Dems to America: Touch Grass
Skepticism about AI and Big Tech is on the rise among party leaders and thinkers.
IF YOU CAN PUT DOWN YOUR IPHONE long enough to notice, there seems to be a backlash against social media and tech growing all around us.
Most adults say they are too dependent on technology and are concerned about the increased use of AI in daily life. In some industries, it seems like everybody has given thought to if and when they will lose their jobs to AI. People have become disconnected from in-person relationships, in some cases turning to chatbots for romantic connection and emotional support. It’s no wonder that landline phones are making a comeback, dumbphones are becoming more popular, and states are banning phones in schools.
These are unsettling times. But Democratic leaders are beginning to see a political opportunity for the party.
“The cultural and economic impact of AI is going to be the biggest issue in politics over the next decade,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told me this week. “There is going to be a growing appetite from voters to support candidates that are going to help them manage the potential coming disaster as AI poisons our kids and destroys all of our jobs.”1
The wariness of or outright hostility toward AI and Big Tech exhibited by Murphy and many other Democrats could mark the final dissolution of the romance between Silicon Valley and the Democratic party. What started off as a close relationship during Barack Obama’s presidency has soured over time. The Biden White House in particular attempted to impose guardrails on the industry by bringing antitrust cases against major tech companies, warning of the risk that social media posed to mental health, and raising the alarm about all the ways that AI would upend American life. That, in part, helped explain the industry’s rightward shift in the 2024 election and its embrace of Donald Trump. Some Democrats initially responded to that shift by trying to bring the industry back into the fold.
But it now seems clear that the path forward for Democrats is to antagonize the tech industry—and to embrace not less regulation but more.
Murphy isn’t alone in his belief that figuring out a clear message on AI and tech is one of the most important things for Democrats to focus on going into the 2026 midterms and beyond. In my conversations with Democratic leaders this week, many said that they think voters feel manipulated by algorithms and the tech titans who profit off their attention. And while Republicans have dominated cultural debates in recent years, Democrats increasingly see talking about the role that AI ought to play in society as a way to appeal to a wide range of voters and repair their party brand.
“I think one of the flaws of our party is that we don’t often enough take a strong point of view on the good life,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) told me. Auchincloss, a father of three, has been a prominent critic of how tech companies have eroded social connections for profit.
“Democrats should say there’s a coming divide . . . between digital dopamine—the social media corporations, the pornographers, the online gambling sites that keep you trapped in an economy of endless scrolling—versus sweating and striving in real life to build things together that matter. And we, as a Democratic party, think that in-real-life is better, and we are going to architect our policy around that conviction,” Auchincloss said.
Democrats are convinced that such messaging could be fruitful not just because AI will in some way affect virtually every person in the country, but also because of how Republicans are handling the issue. While there have been bipartisan efforts to regulate social media companies and some MAGA firebrands have talked a big game about breaking up giant tech companies, President Donald Trump has complicated the party’s approach.
Since returning to office, Trump has cozied up to some of the most powerful tech leaders in the country. He gave tech CEOs prominent seats at his inauguration, entertained them at the White House, and has accepted millions of dollars in donations from them to replace the White House East Wing with his gaudy new ballroom. He signed an executive order aimed at supercharging the AI industry, and he’s drafted another order that would block state efforts to regulate AI.
“The vast majority of Americans think that this system is characterized by corruption and corporate capture, and big tech is the epitome of that. They literally bought the White House,” said Auchincloss. “You’re talking about issues that are like 80–20 issues in terms of how much Americans disagree with them, but these donors get their way.”
DEMOCRATS HAVE BEGUN TRYING to sharpen their messaging on AI. It’s been a topic of particular focus for the parents on Capitol Hill who are directly observing the upheaval of social media and screens affecting their kids. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt spoke to the Congressional Dads Caucus earlier this year about his book The Anxious Generation, in which he argues that we’re failing kids by letting them get addicted to screens and shift from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood.” Auchincloss said Haidt left a deep impression on the group.
The AI industry is aware of the potential political backlash. Pro-AI super PACs have recently formed, including Meta California and Leading the Future. The latter in particular—backed by Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI—has stressed that the philosophical concerns shared by Auchincloss and others are misguided, and that American-based AI needs to be able to develop with minimal restrictions so that the domestic industry can compete with China. Last month, Leading the Future announced it would spend millions of dollars going after New York state Assemblyman Alex Bores, a champion of AI regulation who is running in the crowded Democratic primary to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler.
Not all Democrats, though, are willing to make regulation of AI and other tech a key plank of their platform in upcoming elections. Murphy told me that some of his colleagues were “wrongly” convinced that competing with Chinese AI requires a laissez faire approach to American AI. Plus, he said, Democrats had drunk Silicon Valley’s Kool-Aid during the Obama administration and still believed that tech companies had society’s well-being at heart. Some Democrats also have developed real concerns that they might be targeted by the AI industry—a not-unreasonable fear in light of the crypto industry dumping money into the 2024 election cycle to defeat some of its biggest critics, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
“Not a lot of Democrats have been willing to talk every day about what will happen if your state legislature isn’t permitted to protect your kids from AI or protect your job from AI,” said Murphy. “I also think we need to talk about who these people are. Sam Altman is not a hero,” he added, referring to the controversial CEO of OpenAI.
Danny Weiss, chief advocacy officer of the child-safety nonprofit Common Sense Media and a former chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said that Democrats needed to adopt a clearer message emphasizing that “safety and innovation must and can live together.”
“If Democrats want to kind of win the message war on this, they should just be absolutely clear that we’re here to protect kids, we’re here to protect families, we’re here to protect workers. We’re going to make America number one on AI, but we’re going to do it with safe AI.”
🫏 Donkey Business:
— Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn in Tuesday’s special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District. Despite the national attention around this race, it wasn’t especially close. Van Epps won by about 9 points.
Given that Trump carried the district by 22 percentage points in 2024, most Democratic officials that I spoke to before the election were realistic about their shot at flipping the seat. Nevertheless, Behn’s loss has added to the ongoing debate among Democratic strategists about what type of candidates the party should seek to nominate in red parts of the country. Moderate Democrats were quick to argue that Behn’s campaign is a good example of why Democrats can’t just run on economic populism without moving to the center on cultural and social issues. Progressive Dems said that the fact that a progressive candidate was able to chip into the GOP’s margins shows that more radical politics can motivate voters.
“Each time we nominate a far-left candidate in a swing district who declares themselves to be radical and alienates the voters in the middle who deliver majorities, we set back that cause,” said Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at the center-left group Third Way.
Still, national Democrats are feeling pretty good about how things played out in the special election. And they’re now even more certain that they can unseat GOP Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District next year. The 5th is a slightly bluer district and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already recruited Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder to run.
My open tabs:
— Olivia Nuzzi tries and fails to save her reputation in ‘American Canto’
— Raccoon gets drunk at Ashland ABC store and passes out in bathroom
— The Lane Kiffin–LSU–Ole Miss Saga Was Only Ever Going to End This Way
I think we’ll see an AI political reporter before we see an AI senator, but honestly I couldn’t tell you if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
This is so important!
When I saw the big tech titans at the state dinner Trump put on for Bone Saw and taking photos with him, and normalizing this butcher, it really reinforced the idea that we need to push back on this very hard.
Thanks for focusing on this Lauren.
I am - and have always been - a techno-optimist.
However, I’m willing to get on board any movement that seeks to knock Marc Andreessen and his egg-shaped dome down a few pegs.