Today, Explained - America Post-Trump

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

What does US politics look like when Donald Trump is no longer at the center of it? In 2028, voters will get to decide. But for now, we explore. This show was edited by Kasia Broussalian, fact-checked by Esther Gim, mixed by Shannon Mahoney and hosted by Astead Herndon. Christopher Snyder is our video editor, and Koon Nguy is our senior art director. Our executive producer is Christina Vallice. Additional support from Miranda Kennedy, David Tatasciore, and Nisha Chittal. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump step on an escalator as they arrive for the 80th session of the UN’s General Assembly. Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images. You can also watch this episode on video at youtube.com/vox. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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that's demystifying mergers and acquisitions for regular investors, not just the ultra-wealthy. Get ready for an unfiltered conversation about financial literacy, growing your business, and how to stop trading time for money. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Political polarization's been rising for 40 years now, right? And at some point, I guess it can't get much worse. I don't know if that means it gets better.

But at some point, there might be a reaction to that. Is it possible to talk about U.S. politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm asking on the news show from Vox. The idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items. It really does feel like so reactive. Come 2028, America. is supposedly turning the page on the current president.

So who do we want to be? And what are the people and ideas that will shape our post-Trump future? That's what this podcast is about, going deeper or on politics, by taking Trump out of the center and talking about politics as it relates to real life and culture and everything else.

Like, culture-wise, is Timothy Chalameh properly rated, overrated, or underrated? Oh, God, now you're going to get me in trouble. So, from Obama's tan suit to the manosphere and everything in between, what shapes who we are? I'm a Stead Herndon, and welcome to America Actually. Okay, so I'm pumped to have two people here who are going to help us look at politics beyond Donald Trump from an expert lens. First, we have Hunter Harris, culture writer, screenwriter, and just generally coolness extraordinaire.

And also Nate Silver, statistician, data whiz, and someone who's going to help us think of the specific ways. that the numbers are telling us that the country's changing. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you. Funny thing is I want to start actually with the story. Like a couple months ago, we were thinking about the show and kind of what can be the organizing premise. And I was like, you know, what would be the thing

that would make you most excited about a podcast? And my first thought was, I want to be Trump-free. I want to think about something that does not put him at the center. And I kind of think emotionally, I wanted to start thinking about kind of what are the Cs. of who the country is beyond this guy in the middle. And when I initially kind of pitched it, there was some question about whether that is even possible,

whether we can even see this political moment without foregrounding Donald Trump. So I kind of wanted to use you all as our first real-life focus group about that premise. What do you think? Like, when we think about the politics that does not center Donald Trump, is that possible?

I mean, he is the president. Look, as we gain more perspective on the Trump era, maybe he seems as much of a symptom as a cause in some ways, right? You know, the Republican Party kind of built a coalition that was maybe always a little bit unstable. And people like me, like famously in 2016, 2015, I was like, yeah, we know how this works, right? You have like the Rick Santorums, you have the Michelle Bachman's, the people that like rise up and they're the flavor of the day. And then they dissipate when the electric gets serious, right?

And so like, you know, not realizing how much Republicans felt like promises have been broken by the Bush era, how unpopular things like the Romney Ryan welfare state was, but also like, obviously, the political potency of populism, of xenophobia, of racism. Yeah, I mean, what about the question of is Trump a symptom of a broken system or the cause of breaking that system? It feels like we've been in living in that question for a while. Like, do you think culturally at this point, you feel like you know a clear answer to that? I don't know. I think it's hard. I mean, I've kind of been working through this thesis for the past couple of months that like the only monoculture that like truly exists right now is Trump and is like the sort of Trumpist, uh, reaction to pop culture where he, I think is much more concerned by what the media is saying about him, um, you know, making these kind of like crazy over the top, um, like press conferences and like honestly being a drama queen. Um, I really do think that like, like,

like Trump somehow, like, ended up in the White House and not, like, on a Bravo reality show. Like, he would have been a classic, like, rooney housewife. And I say that, you know, with some respect. But I think that really shows in how he's sort of, I mean, I think the idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items. It really does feel like so reactive. Yeah, I'm like, in one way that monoculture feels real and the way he hogs attention. Yeah. That doesn't feel like the actual outcomes are dictated by some clear vision or some clear set of steps he's going through more so than this kind of haphazardy nature.

If we were to think about the individuals who are most likely to chart our post-Trump future, who would come to mind? Let me throw out the obvious names. I'll throw out the likely presidential candidates, people like Gavin Newsome or J.D. Vance. I would throw out prospective ones like former vice president Kamala Harris or even AOC as a person who obviously folks are thinking about. But if we get those names out of the way, like who are people who you think might be some of the clues about the direction of power in our post-Trump world? I mean, look, I do think the person that's had the biggest rise to political fame where the past year is the mayor of New York's around Mamdani. And like, I'm aware that I'm a New Yorker, some probably biased, right? But like as something that was like very fresh and different, I think, right?

And cut through. But also a kind of pragmatic streak, right? When you're in mayor of New York City, most of the shit you're dealing with is like there's a blizzard or there's a budget crisis. Hot holes, yeah, yeah, trash collection. And he seems to be fairly popular. And there's a big debate on the left in particular about how much of an electoral penalty there is for being on the left as opposed to centrist or moderate, right? And sometimes what you want, if you want to push things to the left, is you want somebody who comes across as being reasonable and moderate, even though they actually are kind of pushing things in direction behind the scenes, right? Like in some ways, Kamala Harris was like the opposite of that, right?

The centrists all think she was way too liberal. The liberals all think she was a sellout centrist on Gaza and other stuff. Right. And like that's just a matter of maybe not having, maybe it's a skill thing. Maybe there's like not all that much raw political talent there, even though in some way she ran a better campaign than I thought she had. might um but momdani has a lot of political talent and kind of a proof of concept that i don't know you're seeing elsewhere i mean i don't on the gopi side we'll talk i i i don't know right it seems like i don't quite get the jd vance appeal very much at all right he only won one election

before becoming vice president he won by a relatively narrow margin in ohia which is now a quite red state right you know rubio you could see yeah someone who's in that mix you know i think Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the GOP. So far it doesn't among like people who say their MAGA voters are still with Trump, but like Tucker Carlson and, I don't know, I have trouble keeping track of all these people, right? But like for the first time, and this is a reason why it's appropriate to maybe have a post-Trump podcast, right? For the first time you see on a major issue open opposition from the start of this war. Yeah. Right. Hunter, is there someone who comes to mind that you think could be a part of our charting our post-Trump future? Or

a group demographically or culturally that you think is driving the direction of what we care about right now? I think Zoron. I mean, that was going to be my answer too. And I think particularly because, you know, maybe my own frustration with the Democratic Party is that they're just so sort of bloated and slow to respond to culture and never kind of at the cutting edge of anything, especially when if we're having this like conversation about maybe respectability politics, The right is like kind of pushing past all of that. Like it doesn't matter. Can you explain that for me? Like what do you mean by that? I think the left is too concerned with politeness and the right is not. Like Trump can say anything.

J.D. Vance can say anything. And that's sort of the appeal to some voters that they like that sort of candidness. And they like how it feels very kind of funny and casual where the left is a little bit wonkier and feels a bit too like from like bird's eye view. And I think Zoran does this very well where he feels casual, relatable, online in some ways. And it's not just like the Jasmine Crockett, which didn't work for her, like kind of the clapback

sort of getting a viral moment, but then it's like to what in, truly? And I think Zoran is really good at that. I mean, even the photos of him and Trump and the White House, I was like, you, sorry, Trump is obsessed. Trump has found someone that he wants to impress. That is very difficult.

No one on the right has gotten that, has earned that. I hear it, but for the Zoron point, do we think that that is a uniqueness that's because he is articulating, you know, kind of where people are? Or is it because he's younger, hotter, better looking? Like, is some of this, like, just the question of the type of candidate that is in front of us? No, I think it's a little bit of both. I think that, yes, Zoran is young and charismatic and cool. But at the same time, I think that his pushing past, you know, getting stuck in, like, ideological battles with, you know, leftists and like centrist truly just to say like I'm running on one thing that's affordability

is maybe doing more for done more for him than you know anything that Kamla did. Well, all right, I want to ask about demographic groups. Like we are still in a changing country. Like I feel like we used to hear so much in 2016 and kind of 2017 about the changing demographics of America. And then all of a sudden everybody ran to the other side and said, oh, just because the country's getting blacker and browner does not mean that we are in this inevitably liberal direction. I think that's true. We've seen that. But those changes are still reshaping politics. They're

still reshaping culture. Like when we think about the ways America is changing from a hue perspective, from a makeup perspective, what are the groups we should be looking at that, you know, might be growing in terms of political importance? Yeah, look, these generational divides within the black community, within the Hispanic community, within the Asian American community, which is always growing is pretty important, right? When we talk about generational divides, we talk in older 40, under 40, Like, what's the dividing line we usually see? Forty is like a pretty good divide, right? It's kind of like not quite Gen X versus millennial.

It goes kind of a few years into millennial, I think. So I'm 48, right? So my formative experiences are America wins the Cold War, and the Berlin Wall comes down. Mr. Gorbachev tear down this war. And then we have September 11th, right? And the people who knocked this. These buildings down, we'll hear all of us soon.

Which yields a lot of conservatism, right? That's an important point. Can I stop you right there? How old are you, Hunter? Old enough. I'm 31, I'm 31. What are your formative political experience? Like, if we just take about that difference generationally,

what would you say as like your defining political experience? Obama winning, Trump winning? Yeah, Obama winning, Trump winning, Obama tan suit. That was another big one for me. But we're thinking about basically the era after that. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, so if you live kind of, if you are my age up to a few years younger, right, kind of the good guys win, right?

Clinton's really centrist and he gets reelected, right? Bush gets in trouble in his second term by going too far. And then Obama wins. You're like, oh, this is like kind of the culmination, right? We elected, we finally elected a black guy and now, I'm not saying I thought this, I'm saying like, but like now America, we fixed. Yeah, yeah. I heard that all the time.

I heard it all the time. Problems all. Post-racial America. Like, you know, we did it, Joe. And then Trump comes down the escalator at Trump Tower, right? And people like me were dismissive of it. And so, yeah, I guess, you know, Francis Fukuyama, the Stamford historian, political scientists,

associated with the phrase like, The end of history. And now everything causes anxiety for everybody. And incumbents all around the world are unpopular. And you wouldn't say we're trending towards stability. Certainly. Yeah. The last question I want to ask before we play a little game is Hunter, you know, I tend to see 2016 to

2024 as like an arc of political chapters, you know, like I feel privileged to I've kind of seen that change up close. But from first term to Trump to kind of his return, we certainly learn things that will never forget about politics. It feels like some stuff has gotten fundamentally shifted or broken or reshaped in people's minds. And they will never go back to that pre-escalator moment for Trump or that pre-moment of him beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. I want to say, what are the lessons you think we've learned

that sticking folks' head from that time? Like, is there something that for you, you feel like, hey, they'll never convince me again because I learned some of this over the last eight years, and it's fundamental to how I think about politics now? Oh, that's such a good question. Because I was thinking about this the other day. It's like, you know, you can take any host of issues in 2016 that should have stopped Trump and none of them did because he was just momentum. Right. And I think that's maybe the biggest lesson I've learned is that, If you simply just keep talking, if you stay on stage, you can get through anything. And I don't think that was true in the Obama era.

Like even the scandals. The samelessness. Yeah. The tan suit or like, it was incredibly minor things. But even like the Mark Sanford stuff, it's like all of that felt like, you know, we were talking about that in the news for weeks. It felt like all of those political scandals of the day. And now it's like, okay, so that's maybe Tuesday afternoon and to Wednesday morning. But then, you know, by Thursday, it's like Trump saying that the Japanese are sneaky.

Like they love surprises. And it's like, there's like some new sort of insane moment that's like gone viral. And I think that really, it's both a, you know, cultural thing. The internet moves so quickly and happens so fast. But I think it's also really Trump has just brought that into the forefront of our minds. Yeah, yeah. There is a way that the civility piece has an actual impact because I don't think of a kind of nice guy finished first mindset of politics folks think anymore.

I think there is some level of grossness that I think he has helped build into the cost that even some voters expect. Yeah. I don't think they would, you know, presidential candidate needs to have this like idyllic life anymore. I think that he's really brought this truly reality TV sensibility to the White House into like our like how we think about politics. All right, y'all, I'm going to play a game. And I got to say, like, I don't know how this is going to go, but I believe in you, which is the most important part. Oh, we're nervous. We have three buckets, have a magenta e-color bucket, a purple bucket, and a green bucket.

And all three of these are going to represent different policy areas that we're going to focus on later in the show. And so the question I'm going to ask you all is to think through three different things, three different questions that you have that are not related to Donald Trump, that are not related to an individual about politics, but more so things that you want to ask about the country and put it in to one of the three buckets of issues that we're going to focus on. Now, the first, and this is going to be represented by our magenta bucket, is America's role in the world. So a question about foreign policy, a question about the growing war in Iran, America's relationship to Israel and Gaza. I think that is something that comes up in a lot of conversations, and it's going to be represented by our foreign policy bucket. The second bucket we're going to have is affordability and kind of domestic issues. So if we think about things that I think are your kind of traditional kitchen table, things we talk about in politics, let's call this the kitchen table. And I'll put econ and my handwriting is getting worse, I think, by the years.

I'm recognizing this in real time. But we're going to have this be the econ affordability bucket. So kitchen table issues. If we think about, you have a question about something that you think will fall into this bucket. We'll use that right here. And then the last one we're going to do is like societal cultural things. The woke wars, if I could use that term. We'll put that one here.

Culture. So that is going to be represented by our green bucket. So we have all three buckets, magenta, purple, and green. So I would love for you all to write down anything that you can think about that is a policy question in one of these buckets. And I'm going to do the same. When does this become a game? Yeah, it seems like too much. much work. Is that okay? I think this is labor. No, no, I think I'm doing work right now.

When we come back from break, Hunter Nate and I will go through the policy questions that are in our buckets. I'm Brené Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's going to be fun. We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree. And we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube. or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday.

How is Trump's psychology having an impact on the great power conflict? There were folks who for years could never imagine the U.S. carrying out limited strikes on Iran, right? If you go back to the 12-day war, he dropped those bunker busters, right? And you had presidents

through multiple administrations who never would have gone to full-scale war with Iran, and here they are. I'm Prit Barara. And this week, CNN's chief national security analyst, Jim Shudo, joins me to discuss the Iran War, our fraying alliances, and the rise of Russia and China. The episode is out now. Search and follow. Stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.

All the way back in the year 2000, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had this big idea that maybe the future wasn't typing, it was talking to your computer with your voice. Jeff Bezos didn't invent this idea, but he did push his team to invent what would become Alexa. and the Amazon Echo, two things that brought voice computing into millions of homes around the world. This week on Version History, our chat show about the best and worst and most interesting products in tech history, we're telling the whole story of the Echo and how Amazon managed to get it right and still kind of missed the future. That's Version History on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. Hunter Harris, which bucket would you like to start with? Society and culture.

Okay. Hey, now we are opening up our society and cultural bucket, and we are going to ask one question, how can a leftist politician harness and capitalize the manosphere? Interesting. I feel like this speaks to the growing and changing media ecosystem, pointing to folks like Rogan, the Pod Bros. Tell us Nate Silver, what did you mean by this question? That was me. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness. That was such gendered reading of handwriting. Let me see the handwriting. Hunter. What do you mean by that question? I hope that stays in. Oh, my goodness. That, to me, was a big turning point in the most recent election where Kamala was not reaching young men.

And I honestly don't know how when their entire politic is like misogyny. You know, it does feel as if the kind of growing independent ecosystem, the role of influencers, are all becoming a bigger question in our form of politics. And that's obviously changing the way we communicate overall. I feel like this relates to one of the things. put in the societal cultural bucket, which is the, I said male loneliness crisis, but I actually would say loneliness crisis in general. I feel like we are.

Especially after the pandemic. Yeah, particularly post-pandemic. I feel like people are increasingly engaging with the world that they don't physically engage in. And how that changes, community, the way that we see each other does feel like an important kind of who are we questioned going forward. Let me make sure before I say this, Nate, this is yours. Yeah.

Nate, you said, is cultural change happening so fast that vibe shifts don't even last for a single presidency? What does that mean? It means that. So one thing we observed around the world is that it's like no longer really an advantage to be an incumbent. You get one term and then and then you're out. So to me, the 2024 election felt quite different than the 2020 election. Obviously, 2020 is during a pandemic. There's lots of crazy things happening right there, right? but like we were talking about the kind of rise and peak of whatever you want to call,

wokeness, right? But like, but it feels very different four or five years out from that peak. And like, you know, I just wonder, anytime you're kind of like betting on a rising trend, we both have,

um, a lot of admiration for Zoran's political acumen, right? Not trying to make an editorial statement. But like, maybe somebody copycats that and the second version doesn't hit in the same way. Yeah. You know what I mean?

It feels too forced. It feels like actually, um, And, you know, look, if we're, if I'm planning articles for the newsletter, the first breakout hit that you have is great in particular topic, right? The derivative of that often falls kind of flat, right? Yeah. One of the things I put in there was the question of kind of media consolidation and just the change in trust. It feels as if less than people trusting experts, they more so trust someone who's their neighbor or someone who's on their timeline and much more individual recommendations rather than kind of top down.

You know, how much do we think, like, the elite backlash in the air right now is driven through, like, the Epstein files? I mean, I guess I'm saying kind of think culturally. How much do we think that this anti-elite moment is driven by the facts or more so driven by a trend that, to Nate's point, could change here or not? I think it's more of a trend, only because there's something about the Epstein files that was such an important issue for Trump coming in to the White House, that now he's backing away from it. so much because it's like, wait, you are the elite, though. Like, you are the coastal elite that you're talking about. And so I do think that in some ways maybe the pendulum will swing back to, you know, I think the horse has left the stable when it comes to media literacy and, like, thinking

maybe critically about where you're consuming news from. But I do think that maybe in some ways wanting to be seen as intelligent and maybe more learned, like might come back into fashion. Ah, from your lips to God's ears. All right, let's open up some from our. second bucket, which is a focus on kitchen table issues. So thinking more domestically, thinking more affordability. The first is one that I wrote down, which was health care costs, Medicare for all.

It feels to me that one question we have is when people even mention things like affordability, what is the things that are driving, you know, their pockets being crunched? And for me, it feels like health care will be a big question, big delineation for the next set of presidential candidates. With everything feels like it's more expensive, why, you think? Don't ask me. What do you mean? I'm like, I'm like, a party of me feels like, you know, it's McDonald's fault for no longer having the $1 McChicken. Like, well, things ever feel not expensive again.

There's a component to the way that now you go order McDonald's online or whatever. Or you go to the kiosk, right? And you like get your little upgrades and stuff like that. So there's something about like the way that algorithmic models induce people to maybe spend more money than they were and create, you know, the economics term is, I guess, producer surplus, meaning they capture the profit, right? Like, I'm not at Elizabeth Warren, oh, they're just being greedy, but like, people are getting smarter how to extract money at everything from poor customers to rich customers, right? So people feel like they're not getting this excess value that they might have before.

But yeah, obviously, healthcare costs as a nation ages and housing costs, America's always been obsessed with homeownership, right? And that's not a cheap thing. Yeah. The second issue we pull out of this bucket is one that comes from Nate. It says what happens if and when a lot of white-collar workers fear that AI is going to take their jobs? I think that this is obviously a clear, big question in the air. It's kind of the future of work, particular to kind of white-collar workers or folks who might be even more susceptible to job displacement because of AI. Like, are we looking at 2026 and 28 races that will be thinking of economies that are fundamentally different than the ones we have now? People still have their basis for AI based on these hallucinating models you had like a couple of years ago. And I'm telling you, man, these things are pretty fucking smart, right? And they're smart in a way that they weren't even six months ago. And I'm like, okay, well, I did a better job that happened to my accountant, right?

But like, that's probably as good as my accountant or my lawyer on this type of thing, right? It's better than I do as a consultant. No. Not at all. I'm trying to think. No, I really don't. Do you worry about getting left behind the AI wave? No, AI is not as funny as I am.

Oh, you mean like, A's taking my job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like, maybe. Maybe, maybe Claude can write a newsletter about changes in pop culture. Does that scare you? Claude does not have my encyclopedic knowledge of Justin Bieber. Actually, yeah, I'm like, would he? It literally ingested everything you've ever read about Justin Bieber. Yeah, I'm like, it might have taken all your newsletters to have that encyclopedic knowledge of Justin Bieber.

I don't think so. Okay, too much, too much. I want to ask about an important topic you brought up in this bucket, too. What will be done to reign in entertainment monopolies mentioning Netflix and Paramount? What do you think is the importance of that issue in terms of shaping our coming future? Well, let me say, this is my kitchen table where I'm eating a bag and cheese and watching something on Netflix. But I think that's scary. And I think the idea of the sort of top-down media ecosystem coming from two places, two families, basically, is quite frightening.

and also, you know, as a labor issue, all of these things, I think, are, you know, putting jobs at risk and in addition to AI in a separate way, I guess. Yeah, yeah. There's a way that the media companies have been reading, like, you know, David Ellis and the Paramount say, you know, we're trying to serve Americans that aren't extreme left or extreme right. And, you know, I folks love to, you know, mention that stat. You know, I don't think they acknowledge the bubble that the center can also be in. Right. Or that increasing amount of Americans aren't thinking about their identities from left and right in general. And they don't really place themselves on that sort of spectrum.

So this is going to be our last bucket, the foreign policy in America's role in the world bucket. Hunter, you said what will be done about Drake a foreign agent? I feel like, hasn't something already been done? Not enough. Not enough. He's still coming back in. I mean, you saw Jay Cole saying people are being too mean to Drake. I'm like, sister, you've lost the battle.

I'm saying, I'm like, I feel like that's one issue that was handled in Biden's America. was Aubrey Graham. This was an issue that I brought up, which I do think is reshaping both parties, but was just the changing sentiment around Israel. I do think that both kind of the question of where pro-Israel Democrats are going, how that's reshaping the right,

particularly even the questions of intervention with the Iran war, feels like a big, changing question, right? Right, with some qualifications. So one thing about the Middle East, people who are politically engaged and politically informed, they tend to care a lot more about the Middle East than like the average person, right? If you take a list of like, what are the top 20 issues and ask like a swing voter,

Israel Gaza was like number 18 or something, right? However, it may be the single most important issue for like Democratic primary voters, for example, right? So it depends on where we're talking about for its terms of, for its importance to show up electorally. Yeah. And you still have so public opinion, toward Israel has substantially worsened, right? It's still pretty divided nationally, but maybe that divide now occurs kind of within the Democratic Party, and I think that's going to complicate

the primaries for Democrats, but also for Republicans, right? It's not, shouldn't be lost on people that Israel is the United States partner in this war on Iran, right? And that's leading to weird coalitions, right? I don't want to try to get into like Nick Fuentes' head, right? But if you have issues with Israel, then you're going to have more issues with the Iran War, which is supposed to be a MAGA thing. And so, so yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've certainly seen the Nick Fintes, Tucker Cross, and Candice O, at Triumvirate, use this as a wedge issue among the GOP and particularly impact things for terms of primaries going forward. You mentioned, is America standing in the world declining? And what would the tangible effect be on American politics? How would you say that issue is

similar or related to what we're just on? I mean, look, I'm been on the very important. I'm a view that America had like a lot of wind in its back from being like the global reserve currency and the global superpower that people tend to like tend to defer to and our economy has grown at 2% per year instead of like 1% per year like in France or something. I'm like that has cumulative effects. My question is like does everything in American politics get worse if we no longer have that win in our back because we fucked it up right. We fucked up our reputation internationally. We have fucked up confidence in in the US dollar right. Again, I'm talking dating myself to like this era where I came a political age, right?

And that was when America had seemed to win. And we didn't have the Soviet Union anymore, right? And now I don't know about that anymore, right? But in terms of like the profound sense of like anxiety, I don't know how that affects the national psyche. Yeah. I appreciate each of these issues for being kind of helpful guides for where we're going to go. But it's also kind of all sad.

Like they're also all like kind of dumery, like kind of. like kind of look-aheads or things that could go wrong. I want to end on maybe asking a couple things that aren't in those buckets overall. Is there something that makes you more hopeful or inspired looking forward to 2026, 2028? Is there something happening right now that you think is kind of cool or kind of interesting or that gets you going? No. Is there a win that you want to celebrate?

I mean, like, truly take your pet. No, nothing is engendering confidence in me right now. Nate, is there anything that you look across the landscape and you say, this makes me feel good? Oh, I'll point to two good things, right? One is that voter turnout used to really lag in America, right? And it's been higher lately, right? So there is political participation. Two is that for all the problems, I expect AI to cause, there is some early evidence that, like, it actually pushes people more toward expert opinion as compared with, like, social media.

Yeah, Claude and ChatGPT and Gemini hallucinate. people accuse them of being biased in different ways, you probably will get a better answer than you're getting on Twitter, right? And it probably is an answer that represents a consensus of different opinion that's crunched all the data, right, and stealing all our IP, right? And calibrated that IP to give you kind of like this answer

that is fairly moderate in some ways, maybe? Like, the theft of your work is actually going to good youth. Absolutely. The theft work will return us to literacy, actually. Wow, okay. But I will say I think there is something in the way that the kind of last era has exposed the brokenness of the political system, I think, directly. I think there's a way that people and voters have been empowered, have been kind of left with the system as bare,

because very clearly the unsatisfaction is too high. Very clearly, structures and parties haven't worked in people's interests. And I feel that people's agency about that and people's motivation about that is a lot higher than 10 years ago when I was on the road. starting to ask some of those questions. I feel like they know more. Yeah, like, as Hunter's, everything goes in cycles, right? So maybe there's a comeback for civility. Like, the line doesn't just keep going up, right?

At some point, there's an inflection point of flattening out or reversal. And, like, you know, political polarization's been rising for 40 years now, right? And at some point, I guess it can't get much worse. I don't know if that means it gets better. But at some point, there might be a reaction to that. Yeah, yeah.

You all, thank you for joining us so much on our first episode of America, actually. And thank you for also helping us think through the topics that are going to help shape us in the future. You all were both fun and we put you to work, which thank you for doing. No, invoice in the mail. America actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in culture or politics.

You can also watch these episodes on the Vox's YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube.com slash Vox or click the link in the show notes. This show was edited by Kasha Bussolian, fact-checked by. by Esther Gim and mixed by Shannon Mahoney. Christopher Snyder is our video editor, and Kuhn Louis is our senior art director. Our executive producer is Christina Vallis, and our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional support for Miranda Kennedy, David Tadishore, and Nisha Chitall. I'm Aston-Hurndon, and this is America Actually.