Creators will make AI the biggest issue of 2026
How lawmakers could be blindsided by a rare bipartisan coalition
You’re here because you’re watching politics get body slammed by digital culture and content creators. I’m here because I’m the only one who can guide you through it.
Government “impotence” — as I’ve seen it called multiple times recently — is forcing me to talk about my least favorite issue: AI.
I’ve received a million lectures about my refusal to incorporate LLMs into my life both personally and professionally, mostly cautioning that my luddite ass will be left behind, passed over, or rendered obsolete. (I remain confident that my Kindergarten crowning as Miss Congeniality will prevent this from happening).
But as I watch Congress line up to take their bows after a year of achieving, like, basically nothing, something dawned on me and many other observers, members of both parties who are decidedly not rewarding their performance with so much as a slow clap.
The lesson is simple and could apply to a million things in addition to the proliferation of AI: Avoidance is not the same as resistance. Political content creators are starting to see that very clearly. And the ability to not only make that distinction but broadcast it? That’s gonna bring a new brand of fresh hell for lawmakers in 2026.
So, I’m taking a flier: Creators are going to make AI regulation a key campaign pressure point that could very well rise to being the preeminent issue of the midterms. But any progress relies on clearing one big hurdle: resignation.
Resigning to our fate is something Americans are well-practiced in — especially when it comes to something technological, especially when you’re a 90s baby who came of age in a world of still-to-be regulated social media. So, when I need to know what level of doomerism we’re up against here, I solicit my perspective-diverse, opinion-dense Snapchat followers.
The immediate, first three answers I got looked like this:
Max: “top 3 issue and I’m not very optimistic at all because they failed to regulate social media in any meaningful way”
Kenny: “high but not absolute top priority. Perhaps that’s cause i have zero faith any regulation will come”
Brigid: “high priority but not top, not confident they would do anything but steps could for sure be taken to at the very least regulate it”
55% of respondents consider AI regulation a high (or highest) priority issue. But a monstrous, decisive 76% have little to no faith in Congress to do anything meaningful on AI at all. Almost all of them attribute that cynicism to a) the age of the people who have the ability to make the laws and b) the wealth of the companies making sure they don’t.
It’s in this massive void between legislative yearning and legislative delivery that creators are forging ahead and giving our government a chance to catch up.
UNITY OPPORTUNITY
We learned of the supernatural ability creators possessed in moving the electoral needle back in 2024. Their function is to build interest, emotion, activity, and engagement in things people may not have cared about one, two, or five years earlier. There is an opportunity for an opposition movement to draw the lines around what society is willing to accept on the frontier of AI.
When government and politicians fail to do so, voters turn to influencers and content creators to serve as shepherds. It’s why — checks notes — Joseph Gordon Levitt made a video demanding regulation last month. But JGL, for all his strengths, is not going to lead a singular, successful charge at a White House where Big Tech is in bed with Trump, gleefully adjusting their Sleep Number setting to serve at the comfort of the president.
The AI cake isn’t completely baked yet, no matter what the accelerationists around the president would leave you to believe. So, when things veer into the existential, you never know what YouTube stars are going to align.
ANYTHING AND ANYONE
It was not on my bingo card this week (or this month, year, lifetime, what have you) to see progressive heavy-hitter and host of Breaking Points, Krystal Ball, to find ideological harmony with the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh on the risks of AI.
Walsh: “My question is how are people going to eat? [...] How are you going to make money to buy a house? Like that’s the first question here because if the answer is well, we’ll live in some sort of AI socialist dystopia where AI will provide all that stuff for you, well, I’m very skeptical that it will work out that way. I think what’s actually going to happen is you’re going to end up with, you know, a handful of trillionaires off this AI stuff and a lot of other people who are totally destitute. But even if it did work out that way, okay, well then that’s our life that now we’re living as people that are totally dependent on this nonhuman algorithm to provide for us. I think that’s a pretty horrifying vision of the future.”
Ball: “Who among us has confidence that this government which is 100% bought and compromised and shot through with these tech oligarchs is going to do a good job regulating this extraordinarily existentially dangerous technology. Zero people should have confidence in that. [...] I don’t think we are capable of wrapping our head around the amount of power that would consolidate in the hands of a very small number of people, like you could count them on one or two hands, if one of these companies actually achieves superintelligence that they are all racing towards.”
2026 is already being framed as a referendum on affordability. If creators unite over shared concerns about consolidation of wealth and power — not to mention the job threats, energy costs, copyright issues, etc. — this could unlock a new, albeit temporary, coalition with broad appeal and enormous power ahead of the midterms. Do lawmakers even realize what kind of opportunity this presents them? I think not …
LOOSE ENDS:
📝 Word I learned today: allay
1 : to subdue or reduce in intensity or severity — “A 60 Minutes piece on Sunday about Companion AI that featured a ‘Travis Kelce’ chatbot flirting with a teenager and demonstrating how to chop up lines of cocaine didn’t allay anyone’s fears.” (via Peter Hamby, Puck)
📰 Something you should read today: Crypto Won Big in 2024. AI Is Angling to Do the Same in 2026 — Henry Burke
🥹 Something to make you smile today: Will Arnett goes on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, and they discuss the murderous communiqué that sprung out of the death of Conan’s parents, with one suspect at the center of it all: Jason Bateman.
AI is Time magazine "person" of the year.
This is exactly what I've been hearing all week! You totally got this right.