Nonrival

Expert analysis from think tanks and academia, on public policy, economics, and technology.
Human experts. AI summaries.

Political Polarization Is Fracturing American Supply Chains — and Companies Are Paying a Premium for It

promarket

• New research finds that U.S. firms are increasingly choosing suppliers that share their political affiliation, with partisan-matched supply chain relationships rising sharply from 2004 to 2020 — well above what random industry and geographic sorting would predict.
• The trend appears driven by risk management: politically aligned supplier relationships are 4–15% less likely to break during disruptions like natural disasters, and investors reward companies for having them.
• But the insurance comes at a cost — firms pay aligned suppliers 22% higher markups during shocks and innovate less, suggesting that polarization is quietly eroding supply chain efficiency and technological progress across the U.S. economy.

Data Centers Create More Local Jobs Than You'd Think — Just Not the Ones Communities Expect

the_conversation

• A study of 1,584 U.S. data centers found that, three to five years after opening, counties with data centers had roughly 1,000–1,300 more jobs than comparable counties without them — far more than the handful of workers employed inside the buildings.
• The gains show up in industries like transportation, warehousing, and professional services that support data centers, not in restaurants or retail — meaning local residents may see less benefit than hoped.
• The findings come with caveats: they predate the current AI-driven wave of massive facilities, and job gains alone don't settle whether data centers — with their electricity and water consumption, noise, and tax breaks — are actually a good deal for host communities.

Voters Are More Fed Up With Congress Than at Any Point in Decades — and the 2026 Midterms Are Weeks Away

gallup

• A record-low 43% of registered voters say their own congressional representative deserves reelection, and just 15% say most members do — both the worst numbers Gallup has recorded ahead of a midterm election going back to 1994.
• Congressional approval has fallen to 14%, driven largely by collapsing Republican support (down from 63% to 29% since early 2025), while economic sentiment is deeply negative and only 23% of Americans are satisfied with the country's direction.
• History suggests the president's party — Republicans — could lose significant House seats, though Gallup cautions that similarly grim pre-midterm numbers have produced wildly different outcomes depending on how many seats the majority party held going in.

In the News

Trump's War on Noncitizen Voting May Be Unconstitutional — Because States, Not Congress, Control Who Votes

scotusblog

• The Trump DOJ is suing California to segregate ballots from 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters, relying on a federal law that makes noncitizen voting in federal elections a crime — but a prominent constitutional law scholar argues that law is itself unconstitutional.
• The Constitution gives states, not Congress, the power to set voter qualifications for congressional elections; Congress can regulate how elections are run, but not who gets to vote in them — a distinction Justice Scalia affirmed in a 2013 ruling.
• Even if the law were constitutional, it still wouldn't give DOJ the authority to seek a court injunction interfering with California's ballot-counting procedures, since Congress has never passed legislation authorizing that kind of federal intervention.

Analysis

Trump's Russian Diesel Deal Won't Lower Gas Prices — But It's Already Eroding the Sanctions Regime

atlantic_council

• Trump issued a sanctions waiver allowing Russian diesel imports, but the deal faces massive legal and compliance hurdles — banks, shippers, and insurers are steering clear, and the first shipment can't even find a port.
• The volumes involved are too small to meaningfully affect US pump prices or Russia's budget, making the deal's practical economic impact negligible for both sides.
• The real prize for Moscow isn't the diesel revenue — it's the signal of "sanctions permissiveness" that could encourage third-country banks and firms worldwide to resume business with Russia.

Also Worth a Look

• History suggests the dollar's dominance is more fragile than most people think (voxeu)
• Polling Shows Russia's Strategy of Bombing Ukraine Into Submission Isn't Working (the_conversation)
• The U.S. Is Quietly Blocking Entire Categories of Foreign Tech — and It's Getting Complicated (csis)
• Spyware Makers Are So Good at Stealing Secrets That Courts Can't Safely Handle Cases Against Them (atlantic_council)
• The African Workers Paid Less Than $2 an Hour to Shield You from the Internet's Worst Content Are Having a Mental Health Crisis (think_global_health)
• Trump Is Handing Putin the Win in Ukraine That Russia Couldn't Achieve on the Battlefield (hoover)
• The Supreme Court's New Term Is Already Revealing Surprising Alliances — and One Overriding Theme (scotusblog)