The World and Everything in It: August 18, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

A sick baby leads to a legal fight over what a contract can demand of a mother.

WEST: Nothing was scarier than questioning my own soul and knowing what would happen to this baby boy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today: Washington counters China on two policy fronts. We’ll talk with an expert.

And, new research asks whether classroom phone bans work.

Later, one author says daily Bible reading can become just another box to check.

MULGREW: The Bible hasn't changed. We have.

And WORLD Commentator Daniel Suhr on the malleable meaning of “moderate.”

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, August 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: U.S.-South Korea » President Trump spoke to reporters at the White House Monday about his decision … to tell the Pentagon to scale back on joint military exercises with South Korea.

He called them costly. And he noted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has long objected to them … and suggested the move could ratchet down tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

TRUMP: You see, I'm actually making it much safer. Uh, Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect.

South Korean and American troops are in the field this week. An 11-day exercise started on schedule ... with 18-thousand South Korean troops.

Trump said he recently asked South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to join the U.S. in working to denuclearize Iran. He called that request “somewhat unrelated to the drills” ... but he added:

TRUMP: You know, when you ask somebody, Would you like to give us a hand? And they say, No, thanks. And then we're guarding them from a country and paying ourselves billions of... It's costing us billions and billions of dollars to protect not only them, but other countries.

Roughly 28-thousand American troops based in South Korea. Lee's office says it hopes the Trump-Kim relationship leads to renewed talks with North Korea.

Kushner meets with Netanyahu » Meanwhile…in Israel.

President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss the future of the Gaza Strip. Kushner serves as an unofficial US diplomat.

That meeting came 24 hours after he spoke with leaders of the Hamas terror group in Egypt.

The talks are the latest effort to form some kind of lasting ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Hamas leaders reportedly told Kushner they're ready to demilitarize Gaza. Florida GOP congressman Brian Mast called that a good sign.

BRIAN MAST: The fact that they are out there making that as a statement—that is an important step. And so I think it comes down to a chicken-or-the-egg question for the United States, for the Board of Peace, for Israel: What has to take place first in order for somebody to actually make a move forward.

But Israel remains skeptical of those Hamas claims.

Netanyahu last week rejected a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal… insisting that Israeli forces will only withdraw from Gaza after Hamas completely disarms.

Justice Department watchdog to review DEA tactic » The Justice Department's internal watchdog is taking a close look at a controversial DEA tactic … that has allowed fentanyl to reach American streets. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

Federal agents watched fentanyl shipments reach American streets ... and let them go.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The department’s inspector general is reviewing a tactic … known as allowing drugs to “walk.”

That means agents sometimes merely track a shipment instead of grabbing it ... hoping to follow it up the chain to bigger traffickers.

The Associated Press reports that agents repeatedly did that in New Mexico. In one case, 74-thousand pills reached an Albuquerque mobile home park while agents watched.

DEA agent David Howell blew the whistle, saying “we poisoned our community to make cases.”

The DEA says its decisions were lawful and followed department guidance.

But department rules once told agents to seize fentanyl as soon as they could ... until the Biden Justice Department gave them discretion two years ago.

New Mexico's attorney general is investigating too.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

SOUND: [Flood waters]

Hawaii tropical storm » The sound of floodwaters raging through Naalehu, Hawaii ... on the southern end of the Big Island.

Tropical Storm Lala swept about 100 homes off their foundations on the Big Island. But Governor Josh Green says he does not believe anyone died.

The storm dumped 43 inches of rain on the island's northeast coast ... making Lala the third-wettest tropical cyclone on record in Hawaii.

Hawaii County acting fire chief Daniel Volpe said Monday:

VOLPE: We continue to operate. Currently, there's some communities that are isolated. We continue to search, continue search and rescue missions throughout those communities, and we'll continue to do until we have clear that every area has been searched. At this time, we have no additional reports of anyone missing.

Well over 100-thousand customers had no power Monday ... and some rural areas could wait weeks. And the Kau Hospital was running on generators.

Midwest flooding » And many thousands of families in Indiana are waking up without power this morning … after roughly a week of deadly storms. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has that story.

BENJAMIN EICHER: More than 100,000 homes and businesses were without power on Monday. Crews have been working around the clock to get the lights back on.

Governor Mike Braun has declared a statewide emergency and is offering $5,000 to families for food and clothing.

Storms that began a week ago have killed at least seven people across the state. Winds near 100 miles an hour tore through the north. Then more than 11 inches of rain fell on central Indiana in two days.

And the White River crested higher than it has in more than a century.

Forecasters expect a new round of storms today over Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska … with two to four inches of rain possible.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

I’m Kent Covington.

Coming up: the battle over a surrogate’s choice to keep a baby alive. Plus, how well do school cell phone bans work? We’ll have a report.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 18th of August.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up…Countering China.

On Friday, the White House announced new tariffs on Chinese drones. They take effect just weeks before President Xi is expected in Washington.

The State Department is also engaging: it plans to spend more on infrastructure projects overseas. The goal is to counter Beijing’s efforts to pull other countries away from the West.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now is Michael Sobolik. He’s a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute specializing in U.S.-China relations. His 2024 book is titled Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance.

Michael, good morning!

MICHAEL SOBOLIK: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Glad you're here. Well, the State Department in this administration has been largely focused on countering narco terrorists in Latin America. What steps have they taken so far to counter China's influence and are those things connected?

SOBOLIK: Well, so the most recent reporting that's coming out right now suggests that the State Department is really concerned about the Chinese Communist Party's presence in Latin America when it comes to telecommunications. So basically, there's a very powerful Chinese company called Huawei, and they can offer state-of-the-art telecommunications equipment for significantly cheaper prices than Western alternatives.

And that's a problem not just for market share for Western companies, but that's a problem for intelligence and data collecting. This is something that the administration has been pretty public about, that they are very worried that Chinese telecommunication systems provide great eavesdropping opportunities. And if that's happening in America's backyard in the Western Hemisphere, that's a significant problem.

And the State Department is also concerned about China's efforts to export its surveillance technology as well. So it's, it's broad and it's focused globally, which is a good thing.

REICHARD: Mm-hmm. So obviously connected. The Associated Press reports that the State Department plans to boost spending on infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative. China's been investing in roads and airports and power grid projects for more than 10 years. What do we know about how successful it has been?

SOBOLIK: Well, the Belt and Road Initiative, if you look at it on paper as an economic project, it, it has a mixed record because China has been able to establish some pretty significant financial inroads in Asia and through Africa, especially. But some of these projects have failed because some of the materials that China uses aren't the best. The construction isn't always great. But if you look at it as a strategic project, it's been very successful, because China has been able to establish some pretty strong and lasting political connections that have resulted in a lot of these belt and road companies becoming economically dependent on China with some debt traps. These projects get so big, and the cost to sustain them skyrocket so quickly that China's be able to they've been able to create some dependencies. So that's the big problem that the State Department is trying to address here.

And I think it might help just to zoom out and even look at this from a bigger perspective. They're not just concerned about economic dependencies and China getting an upper hand in leverage. They're concerned about what that could look like in a crisis. So if China ever moves on Taiwan, the ramifications of them doing that is going to be much bigger than that one little island in East Asia or even just the Indo-Pacific. China is laying the groundwork with the Belt and Road in a lot of these countries and strategic parts of the world because their ambitions are bigger than just taking Taiwan. They want to become the next superpower. And the Belt and Road is their highway to start building that influence infrastructure now. So that's another big reason why the State Department is doing what it can to stay focused on countering it.

REICHARD: Michael, I want to ask, are these new State Department projects the same ones that were happening through USAID and other agencies before the DOGE cuts, or are these completely new?

SOBOLIK: Many of them are very similar. And in terms of the focus of what they're addressing, none of this is really new. It's a very good thing that the State Department is picking this up. It was a huge concern of mine and many others that after those DOGE cuts to USAID, that the administration would just move on and lose focus on countering China in this way.

It's really going to come down to execution and making sure that America has the relationships on the ground in these countries to maintain trust and relationships. Because when the administration dismantled USAID, we yanked a whole bunch of people out of these countries and we lost some trust in the process. So it's great that we're trying to counter China, but we also need to make sure that we're doing the equally important work of rebuilding trust and presence in these countries too.

REICHARD: Mm-hmm. One final question here, Michael, onto tariffs. Last year you said the president should take on China's economy with policies that exploit their weaknesses without hurting American consumers, and blanket tariffs were not the way to go. What do you think of these more narrowly tailored, tailored drone tariffs?

SOBOLIK: My goodness, yes. So narrowly focused tariffs on a specific discrete problem can be good policy options. And tariffs that are not globally scoped as the Liberation Day tariffs were last year, but are focused on one problematic actor like China can also be good. So the drone tariffs are really important because, listen, we don't want Chinese components inside of American drones. All you have to do is look at Ukraine. And look at Iran right now to look at the future of warfare, it's going to be drone-centric. That, that is the case right now, especially in Eastern Europe. So we don't want these really important capabilities to be built up with these Chinese components that can possibly be manipulated and sabotaged remotely. That's just an unacceptable risk for us to have. So I think it's a good step forward, and we need to make sure we can have better, more reliable supply chains.

REICHARD: Michael Sobolik is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, specializing in U.S. China relations. Michael, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

SOBOLIK: Thank you so much.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: A contract to carry a child.

A baby receiving treatment in Texas is at the center of a legal fight between the surrogate mother who carried him and the California couple who initially wanted him.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: After doctors diagnosed the child with a heart condition, his intended parents demanded an abortion. The surrogate—an Alaska nurse—refused and moved to Texas for lifesaving care … and the protection of state law.

WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry has the story.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: When McKenna West delivered the baby she calls Gabriel last Wednesday, a team of doctors were standing by to begin life-saving treatment immediately.

West had traveled to Dallas to deliver at a hospital renowned for its success in treating his heart condition.

She told pro-life organization Live Action her story before she gave birth.

MCKENNA WEST: I felt it would be an extremely rewarding thing to do for a family to give them the blessing of a child.

West is a single mother of two and a nurse in Alaska. She viewed surrogacy as a way to help a couple who had struggled with infertility … while providing financially for her own family.

Her surrogacy agency matched her with Gabriel’s intended parents and she agreed to carry their baby. The first half of her pregnancy was smooth. But at the 20-week ultrasound, things took a turn.

WEST: Following the imaging, the doctor came in and she told us that there was something wrong with the baby’s heart.

The baby…whose legal name is not Gabriel… has hypoplastic left heart syndrome. It’s a rare and dangerous condition but many children survive after a series of surgeries and long-term treatment.

Hospitals in Alaska are not equipped to offer the care Gabriel would need, but West was willing to travel out of state to give him the best chance at life. The baby’s intended parents, who live in California, made a different decision.

WEST: This couple I was carrying the baby for had decided that they wanted me to terminate the pregnancy.

Instead, she went ahead and moved to Dallas. The battle has brought up legal questions about a number of things … including the rules that govern the surrogacy business.

West’s lawyer Lincoln Wilson told WORLD that the intended parents threatened to sue West over her decision not to abort their baby.

WILSON: These clauses in the contract that require termination in the event of a fetal anomaly are standard features of surrogacy contracts.

The threat of legal action is enough to convince many surrogates to have an abortion even if they disagree.

WEST: Facing financial ruin was scary, but nothing was scarier than questioning my own soul and knowing what would happen to this baby boy if I flew to Seattle. His life doesn’t have a price tag on it.

Wilson says contracts like the one West signed … violate federal bodily autonomy protections and state laws that bar anyone from forcing a woman to have an abortion.

There's no federal law governing paid surrogacy. Each state writes its own rules ... and some protect the surrogate far more than others.

Last month, GOP Congressman Andy Ogles introduced a bill in the House. It would bar a couple from pressuring the surrogate carrying their baby … to have an abortion. And states may not wait for Washington. Emma Waters, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation … says states can adopt the same protections.

WATERS: A given state could enact this law, surrogates could flee there, and then they would be protected from any legal action for denying the abortion.

But Waters says abortion is only part of the problem. She wants lawmakers to look at other risks to children as well.

WATERS: No state requires a background check, home visit, or any other adoption-level standards looking at the best interest of the child.

Many surrogacy agencies say they vet both surrogates and the couples paying them, but no law requires it. Unlike adoption, there’s no home study … no judge signing off.

In 2024, a former Pennsylvania teacher and his male partner had a child through surrogacy. The teacher was convicted in 2016 in a case involving one of his students and is a registered sex offender. Pennsylvania would have blocked him from adopting.

After the story broke, lawmakers introduced bills aimed at preventing registered offenders from obtaining children through surrogacy. But Waters says the best way to truly protect women and children is to end paid surrogacy altogether.

WATERS: For Christians who are called to protect the vulnerable, the orphans, and those who are weak, surrogacy is actually perpetuating the very harms that we aim to reconcile and stop.

Back in Texas, a court order ensured baby Gabriel’s intended parents consented to treatment to save his life. The same order denied West the opportunity to see him after he was born. Both parties are due in court next week for a hearing in the custody case.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next: Dropping the call.

In just three years, cell-phone restrictions in schools have spread from Florida to more than 60% of the states. Parents and teachers overwhelmingly approve.

NICK EICHER, HOST: But new research suggests taking away phone privileges may not improve grades, behavior, or attention—at least by itself.

WORLD’s Lauren Smyth reports on why students’ phone habits outside school may matter just as much.

LAUREN SMYTH: Mark SooHoo’s son asked for a cell phone in second grade—long before his parents thought necessary.

MARK SOOHOO: We've been very consistent—we've been very straightforward with our kids—that they won't be getting a smartphone until high school.

But even at that age, his son faced peer pressure. Other kids were getting phones as a safety device or to arrange after-school pickup. And it rarely stopped there, as kids also downloaded social media apps. Those who didn’t felt left out.

SOOHOO: And our response to that is simple: We do want them to be left out. We want them to be left out of the negativity and the depression and the addiction that smartphones and social media cause for kids whose brains are still developing before high school.

A study in the journal Pediatrics found kids who had a smartphone by age 12 were more likely to show signs of depression, to be overweight, and to come up short on sleep. And the younger they got the phone, the higher the risk.

CRISTINA EYRE: Kids today have shorter attention spans to begin with …

Cristina Eyre is superintendent of Michigan’s Litchfield public schools. She says since kids started getting smartphones, she’s seen major problems with bullying, engagement with teachers, and attention span.

EYRE: Because of the exposure to—honestly, video games first, but then the accessibility of cell phones and everything being at our fingertips.

One study found that simply owning a smartphone correlated with lower test performance, regardless of whether kids bring the device to school.

EYRE: Taking phones out of the classroom is the first step, or one step, but the other part is when students are at home and they are working on schoolwork—it’s the same thing. That phone should not be in the room with them because a notification goes off, it’s going to distract them even if they don’t respond.

So far, 36 states have restricted cell phones in the classroom. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that when schools locked up phones, things actually got worse before they got better. Suspensions rose, students felt worse off, and it took a year to turn around.

But test scores, attendance, focus and bullying barely moved ... even three years in. That could be because students are still on their phones outside school hours, or because they’ve found ways around the ban.

Even so, Eyre says she’s noticed a difference since her school started confiscating phones at the classroom door.

EYRE: Kids are more likely to be engaged in what's happening in the classroom. I'm not saying it's perfect. The cell phones aren't the only issue. I think attention spans have become an issue, but we can't address that factor until we remove the one that's impacting it at face value.

Meanwhile, students have mixed opinions. Liam Stanski is a student at Barrington High School in Illinois. He’s skeptical.

LIAM STANSKI: I feel like it hasn’t changed what I would have been doing anyway.

Barrington’s policy allows phones only during lunch. But Stanski says many students ignore the rule during class.

STANSKI: People can still pull up their iPad and put their phone behind their tablet, and they can still use it anyway. So even though it is technically banned, there's not many consequences if they catch you on it. At worst, they'll take it away—and yeah, it's just super easy to get away with it.

Stanski says he gets anxious and distracted at the prospect of missing messages from his parents while he’s in class. On top of that, notifications pile up.

STANSKI: Having it banned in school kind of makes you want to use it more outside of school.

Only about 40% of students support cell phone bans. Eyre says those students usually welcome the escape from online bullying and constant distraction.

EYRE: There are students that want to be in school. There are students that want to learn. There are students that want to have drama-free lives.

Some students are ready to make that decision themselves. Others need parental guidance.

When Mark SooHoo’s seven-year-old asked him for a phone, he turned to some peer support of his own–a group of other parents who collectively agreed not to give their kids phones. That removed the pressure on the kids of peers using tech they weren’t allowed to have.

Eventually, these parents joined a nationwide movement, Wait Until 8th, promising not to give their kids smartphones at all until high school.

SOOHOO: Here in our local community, a parent had given their child a smartphone early on and took it away. And the quote was, “I, you know, I had a changed kid when I took it away.” They noticed that their child was more engaged, more alert, happier.

More than 70% of parents nationwide approve of classroom phone bans. But at least some of the new research indicates simply banning phones at school may not be enough, and that rules at home matter too.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Smyth in Litchfield, Michigan.

NICK EICHER, HOST: An overnight break-in in Colorado left the suspect trapped at the scene. Patrick Sullivan found him the next morning.

AUDIO: A bear got stuck in a car and locked himself in last night.

Sullivan said he heard the car horn blaring all night but wrote it off as a crazy neighbor.

Big mistake.

The bear spent the rest of the night clawing and chewing up the car’s interior ... even setting off the airbag.

By morning, Sullivan and a friend used a long rope to open the door from a safe distance.

The bear took off for the woods—but the damage was there.

So next time a bear honks for help ... better answer the call. Time is of the essence.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Rethinking the way we read the Bible.

For many believers, daily Bible reading can quickly turn into a checklist item.

But author Tim Mulgrew advocates for a different approach. In his book, titled, The Book of Us: Discovering Ourselves in the Story of the Bible… he argues that the problem often starts with treating Scripture like a textbook rather than a living record of human nature.

MULGREW: And the problem with that is, boy, you get lost really fast. If you read a whole bunch of stories about something that happened to a bunch of different people a few thousand years ago, you end up asking yourself, okay, that’s nice. What’s in it for me?

He says although the Bible contains an enormous amount of history, it was never intended to be a history book.

MULGREW: Actually, what it is, it’s a collection of examples of human behavior. It’s a collection of where people have made choices to follow their own path versus God’s path. And we see how that plays out. And we also see how God fixes and uses the mistakes that are made.

Shift the lens from ancient history to human behavior and the central question changes from “What did those people do back then?” to, “Where am I in this story?” Mulgrew points to a familiar experience to prove the point.

MULGREW: Have you ever read through a passage that you've read before plenty of times? And then all of a sudden you say, “Wait a minute, that line was never there before.” Or, if you pick up an old Bible that you have and you look at a bunch of stuff that you highlighted, you read it and you say, “Well, why on earth did I highlight that? That doesn't seem to mean anything to me now.” The reality is that the Bible hasn't changed. We have.

Mulgrew says this disconnect often causes Christians to tune out large portions of the Bible—especially the Old Testament—dismissing parts as merely a collection of old stories, laws, genealogies.

MULGREW: And so we think of the Old Testament, that's like Old News. That's yesteryear, right? I'm more into the New Testament because that's what applies to me. and that, of course, is not at all what that means. And you know, if you start doing word studies, you learn a little bit more about this. We see that God sets certain things in motion, puts it in the hands of man, He makes certain decisions. Those decisions and how they think is exactly how we still think and act today. So the first thing that you miss out on is this opportunity to see: hey, somebody's tried it that way before and it didn't work, right? And God had to come in.

Mulgrew says that points to something more than simply memorizing rules or collecting facts. It’s a continuous effort by God to build an ongoing relationship with His people.

MULGREW: So often we focus heavily on salvation as the gospel message, but the true gospel message is a reconciliation with God. And that includes salvation as well as some other steps. And so you say reconciled to what? Well, if you go back into the Old Testament and you read, for example, in Genesis, God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the morning in the garden. This is the relationship that God seeks with us now. But we just stop at salvation and then we're basically waiting to die to get the benefits of our Christianity, which is absurd.

And that’s what ought to make us curious readers, not just fast readers.

MULGREW: I was always one of those people that read Scripture like a textbook and just did my daily devotional. If you were devoted to your spouse the way we're devoted to our Bible reading, we would have very bad relationships. But to us, a daily devotional is, “Okay, I put my 30 minutes in, check the box, let's move on. I gotta get to work.”

That mindset can be evident in programs like the “Bible in a year” plan.

MULGREW: “I have to get through Revelation by December 31st, and we're already in August, and I'm way behind, so I gotta catch up.” And you have to ask the question: Is it better to read the Bible or understand the Bible?

He says in doing that, we miss something critical for our spiritual development.

MULGREW: Wisdom has always trumped intelligence. Don't be in a hurry to move to the next passage when you've got a perfectly good passage in front of you that you already don't understand. Start by asking yourself: Of all the millions and millions of things that God does, somewhere in history He decided to capture this particular passage. And on this particular day, He has me reading this particular passage. Why? What is it about this that I need to know?

Mulgrew hopes people will read their Bibles more, but beyond that, that they’ll learn to enjoy reading the Scriptures, and begin to recognize their own fears and ambitions and need for God.

Human nature hasn’t changed, and that’s why an ancient story still applies in 2026.

MULGREW: Once you absorb and love what Scripture says to you, you want to go back. That's different from having to go back.

Tim Mulgrew is the author of The Book of Us: Discovering Ourselves in the Story of the Bible.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Political labels are supposed to help voters find their bearings. But one familiar label may now conceal more than it clarifies.

EICHER: Socialist candidates are gaining ground in the Democratic Party. And as the party moves ever more leftward, establishment progressives are acquiring a new label: they’re now the “moderates,” according to mainstream media.

WORLD Opinions contributor Daniel Suhr says that shifting standard can leave voters with the wrong idea.

DANIEL SUHR: The 2028 Democratic presidential contest hasn’t begun yet. But the vocabulary that could shape it is already taking hold.

Across political coverage, we hear a familiar distinction: Democratic candidates are either “moderates” and “centrists” or “progressives.” Listen:

KRISTEN WELKER: This Sunday, left field. Democrats face off, progressives versus moderates.

MARTHA RADDATZ: …The party itself is in a fight for its future. The moderate and progressive wings each scoring wins at the ballot box this week..

ED O’KEEFE: High-stakes primaries that pitted moderates versus progressive or socialist-backed Democratic candidates…

KRISTEN WELKER: Racing to unite a party pulled between its progressive and moderate wings.

Those labels capture real differences within the Democratic Party. But without the words “within the Democratic Party,” they can also mislead.

Consider three recent Midwestern Democratic primaries. Abdul El-Sayed defeated Haley Stevens in Michigan. Peggy Flanagan defeated Angie Craig in Minnesota. And David Crowley narrowly defeated Francesca Hong in Wisconsin.

The coverage largely presented these races as establishment versus insurgent—or moderate versus progressive.

That framing understates the ideological choice. Whatever labels the candidates prefer, their governing principles and political alliances reveal a contest between the Democratic Party’s conventional leftism and its increasingly socialist left. It’s not moderate and liberal. It’s left and lefter.

Stevens ... the supposed moderate ... had the backing of Democratic establishment figures, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. SBA Pro-Life America gives her an F for her current congressional record. 

Nevertheless, PBS NewsHour described Stevens as “more centrist.” Compared with El-Sayed, perhaps. But on the broader American political spectrum, Stevens remains a left-wing Democrat.

Craig presents the same problem. SBA Pro-Life America also gives her an F, while her lifetime Heritage Action score is 2 percent. The New York Times called her “a moderate who represents a purple suburban district in Congress.”

Half right at best: The district is purple. Craig’s record is unspotted blue.

To be fair, Craig has sometimes broken with her party and emphasized bipartisan outreach. Those distinctions matter. But they make her more moderate than many Democrats—not necessarily a centrist by any national standard.

El-Sayed’s and Flanagan’s victories show an appetite among Democratic primary voters for candidates from the party’s insurgent left. Crowley’s narrow Wisconsin victory shows that the establishment can still prevail—particularly when the alternative is just a lousy candidate.

Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now speaks as though the left needs a reset:

AUDIO: [Ocasio-Cortez discussing “Woke 1”]

Call it “Woke 2.0,” “dark woke,” or simply rebranding. The implication is the same: At least some progressives recognize that the language and excesses associated with the earlier woke movement carried a political cost. The question is whether the substance has changed along with the sales pitch.

Michigan may provide an early test. Republican Mike Rogers is already courting disaffected Stevens supporters. But November—not campaign anecdotes—will tell us whether the progressive brand can win a closely divided state.

This matters beyond the midterms. In 2028, an establishment contender—Rahm Emanuel, Gavin Newsom, or someone else—may be labeled the so-called moderate alternative to a candidate such as Ocasio-Cortez. If that adjective follows the eventual nominee into the general election, voters could be presented with a contest between a “MAGA Republican” and a “moderate Democrat.”

That shorthand would conceal more than it clarifies. A candidate can be moderate by Democratic Party standards and remain decidedly leftist within the broader electorate.

Journalists owe voters the full coordinates. Tell us what candidates believe. Explain where they stand on actual policies. “Centrist” needs to be a fixed point. Just because a party moves further left, that shouldn’t make last year’s progressive this year’s moderate. That’s just one more instance of the media misserving the voters by pushing a line that helps just one party.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: Hunter Baker is back for Washington Wednesday. And, Christians seek to integrate faith with the arts in New York City. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” —Colossians 1:15-20

Go now in grace and peace.

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