Joe Biden is Out – What’s Next?

Joe Biden did the right thing for the country on Sunday and dropped out of the presidential race.  We should all be grateful.  It was an admirable thing to do. 
 
Joe quickly turned around and endorsed Kamala Harris as the new nominee, and the campaign has already rebranded as “Harris for President.”  Kamala announced her intent to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention that begins on August 19th.  A small legion of Democrats immediately endorsed her.

Technically, the roughly 4,000 DNC delegates can choose whomever they want as the new nominee.  However, having been pledged to Joe Biden they are likely to adhere to his wishes.  And the past several weeks have drained many Democrats of their desire to hold a competitive mini-primary.  If Joe had dropped out 10 days earlier or so, it might have seemed more enticing. 
 
I think a mini-primary would be the best path forward for multiple reasons.  First, the nominee needs vetting.  You want to put forth the strongest possible candidate.  Second, it would get massive levels of attention for the new generation; who wouldn’t tune in to see who the Dems put forth?  Third, I think pulling the party together afterwards against Trump would be very easy and straightforward.  If your problem has been the anointment of Joe Biden, try to learn from that and avoid repeating the same mistake.

The problem is that other candidates are looking at this situation and clearing the path for Kamala.  Their calculation is this: do I run against the sitting Vice President backed by the President in a compressed time frame and get accused of trying to elbow aside the logical next person up?  Or do I sit this one out, maybe get into the Veepstakes for Kamala and bide my time until 2028?  Most are quickly choosing the latter. 
 
Barack Obama notably recommended a more robust and open process.  But his voice has been outweighed by others who are trying to push for quickly coalescing around Kamala.  Look for a constant stream of Kamala endorsements from delegates and superdelegates in the coming days, making a challenge to her all-the-more daunting. 
 
Here’s the fundamental problem:  I don’t believe Kamala Harris is the strongest candidate against Donald Trump.
 
Kamala has consistently polled as quite unpopular and has some of the disadvantages of incumbency – she can still be blamed for whatever people haven’t liked about the last several years.  Her previous presidential campaign in 2019 underperformed. 
 
When I’ve been asked over the past number of weeks who I thought might be the strongest candidates, I suggested a Gretchen Whitmer – Josh Shapiro ticket that would likely net the Democrats both Michigan and Pennsylvania.  I also think that Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, Wes Moore and others would perform quite well.  You could put another half-dozen or so names in here and I wouldn’t disagree, nor would polling.  My instinct has been that the country wants someone new and would vote accordingly. 
 
Kamala Harris at 59 is a vastly better bet than Joe Biden at 81.  I’m glad it’s not Joe.  But if you’re going to go through the trouble of removing your nominee, you should go all the way and try to give yourself the best possible chance of victory.  Isn’t that the point?   
 
Forward is endorsing candidates around the country – check them out here!  Let’s build the Party of the Future that we clearly need.

JD Vance

Yesterday Donald Trump selected JD Vance, the Ohio Senator, as his running mate. 

I got a sinking feeling when I heard the news. 

There were others whom Trump could have chosen for different reasons. 

Doug Burgum would have been a steady business hand with massive resources.  Glenn Youngkin would have reassured moderates and corporate donors.  Nikki Haley would have done the same and appealed to women.  Marco Rubio would have held demographic appeal and foreign policy chops. 

JD Vance is a different kind of choice as a governing partner and now heir apparent to the MAGA movement.  He doesn’t have massive stature on Capitol Hill – his legislation has generally not gone anywhere.  He doesn’t add that much electoral appeal; Vance underperformed in Ohio which isn’t a swing state anyway.  He’s disliked by many.  He’s not the fundraising magnet that some others are. 

What he does have is an actual perspective and thoughts.  He’s a hard right populist who went to Yale Law.  Among his stances: 

• He wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election. 

• “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” 

• “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl... it does look intentional.  It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him.” 

• “Culture war is class war.”

• “We are in a late republican period... If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.” 

JD Vance is an alienated darling of the center-left establishment from his time as author of “Hillbilly Elegy.”  He began as an institutionalist, starting a venture capital firm and non-profit to help kids in Ohio, and then quickly ditched them to pursue political power in a red state.  He’s a never Trumper turned ultimate always Trumper.  He won his primary with only 32% of the vote thanks to Trump’s endorsement. 

He’s 39 years old and has a deep relationship with Donald Trump Jr.  He’s going to be with us a long time. 

This is the kind of VP pick you make if you think you’re already going to win and want to inhabit the movement with a philosophy and next-generation leader.  For those who hoped that MAGA would fade when Trump passed from the scene, those hopes are going to be futile.  If they win in November, Trump has ensured a long-term transformation of the Republican Party in his image.  His kids might not have been up for it, but JD Vance is.  Trump’s movement will outlive him. 

If you want to build a new movement to bring the country together, please check out Forward – we are growing quickly.  If you want to encourage the Dems to move on from Joe Biden, go to passthetorchbiden.com.  The margin of victory or defeat will matter.  

The Trump Assassination Attempt

These are dark and difficult times in America. 

On Saturday, Donald Trump narrowly avoided an assassination attempt from an unhinged 20-year old man at a rally in Pennsylvania.  An innocent bystander was killed and others wounded. 

I was stunned and shocked by the news. 

I’m glad Trump survived and will by all accounts make a full recovery.  Political violence has no place in America, and I unequivocally condemn it.  We should be able to disagree without descending into hatred. 

Hundreds of friends reached out to me concerned and saddened for what this means for our country. 

We are no strangers to political violence in the United States.  In the turbulent 1960s, JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were all assassinated in the space of 5 years.  I fear that we are heading back in that direction.

Political polarization has been rising for decades, and a rise in political violence accompanies declining democracies, which is what we now are.  Scholars like Barbara Walter in “How Civil Wars Start” and Stephen Marche in “The Next Civil War” have been projecting this for quite some time.

In “The War on Normal People” I wrote:

“There are about 300 million firearms in the United States, almost one for every man, woman and child.  Disintegration is unlikely to be gentle.”  The shooter was a troubled young man, of which we are not in short supply.

I feel awful for our country that we are here now.

There is a natural impulse to rally around the flag.  Donald Trump was the favorite to win in November before this assassination attempt; that dynamic is even stronger now.

His supporters are enraged at this attempt and many blame the overheated rhetoric in our political landscape.  They’re not wrong.  The truth is that both sides routinely run down the other side in language that incites hostility and contempt.  I wish it would stop.

After each event like this, there are those who appeal to cool down the temperature before returning to their partisan habits mere days later.  Our muscle memory of tribalism is growing stronger and our institutions weaker. 

History is slipping in the wrong direction.  An innocent bystander was killed on Saturday.  I fear he won’t be the last.

To help ease our polarization, check out Forward today.  We need more than two sides.  

Pass the Torch

“81-year-old man holds nation hostage – film at 11.” 

It has been 10 days since Joe Biden’s disastrous debate.  8 days later he sat for a 22-minute interview with George Stephanopoulos that didn’t convince anyone of anything but perhaps the President’s obstinacy and disdain for polls. 

I think this is Joe Biden’s final week as the Democratic nominee.  Today, Congress returns to session and dozens of swing state legislators will convene to determine how they can best keep their jobs and get Joe Biden off of the top of the ticket.  I personally spoke to at least one more member who is going to call on Joe to step down in the coming days.  Respected Senator Mark Warner is assembling a mutiny among Senators.  More and more donors go public each day.   

The boat is springing leaks more quickly than the Biden team can patch them – and no one is scared of retribution anymore.  For the swing state legislators, what frightens them is being part of a blowout in November.   

A journalist compared the fissure between what Democrats are saying in public and what they are saying in private to the behavior of Republicans under Trump – they would bemoan his venality and then pledge allegiance as soon as a camera went on.  Joe isn’t Trump and it's age not morality, but the pattern remains. 

The same journalist observed that it is only the timidity of the Democrats that gives Joe any hope, and that if they did start speaking their mind it would be clear that Joe has lost his party.  

There are things we can do.  Let your local legislator know you feel that Joe Biden should step aside.  Friends of mine have helped to organize a petition - Pass the Torch, Joe – that I have signed.  I’d encourage you to do so as well and spread the word.  Let's get #passthetorch to be the phrase on everyone's lips.  

There is still time to swap Joe out, get behind a new nominee and defeat Trump in November.  Joe Biden said that he’d step aside if the Lord Almighty asked him to do so.  Well, the Lord might not be available, so we will have to do.  

Looking forward to a new nominee,

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!  I hope that you are spending the holiday with family and friends. 

What a time in America.  Every day comes with new figures calling for President Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee. 
 
I said on the podcast Monday with Zach that I believe Joe Biden will indeed step aside.  And I think it will happen fairly quickly.  The first Democratic member of Congress, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, has called for it and I don’t detect any professional repercussions.  Dozens of swing-state officeholders are poised to follow him.  The tone of Jim Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi and others has shifted from their earlier declarations of support to allowing for a mini-primary if Joe isn’t the nominee and saying concerns are legitimate.
 
Watching the press jump on this like a dog tearing at a bone has been fascinating.  I have gotten requests from a dozen outlets.  We should thank our lucky stars that Joe Biden’s team called for this early debate ahead of the convention, else there would have been a tank job in the Fall with no recourse. 
 
Zach and others have floated a theory that someone on the Biden team knew he would have a terrible debate and this was their way of swapping him out.  I don’t buy it.  His team actually thought that he would reassure voters – the internal gaslighting is strong.  Instead, the debate debacle will end with Joe stepping aside as the nominee while likely staying in office. 
 
So what next?  The major question is whom Joe decides to throw his weight behind.  The vast majority of DNC delegates are pledged to Joe and, though they aren’t obligated to do what he says, would be inclined to follow his lead.  I don’t think Vice President Harris will inherit the mantle unopposed, and we are in for a hurried mini-primary with various contenders raising their hand and being winnowed down via televised debates and votes/polling ahead of the convention.  The convention is in mid-August, so we are talking about perhaps the most action-packed 5 weeks that any of us can recall if this comes to pass.  The other most likely scenario is that Joe and the party consolidate behind Kamala to try and keep things together.  I’d prefer the mini-primary as I think it would energize people and be more open. 
 
It would be stressful and uncertain, but a sprint with any hope is vastly preferable to a futile death march, which is what President Biden now represents. 
 
The press is inflamed because they feel they were lied to by President Biden and his handlers about Joe’s condition and health.  It’s truly wild how every major Democrat had been parroting the “Joe’s sharp as a tack in meetings!” talking point until the debate laid the truth bare.  I appreciate Dean Phillips so much as the one Democratic officeholder willing to say that the emperor had no clothes on.  If only more had listened 6 months ago. 

I am sad for President Biden as anyone would be for an 81-year old who is losing his energy and clarity.  But we should be angry at the Democratic Party for enabling him for so long and putting us in position to give the reins of government back to Donald Trump. 
 
Buried among the headlines this week was a new Gallup poll that has Independents as a majority – 51% - of Americans for the first time in decades.  More and more of us have been staring at the dysfunction of our two major parties with chagrin.  Not coincidentally, Forward has received an influx of interest and support this week.  This 4th of July, let’s start declaring our independence from the two major parties that are clearly less concerned about us and more about who can avoid a race to the bottom and cling to power. 
 
You know who else has called for Joe Biden to step aside?  Adam Frisch, the Forward-endorsed Congressional candidate in Colorado.  See him and the other Forward-aligned candidates here.  John Curtis won his primary in Utah and John Avlon did the same in New York. 
 
Let’s hope a certain 81-year old officeholder makes the right decision soon.  Have a great Independence Day. 

The Debate

Well, many people’s worst fears were realized on Thursday, as President Biden had the most dismal and depressing performance in the history of presidential debates.

I had seen President Biden live in February. He did not look good. He was old and shuffling, his skin translucent. His delivery of remarks was uneven and performative – when he says something that is supposed to have emotion behind it but it seems like an old guy reading lines instead of genuine sentiment.

Still, I figured that his team had figured out a regimen to make him seem pumped up and energetic for 90 minutes – they seemed to have it pretty well managed for the State of the Union. I thought if they give him a week of rest and preparation Joe would probably be able to channel some of his vigor from his many debates of 2020, and he’d be genuinely fired up to debate Trump.

I was wrong. It was a doddering disaster.

One thing that was always in the back of my mind - a debate is a LOT harder than giving a speech off of a teleprompter.  You have to have command of the material and some messages memorized.  You have to project energy in response to your opponent and in some cases the moderators.  Let’s say I had you memorize a 60-second message to camera.  You’d have to be able to bust that out on command after 80 minutes of back and forth.  It’s a lot of cognitive loading. 

If someone asked me to give a good speech off of a teleprompter, I could do that with almost no notice.  If someone asked me to do a great job at a televised debate it would take some runway.  This was a much higher hurdle to clear than the State of the Union, and Joe Biden essentially faceplanted on the first lap.

So what happens now?

I’m clearly in the camp that Joe Biden should step aside and let the Democrats nominate someone else.  A ticket of well-liked governors would be a much tougher foil for Trump than Joe and Kamala at this point.  I got the hashtag #swapJoeout trending at one point.

The New York Times, the Atlantic, and even CNN have all piled on to make the same case.  It’s been a remarkable shift.  It’s tough to imagine a successful Democratic campaign that has lost the media to this degree.

But the Biden camp is digging in.  The flagship Democrats – Obama, Harris, Newsom, Clyburn, Jeffries, Schumer – are circling the wagons, at least publicly.  Donors are being managed and told to stay steady.  Biden is campaigning away to try to demonstrate vitality.  They have internalized the lesson – that has been true in the past – that if you hunker down you can weather any storm.  Each passing day gives them more distance from the debate. 

Still, behind the scenes some of the other candidates-in-waiting are staffing up and preparing. 

Most debates don’t change a race fundamentally.  This one is an exception – Americans saw firsthand that the President isn’t up to the job.  He is running an unwinnable race.  He is making the case that he is running to defend democracy, but then clinging to the office. 

Joe Biden’s superpower has been that he’s a good man who will do right by the country.  He is doing wrong by the country now.  The question is whether anyone around him will have the courage and moral clarity to save him, and the rest of us, from himself. 

If the debate made you wish for a new party in American politics, check out Forward – we are growing every day and got a lot of new recruits this week.  

What the People Know

“Americans are good when you meet with them face-to-face.” 
 
It’s true.  As you can imagine I’ve met thousands of Americans over the past five years criss-crossing the country, and can say with confidence that most Americans are good, generous, cordial people willing to give you and others the benefit of the doubt.  I’ve met any number of people who knew they disagreed with me politically – they were Trump supporters in Iowa for example – but were perfectly happy to ask a question or have a beer with me in a friendly manner. 
 
Things break down when you’re not face-to-face, and instead are interacting via cable news narratives or worse yet, social media.  I think of these platforms as a funhouse mirror that is refracting images of us to each other so we start to see caricatures on the other side instead of human beings. 
 
Unfortunately, these forces are now bleeding into reality.  Americans’ attitudes are becoming further entrenched, and the polarization is translating into both real relationships and actions. 
 
“I met a farmer who left the Republican Party in Ohio and all of his friends stopped talking to him,” said Frank Barry, the author of the new book “From Back Roads to Better Angels:  A Journey Into the Heart of American Democracy.”  Frank took his wife on a seven-month sojourn across the country in an RV hoping to glean a sense of what everyday Americans are thinking about the state of the union.  As you can imagine, it was a profound journey filled with insights from people of all walks of life all around the country. 
 
“Americans sense that we are becoming more divided, and they’re deeply concerned about it,” Frank relates.  “And it’s not just a perception, the divides are becoming more real.  When you ask them whether we will overcome our divides and come together, they say, ‘yes, we will.’  But they have no idea how or what to do.” 

This is pretty consistent with what I hear too.  Frank came back from his exploration both more optimistic and concerned.  Optimistic because, yes, Americans are good people when you sit with them one-on-one.  But very few have a sense of positive actions to take or a community to join, and more people are becoming subject to the forces that are driving us apart. 
 
In my fondest hopes, Forward becomes the answer to both of these questions.  Imagine if that farmer in Ohio had some new people to talk to, and people understood that if enough of us band together we can resist the forces of dehumanization and reform our institutions so that they aren’t rewarded for making us angry about our problems. 
 
It’s one of the strange facets of this time.  We are a good people.  Many of our leaders are actually well-intended.  Yet we are on a path that very few of us are happy about we can’t seem to change.  And there are billion-dollar organizations that are paving the road and profiting at every turn. 
 
Interestingly, one of the things that Frank believes is the answer to what ails us is non-partisan primaries and election reform.  “It’s one of the most direct ways to reduce polarization.”  It made me glad that a fellow traveler like Frank has arrived at the same conclusions.  I’ve spoken to more and more people lately who have woken up to the fact that political reform is the only way out. 
 
For my interview of Frank click here.  For his book click here.  To check out what Forward is doing, click here – John Avlon and John Curtis have their primaries on the 25th so let your friends in Long Island and Utah know! 

Where We Are

Hello, I hope that your summer is going great. 
 
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend Scott Galloway’s recent TED Talk, and not just because I make a couple cameos.  He hits on many themes of my presidential campaign concerning negative trends in the economy and our standard of living, particularly for young people.  I often said on the trail, “If you’re young you are entirely justified in being either angry or sad, because we have left you with a real mess and also the bill.” 
 
Things have gotten far worse for young people over the past five years, as our country has ramped up debt very significantly while making things like housing dramatically less affordable.  It’s one of the great megatrends in my thinking over the last five years. 
 
1.     Things are getting progressively worse for most Americans based on affordability, and that needs to change;
 
2.     Our institutions are designed to resist change in favor of the status quo that serves vested interests quite well; and
 
3.     We need to build a movement that changes the institutions or goes around them if we are going to change #1. 

During my presidential campaign we activated almost half a million donors and millions more who were eager to see something big change in favor of people.  You are probably among that number if you’re reading this – thank you!  Our campaign fell short, and now I’m grinding away at changing #2.  Someone said to me today, “I just figured out why you’re going so heavy on ranked choice voting, and I’m on board.” 
 
Every day, people come up to me and say “Run again!” in part because they are fed up by what we are getting.  At the same time, if I had run again in this context I would likely do more harm than good.  It’s one reason I was so glad to back Dean Phillips, who I saw as a responsible way to upgrade from a Biden versus Trump rematch and give us all a shot at a better future.  Watching the way the media and the Democrats sidelined Dean was a stark reminder of #2 above, despite the fact that Dean was clearly benevolent and a Democrat in good standing before he made the decision to put country ahead of party. 
 
Forward has now gotten behind candidates like John Avlon, John Curtis, Shelane Etchison and Adam Frisch, all of whom I’m very excited about.  There are also local candidates in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida and around the country.  I’m glad to do good where I can. 
 
But the backdrop of Scott’s talk and my presidential campaign was of a system that has gotten increasingly dysfunctional and punitive for the average American and young people in particular.  I was with Tim Ryan from Ohio last week, and he put it like this:  “If I lost my job at the plant or my town has been going downhill for years and you come and tell me GDP has had a good couple quarters, it doesn’t make me want to vote for you.”  Ohio of course has gone from a swing state to quite red in the past decade-plus. 
 
I think that Trump would make a disastrous President, much worse than he was last time.  I’m angry and sad that he may be on the verge of returning, in part because the Democrats have set the stage for it. 
 
What do you do in an age of declining institutions?  You take them over if you can, and build new ones as quickly as possible. 
 
To check out what Forward is doing including the candidates above, click here.  If you are in position to donate click here – we are very grateful for your support! 
 
For those of you who follow the podcast, we are doing a special Q&A episode – submit your question at mailbag@andrewyang.com and we will answer the good ones on air.  

My TED Talk is now up to 1.4 million views and counting - thanks for helping get it out there!  

The Future of RCV

A few years ago I was on a Zoom that would change my life.  I was meeting with several advocates for Ranked Choice Voting.  I asked them, “Who is the most prominent advocate for RCV?” 

They said two words that stunned me: “Probably you.” 

I wasn’t even an elected official.  But it dawned on me that it’s very difficult for someone who’s inside the system to champion a change that enables more competition and dynamism.  It’s not exactly the kind of thing most incumbents get excited about. 

I’ve been a fan of Ranked Choice Voting ever since I found out about it – but it has now become perhaps the most important change I think we can make, particularly when combined with non-partisan primaries.  It would make it so that our leaders actually have to listen to us and do right by us. 

Shortly after that Zoom I was asked to join the Board of FairVote Action by its founder and CEO, Rob Richie.  FairVote is a non-profit that enables and champions Ranked Choice Voting around the country.  It has helped 27 straight cities – including places like New York and Seattle – adopt Ranked Choice Voting over these past years. 

“People are catching on that these electoral reforms are crucial to achieving the future we want,” says Meredith Sumpter, the new CEO of FairVote whom I interview on the podcast this week.  Meredith grew up in Alaska stocking grocery shelves.  “I grew up in an environment where you just got things done and didn’t talk about who believed what.  I later went into business and worked as a diplomat, jumping back and forth between business and public service.  I’ve been running an inclusive capitalism organization for the past several years.  Everything kept leading me to systems change, which has now led me to FairVote.  Companies need government to be more effective in order to lead to a more inclusive economy, and Ranked Choice Voting is the reform that will make government more accountable and responsive.” 

Meredith arrived at FairVote while trying to make the economy more inclusive, but others I know arrived here because they cared about climate change or, in my case, poverty.  “It’s been awesome meeting movement partners these past two months,” says Meredith.  The FairVote gala in New York last week served as both a celebration of Rob Richie and Cynthia Terrell for their 32 years of work with FairVote as well as a passing of the torch to Meredith. 

“I feel like I’m arriving at the right time as the movement is just growing in momentum.  There’s a chance we triple the number of states who are using ranked choice voting statewide from 2 to 6 this November.  Nevada, Colorado, Idaho and Montana could all join Maine and Alaska.”  She’s right that this is a huge time for those of us who think that changing the way we vote is our best path forward.  Ranked Choice Voting is spreading faster than most realize.  Let’s continue to speed it up. 

For my interview with Meredith click here.  To check out FairVote, click here.  To join Forward which is backing RCV initiatives around the country, click here.  And for my TED Talk which now is up to 1.3 MM views and counting click here – people tell me it was an excellent explainer of Ranked Choice Voting and why it matters.  

Is Local News the Answer?

America is more polarized than ever – and one big reason why is that local newspapers have disappeared.  

Over 2,000 local papers have gone out of business in the last 15 years – thirteen hundred communities in the US now have no local news source at all.  Local papers tend(ed) to be much more straight-up-the-middle, as there aren’t that many ways to report on the bridge needing repair or how the local high school team is doing. 

As you can imagine I’ve interacted with hundreds of journalists over the past number of years, and I can say with confidence that local journalists are much less interested in trying to stick it to you and much more invested in getting the word out about something that might matter to the people in town.  As one reporter put it, “We report things responsibly because we are going to see the person the next day.”  I sat with dozens of editorial boards of papers in New Hampshire and Iowa.  Half of those papers are now closing or closed and over 30,000 local journalism jobs have disappeared over the past number of years.  

Fewer people run for office after a local paper goes down and the cost of municipal financing goes up – apparently you don’t care as much about the kind of deal you get if no one is reporting on it.  I spoke to a city councilman who saw a marked difference in the behavior at meetings when a reporter stopped coming; people started saying and doing things they never would have done with a reporter present.  The quality of government goes down.  

Also, it turns out that one’s media diet corresponds very strongly to, for example, one’s propensity to support Trump.  Trump is underwater with newspaper readers by a whopping 49 points while he’s up among social media users by 4 points, cable news watchers by 8 points and among YouTubers by 16.  Newspaper readers are more likely to have trust in institutions. 

There is a scrappy organization – the Rebuild Local News Coalition – that is trying to reverse the tide.  I spoke to its founder and President, Steve Waldman, on the podcast this week.  Steve and I have known each other for a while – we both went to Brown University and he started Report for America a number of years ago.  “There is growing momentum around supporting local papers from both sides of the aisle.  It turns out it’s a source of civic pride for most towns, the same way a sports team might be in another community.  And everyone loves small businesses.”  Steve notes that legislators at both the state levels and federally are now rallying around tax credits for both local papers and the small businesses that advertise in them. “Fixing this problem at the local level might cost $1 billion a year.”  

Steve notes that the big tech companies have a special responsibility as both beneficiaries of some of the content that these newspapers generate as well as the cause of their demise.  “It’s fair and reasonable to ask the biggest tech companies – the ones that have benefited the most from this new reality – to spend a tiny portion of their revenue to solve the significant problem they helped create.”  Steve sees more optimism around the Community News and Small Business Support Act than he’s seen in some time. 

The decimation of local papers is an underrated cause of the decline in our politics.  Could something as simple as having a reporter in your town show up to things and write them up in an objective way help restore our sense of trust?  I personally am convinced that many towns could support a local publication if it didn’t need to enjoy double-digit profit margins and a boffo growth rate.  Some things aren’t meant to be profit engines – but are still positives that lead to a better way of life.  Communities telling stories about themselves falls in that category. 

For my interview with Steve Waldman of the Rebuild Local News Coalition click here.  To see what Forward is doing in your state click here.  For more about the media landscape check out my book Forward which goes into its impact on polarization in some detail.  

My TED Talk is up to 1.2 million views – please do share it with anyone you think would enjoy it!