Stress Test, from Mother Jones

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The Midterm Spending Bonanza Is Threatening Democracy Like Never Before Oct 09, 2026

Show notes

Big money has long dominated American politics, with wealthy donors, corporations, and special interests dumping tons of cash into presidential and congressional elections. This year is no exception. But what’s different is that the quid pro quo of campaign money for preferential government treatment is more brazen than ever before and has become part of the cornucopia of corruption running through the Trump administration.

In this new episode of Stress Test campaign finance reporter Russ Choma joins hosts David Corn and Garrison Hayes to analyze the $1.7 billion that has been poured into the election so far—including a quarter billion from crypto and AI, industries that along with the prediction markets were barely on the political map in 2020. “There’s no sign of deceleration,” Russ says in the episode. “There’s no sign of slowing down, it’s only acceleration.”

So much of what’s happening is hidden from public scrutiny, because super PACs can obscure donors, and issue ads and targeted turnout operations can go unreported. It’s like “dark matter in the universe that you can’t see,” David observes. The threat to democracy is real, because donors get to cash in by having the administration align with their deregulatory goals, or, in the case of Elon Musk, can gain control of an agency or decimate whole sections of government. “They’re getting more than total access,” Russ explains. “They’re getting inclusion.”

“There have always been a lot of people who believe that the government was corrupt,” Russ says. “But the problem is that now they’re right.” And this cynicism isn’t just a side effect of all this money. It’s a goal. After all, the most effective thing a campaign can buy, Russ notes, is a negative ad, designed “to make you not vote.”

But there could be some hope. Voters are telling pollsters they see more corruption these days, and when that collides with a sour economy, apathy can curdle into anger. Just ask Viktor Orbán, voted out in Hungary after 16 years in power due to a combo of a poor economy and rampant corruption. Might such synergy be happening in the United States?That’s all in today’s episode of Stress Test. Find it on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/MotherJones.

Want more on how money is warping American politics? Russ Choma covers Trump’s crypto fortune, his financial conflicts, and the cash behind the midterms. Check out his recent stories at motherjones.com.

Producer: HyoJung Kim
Assistant producer: Sonel Cutler
Executive editor: James West
Hosts: David Corn, Garrison Hayes

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"The Single Most Toxic Issue in the Midterms": How America Turned on Data Centers Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

America is hopelessly divided along party lines. That's a stubborn fact, we're told, and the polling bears it out: Democrats dislike Republicans and Republicans dislike Democrats, in almost precisely the same proportions.

But every election produces surprising coalitions that defy entrenched partisanship. In these midterms, left and right have found something so commonly loathed that politicians across the country are flip-flopping in real time.

Mother Jones has been tracking the backlash to data centers on the ground long before the water-guzzling behemoths became the country's bête noire. The AI boom, with its insatiable need for computing, has unleashed a power grab by tech billionaires. "Data centers have replaced megayachts as the preferred theater of oligarchic status signaling," national correspondent Tim Murphy wrote in his big Mother Jones investigation into hyperscale data centers and the communities they land on. "Oligarchy is now more than an idea; it is a place."

On today's episode of Stress Test, Tim joins host Garrison Hayes to discuss how data centers—and other AI-boom technologies, like Flock cameras—have upended political fortunes and ripped up the partisan playbook ahead of November’s vote.

"It's maybe the single most toxic issue in the midterms this side of, you know, gas prices," Tim tells Garrison. "It's like a three-to-one opposition among voters. Nobody wants data centers. Everybody's fired up about it."

Take Texas. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott promoted the state as a place where companies could build almost anything. Then rural and suburban communities got the facilities, and the gas plants that power them, in their backyards, along with strained water supplies, pollution, and rising utility bills. "People are complaining about what they have to live next to," Tim says. "And it just builds and builds and builds." Under pressure (and running for reelection), Abbott made a stunning reversal, announcing steps that amount to a moratorium. And he's not the only one feeling the heat.

So what changed? Data centers used to be half the size of an Amazon warehouse; now they're measured in "multiples of Manhattan," says Tim, who explains how we got here and what to expect next. He heads back to Texas in the coming weeks, and we'll follow what he learns right up to Election Day.

For more, read Tim Murphy's road trip through the towns living in the shadow of the AI boom: "How the American Oligarchy Went Hyperscale,” from our May+June issue.

Producer: HyoJung Kim
Assistant producer: Sonel Cutler
Executive editor: James West
Hosts: David Corn, Garrison Hayes

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"Cheat Like Hell": Can Trump Actually Rig the 2026 Midterms? Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

He tried really, really hard in 2020. With his souring presidency on the line, he's intensifying his efforts again. You know what we’re talking about: Trump's election meddling.

"After 2020, I think one of the lessons that some of us learned—but unfortunately not everybody—is that our democracy is fragile," says Washington, DC, bureau chief David Corn in the very first episode of our new podcast, Stress Test, a white-knuckle guide to the midterm elections. "Trump came pretty close, even with all the guardrails."

And Trump isn't the only one meddling—to which David can personally attest. Shortly after the release of his new book, How Russia Won, the very Russian disinformation operators he wrote about started circling deepfake videos of him, claiming he'd written a very different book: one detailing 300 crimes committed by Democratic candidates.

In this episode, David and co-host Garrison Hayes are joined by voting rights correspondent Ari Berman to pull apart the biggest stress test facing the midterms: whether the vote will proceed smoothly, or whether Trump will meddle even more. After all, Trump and his gang are already claiming the election will be "rigged," pushing false voter-fraud claims, trying to disrupt mail voting, and demanding voter-roll data that could be used to challenge or purge voters. Then there are the redistricting wars that have shaped so much of 2026, and the Supreme Court's role in diluting Black political power. At last month's Republican midterm convention, Trump even went so far as to lead the crowd in a performatively jokey pledge to "cheat like hell." ("It's kind of hard to believe when someone says it so explicitly," says a dumbfounded Garrison.)

The episode presents a blend of hope and fear. Many of Trump's efforts have flopped so far: The Justice Department, Ari notes, is 0-25 in federal court in its bid to force states to hand over their voter rolls. His advice: "Don't give Trump any more power than he actually has."But the Supreme Court has left plenty of room for a more orderly kind of rigging, like gerrymandering. "So you can't steal," as David puts it, "but you can tilt." And Ari argues that what happens before the vote may not be what matters most. "What we saw in 2020 is all hell broke loose after voting ended. And so that's why I don't want to sit here and say, like, 'Everyone's fine, no need to stress, we're all good.' Because we don't know what's going to happen in those next phases where people vote, where votes are counted, and where elections are certified."New episodes of Stress Test drop every Wednesday and Friday.

Subscribe to the video version of this show at youtube.com/motherjones.

For more, read Ari Berman and Pema Levy’s searing account of how, by destroying the Voting Rights Act and gutting the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Roberts Court is recycling legal arguments once advanced by Confederates and white supremacists to destroy Reconstruction, in the September-October issue of Mother Jones.

Producer: HyoJung Kim
Assistant producer: Sonel Cutler
Executive editor: James West
Hosts: David Corn, Garrison Hayes
To support our award-winning independent reporting, donate here: https://www.motherjones.com/give

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Introducing “Stress Test”: The Midterms Will Test Democracy. We'll Help You Through It. Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

It's only a few weeks away. It feels like an eternity.

The midterm elections have officially entered their looming phase. Worriers of all stripes (doomscrollers, political junkies, fuel tank fillers), we get it. There's a war, an unpopular president, a MAGA capture of Congress, and a bunch of multibillionaires blithely slop-ifying our jobs. It's a lot.

That's where we come in. We know how to tease out what to pay attention to and what to tune out, and we were early to identify the big issues shaping this election. We were on the ground as local groups banded together across party lines to oppose data centers. We profiled the rise of Christian nationalism and its infiltration of the highest ranks of government. And we've never taken our eyes off the threat of election interference and the systematic erosion of voting rights across the country.

Enter "Stress Test," a new video podcast from Mother Jones, hosted by Washington, DC, bureau chief David Corn and video correspondent Garrison Hayes. "We're facing perhaps one of the biggest stress tests that American democracy has ever been through with these midterm elections," David explains. "After 2020, I think one of the lessons that some of us learned, but unfortunately not everybody: our democracy is fragile."

In twice-weekly pop-up episodes, David and Garrison will talk to our reporters about the midterms and where you should be paying attention. They'll team up when breaking news changes the course of the election, and they'll be your companions, channeling your stress (and their own) into a productive discussion about the future of our democracy. As Garrison puts it: "If the fur is going to be flying, there's no one I'd rather be talking to than David Corn—and, of course, the incredible journalists and reporters in our newsroom."

Check out the video version of this show: Subscribe now to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/motherjones.
Producer: HyoJung Kim
Video editor: Anna Yeo
Assistant producer: Sonel Cutler
Executive editor: James West
Hosts: David Corn, Garrison Hayes

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A Special Announcement Dec 03, 2021

Show notes

Things have been a bit quiet around these parts lately, huh? After a few months bringing you some of our best feature investigations read aloud, in partnership with Audm, we’re going through some behind-the-scenes newsroom changes that will impact how we best serve you, our listener. We’re going to be taking some more time, off-air, to re-tool and recalibrate. Goodbyes are hard! But it’s not really a goodbye. It a “goodbye for now”. And Mother Jones journalism isn’t going anywhere. You can continue to listen to our incisive stories on Audm through their app and on our website. And, of course, there is a ton of beautiful multimedia journalism from our newsroom on Instagram, YouTube, and even on our new TikTok profile. We’ll pop up again here in the future, no doubt, but for now, from everyone on the team with love and appreciation: See ya, and thanks.

—James West, Mother Jones Deputy Editor

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Today It’s Critical Race Theory. 200 Years Ago It Was Abolitionist Literature. Oct 29, 2021

Show notes

We bet you’ve heard one phrase more and more this year than ever before: Critical Race Theory. It’s an obsession on Fox News, and it’s the topic, along with anti-mask protests, raging at school board hearings across the country—a new frontier in a roiling culture war. But what is Critical Race Theory? And how did it come to be used to whip up a new hysteria on the right? States are now racing to ban the teaching of CRT, many successfully, even while many of its fiercest critics can barely explain what it is.

For this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, some much-needed history. Journalist Anthony Conwright argues that this current anti-CRT movement is part of a long standing war in America against Black liberation dating back hundreds of years. This compelling essay originally appeared in the September/October edition of Mother Jones Magazine. It is read aloud here by our partners at Audm.

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Are These Black Leaders on the Cusp of a New National Movement? Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

With everything going on these days—we’ll spare you the list of existential crises we’re currently living through—now seems like the perfect time to hear from two leaders who have a revolutionary vision of what this country could be.

Last week, in a special livestream event, Mother Jones reporter and columnist Nathalie Baptiste spoke to two fascinating politicians that may be on the cusp of a national movement. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba is the youngest-ever mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. India Walton won a historic upset primary against a four-term incumbent and is the Democratic nominee for the mayor of Buffalo, New York.

They are from two different cities—over 1,000 miles apart—but both of these young Black leaders have put forward progressive agendas that have been called “radical.”

And right now, words like “radical” or “socialist” or “progessive” seem to have shifting definitions. For some, those words are interchangeable. So we hear from Mayor Lumumba and Walton directly: how do they define themselves? What do they consider the biggest obstacle to a robust socialist party in the United States? And this wouldn’t be a conversation during the years of the pandemic without finding out what, if any, guilty-pleasure TV shows are on their watch list. (Any Madam Secretary fans in the house?)

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The Nightmare of Getting an Abortion in the South Oct 09, 2021

Show notes

A week ago, thousands of people turned out for Women's March rallies across the country, galvanized by Texas' recent six-week abortion ban and the very real fear that Roe v. Wade could soon be overturned, as challenges to the Texas law and another law in Mississippi wend their way to the Supreme Court and its 6-3 conservative majority.

But while the battle over the Texas law rages, and people rightfully worry about a world in which abortion access is no longer protected, women in Mississippi are already living it.

In 2019, reporter Becca Andrews went to Mississippi to explore where Roe doesn't reach, meeting a young woman on a 221-mile journey to get an abortion beyond state lines. The Mother Jones Podcast team thought revisiting Becca’s piece provided compelling context for just how high the stakes are for people needing abortions in Texas right now, and more broadly, for the consequential decision in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Listen to Becca's 2019 story, currently being expanded into a book, on this week's episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, produced in partnership with Audm. Note: Some facts on the ground have evolved since this story was first published in 2019.

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Ammon Bundy Is Running to Be Idaho’s Next Governor Sep 16, 2021

Show notes

Mother Jones reporter Stephanie Mencimer has been following Ammon Bundy for years. He's the guy you'll remember who became a kind of folk hero on the far-right after he joined his father, rancher Cliven Bundy, in leading an armed standoff against the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada in 2014. Two years later, Ammon led the armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, which left one occupier dead. Bundy went to trial twice on criminal charges related to the standoffs but federal prosecutors failed to win a conviction.

Now he’s a big-time celebrity activist and running for governor of Idaho. Shortly before the pandemic started, he created what has been dubbed “Uber for militias”—a kind of network that can summon armed protesters for all sorts of far-right gatherings, including anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests during the pandemic.

He’s a messianic figure, and Mencimer wanted to understand what the appeal was. She found a complicated and very-American story about violence, religion, and public lands battles in the West. This in-depth profile was published in Mother Jones earlier this year, and reproduced in read-aloud form here by our partners at Audm.

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How Flint Closed the Gap Between Black and White Suffering Under COVID Sep 01, 2021

Show notes

As the Delta variant upended hope of returning to normal this summer, Mother Jones reporter Edwin Rios published a deeply reported story on Flint, Michigan, recounting how residents of this predominantly Black city have battled COVID-19 in spite of government distrust, neglect, and environmental catastrophe.

But the pandemic isn’t Flint’s first crisis: In 2014, public officials implemented cost-cutting measures that led to dangerous concentrations of lead in the city’s water supply. Up to 12,000 children were exposed to contaminated water. Then-President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency. And in 2021, nine people—including ex-Gov. Rick Snyder—were indicted on criminal charges in the matter.

A few years later, when COVID-19 barreled across the globe and vaccinations became a political flashpoint, Flint already had an infrastructure of outreach and support in place. Their water crisis wound up being a crash course in how residents learned to band together in a catastrophe—and shows how one community used a dose of social medicine to close the gap between Black and white suffering during a pandemic.

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