Interesting though I think Zohran can, on net, be more positive than you are suggesting here. Having watched hours of his interviews, imo he represents a departure from the confrontational angry left of Bernie Sanders who was always shitting on mainstream Dems. As the face of the new left, he goes out of his way to not shit on moderate Dems, even when he’s being baited to do so. Maybe we can finally move past 2016 now. As Ezra Klein says, he’s a pluralist, not a populist. I think leftists having to see one of their own actually govern will force them to confront tradeoffs and humble them. Right now, they don’t control anything so they just get to complain from the sidelines. The downside of his radicalism being attached to moderate Ds is also significantly reduced when there’s video of Trump drooling over him.
"The administration’s falling popularity, as well as emerging divisions between various factions on the right, will act as a partial check on Trump’s program. So I predict a more static, less terrifying year in the world of politics and policy."
You've talked before about the stock market seeming to be Trump's largest measuring stick for himself (along with the whole idea of TACO). Do you think falling polls but continued growth of the AI bubble would still lead to more stasis? I can see it but also wouldn't be shocked to see a rising market used as justification for continued meddling.
Looking to Silver Bulletin average published yesterday 26th (https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin) they note the erosion of the components of support, "Strong" approve eroding. Unless there is some surprising change to competency, it seems most likely that ongoing poor economics (without falling into prediction of crisis) will eat like acid away at approval and when one is getting on Pocket Book issues approvals in the low 40s-to-30s, the political leverage he has is going to weaken further. Trump being who he is is likely to lash out and be unhelpful to himself. AI macro infra build bubble seems to me unlikely to fully off-set wider erosion from ongoing bubbling inflation and ebbing wider economic growth.
Now can Democrats pull their heads out of Woke and drop self-harming posturing? ...
"Updated November 26, 2025
Happy Thanksgiving, Silver Bulletin readers! Donald Trump’s net approval rating has been hovering around -14 since last week. As of today, 41.1 percent of Americans approve of the job he’s doing and 55.3 percent disapprove. I’d expect that consistency to continue through Sunday, just because we aren’t likely to see too many new polls come out over Thanksgiving weekend.
But the share of Americans who strongly approve of Trump is still decreasing: it hit a second term low of 24.0 percent yesterday. On the other hand, 44.7 percent of Americans strongly disapprove of Trump."
Regarding the interesting observation that Americans may be coming to 'fear the future'.
In the 20th century, the future was led by American inventions, American inventors were celebrated... so why would be afraid of a future that we were leading!
With the death/devolution of the giant corporate R and D labs in the US (Bell Labs, IBM, Exxon) most major technology breakthroughs (not in software and human interface) were made by large corporate labs in EU and Asia (Phillips, Sony, etc).
The 21st century future is not America branded. Much of that electric tech stack had its major R and D done elsewhere.
But maybe we will own space, the high frontier, and figure out how to build some of that stack American-style. And then the future will appeal to (most) young people again.
Interesting though I think Zohran can, on net, be more positive than you are suggesting here. Having watched hours of his interviews, imo he represents a departure from the confrontational angry left of Bernie Sanders who was always shitting on mainstream Dems. As the face of the new left, he goes out of his way to not shit on moderate Dems, even when he’s being baited to do so. Maybe we can finally move past 2016 now. As Ezra Klein says, he’s a pluralist, not a populist. I think leftists having to see one of their own actually govern will force them to confront tradeoffs and humble them. Right now, they don’t control anything so they just get to complain from the sidelines. The downside of his radicalism being attached to moderate Ds is also significantly reduced when there’s video of Trump drooling over him.
Looking forward to another year of Noahpinion!
"The administration’s falling popularity, as well as emerging divisions between various factions on the right, will act as a partial check on Trump’s program. So I predict a more static, less terrifying year in the world of politics and policy."
You've talked before about the stock market seeming to be Trump's largest measuring stick for himself (along with the whole idea of TACO). Do you think falling polls but continued growth of the AI bubble would still lead to more stasis? I can see it but also wouldn't be shocked to see a rising market used as justification for continued meddling.
Looking to Silver Bulletin average published yesterday 26th (https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin) they note the erosion of the components of support, "Strong" approve eroding. Unless there is some surprising change to competency, it seems most likely that ongoing poor economics (without falling into prediction of crisis) will eat like acid away at approval and when one is getting on Pocket Book issues approvals in the low 40s-to-30s, the political leverage he has is going to weaken further. Trump being who he is is likely to lash out and be unhelpful to himself. AI macro infra build bubble seems to me unlikely to fully off-set wider erosion from ongoing bubbling inflation and ebbing wider economic growth.
Now can Democrats pull their heads out of Woke and drop self-harming posturing? ...
"Updated November 26, 2025
Happy Thanksgiving, Silver Bulletin readers! Donald Trump’s net approval rating has been hovering around -14 since last week. As of today, 41.1 percent of Americans approve of the job he’s doing and 55.3 percent disapprove. I’d expect that consistency to continue through Sunday, just because we aren’t likely to see too many new polls come out over Thanksgiving weekend.
But the share of Americans who strongly approve of Trump is still decreasing: it hit a second term low of 24.0 percent yesterday. On the other hand, 44.7 percent of Americans strongly disapprove of Trump."
Thanks, Noah! You keep writing and we’ll keep reading.
Regarding the interesting observation that Americans may be coming to 'fear the future'.
In the 20th century, the future was led by American inventions, American inventors were celebrated... so why would be afraid of a future that we were leading!
With the death/devolution of the giant corporate R and D labs in the US (Bell Labs, IBM, Exxon) most major technology breakthroughs (not in software and human interface) were made by large corporate labs in EU and Asia (Phillips, Sony, etc).
The 21st century future is not America branded. Much of that electric tech stack had its major R and D done elsewhere.
But maybe we will own space, the high frontier, and figure out how to build some of that stack American-style. And then the future will appeal to (most) young people again.
Noah, do you think you’ll look back at this post and regret not including anything on AI capabilities? IMO that feels like a big gap here.
The AI boom accelerating may flip the game board