This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Susie Wiseman.

On today's program, we look at how tech capital is reshaping American politics.

The Democratic Party is reeling after its defeat by Trump with pundits blaming poor messaging.

But my guess, political scientist Thomas Ferguson, argues the problem goes much deeper.

Democrats didn't fail to persuade.

They failed to deliver for most Americans.

Ferguson is best known for his investment theory of politics, and he says U.S. democracy is dominated by big money with ordinary people pushed to the margins unless they have strong organizations behind them.

He and his co-authors show that under Biden wages rose modestly, but inflation and lost hours erased those gains while the wealthy walked away with soaring assets,

a dual or K-shaped recovery, and we'll explain that.

And at the same time, Ferguson points to the rise of what he calls red tech, a new convergence

of Silicon Valley, defense, finance, and crypto, increasingly shaping both parties.

Tech firms push deregulation and see unions as obstacles,

while crypto and finance tech or fintech enjoy bipartisan support.

The result, Ferguson argues, is a Democratic Party trapped between donors and working people and a structural impasse.

We're going to talk about what this means for the future of labor, for state experiments,

for foreign policy priorities, and for the prospects of keeping democracy.

We'll do all this when our program returns in just a moment.

This is Jacobin Radio.

I'm Susie Wiseman and very happy to have Tom Ferguson back with us today.

We're going to set the political context.

The Democratic parties in disarray after it's lost to Trump with low approval ratings, internal conflicts,

failure to connect with working class issues and concerns. And Tom attributes much of the current

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