Newsom’s answer to AI anxiety: Share the wealth - POLITICO

… making the case that Americans deserve a share of the profits. And while he has opposed a billionaire tax in his home state, he raised the issue nationally with proposed taxes on the wealthy — and with his new proposal on AI...

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/15/newsoms-populist-turn-on-tech-00997048

Trump looks left on cost of living concerns - POLITICO

The White House is trying to embrace populist economic ideas that Republicans aren't crazy about...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/23/trump-democrats-warren-schumer-00742515 

 

Weekly Roundup: Kristi Noem Implicated, Erika Kirk’s Love Language, and Bill McKibben on the Tragedy of American Christianity (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

Brad and Dan are back from the American Academy of Religion conference in Boston and kick off this episode with some love for the folks they met there before diving into a wild week in American politics and religion. They start with the viral moment between Erika Kirk and JD Vance at a TPUSA event, unpacking the media frenzy, the rumors about Kirk’s political aspirations, and what this says about the internal dynamics of a GOP that’s trying to blend celebrity, piety, and power. From there, they break down the Department of Justice’s statement implicating Kristi Noem in deportation flights and what that level of entanglement means for accountability within the MAGA movement.

The second half of the episode takes a thoughtful turn as Brad and Dan dig into Bill McKibben’s essay “They’re Doing to America What They Did to Christianity,” exploring how nostalgia and selective memory shape everything from Christian identity to policy debates. They look at why both right wing and progressive versions of Christian nationalism are so dangerous, how civilizational populism reshaped politics during and after the Obama years, and why the GOP still has no coherent healthcare plan. Despite the heavy topics, the hosts offer reasons for hope with updates on recent legal wins, global news like Bolsonaro’s sentencing in Brazil, and reminders of why staying engaged matters.
Interview: 

https://straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/weekly-roundup-kristi-noem-implicated-erika-kirks-love-language-and-bill-mckibben-on-the-tragedy-of-american-christianity/

Guys (Conspirituality podcast #283)

Back in June, we published an episode about the "Speaking with American Men" (SAM) project, a $20 million initiative designed by political consultants to understand and win back young men (18-29) who increasingly voted for Donald Trump. We talked about this cringey, inauthentic approach to compete over the influence of manosphere figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Huberman, who exploit a perceived "meaning crisis" with pseudo-intellectual and often reactionary messages.

Instead of what? We said that the better route would be to focus on material concerns so that the rage of young men isn’t ceded to right-wing movements. Big-money consultant-led efforts to micromanage online interactions will not spawn-in the authentic cultural engagement that right-wing influencers naturally achieve.

Well here we are now in the fall, and we’ve got a bunch of guys stepping into this contested space from different angles. Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner present very differently as masculine role models, but share the same economic populism, but also a deep challenge in the long shadow of patriarchy: how do men become trustworthy?
Interview: 

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/283-guys

Welfare cuts have fuelled rise of far right and populism, top UN expert says | The far right | The Guardian

Exclusive: Poverty rapporteur says governments must rethink welfare state as essential to fabric of society…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/21/welfare-cuts-have-fuelled-rise-of-far-right-and-populism-top-un-expert-says 

 

“No tax on tips”: The list of eligible jobs is here | Vox

It invites gaming that will erode the tax base. Trump's policy encourages plumbers, electricians, and various other workers to offer customers a discount rate, if they're willing to pay in "tips." Of course, this sort of tax avoidance is not formally condoned. But it will be extremely difficult to police (especially given the president's defunding of IRS enforcement). 

 It entrenches a fundamentally inefficient and inequitable approach to compensation. Standardized wages provide workers with predictable incomes and protection against discrimination. Yet Trump's policy is likely to encourage employers to shift more roles into tipped categories, so as to capture its tax advantages. This will yield an economy in which more workers' pay is contingent on the generosity of their patrons (and liable to fall below the federal minimum wage)…

https://www.vox.com/politics/460158/no-tax-on-tips-jobs-workers-list-populism

 

Why Joe Walsh Left MAGA and Joined The Left (The Find Out podcast)

Joe Walsh helped elect Trump—and then spent years trying to stop him. Now he’s on the Find Out Podcast with a warning: Democrats are too soft to beat MAGA.

In this episode:

• Joe explains what finally broke him from Trump.
• The crew debates “weird” messaging, Kamala’s missed moment, and who can reach pissed-off working-class voters.
• Will Joe run for Senate in South Carolina, forcing Lindsay Graham to face off against a no-BS conservative democrat? 

Index:

⏱️ 00:00 – Joe Walsh joins the pod 

⏱️ 04:00 – “I knew we’d lose everything” 

⏱️ 10:00 – Populism, fake and real 

⏱️ 23:00 – Dems need a pissed-off populist 

⏱️ 45:00 – Can Gen Z voters be won back? 

⏱️ 49:00 – Would Joe run against Lindsey Graham?

Interview: 

https://youtu.be/8BubPFzBJhc?si=NpR3WG-uJsj1qnGv

Weekly Roundup: Oklahoma’s Catholic Charter School and Hegseth’s Prayer Service (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

Dan discusses recent developments on the separation of church and state, focusing on the Oklahoma Catholic Charter School case and its split decision in the Supreme Court. He also analyzes the implications of Pete Hegseth’s Christian prayer service at the Pentagon, highlighting concerns about religious liberty and the mixing of church and state.

Additionally, the episode examines JD Vance’s criticisms of Supreme Court chief Justice John Roberts and addresses ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and the judiciary. The script also touches on Trump’s claims of white genocide in South Africa and the alleged evidence presented during a meeting with South African President Cyril Rama.

The episode concludes with reflections on populist rhetoric and the role of evidence in shaping perceived truths.
Interview: 

https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/weekly-roundup-oklahomas-catholic-charter-school-and-hegseths-prayer-service/

Is Trump’s Authoritarianism Apocalyptic? w/ Matt Taylor (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

Matt Taylor, an expert on the New Apostolic Reformation and author of The Violent Took It By Force, joins this episode of SWAJ. 

Speaking at an event in San Diego, Taylor discusses the implications of MAGA—a populist authoritarian movement fueled by Christian nationalism—on America’s liberal democracy. The episode emphasizes the need to look beyond American history for comparisons and learn from global instances of populist regimes. 

Taylor elaborates on the societal divisions and the potential threats MAGA poses to democracy, while Brad encourages strategic resistance and community mobilization in anticipation of new political challenges.

Interview: 

https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/is-trumps-authoritarianism-apocalyptic-w-matt-taylor/

US progressives urge Democrats to back populist policies as party reels from loss

"And I think we have to be crystal clear as we move forward, that we are going to call out the hypocrisy of Donald Trump, of disingenuously claiming that he is a fighter for working people when his agenda is pro-higher cost and pro-inflation. That's what we will get with his agenda in this administration."…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/11/progressive-caucus-democrats-populist-economic-policies

Opinion | Trump-Vance Is Making Something Very Clear About Trumpism - The New York Times

Removing these guardrails on presidential will opens up obvious opportunities for cronyism and corruption; that's why civil service protections and the procedures of administrative law were adopted in the first place, as good-government reforms. From a populist perspective, though, this may be a feature rather than a bug. Yet corruption is a useful lever for maintaining personal control over the operation of a sprawling bureaucracy, for example. That's one reason that corruption is endemic in authoritarian regimes. 

Mr. Trump's enthusiasm for tariffs, which presidents have a great deal of latitude to both impose and issue waivers from, and for a more discretionary, personalized approach to antitrust have a similar populist rationale. And those are similarly destructive of any kind of neutral institutionalism. His proposals would give the executive branch a lot of power over the economic fates of specific businesses and sectors. That's a recipe for personal corruption and for rampant economic distortion — but it's also a means to enforce administration policy through the private sector without going through the grinding work of drafting and passing legislation...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/opinion/trump-vance-populism.html

——-

The Fakest Populism You Ever Saw - The Atlantic

"In short, Trumpian populism is an expression of political and cultural allegiance, rather than an actual program of government helping workers improve their relative standard of living. Trump and his new running mate are adept at presenting one set of elites as a scapegoat to the non-wealthy—and using that to aid a different clique of elites…"

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-vance-fake-populism/679100/

The Fakest Populism You Ever Saw - The Atlantic

The Trumpian GOP is in a battle over which wealthy faction will win, not a class war...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-vance-fake-populism/679100/

This is the most important thing to understand about American politics

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9W6witbHSCU

Opinion | As religion fades in America, Trumpism rises - The Washington Post

Reporters have been noticing something new about Donald Trump's campaign events this time around. They often resemble religious revival meetings. The New York Times notes that where his rallies were once "improvised and volatile," their finales now feel more planned, solemn and infused with religion. The closing 15 minutes "evokes an evangelical altar call" filled with references to God...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/05/trump-religion-secularism-authoritarian-populism/

Author Will Bunch – The Cost of College as The Source of Our Division (Al Franken podcast)

The GI Bill & Free College United Us. Today’s Steep Cost Has Created Deep Resentment.

Interview: 

https://alfranken.com/listen/author-will-bunch-the-cost-of-college-as-the-source-of-our-division

If I mention the ‘modern male struggle’, do you roll your eyes? It’s time to stop looking away | Gaby Hinsliff | The Guardian

The traditional conservative answer to male dislocation has been to turn back the clock on family life, pushing women back into the unthreatening role of wife and mother (and all too often stripping them of their reproductive rights). 

The populist right, however, has taken that idea and put rockets under it. It's black men who often find themselves on the sharpest end of a complex intersection of race, class and gender, yet the "trouble with boys" gets framed on both sides of the Atlantic as a problem of the white working classes in left-behind manufacturing towns, used to underpin the nostalgia politics of Brexit or Making America Great Again. 

Donald Trump's appeal rested not just on economic resurgence but on the idea of freedom for men to carry a gun, drive a gas-guzzler, or even grab women "by the pussy" if they wanted...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/20/modern-male-problems-men-face

Opinion | Rubio’s fake populism is no match for real history - The Washington Post

It is the fake populists who display disrespect for everyday Americans. It is the fake populists who regard the people as incapable of serious thought, reflection and, indeed, common sense. It is the fake populists, including Ivy League grads Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, who rail against the Ivy League and then vote to seat right-wing Yalies, Harvardians and Princetonians on the Supreme Court. 

Common sense tells you that's a hypocritical con game, but the fake populists run that play over and over because they assume the people are too dumb to catch on...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/historians-biden-white-house-rubio/

New study indicates populist attitudes are associated with gullibility

"Accordingly, populist attitudes are empirically related with the belief that simple solutions exist for complex societal problems," wrote the researchers. "Paradoxically, this clear-cut worldview that characterizes populist attitudes is likely associated with an increased confidence in the veracity of their cognitions and beliefs—and with it, increased gullibility."

https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/new-study-indicates-populist-attitudes-are-associated-with-gullibility-62715

Beware of this deadly mix: oligarchic economics and racist, nationalist populism

A treacherous alliance is growing that will undermine democratic institutions in the US and elsewhere…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/13/us-republicans-oligarchs-economics-nationalism