Today's Liberal News

Prediction Markets Are Calling It Early

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Democrats aren’t the only ones celebrating this week. Prediction markets—high-speed betting arenas where users can wager on the future of the republic—have been claiming a win of their own.
The platforms foresaw a Democratic sweep, and that’s what they got. “BREAKING: Polymarket was right,” one post on the company’s X account read yesterday morning.

The Speaker Who Gave the House Away

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Outgoing Speaker of the House Mike Johnson made a statement earlier this year that captured his approach to the job: “I have no intention of getting in the way of President Trump and his administration.” He was answering a question about levying tariffs, a power the Constitution gives to Congress.

Democrats Have No Coherent Plan for AI

Among the many gifts that Donald Trump bequeathed to Democrats ahead of the midterms was allowing them the exclusive political use of the AI backlash. Now that Democrats have decisively won control of Congress, voters will expect them to follow through on their rhetoric. The problem is that Democrats don’t actually have a plan to regulate AI. In fact, they don’t even agree on what problems need to be solved in the first place.

The Ballad of Bob Dylan and the Pope

At first, the image appears to be some kind of intergalactic photo op, something out of Star Wars. A figure hooded in black, his craggy face partly in shadow, greets a serene-looking man in a white robe. Think Emperor Palpatine shaking hands with Obi-Wan Kenobi, perhaps brokering a cease-fire in the Clone Wars. Closer inspection yields a picture that is no less weird: Bob Dylan is hanging with the pope.

This Won’t Be Easy for Democrats

James Talarico talked a lot during his campaign about the so-called wilderness—as in, the electoral wasteland and morale morass that Democrats had been languishing in since President Trump’s reelection, in 2024. In Texas, this felt like something of a permanent condition. Talarico preferred a more sanguine interpretation of wilderness, something I’ve thought about after he became the first Texas Democrat to win a Senate race since 1988.

“They Have Eyes”: How Trump’s Corruption Became a Top Concern for Midterm Voters

Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate in Tuesday’s historic midterm elections, a comeback fueled largely by voter anger over high prices and the war on Iran. But surveys also found that corruption was a major concern, with 76% of voters telling a Harris poll that elected officials care more about enriching themselves than improving the economy for ordinary people.

The Country Says “No” to Trump: Not Just Congress, the Blue Tsunami Flips Statehouses Across U.S.

We examine the results of Tuesday’s historic U.S. midterm elections with Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief of Bolts. In addition to taking back the House and Senate, Democrats also made major gains at the state level and will control a majority of governorships for the first time in 16 years. Democrats also flipped 12 state legislative chambers.
“The size of the wins for Democrats in statewide races was wild,” says Nichanian.

Latino Voters Swing Away from Trump for “Terrorizing Our Communities”: Marisa Franco of Mijente

In 2024, Donald Trump won the presidency with the support of 44% of Hispanic voters, suggesting that a major realignment in party preferences might be underway. But just two years later, it appears much of that support has eroded. Sixty-one percent of Hispanic voters say they will now support Democrats in the midterms, including 11% who previously had voted for President Trump.

Revenge of the White Working Class

Last night, in the streets of Austin, Democrats honked their horns and hung out their windows, like it was V-E Day. In the nation’s capital, they blasted “Party in the U.S.A.” near the White House. But in southeast Iowa, the blue revolution came quietly.
The Democrats of Des Moines County—a place that does not actually contain the state capital, but a small, industrial river city and rural areas along the Mississippi—have not come to associate Election Night with joy.

Google Won’t Give Schools the One Thing They Want

Over the past few years, Google’s low-priced laptops have become an AI Trojan horse in America’s schools. Students can use a school-issued Chromebook to automate much of their homework. Fire up the Gemini app, and Google’s chatbot will spit out a full essay about the meaning of The Giver. Type an algebra question into the Google search box, and an “AI Overview” will solve it for you.