The Dynamist

Most American parents say technology makes it harder to raise kids than in the pre-social media era. And while social scientists debate the exact impact of ubiquitous Internet access on children, policymakers are increasingly responding to parents’ concerns.  The Kids Online Safety Act, which aims to address the addictive features of social media that hook kids, was recently reintroduced [https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-blackburn-thune-and-schumer-introduce-the-kids-online-safety-act] by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The legislation would also require tech platforms to take steps to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to minors, including the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, drug abuse, and sexploitation. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI) are promoting [https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/5/lee-introduces-bill-to-protect-children-online-hold-app-stores-accountable] the App Store Accountability Act, which would require Google and Apple to verify users’ ages before downloading apps. And Senators Cruz (R-TX) and Schatz (D-HI) propose [https://www.schatz.senate.gov/news/press-releases/01/28/2025/schatz-cruz-murphy-britt-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-keep-kids-safe-healthy-off-social-media] banning kids from using social media altogether. There is clearly a lot of interest from parents and policymakers in addressing these concerns over the impact of technology on children. But there is also a robust and ongoing debate about the actual harm to kids, and whether concerns are well founded or overblown. Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation [https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic/dp/0593655036] made quite a splash, but many social psychologists have pushed back on his findings. And while the surgeon general under President Biden advocated a warning label for social media, a recent study [https://www.stpetersburg.usf.edu/news/2025/results-from-usf-study-on-kids-digital-media-use-reveal-benefits-of-smartphones.aspx] by researchers at the University of South Florida found that kids with smartphones were better off than those without smartphones, while acknowledging harms from cyber bullying and otherwise. The fundamental question seems to be: Is this just another moral panic, or are we letting Big Tech conduct a massive unregulated experiment on our children's brains? Evan is joined by Clare Morell [https://eppc.org/author/clare_morell/], Director of the Technology and Human Flourishing Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is the author of The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones [https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Exit-Practical-Freeing-Smartphones/dp/059373629X], and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

America's infrastructure future isn't being decided in Washington—it's being fought permit by permit [https://permittingscorecard.com/] in state capitals across the country. While politicians talk about building more, the real bottlenecks are happening where rubber meets bureaucratic road. From Donald Trump to Pete Buttigieg, everyone agrees: America has forgotten how to build things. But even if Washington cleared every federal rule tomorrow, states would still hold the keys to actually breaking ground. Whether it's Clean Air Act permits, water discharge approvals, or the maze of mini-NEPAs and local reviews, states issue most of the paperwork that determines if your project lives or dies. This isn't just red tape—it can be competitive advantage. States that master the art of streamlined permitting without sacrificing environmental standards can capture billions in reshoring investment. Digital dashboards, consolidated reviews, shot-clocks with automatic approvals—these bureaucratic innovations are becoming economic development superpowers. Federal dollars from infrastructure, CHIPS, and climate bills are queued up, but shovels aren't hitting the ground. From geothermal in California to advanced nuclear in Montana, nearly every clean technology faces its first real test at the state level.  Joining us are Emmet Penney [https://www.thefai.org/profile/thomas-hochman], Senior Fellow at FAI focusing on Infrastructure and Energy, and Thomas Hochman [https://www.thefai.org/profile/thomas-hochman], Director of Infrastructure Policy at FAI. For more on what's working and what's not, check out their State Permitting Playbook [https://www.thefai.org/posts/the-state-permitting-playbook] and the new State Permitting Scorecard [https://permittingscorecard.com/].

In an era where government tech projects often end in billion-dollar failures and privacy nightmares, there's a tiny Baltic nation that's quietly revolutionized what's possible. Estonia—a country of just 1.3 million people—has built what might be the world's most efficient digital government. Every public service is online. Digital signatures save 2% of GDP annually. And in a twist that should intrigue American conservatives, they've done it with smaller government, not bigger. How did a former Soviet republic become a model of lean digital governance? What's their secret for avoiding the "big-bang IT project" disasters that plague Washington? And most importantly—can America's divided political system learn anything from Estonia's success? Joining for this episode are two experts who've studied Estonia's digital miracle up close. Dr. Keegan McBride [https://www.thefai.org/profile/mcbride] is senior policy advisor in emerging technology and geopolitics at the Tony Blair Institute. He's also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. Joel Burke is the author of Rebooting a Nation: the Incredible Rise of Estonia, E-Government, and the Startup Revolution [http://rebootinganation.com/], and Senior Public Policy Analyst at Mozilla.

Mark Meador is the newest commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, which plays a dual role: enforcing both antitrust and consumer protection laws. It also serves as America's de facto technology regulator, including overseeing digital privacy and cybersecurity issues. Commissioner Meador embodies the political realignment reshaping conservative views on big business, capitalism, and free trade. The Trump Administration's antitrust cases against Big Tech represent arguably the clearest expression of this shift. While the Biden administration aggressively targeted mergers and acquisitions—Wall Street's bread and butter—many financial elites hoped Donald Trump's return would restore a laissez-faire approach to antitrust. They’ve been in for disappointment. A recent speech [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/speeches/remarks-commissioner-mark-r-meador-conservative-vision-antitrust] by Meador laid out a conservative vision for antitrust, challenging long-held Republican Party orthodoxies and sparking backlash [https://reason.com/2025/05/08/trumps-antitrust-enforcer-says-big-is-bad/] from libertarians. He joins Evan to discuss the tensions at the heart of the this realignment: how free-market principles can coexist with robust antitrust enforcement; how skeptics of big government find common cause with critics of big business; and how conservatives are crafting their own distinctive approach to antitrust while embracing the bipartisan consensus that has emerged over the past eight years.

For decades, conservatives treated unions like an economic flu—tolerable in small doses, but best avoided altogether. But starting with Trump's election in 2016, that narrative began to unravel, with prominent Republicans increasingly taking pro-union positions. Perhaps the most striking example was Teamsters President Sean O'Brien speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Despite both parties courting working class voters, union membership has cratered to just 10%, down from over 20% in the early '80s. This puts the Trump administration in an interesting position. The old conservative playbook misses that many workers fueling this movement are now Republican voters. The question isn't just whether conservatives should oppose unions, but whether they can afford to. Joining today is Liya Palagashvili [https://www.mercatus.org/scholars/liya-palagashvili], Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, whose new paper "Do More Powerful Unions Generate Better Pro-Worker Outcomes? [https://www.mercatus.org/research/working-papers/do-more-powerful-unions-generate-better-pro-worker-outcomes]" examines these questions and argues for a moderate stance on unions.