Welcome to What’s Left! I’m Amy Hoggart, a writer/comedian with the ideals of a radical but the risk-aversion of a moderate. Each week, I interview someone interesting about their personal politics and the state of the left today.
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Ahmed Baba is an independent journalist, political analyst, civic technologist, and founder of the bestselling Substack publication Ahmed Baba News. His pro-democracy content reaches millions. He's been cited in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and makes frequent appearances on MS NOW, CNN and NewsNation.
We cover:
How Trump’s overreach is already backfiring
The message Democrats keep getting wrong
Why redistricting could backfire on the GOP
Welcome, Ahmed! Imagine a version of the political spectrum where 0 means you’re an absolute centrist, -100, a fascist, and +100 means you’re as radically left as you could get. Where would you put yourself?
I’d describe myself as a classic liberal who’s inherently pro-democracy. Maybe somewhere around +50 to +75? I’m centre-left and progressive on a lot of issues.
I don’t consider myself a far-leftist because some parts of the far left don’t seem interested in winning.
Ha ha.
The people who attack someone like Mamdani or AOC after they’re already in office? That kind of politics doesn’t appeal to me. But people who push progressive issues and action do.
Someone in the chat [we did a live interview!] said that I’m a ‘pragmatic progressive,’ and honestly, that’s a better answer. I have a bias toward action. I’m also a journalist and I think journalists should see themselves as part of a pro-democracy coalition. Journalism should function as democracy’s immune system. In the current moment, when the right is assaulting democracy, that naturally puts you more on the left. So I have my personal politics and then my journalistic ethics, if that makes sense.
That definitely makes sense. So what’s your political origin story, Ahmed? Did you grow up in a family which talked about politics?
My parents were born in Sierra Leone, so I’m first-generation. They always had the news on when I was growing up. I had MSNBC parents, so you can imagine how happy they were when I first appeared on there.
They must have been!
I was about seven when Bush won, so my earliest political memories are the Clinton impeachment aftermath and the Florida election recount. Then 9/11 happened. When your name is Ahmed Hassan Baba, that shapes your politics pretty quickly. You learn what xenophobia is at a young age.
I grew up in Virginia. Being Black already gives you an understanding of racism, but after 9/11 it became even more personal. Then Obama won when I was 14, and that was huge for Black kids with Arab-sounding names. Obama’s victory and Zohran Mamdani’s rise are probably the best things to happen culturally for people with names like ours.
Oh wow I’d never thought of that before.
Later, when Trayvon Martin was killed, it hit me personally because he was my age and I resembled him. That’s when I went to my first Black Lives Matter protest and started developing an interest in social justice, even though I didn’t yet know I’d end up in journalism.
That’s a lot to carry around internally. So how did you figure out how to channel your interest in social justice and get into journalism?
Around the time Trayvon Martin was killed, I was working at a tech help desk while putting myself through college. I started hearing coworkers repeating right-wing talking points. A lot of them were good people, but they were absorbing nonsense online. Around then, Facebook and social media were really taking off, and because I worked in tech, I understood how the algorithms worked. I realised the information space was becoming deeply broken.
At the same time, mainstream media was still heavily into false equivalence and ‘both sides’ framing, especially before Trump. I started feeling this itch to do something. My friend Zach and I started our first startup together. Then Trump ran for office, and we pivoted into a media company, and that’s really where my journalism career began in 2016.
Do you think the media landscape has changed since then, or do you still see the same problems with ‘both sides’ framing?
I think it has improved. I’m an independent journalist, but I’m not someone who blindly attacks all mainstream or corporate media just to get subscriptions. There’s nuance. The New York Times does a lot of incredible journalism and CNN International does too. I’m not going to pretend everything mainstream is terrible just to promote myself.
That said, cable news especially improved after Trump’s first term. Before that, there was a lot more of the false equivalency, which creates a fake reality. It’s like putting a flat-earther next to an astronaut who’s been around the moon and telling them to debate. What’s the point when the science is already settled?
Trump’s foundation was committing illegal acts, while the Clinton Foundation was surrounded by vague insinuations and suspicion. The media really smeared Hillary Clinton. I say all this because I know a lot of people, especially my readers, are angry at corporate media. But it used to be much worse. There has been improvement, though there’s still plenty of that behaviour around now.
With the New York Times, I get so angry with it so regularly that I unsubscribe, write a passionate explanation about why I’m leaving, and then they offer me the subscription for 50c a week and I accept it because the recipes are so good.
There’s that joke where you try to unsubscribe and they keep lowering the price until offering to pay you to stay.
That’s basically the deal I’m on now.
On the New York Times specifically, the political desk and a lot of the headlines can be terrible, but there’s also genuinely excellent reporting there. It’s such a massive organization. Some of their reporting from places like Iran is indispensable, while other coverage really misses the mark.
I totally agree. Sometimes when I’m furious with the BBC, I remind myself there are brilliant journalists inside that huge corporation. Usually, the issue is higher up. It’s a definitely a strange media moment.
I do think independent media has pushed traditional outlets to improve. There are so many good journalists outside the big institutions now, doing serious work and attracting audiences, that corporate media has had to respond to that pressure.
That’s interesting. I’d always thought people were leaving traditional media mostly because there weren’t enough opportunities there anymore. But your framing is nicer: independent media holding them to higher standards.
If you were standing on a soapbox this weekend with a loudspeaker, what’s the one thing you’d want to shout about?
I think there’s really one central story right now: a corrupt authoritarian movement built around a billionaire grifter enriching himself and his family while openly telling Americans he doesn’t care about their financial struggles. At the same time, he’s profiting from stock trades, crypto schemes and consolidating power while raising costs for ordinary people.
So it’s all one story: corruption, authoritarianism and self-enrichment. Some Democrats are telling that story effectively, but more of them need to.
I used to go to Trump rallies and talk to supporters directly, so I had a sense of the mood, which I don’t anymore. What’s your read on it now? Do you feel like the tide is changing at all?
The vibe shift is absolutely real. I’ve been saying that for a long time. Back when Elon Musk was waving that chainsaw around, I wrote that the administration was overreaching and that it would backfire. That was while people were still terrified and assuming Trump’s movement was unstoppable.
But they moved too fast. The tariffs, the Epstein files, the rising prices, the Iran situation, it’s all backfired spectacularly. The only person competing with Trump for ‘most unpopular president’ is Trump himself from his first term.
I also think the redistricting efforts happening now come from fear. They know they’re heading toward a brutal midterm cycle.
Do the redrawn maps worry you?
They do, especially looking ahead to 2028. What’s happening to Black political representation is deeply alarming. They moved incredibly quickly to dismantle Black-majority districts.
So, so quickly!
And which completely validates why the Voting Rights Act was necessary in the first place.
A lot of Black members of Congress could lose their seats. But I also think this could backfire politically. More Black voters may turn out because of it. And when Republicans redraw maps to create more districts for themselves, they often weaken their own margins in the process.
That hadn’t occurred to me at all. Do you think this could become a rallying issue for Black voters? Something organisers go door to door talking about, reminding people that their ancestors fought and bled for voting rights?
Absolutely. People alive today were beaten for those rights. I’ve met people in Selma who marched across the bridge and suffered through that violence themselves.
And right now, Black Americans are seeing direct attacks not just on political power but on economic power too. Black workers made up a significant share of the federal workforce before the purges, and Black unemployment rose alongside attacks on DEI and federal jobs. So now the argument is very simple: why support a president who is targeting both your political representation and your economic opportunities?
Some of them voted for him because at Trump rallies—and you’ll know from having been there—you heard all the racism and all the other stuff, but you also heard him spend 10, 15 minutes talking about success and money and achieving your dreams. That’s a message that wasn’t on the Democratic side.
Democrats always talk about getting by or getting what you need, when they need to talk more about personal fulfillment.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how the Dems and the left in general seem wary of over-promising. This is realistic, but it can also lead to such negativity. We have a very centre-left prime minister here in the UK, and when he came into office, he basically said, ‘This is going to hurt, the situation is really bad and will stay bad for ages while we tinker around doing incrementalism.’ On the populist right, they are more likely to lie and promise to deliver everything. But at least that is actually positive? People do want to hear that they’re going to get wealthier and that life will be better!
I agree. You can level with people and tell them it’s going to be challenging, but you can’t say it’s going to be terrible for ages. It’s not going to be a winning message.
Why not say, ‘We want to create policies and give you tools that help you achieve your goals and your personal greatness.’ Why does it have to be ‘folks just want to make a living’? Because that’s not the case.
You’re also describing the American dream, aren’t you? Which is so baked into the psyche of the country.
Exactly.
Would you describe yourself as optimistic about the future?
Yeah, definitely.
Love to hear it!
I’m sometimes unreasonably optimistic, is what I’m told.
Tell me about this.
I’m always thinking things are going to work out in the end and that a lot of the stuff that we go through is to try to make us stronger or mold us better. I think the moral arc is bent towards justice, but I also think that’s because a lot of us push the arc.
Also, I actually believe people are fundamentally good, but that they turn bad through circumstance. For example, I think if Donald’s dad loved him, he wouldn’t be here, frankly.
I’ve also thought that before! Bloody Fred Trump. Ok, time for a couple more lighthearted questions… Do you have any secret conservative views?
Because of my entrepreneurship and things like that, I actually don’t hate wealth. I don’t know if that’s conservative, but I think if you are a good person and are able to do good with it, then I don’t think having billions of dollars makes you a bad person. You should be taxed enough though.
I think that the left should give people the tools to start their own businesses and stuff like that.
Ok I just don’t think billionaires should exist at all, but if they do exist, I appreciate that some are better than others.
But my thing is that they do exist. I think there should have been tax structures to mean they shouldn’t have. But they’re here.
That makes sense. Okay, this is a really rude question and you don’t have to answer it, n but everyone I’ve asked has always answered it, so the pressure is on. Have you ever knowingly dated or slept with a conservative?
I wouldn’t say knowingly. But I grew up in Virginia, all right guys? Cut me some slack.
But I will say my wife is incredibly progressive. You think you’re progressive until you marry into a woke Jewish family, I’ll tell you that. I thought I had these progressive ideals and then was like, ‘Oh wait, hold up. Y’all teaching me some things.’
Amazing. I’m trying to get the left to laugh at itself more. Could you make up a totally fake marginalized community that you belong to?
That’s funny. I think I’ve got one. I’m a part of the marginalised and totally oppressed bald Black bearded community. We are a tight-knit clan. We try our best to unite. When we see each other in public, we give each other salutes. But we are oppressed in some very systematic ways.
Great example. Justice for bald Black bearded men. Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get more politically engaged and do some good, but doesn’t know where to start?
I would definitely say get involved with your local politics. Look at local races and court races, and see who you can volunteer for in your area. State legislatures are key right now. And volunteering is one of the best ways to engage because you get to talk to real voters and it really bursts your online bubble. It might give you some hope. Oh and volunteer at the polls.
Great advice, thank you, Ahmed!
Thank you so much. Great talking to you.
Time to subscribe to Ahmed Baba News if you haven’t already! And thanks to Ahmend and his subscribers for being so fun and so engaged on our live chat.
