Democrat disarray, mega-IPOs, and the pope takes a pop at Silicon Valley

A dejected Democrat in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2024, after Kamala Harris conceded to Donald Trump. Keystone/Swissinfo

Welcome to our press review of events in the United States. Every Wednesday we look at how the Swiss media have reported and reacted to three major stories in the US – in politics, finance and science.

How useless must the Democrats be to let Donald Trump win the presidency twice? Many people have asked me that question. For its part, the Democratic Party has just published the results of an autopsy of Kamala Harris’s defeat in 2024. Geneva newspaper Le Temps wasn’t impressed, saying the report itself revealed the party’s “disarray”.

Help us improve the press review
As a reader of our weekly press review, your feedback is important to us. Please take two minutes to answer a short survey and help us improve our journalism. This survey is anonymous and all data is confidential.
👉 [Take the surveyExternal linkExternal link]

Blame game: To what extent was the Democrats’ defeat in 2024 down to former President Joe Biden, pictured here in February? Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Unless the Democrats can get their act together – and learn from their mistakes – donors and voters are going to desert them, warns Le Temps in Geneva.

US President Donald Trump may be extremely unpopular – there’s the war against Iran, galloping inflation and an incompetent and chaotic administration – but he’s managed to secure victories for all “his” candidates in the recent Republican primaries, Le Temps wrote in an editorial on Friday.

“The consequences of these ‘victories’ are clear,” it explained. “The Grand Old Party no longer resembles the major political force it once was. It’s become nothing more than a vehicle for Donald Trump. In Congress, where it holds a majority, it has completely abdicated its role as a counterbalance to the White House.”

Le Temps said that, faced with the ideological blindness of the Republicans, one might think the Democrats had an open avenue in front of them ahead of November’s midterm elections. “But they don’t seem to know how to exploit it. A recent episode shows that the Democratic Party hasn’t learnt the lessons of Kamala Harris’s crushing defeat in the 2024 presidential election and is incapable of self-criticism.”

This was the “autopsy” report intended to identify the reasons for the Democratic defeat. Finally published on Thursday after multiple delays, it paints an unflattering picture of the party, according to Le Temps, which said the 192-page document failed to address some of the central elements of the Democratic failure: Joe Biden’s age and his desire to stand for a second term; the crisis in Gaza and Israel, which was at the heart of the divisions between the Democrats and the electorate; the absence of a real primary to nominate the presidential candidate, and so on. “The autopsy in question is in no way an introspection. Rather, it reveals the party’s disarray,” the Geneva newspaper said.

“At a time when the bipartisan spirit that made American democracy work has been shattered and the American two-party system is paralysed, the Democrats would be well advised to do more than just point out the real and mind-boggling excesses of the Trump administration. Anti-Trumpism alone is not an argument likely to convince a large section of the population. They need a real vision of society that speaks to Americans unsettled by economic uncertainty, the job market and the rapid pace of technological change – alongside a widening gulf between the ultra-rich and an increasingly precarious middle class.”

The situation is urgent, Le Temps concluded. “Quite apart from the ultra-partisan war raging over the redrawing of electoral districts ahead of the November vote, the Democrats must act before their donors – currently very sceptical – and a highly fragmented electorate turn their backs on the party.”

• Editorial in Le TempsExternal link (French, paywall)

• Coverage of Republican primaries – SRFExternal link, RSIExternal link (German, Italian)

• With the defeat of his internal enemy, Trump confirms his controlExternal link – Le Matin (French)

• Donald Trump has his party firmly under control in election yearExternal link – NZZ (German, paywall)

The New York Stock Exchange. Keystone

“Welcome to the dictatorship of founders,” declared the NZZ am Sonntag. The “mega-IPOs” of companies such as SpaceX and Anthropic mean the end of the “one share, one vote” principle, it said.

This year no fewer than three top‑tier IPOs (initial public offerings) are on the horizon: SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI.

“This will transform the financial markets,” the Zurich newspaper wrote. “The unspeakable structure that Google and Meta introduced during their IPOs is likely to become entrenched: that there are two types of shareholders. The founders, who hold disproportionately greater voting rights, and the ordinary shareholders, who effectively have no say. Elon Musk’s shares in SpaceX, for example, carry ten times the voting rights. The ‘one share, one vote’ principle is dead.”

The founders want to retain absolute power, the NZZ am Sonntag said, “yet they are happy to collect the capital from the masses, who are too naive to understand their grand vision. Welcome to the dictatorship of founders”.

But the paper warned that these three mega-IPOs also had short-term consequences. For a start, these IPOs act like a “liquidity vacuum cleaner” – ordinary companies that are also looking to raise fresh capital this year are in for a tough time. “Other investors who want to bet on the dominant AI theme will likely also have to part with certain stocks or entire sectors in order to be able to invest in SpaceX or Anthropic.”

This crowding-out effect is also taking place in the bond market, it added, explaining that the US government runs enormous budget deficits even in economically good times and has to take on hundreds of billions in new debt.

“I’m not afraid of the AI bubble bursting,” the journalist wrote. “I’m afraid that the bond market will blow up in our faces.”

• Welcome to the new founder-led dictatorshipExternal link – NZZ am Sonntag (German, paywall)

Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV greets Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah during the presentation of his first encyclical in the Vatican City on May 25. Keystone

“What does a pope have to say to us about artificial intelligence? The head of a quasi-monarchical institution whose dusty offices still sometimes use fax machines? Which announces its ‘breaking news’ via smoke signals?” asked the Tages-Anzeiger this week. “A great deal, it turns out.”

On Monday Pope Leo, in his first encyclical, urged governments to slow down and closely regulate the development of AI systems, warning that they spread misinformation, prioritise conflict and risk leading the world down a path of unending war.

“As an American with a smartwatch on his wrist, he shares a mother tongue and, at least in part, a cultural background with the tech bros of Silicon Valley. He studied mathematics and is regarded as an analytical thinker,” the Tages-Anzeiger wrote on Wednesday. “This makes his commitment to regulating artificial intelligence all the more credible. And yes, however anachronistic and outdated the Holy See may sometimes appear to the outside world: on this issue, it’s very much in step with the times.”

The Zurich newspaper said that since 2016 there has been a regular exchange between the Vatican and representatives of Silicon Valley – “an exchange that some AI developers want and are calling for. After all, they themselves don’t know exactly what kind of genie they’ve let out of the bottle”.

The pope wasn’t criticising AI per se, according to the Tages-Anzeiger, but what people do with it – or rather, fail to do. “He criticises the lack of regulation, the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few super-rich individuals, the threats to democracy and truth, and the reduction of human beings to mere data sets,” it said.

For the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Pope Leo’s encyclical contained “points worth considering”, but it said it was too hostile to business.

“For the pope, AI is not the work of the devil, but he warns of the danger of ‘dehumanisation’ and calls for more regulation – and rightly so,” it said on Tuesday. “Nevertheless, his demands are not entirely convincing. They would stifle innovation too much.”

• Coverage of the pope’s encyclical on AI – SRFExternal link, RTSExternal link and RSIExternal link (German, French, Italian)

• Comment pieces in the Tages-AnzeigerExternal link and the NZZExternal link (German, paywall)

The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, June 3. See you then!

If you have any comments or feedback, email [e-mail]

Stay informed with our weekly newsletter!

Are you looking for a simple way to stay updated on US-related news from a Swiss perspective?

Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and receive concise summaries of the most important political, financial, and scientific stories in the United States, as reported by Switzerland’s leading media outlets – delivered straight to your inbox.

👉Sign up by entering your email address in the form below!