Nate Silver

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.

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 Santorum's, 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.

I mean, look, I do think the person that's had the biggest rise to political fame over the past year is the mayor of New York, Zoran Mamdani.

And, like, I'm aware that I'm a New Yorker, so I'm 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.

Potholes, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Trash collection.

Yeah.