complex building obsolete shit

• Lobbyists running everything

• Nobody in Congress actually reading what they vote on

At the end, Tim mentioned something that made me hopeful. He's working with AOC on a bill to ban legislators from trading individual stocks. He gets criticism from the right for being friends with her, for stepping between her and someone who got in her face.

"We got to get past that eventually."

The Bottom Line

A fiscally conservative MAGA Republican and I spent 35 minutes agreeing that:

• We're wasting trillions on healthcare bureaucracy

• We're building military equipment for the last war

• Lobbyists own the process

• Both parties are corrupt

• The system needs fundamental change

The only real disagreement? Whether government can be part of the solution or if it's inherently the problem.

Maybe that's a conversation worth having instead of screaming at each other about culture war bullshit while lobbyists rob us blind.

Tim wants to build affordable housing together. I want to build a healthcare system that doesn't bankrupt families. We both want to actually solve problems instead of passing reporting bills that disappear into warehouses.

That's more common ground than most of Congress can find these days.

Watch if you want to see a Republican admit the military-industrial complex is building garbage and a Bernie guy argue about the role of government with someone who actually ran one.

What do you think - is government capable of competing with private monopolies, or is Tim right that it's a slippery slope to more corruption?

I showed Ro my favorite graph - the one where economists tell us real median household income has been going up. According to FRED, everything's great! Real wages are up! The economy's fantastic!

But here's what I track instead: the actual cost of housing, food, utilities, transportation, education, healthcare, and childcare. No hedonic adjustments. No geometric means. Just what shit actually costs. And guess what? People aren't crazy. They're broke.

Ro made a great point - the median wage charts hide what's happening in hollowed-out communities. Silicon Valley's doing great. East Tennessee? Not so much. The national averages mask the geographic devastation that NAFTA and the China shock caused.

Healthcare is Eating America Alive

Here's the stat that blew Ro's mind: Japan spends 1.6% on healthcare administration. We spend 33%.

Let that sink in. One-third of our healthcare spending goes to people denying claims and pushing paper. We have 1.4 million people adjudicating claims and only 1 million doctors. Athena Health says healthcare administrators have increased 320% since 1975. There are now 10 administrators for every doctor.

Ro's response was perfect: "We need more doctors." But it goes deeper than that. We need to blow up the entire system.

Why Business Should Want Medicare for All

I asked Ro something that's been bugging me for years - why aren't businesses screaming for Medicare for All? Ford has more healthcare costs in every car than steel. These Fortune 500 companies are spending 25-30% of payroll on healthcare.

Toyota distributes Japan's healthcare costs across their entire society. American manufacturers start in a hole because of healthcare. So why aren't they fighting for this?

Ro's answer: They're focused on short-term gains. Tax cuts make their stock go up today. Fighting for systemic healthcare reform is hard. But privately, they know it would help.

We Gave Away Our Future

Tim Cook says we can't bring iPhone manufacturing back because we don't have the engineers, the techs, or the machines. You know who trained China's workforce? Apple. To the tune of $50 million a year.

We thought we'd be the managerial class of the world. Other people would build stuff, we'd shuffle money around and design things. How's that working out?

China went from half our energy production to double it in 15 years. They've built 22,000 miles of high-speed rail while we've built 500. They're shocked when China innovates because they bought into their own racist bullshit that China could only copy, not create.

Stop Waiting for Permission

The most frustrating part of my conversation with Ro came when he said we need to wait for either Hakeem Jeffries or a presidential candidate to define the Democratic agenda.

We're always waiting. It's never the right time to go big. Meanwhile, Trump's talking about conquering Greenland and we're nervous about Medicare for All.

Here's what Ro gets that most Democrats don't: organizing works. Mass movements work. We don't need permission from leadership to start fighting for:

• Medicare for All (saving money while covering everyone)

• Reindustrializing America

• Taking on the administrative bloat that's killing us

• Building shit again

The American DNA

Ro ended with something important - what we're calling for isn't radical. It's American. Hamilton did it. Lincoln did it. FDR did it. Eisenhower got the Interstate Highway System built as a defense project.

We know how to do this. We've done it before. The question is whether Democrats will stop being so fucking risk-averse and actually fight for it.

The statistics have to catch up to people's lived experience, Ro said. Or maybe - and here's a wild thought - we should stop trusting statistics that tell us everything's fine when people are financing their groceries.

We need national leadership that coordinates with local communities, subjects itself to market tests, but points toward something bigger than shareholder value. We need markets in service of people.

And we need to stop waiting for someone to give us permission to fight for it.

Watch the full conversation if you want to see a Silicon Valley congressman realize in real-time just how fucked our healthcare system is. And if you're as tired as I am of Democrats asking "how we gonna pay for it" while we burn $75 trillion on a broken system, maybe it's time to stop waiting for leadership and start organizing.

What's your take? Are Democrats too risk-averse or am I expecting too much? Drop a comment and let's argue about it.

Then Trump won again. And here I am, back on Substack, back on these livestreams, back in the fight I thought I was done with.

Mike Nellis and I had never actually talked before this livestream. The Substack folks thought we'd make an interesting pair - the Justice Democrats co-founder who helped get AOC elected meets the self-described "establishment hack" who's been in the trenches for 20 years. They weren't wrong.

What Hit Different

The economy bullshit: Mike and I both see it - Democrats standing up there talking about how great the economy is while people are financing their goddamn groceries. I dropped the numbers on him: the bottom 80% of Americans spend more than 100% of their income on basic necessities. They're drowning in debt, and we're out here citing Nobel laureates.

We've stopped building: This is what drives me crazy. We used to make things in this country. In East Tennessee where I'm from, American Enka BASF employed a third of the county. Now those jobs are gone, and we're told America's future is in "managing intellectual property" or whatever bullshit the Chicago school economists are selling. Mike gets this - he owned a manufacturing company. We need to build again.

The party's become decline management: I told Mike straight up - Democrats have given up on America's future. They think our best days are behind us and they're just trying to manage the decline. That's not leadership. That's not what working people need.

Where We Went At It

On Democratic leadership: I think every single one of these Democrats sitting around twiddling their thumbs needs a primary opponent. Hakeem Jeffries won with 23,000 votes in his primary. That's ripe for the taking. Mike thinks I'm too aggressive here - he sees these people as imperfect tools we need to win.

On winning: Mike pushed me hard on this - where's the evidence that my kind of politics wins? Fair question. My answer? Look at Trump. Take away the racism and criminality, and his economic populism is exactly what Democrats should be doing. We keep trying to moderate on economics when we should be moderating on not sounding like robots.

On Bernie: We both worked for him, but Mike made the point that Bernie's an institutionalist who would've died arguing with some undersecretary. He's not wrong. We need someone with Bernie's politics but Trump's urgency to tear shit apart and rebuild.

The Real Talk

Here's what I realized during this conversation: Mike and I aren't that far apart. We're both pissed about the same things. We both want Democrats to stop talking like lawyers and start talking like humans. We both think the party needs to get off its ass and actually deliver for people.

The difference is tactics. He wants to win with the tools we have. I want to break the tools and build new ones.

Maybe we need both. Maybe that's how we actually fix this mess.

But one thing's for sure - we can't keep doing the same shit and expecting different results. That's why I'm back. That's why I'm writing again. That's why I'm having these conversations.

Because just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

Watch the full hour if you want to see two Bernie guys figure out they agree more than they thought they would. And if you're as frustrated as we are, maybe it's time you got back in the fight too.

Subscribe to America's Undoing if you want to hear more about how we got here and how we get out.

Discover why the old political spectrum has shifted beyond recognition and learn about the Builder Doctrine - a new vision for government that actually builds things instead of just managing decline. Whether you're a frustrated progressive, a disaffected conservative, or someone who's given up on politics entirely, this conversation offers a path forward.

Topics covered:

• Why political labels fail us

• The myth of left vs. right

• How government serves business over people

• Public support for progressive policies

• Building political power from the ground up

• The future of the Democratic Party

• Creating unity beyond traditional divides