Authored by Blaise Malley via Responsible Statecraft,
On paper, Alexander Vindman's loss in last week's Florida Democratic Senate was a shocking upset. After all, Vindman had a 16-to-1 fundraising advantage and far more national name recognition than the winner - progressive state Rep. Angie Nixon.
But the results reflect more than one poorly-run campaign. Vindman is one of the most prominent faces of a bygone political era known as "Russia-gate" - a period which Democratic voters appear ready to leave behind.
Just a few years ago, the idea of Vindman losing a Democratic primary would have been hard to imagine. The former director for European affairs on the National Security Council had emerged from Donald Trump's first term as one of the most celebrated stars of the anti-Trump "Resistance" due to his role in the 2019 impeachment hearings. As contemporary profiles in major media outlets noted, he became, in the eyes of his supporters, a "patriotic truth-teller," who was unafraid to confront power.
One Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), told him during the hearings that he and his family represented "the very best of America." During a 2020 Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire, future President Joe Biden interrupted the proceedings to ask the audience to "stand up and clap for Vindman."
Vindman's rise and fall offers a window into a broader shift within the Democratic Party. During Trump's first term, opposition to the president elevated officials (think Gen.Mark Milley, ex-CIA Director John Brennan, and Robert Mueller, the former FBI director the former FBI director tasked with investigating the links between Trump and Russia) and helped turn the foreign-policy establishment and elements of national security state into pillars of the liberal resistance. Meanwhile, Democratic-led investigations attempted to prove Trump colluded with Russia to win his 2016 election. That blossomed into ongoing narratives about his skullduggery and deference to President Vladimir Putin at the expense of Ukraine and democracy. "Russia-gate" helped to bridge two enemies - Trump and Putin - for a winning political tool.
Now, as that strategy has lost its appeal, its decline is creating space for Democrats more willing to challenge the hawkish foreign-policy consensus that flourished alongside it.
And Vindman is hardly the only Resistance-era figure to fall out of favor with Democratic voters. His loss followed those of Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), the majority counsel in the impeachment inquiry that grew out of Vindman's report, as well as other members closely linked to various efforts to remove Trump from office, including Krishnamoorthi - who ran for Senate - Al Green (D-Texas), and Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) Republican-turned-anti-Trump activist George Conway, meanwhile, finished a distant fourth in a New York City Democratic House primary.
A Ukrainian-born Army officer, Vindman was serving on the NSC when he listened in on a phone call in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son or face losing U.S. military aid.
That call triggered Trump's first impeachment, and Vindman became one of the key witnesses during the House's inquiry. He parlayed that appearance into liberal political celebrity. His memoir, "Here, Right Matters," became a bestseller, and he appeared on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." His brother, Eugene, also a former NSC staffer, was elected to the House of Representatives in 2024.
"Vindman and others like him were characters in the early Trump 1.0 saga," in which "the national security state was the hero that was going to save the country from the corruption and the illegalities of the Trump presidency," Elizabeth Beavers, a professor at Delaware Law School and former national security public interest lobbyist, told Responsible Statecraft. "We see that idea not resonating with voters so much anymore."
Vindman had slipped easily into the role on the Russia-gate stage, which was already lit and primed when he got there. It started with the 2016 election. Beavers points out that during Trump's first term, Russia became less a discrete foreign-policy question than an all-purpose explanation for Trump himself. It was a way of understanding his rise without confronting it. Russia, she said, became "almost like a Disney villain."
Turns out that the very reason Vindman succeeded in those heady days is likely - at least partly - to blame for why he and others lost their primaries. Their democracies vs. autocracies (read: Russia) foreign policy is not salient with the voters anymore. Another country is, however.
On Israel, Vindman has previously described himself as a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel alliance but said that no American ally should get a "free pass." When the House voted on an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in aid to Israel, Vindman gave an unclear answer on how he would have voted, saying he was a believer in "the security of the state of Israel as a generational partner of the U.S." but was opposed to a "Netanyahu administration that has undermined a two-state solution." Nixon, his opponent, drew a clear contrast on this issue, saying she would have voted for the amendment and accused Vindman of avoiding answering questions about Israel.
Vindman's entire political identity was largely built around the issue of Russia and Ukraine, however. In a 2025 interview, he declared that Israel's success in degrading its regional adversaries, notably Iran, was "all a ripple effect off of Russia-Ukraine."
Shortly after he left the NSC, Vindman told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that the American president "should be considered to be a useful idiot," and "an unwitting agent of Putin." In a 2025 book, he criticized U.S. policy - and what he sees as foreign-policy realists in particular - for being too accommodating toward Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union.
"Vindman unfortunately displays a woefully inadequate grasp of that which he tries to impugn: at no point does he demonstrate anything more than a cursory understanding of realist approaches to the issues he tries to elucidate," the Quincy Institute's Mark Episkopos wrote in a review of the book in RS.
"Vindman represents a post-Cold War neoconservative view of America's role in the world that has never enjoyed a firm grip on reality, but is especially unmoored from the challenges America faces today," Episkopos told RS after the primary. "He stands as one of the most prolific standard bearers of the Russia-gate era, a credential that may have once earned him a prominent place in politics. Yet the public debate has moved on from the ill-conceived notion that Moscow lurks behind every major problem the country faces."
Vindman's trajectory illustrates how the politics of the Resistance intersected with foreign policy. The fight over Trump and Russia elevated a figure who championed a more confrontational approach toward Moscow.
"Neocons secured a foothold in the liberal establishment which will be difficult, though not impossible, to excise," Eoin Higgins recently wrote in the Intercept. "And the Democratic leadership was able to put off actually offering voters tangible policy that would improve their lives for a decade by focusing on delusional fantasies - a strategy that's now coming back to bite them at the ballot box."
Though these views were not a leading cause of Vindman's defeat, the consequences of his loss offer a window into whether the party's future could offer a new kind of politics.
Democrats tended to treat Trump as an aberration from an otherwise sound American order, and to see the officials and institutions he attacked as the country's best defense against him. "The resistance liberals argued that Trump is not normal, he's not American, we must restore normality," Stephen Wertheim, a historian of U.S. foreign policy and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told RS. "The other approach was: Trump is something that comes from this country ... judge him on the results." That second camp, Wertheim added, "does seem to be on the ascent."
Much of the institutionalist case against Trump rested on the related premise that he was abandoning America's forward-leaning role in the world. His second term has undercut that argument. Trump has launched strikes on Iran, sent troops into Venezuela, and threatened military adventurism elsewhere. Those who said that Trump would retreat from the world stage now have a harder time explaining why the U.S. alone can be trusted to lead on it.
Democratic voters have already demonstrated a willingness this cycle to challenge the party's status quo on certain foreign-policy issues, most notably U.S. support for Israel. A series of House candidates in New York and Colorado, as well as Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, have won primaries this summer that centered their skepticism of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Whether this momentum extends to a broader reckoning on foreign policy is a bigger question.
That opportunity comes after nearly a decade in which the party's central strategies and messaging for opposing Trump did not keep him from returning to office. Beavers argues that Democrats have a chance to campaign forcefully on a foreign policy that "completely turns away" from the militarism of both the party's establishment and Trump.
"The lane is wide open for them," she said.
Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2026 - 18:25A rapidly expanding dammed lake above a Nepal-Tibet flood zone poses a severe new threat to Gyirong Port, where hundreds of people remain unaccounted for following an initial catastrophic surge.
Formed by mudslides near the junction of two rivers, the blockage sits about 11 miles upstream of Rasuwagadhi and has created a 27-acre lake, according to Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). China's Ministry of Water Resources estimated on Aug. 27 that the lake currently holds roughly 2 million cubic meters (528 million gallons) of water. Fueled by incoming rain, it is expected to absorb another 3 million cubic meters (793 million gallons) over the next three days.
A 27-acre lake was formed roughly 18km upstream of the Rasuwagadhi border point, following mudslidesThe situation is increasingly precarious. The ministry warned that the lake is already overflowing and faces a high risk of a sudden release that could once again inundate Gyirong Port and communities downstream. Drone reconnaissance conducted by fire and rescue personnel - and reported by the state-run Xinhua News Agency on Aug. 27 - confirmed the danger, revealing that the lake's surface continues to expand with water levels visibly higher than the day before.
In response to the mounting threat, Nepalese authorities have urged all residents, travelers, and rescue personnel along the Bhote Koshi River corridor to completely avoid riverbanks and other high-risk zones.
This secondary crisis emerges as the toll from the first flood continues to rise.
🚨🚨🚨#China alerts new barrier lake forms at #Nepal rivers confluence, posing high breach risk over next 3 days.
A significant barrier lake has formed near the confluence of the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo rivers in Nepal, with its water volume estimated at 2 million… pic.twitter.com/XtMiX3YUvs
An Aug. 27 update from the NDRRMA confirmed that 359 bodies have been recovered in Nepal, with another 910 individuals still out of contact. Meanwhile, across the border, the Gyirong disaster command reported three confirmed deaths and 558 people missing in Tibet - including 260 foreign nationals - as of 8 a.m. on Aug. 27.
As the Epoch Times notes, the new lake is still rising...
The new lake formed in debris left by the disaster near the confluence of the Cuojian River and Purepuqiang Zangbo, upstream of Gyirong Port.
Nepal’deki sel felaketinin nasıl meydana geldiğini gösteren bir simülasyon:
Himalayalar’da bir buzul kütlesinin koparak vadiye düşmesiyle buz, kaya ve toprak nehir yatağına sürüklendi. Oluşan devasa su ve moloz dalgası, kısa sürede nehir yatağı boyunca ilerleyerek önüne çıkan… pic.twitter.com/UtVuJvonR3
Chinese authorities on Aug. 27 found that the broader landslide area had not expanded, but the lake surface continued to grow.
Water was already passing over the natural barrier rather than remaining contained behind it. Authorities described the condition as overflowing, not a full breach.
Natural dams are formed suddenly from loose rock, soil, and other debris rather than engineered materials.
According to National Cheng Kung University resource-engineering professor Huang Jing-sheng, water penetrating such debris can increase internal water pressure and reduce the friction helping hold the blockage together.
Historical records compiled by Taiwan's Agriculture Ministry identify erosion from water flowing over the top as one common failure mechanism for natural dams.
The agency cautions that historical cases cannot predict how a particular lake will behave.
New Hazard Complicates AccessThe dammed lake sits above an area already heavily damaged by the first flood.
The edge of the debris flow was located about 1.6 miles from Gyirong Port, with deposits approaching 5 feet thick in places, Xinhua reported.
An engineering team was using drones and 3D laser scanners to survey the blockage and measure its shape, surrounding rock, and water flow, according to Chinese rescue authorities, who said the upstream threat had to be addressed before crews could safely clear the large debris field closer to the port.
On the Nepal side, the new danger extends directly into the rescue corridor.
The NDRRMA and Nepal's hydrology authorities urged residents, travelers, and rescue personnel along the lower Bhotekoshi to remain away from riverbanks and other exposed areas.
That warning is tied to the newly formed lake, not the initial flood surge.
More Water ForecastChina's National Meteorological Center continued to forecast additional rainfall around Gyirong through Aug. 29.
Gyirong Port was expected to see light rain overnight on Aug. 27 and into Aug. 28, with moderate rain at times.
Rain was forecast to intensify on Aug. 29, with light to moderate rain and periods of moderate to heavy rain.
Along the corridor from Gyirong Port toward Nepal, the China Meteorological Administration's public weather service forecast moderate to heavy rain on Aug. 27, moderate rain on Aug. 28, and moderate to heavy rain again on Aug. 29, with possible thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
A Chinese Water Ministry hydrological assessment put inflow into the lake at about 15 cubic meters per second (4,000 gallons per second) and said the volume was still increasing.
Based on the rainfall forecast, the ministry estimated that the lake could receive another 3 million cubic meters (793 million gallons) of water over the next three days.
Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2026 - 18:00Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,
Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates warned Wednesday that artificial intelligence (AI) will permanently eliminate many white- and blue-collar jobs and called for taxes on AI and robots along with protections reserving certain jobs for humans.
Bill Gates in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 9, 2026. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images"Many jobs will disappear forever," Gates wrote in an essay published on his Gates Notes website. He said AI could become "the greatest equalizer ever invented" or "the worst source of injustice," and governments are not adequately preparing for the disruption.
Gates said comparisons between AI and earlier technological changes are misleading. The shift from agricultural to office work occurred over generations and created jobs requiring human thought. AI now can replace human cognition and can operate through devices and systems already in use.
AI will affect law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing over roughly a decade, Gates predicted. Entry- and mid-level positions face the greatest immediate danger, while robots will eventually threaten construction, hospitality, and other physical jobs.
Gates proposed creating a category called "Human Reserved" for work that society decides should continue to be performed by people even when machines become capable of doing it.
Examples could include delivering a terminal medical diagnosis, education, and mental health care, although Gates acknowledged that governments would face difficult decisions about which jobs to protect.
Gates also proposed taxing AI tokens and robots. Employers pay payroll taxes when they hire workers but can often deduct robots as business expenses, creating an incentive to replace labor, he said. A tax could slow that process and provide revenue for retraining displaced workers and strengthening the social safety net.
Gates also said AI could make fraud, cyberattacks, bioterrorism, surveillance, and disinformation easier. He expressed particular concern about children forming relationships with AI companions and relying on the technology in ways that weaken critical-thinking skills.
Despite those dangers, Gates said AI could accelerate medical research, improve diagnoses, expand educational opportunities, and help address problems involving agriculture, energy, and climate change.
He called for new national and international institutions to manage AI's effects, saying cooperation between the United States and China will be necessary.
"This unprecedented technology demands an unprecedented global response," Gates wrote.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) supported the idea of taxing AI.
"Even tech billionaires like Bill Gates are saying we need an AI token tax to prevent mass unemployment," Casar posted on X on Wednesday. "I introduced the first and only bill in Congress to do it." The Cato Institute's Adam Michel pushed back in June on some of Gates's ideas, including taxing the robots that replace jobs done by humans.
"Empirical research consistently finds that investment in new technologies is complementary, primarily augmenting, not replacing, work," Michel wrote in an article.
"For workers to succeed in an AI economy, they will need more investment in newer and better tools, not less. Taxing the capital behind those tools would slow the very process that can raise wages and expand opportunity."
Pedro Domingos, a professor emeritus of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, compared Gates to Dario Amodei in a post on X on Wednesday.
Amodei, an AI entrepreneur and CEO of Anthropic in Silicon Valley, has been labeled a "doomsayer" on AI and unemployment by the media.
"Training AI to imitate humans is not the path to superintelligence," Domingos posted on X.
University of Washington professor emeritus Oren Etzioni said in a post he wrote for GeekWire that Gates correctly identified AI-driven job displacement but his solutions were "mostly wrong."
Etzioni supports a tax on AI but said a proposed tax on tokens would only increase the cost of American AI and send consumers to cheaper versions made by China.
Etzioni said AI isn't causing layoffs; it is causing jobs to never be posted. Etzioni's solution is to encourage AI literacy and move displaced workers into the caregiving industry.
Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2026 - 17:40