January 1, PANIC: Socialists Warn AI Apocalypse — Reality Proves Them Spectacularly Wrong

Wyatt’s Take

• Bernie Sanders and the Squad are screaming about AI ‘throwing millions out on the street’ — yet unemployment remains at historic lows and jobs keep getting added
• Free market innovation continues to create more opportunities than it destroys, just like it has for 200 years — but socialists want government control anyway
• These same leftists who can’t balance a budget want to centrally plan the entire AI economy before it even develops

Top Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders are raising alarm bells about artificial intelligence, casting apocalyptic visions of mass unemployment and demanding immediate government intervention. The socialist senator who caucuses with Democrats has been leading the charge.

“How the hell do you go forward and throw millions of people out on the street without planning what’s going to happen?”

Sanders said at a press conference in April. But here’s the problem with his doomsday scenario: reality keeps refusing to cooperate.

Since AI chatbots burst onto the scene in late 2022, the United States has continued adding jobs month after month while unemployment has stayed at historically low levels, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The gap between Democratic fear-mongering and actual market performance highlights the fundamental difference between free-market systems and centrally planned economies.

Richard Stern, an economist with Advancing American Freedom, sees this debate as revealing something deeper than just economic policy differences.

“It’s showcasing the difference between free market and central planning, but it’s also showing the difference in what you think it is to be human. Do you think it is to merely do the work that you’re told to do? Or is it to do things that provide new value and new service to your neighbors?”

Stern pointed out that innovation has always eliminated certain jobs while simultaneously opening up new opportunities and allowing workers to create entirely new products and services. He recalled how the weaving industry faced similar panic in the 1820s.

“We invented something called a Jacquard loom, which had basically an early punch card system. It allowed a loom to automatically raise and lower needles so that it would replicate a pattern on its own without a human having to memorize what the pattern was.”

The predicted catastrophe never materialized then, and it’s not materializing now. Since 2022, the workforce has continued growing, adding total non-farm payroll employment every single year even as AI adoption has accelerated across industries. Over this same period, unemployment has stayed below 4.5%.

Some major companies have even reversed course on their AI expectations, according to reports. When businesses realized AI wasn’t actually replacing junior workers as predicted, they started hiring again — completely defying the doom-and-gloom projections from Washington socialists.

But facts haven’t stopped Democrats from demanding massive government intervention to control AI’s impact on the workforce.

“AI is the most transformational technology in the history of the world — and will have a profound impact on the life of every man, woman and child in our country. And, if you’re currently in the workforce, there’s a good chance it will take your job.”

Sanders continued his fearmongering, citing selective research to support his narrative.

“A Stanford paper called ‘Canaries in the Coal Mine?’ found there has already been a 16% decline in employment for younger workers in jobs exposed to AI — like computer programming and customer service.”

Rep. Greg Casar, the Texas Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, echoed similar apocalyptic warnings.

“One entity seems totally unaware: the United States government. The only major AI proposal advanced this Congress was a failed effort to prevent states from regulating the industry.”

Casar was referring to a proposed 10-year moratorium on AI regulation that was included in President Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill. That provision was struck out in the Senate and never became law.

“The path we are on is clear. AI will make a small number of investors and executives even richer, while it eliminates jobs for millions of Americans — and the government does nothing about it.”

The Trump White House wasn’t having it. Taylor Budowich, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff and founder of Innovation Council, fired back hard.

“Democrats keep telling American workers that AI is going to take their jobs. The truth is that President Trump’s AI boom will only make the American worker more productive—and more employable—than ever before.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have joined the socialist chorus warning about AI job losses.

“If AI could disrupt half the workforce, we can’t wait until people lose their jobs to act.”

Warren declared in June, demanding preemptive government control over technology development.

“An overwhelming majority of Americans now worry that AI will take their jobs and leave them permanently unemployed.”

AOC claimed in December 2025, pushing the fear narrative without acknowledging the actual employment data. Stern believes the entire debate comes down to a fundamental question of trust. While new technologies always disrupt markets and force adaptation from workers, businesses, and innovators, calling on government to prevent or control that change represents a very different kind of faith.

“Do you trust a million nameless, faceless entrepreneurs and innovators? Or do you trust the government?”

He compared the progressive left’s reliance on government solutions to how some people treat AI itself — as a magic wand that can solve problems without human error or corruption.

“‘Claude, do whatever — no hallucinations, make no mistakes,’ right?”

Stern said, referring to an AI chat platform. He drew the parallel explicitly.

“Democrats have viewed government as that for 200 years, right? They’re like, ‘government, solve this problem that no one else can figure out no hallucination no mistakes no corruption,’ and I think it’s people who are just unwilling to recognize that the government is a collection of people.”

Wyatt Matters

Working Americans have weathered countless technological revolutions — from the cotton gin to the assembly line to computers. Each time, the doomsayers predicted mass unemployment and economic catastrophe. Each time, the free market adapted, creating new opportunities our grandparents couldn’t have imagined. The choice is clear: trust American ingenuity and entrepreneurship, or hand control to the same Washington politicians who’ve never created a single private sector job in their lives.