Trump’s pick of J.D. Vance as his running mate is seen by many as the culmination of a years-long realignment of Republican and conservative politics—away from trickle-down economics toward a more populist, worker-oriented direction. While the pick ushered in a flood of reactions and think pieces, it’s unclear at this stage what Vance’s impact would truly be in a Trump second term. Will Vance be able to overcome some of Trump’s more establishment-friendly positions on taxes and regulation? Will he advocate that Trump continue some of Biden’s policies on tech policy, particularly the administration’s actions against companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple? How might Vance influence policies on high-tech manufacturing, defense technology, and artificial intelligence?

Evan is joined by Oren Cass, Chief Economist and Founder of American Compass and the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America. Read his recent op-ed in the New York Times on populism and his recent piece in Financial Times on Vance. Subscribe to his Substack, “Understanding America.”

Evan is also joined by Marshall Kosloff, co-host of The Realignment podcast, sponsored by FAI, that has been chronicling the shifting politics of the U.S. for several years, as well as by Jon Askonas, professor of politics at Catholic University and senior fellow at FAI.

On July 1, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling in NetChoice v. Moody, a case on Florida and Texas’s social media laws aimed at preventing companies like Facebook and YouTube from discriminating against users based on their political beliefs. The court essentially kicked the cases back down to lower courts, the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, because they hadn’t fully explored the First Amendment implications of the laws, including how they might affect direct messages or services like Venmo and Uber. While both sides declared victory, the laws are currently enjoined until the lower court complete their remand, and a majority of justices in their opinions seemed skeptical that regulating the news feeds and content algorithms of social media companies wouldn’t violate the firms’ First Amendment rights. Other justices like Samuel Alito argued the ruling is narrow and left the door open for states to try and regulate content moderation.

So how will the lower courts proceed? Will any parts of the Florida and Texas laws stand? What will it mean for the future of social media regulation? And could the ruling have spillover effects into other areas of tech regulation, such as efforts to restrict social media for children or impose privacy regulations? Evan and Luke are joined by Daphne Keller, Platform Regulation Director at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. Previously, she was Associate General Counsel at Google where she led work on web search and other products. You can read her Wall Street Journal op-ed on the case here and her Lawfare piece here.

It’s time for American industry’s Lazarus moment. At least, that’s what a growing coalition of contrarian builders, investors, technologists, and policymakers have asserted over the past several years.

American might was built on our industrial base. As scholars like Arthur Herman detail in Freedom’s Forge, the United States won World War 2 with industrial acumen and might. We built the broadest middle class in the history of the world, put men on the moon, and midwifed the jet age, the Internet, semiconductors, green energy, revolutionary medical treatments, and more in less than a century.

But the optimism that powered this growth is fading, and our public policy ecosystem has systematically deprioritized American industry in favor of quick returns and cheap goods from our strategic competitors. Is there a way to restore our domestic industry? What does movement-building in this space look like?

We're joined by Austin Bishop, a partner at Tamarack Global, co-founder of Atomic Industries, and co-organizer of REINDUSTRIALIZE, and Jon Askonas, Senior Fellow with FAI and Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America. You can follow Austin on X here and Jon here. Read more about REINDUSTRIALIZE and the New American Industrial Alliance here and check out some of Jon's research on technological stagnation for American Affairs here.