Authoritarian politics is rising, not just in the U.S., but across the West. In this episode, Jim Stenman and Suzanne Kianpour sit down with Saikat Chakrabarti, a Silicon Valley tech millionaire turned progressive strategist who is now running to replace Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco.

He is the son of an Indian immigrant who grew up in poverty, and he argues that the American Dream has been breaking for decades. His core claim is blunt: when democracy stops delivering a better life, voters start looking elsewhere, and that is where strongman politics thrives. He also makes the case that progressive politics is failing because it has not matched today’s affordability crisis with a big enough economic agenda.

We talk about what it would take to rebuild trust in democracy, how to regulate Big Tech and put AI to work for the public, and how to pair social justice with an economic program that can actually win. We also ask whether Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York signals a new opening for progressives, and what that could mean for the future of the Democratic Party.

Follow Global Power Shifts and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.