Two weeks ago, we went to Washington feeling like the wind was at our backs. A major court win in Los Angeles and New Mexico. State attorneys general lining up. Kid safety legislation that finally seemed to have momentum. Then Meta’s lobbying machine went to work, and in a matter of days, the duty of care was stripped out of the consolidated KIDS Act.

So this week, Emma Lembke and I sat down with two SMC board members who know Washington from very different vantage points: Mark Walsh, who has run technology for the Democratic Party, launched Air America Radio, and walked the halls of Congress alongside lobbyists, and Nahom Sisay, a 19-year-old digital activist and founder of Centered who spends his days in DC tracking the big tech lobby’s fingerprints on kid safety bills.

The conversation goes places we didn’t expect. Mark gives an unvarnished, firsthand account of how lobbying actually works, the sales pitch, the “support,” the checks that get written on the spot. Nahom explains why some legislation sold as protecting kids may actually hand platforms more of our data, not less. We talk about what Zohran Mamdani’s campaign should teach every Democrat running in 2026, why Trump is suddenly calling everyone a communist, and whether Section 230 reform is dead or just dormant.

Mark leaves us with a story about Mao, the French Revolution, and why the movements that changed smoking and drunk driving took decades. His phrase for it: sustainable change. We’ll take it.