E59: Twitter's content warning algo, equity audits, politicians trading stocks, Fed's next move, mRNA & more

The Supreme Court did not issue any ruling on the merits of affirmative action in the 1–2 month window after December 17, 2021. During that period, the key development was that the Court granted certiorari in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina on January 24, 2022—meaning it agreed to hear the cases but did not decide them.(harvardmagazine.com)

The Court’s actual strict opinion significantly curtailing affirmative action in higher education came much later, on June 29, 2023, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (consolidated with the UNC case). There the Court held that Harvard’s and UNC’s race-conscious admissions programs violated the Equal Protection Clause, effectively ending traditional affirmative action in college admissions and abrogating earlier precedents like Grutter and Fisher.(en.wikipedia.org) Because this merits decision arrived about a year and a half after the predicted 1–2 month horizon, the prediction—tied explicitly to that short timeframe—is assessed as wrong, even though a substantively similar outcome eventually occurred on a much longer timescale.

The Build Back Better Act (BBB), H.R. 5376 as the large social‑spending and climate package branded “Build Back Better,” never became law. It passed the House on November 19, 2021, but Senator Joe Manchin withdrew support, negotiations collapsed, and the bill’s status remained only “Passed in the House”, with no final enactment in that form. (en.wikipedia.org)

Later, Democrats negotiated a much smaller, significantly reworked package that focused mainly on climate, health care, and tax changes. This compromise was passed in August 2022 as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, using H.R. 5376 as the legislative vehicle but with its text substituted and the bill renamed; it became Public Law 117‑169 on August 16, 2022. (en.wikipedia.org)

Contemporary accounts and later summaries explicitly describe the original Build Back Better Act as having been effectively killed in the Senate, with the Inflation Reduction Act characterized as a reduced and comprehensively reworked successor that incorporated only some BBB elements and dropped most of the broader social‑policy provisions. (en.wikipedia.org)

Given Chamath’s prediction that “the Build Back Better bill … will never be passed; it is effectively dead and will not become law,” and interpreting “the bill” in the ordinary sense as that specific BBB package (not any later renamed, substantially altered compromise), the prediction is substantively correct: that original Build Back Better bill never passed Congress and never became law, even though a narrower follow‑on law using the same bill number eventually did.

The outcome depends on how one interprets “the Build Back Better bill” and “return.”

What happened legislatively

• The House passed the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376) on November 19, 2021, but it stalled in the Senate when Sen. Joe Manchin withdrew support in December 2021. Contemporary accounts and later summaries describe this as effectively killing the bill in its then-current form.【(en.wikipedia.org)
• Subsequent negotiations between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer produced a much smaller reconciliation package, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). This law incorporated some of Build Back Better’s climate, health-care, and tax provisions, while omitting most of its social‑safety‑net spending.【(en.wikipedia.org)
• Technically, the IRA was passed by amending H.R. 5376 itself: the legislative text of the Build Back Better Act was replaced, and the bill went forward under the new name “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” which passed the Senate on August 7, 2022, and was signed into law on August 16, 2022.【(en.wikipedia.org)

Why this makes the prediction ambiguous

• If you define “the Build Back Better bill” as the large social‑spending package branded “Build Back Better” (including major child‑care, child‑tax‑credit, and broader social programs), that package was shelved and never enacted; only parts of it survived in a slimmed‑down compromise. Under this interpretation, the prediction that it was “being shelved … [and] probably not to return” is basically right.
• If you define “return” in a procedural or core‑policy sense—i.e., whether the bill vehicle (H.R. 5376) and central elements of the agenda came back and ultimately passed—then the prediction is wrong: the same bill number was revived, rewritten, renamed the Inflation Reduction Act, and enacted into law with substantial overlap in climate, health, and tax provisions.【(en.wikipedia.org)

Because both interpretations are reasonable and lead to opposite truth values, the prediction cannot be cleanly scored as simply right or wrong even though enough time has passed. Hence the outcome is ambiguous.

Evidence from 2022–2025 indicates that COVID-19 did in fact transition into a long‑term endemic (or effectively endemic) respiratory disease rather than ending quickly as an acute pandemic:

• In May 2023, the WHO ended the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency of International Concern, but explicitly stated that COVID-19 remains a global health threat and will require long‑term management, not eradication.【】
• By 2022–2025, major health bodies and reviews (e.g., Lancet, CDC, WHO) consistently described COVID-19 as moving into an endemic phase, with ongoing circulation, repeated waves, and the expectation of years of continued transmission managed via vaccination, updated boosters, antivirals, and non‑pharmaceutical interventions during surges.
• Society has made durable adaptations: widespread remote/hybrid work, updated building ventilation standards, periodic booster campaigns, routine COVID testing in some healthcare and institutional settings, and guidance to keep schools and businesses open while managing risk instead of broad, indefinite lockdowns. These are exactly the kinds of long‑term operational adaptations Friedberg described.
• As of late 2025, COVID-19 continues to cause seasonal and variant‑driven waves globally, similar to but more severe than typical endemic respiratory viruses, confirming it did not “end” within a short period after 2021 but instead persisted over a multi‑year horizon.

Given the continued global circulation of COVID-19 and the structural adaptations in how people work, study, and manage public health, Friedberg’s 2021 characterization that this would be an endemic circumstance we would be “in…for a while” and that it would “require…an adaptation in terms of how we live and operate” has been borne out by events. Therefore, the prediction is right.

By early–mid 2022, broad COVID restrictions were largely rolled back even in Democratic‑leaning states, in line with Sacks’s prediction.

• Blue-state rollbacks of mask mandates in 2022: In February 2022 there was a coordinated wave of Democratic governors ending indoor and school mask mandates. Reporting at the time noted Democratic-led states such as California, Oregon, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Illinois announcing timelines to lift mask requirements in businesses and schools.(washingtonpost.com) New Jersey’s Gov. Phil Murphy, for example, set the school mask mandate to end March 7, 2022 and lifted the state’s COVID public health emergency the same day.(en.wikipedia.org) Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker similarly lifted most COVID restrictions, including the statewide mask mandate, on February 28, 2022.(en.wikipedia.org)

• Nationwide end of general mask mandates by spring 2022: A comprehensive summary of U.S. mask policies notes that under new CDC metrics issued February 25, 2022, 70% of the country no longer needed mask use in most public spaces, and that by April 2022 general mask mandates had been lifted in all U.S. states, with Hawaii (a blue state) the last to drop its indoor mandate on March 26, 2022.(en.wikipedia.org) A broader history summary likewise notes that by February–March 2022, all 50 states and many localities began lifting restrictions and mask mandates.(en.wikipedia.org) This matches the prediction that even “blue areas of the country” would abandon broad mandates in 2022.

• Public fatigue as a key driver: Contemporary reporting explicitly connected these Democratic decisions to voter frustration and fatigue. A Washington Post piece on February 10, 2022 described how Democratic governors were lifting mandates as polls showed Americans were “tired” and “frustrated” with the pandemic, and quoted Gov. Murphy acknowledging residents were “frustrated” and “fatigued” and “yearning for some sense of normalcy” as he moved to lift school mask rules.(washingtonpost.com) Another analysis of Democrats dropping mask mandates highlighted that many Democratic governors were now talking about a “return to normalcy” and responding to public weariness with restrictions.(washingtonpost.com) This closely tracks Sacks’s rationale that public fatigue would force even blue-state leaders to give up restrictions.

• Nuance about “states of emergency”: Some blue states, notably California, did not formally terminate their COVID state-of-emergency declarations until 2023 (California’s ended February 28, 2023).(gov.ca.gov) However, these lingering legal emergencies were mostly administrative tools; the prominent public-facing measures Sacks emphasized—lockdowns, closures, and broad mask mandates—had already been largely rolled back in 2021–2022, and 2022 was when the remaining broad mandates in Democratic states were dropped.

Overall, the core of the prediction—that during 2022 even Democratic-leaning states and governors would have to roll back and largely give up sweeping COVID emergency measures like closures and broad mask mandates because the public was tired of them—matches what happened, despite some technical emergency declarations persisting into 2023. Hence this is best scored as right.

By mid‑December 2021 (when the episode aired), Omicron was just emerging in the U.S. Within weeks, it produced the largest U.S. COVID wave of the pandemic. CDC data show that by mid‑January 2022 Omicron accounted for about 99–100% of sequenced U.S. cases and was >96% of variants in every HHS region, with a seven‑day average of roughly 600–750k reported cases per day and well over 70 million cumulative U.S. cases by late January. A detailed spatiotemporal study finds that from 1 Dec 2021 to 28 Feb 2022 the Omicron wave caused about 30 million U.S. cases and 170,000 deaths, spreading rapidly across the entire country.

Crucially for the prediction, this explosive spread occurred despite ongoing public‑health restrictions in many "blue" jurisdictions. For example, California reinstated and then extended a statewide indoor mask mandate through at least mid‑February 2022 specifically because Omicron was driving a sharp surge; even with the mandate, the state’s seven‑day average case rate increased more than sixfold and hospitalizations doubled over two weeks. New York maintained mask and vaccine rules in schools and many venues into early 2022, yet New York City still saw daily case counts climb from about 14,000 on December 24, 2021 to roughly 40,000–45,000 per day around New Year’s, reflecting intense community spread under restrictions. Nationwide, the U.S. set records for both daily cases (around 1.25–1.5 million in mid‑January) and COVID hospitalizations during the Omicron wave.

Subsequent modeling work suggests that earlier or stronger measures could have reduced the number and peak of Omicron infections, but it still characterizes the winter 2021–22 U.S. Omicron surge as causing tens of millions of cases despite significant interventions already in place. In practical terms, Omicron did spread very widely across the United States and was not contained or “stopped” by public‑health restrictions. That outcome matches Sacks’s prediction that Omicron’s spread would be effectively impossible to stop and that it would propagate broadly regardless of interventions.

Evidence from early 2022 shows that some heavily Democratic (“blue”) states and districts did, in fact, re‑impose temporary COVID‑related school closures, while many Republican‑leaning (“red”) states kept schools largely open for in‑person learning.

• In January 2022, the Omicron wave led to thousands of pandemic‑related school disruptions nationwide, but NPR’s summary of Burbio data noted that “the vast majority of U.S. schools are staying open for in‑person learning,” even as at least 3,229 schools temporarily cancelled in‑person learning that week. Many of the named full‑district closures were in blue jurisdictions: Newark, Paterson, and Elizabeth in New Jersey; Mount Vernon in New York; Pontiac and Detroit in Michigan; and Prince George’s County in Maryland.(ijpr.org)
• Newark Public Schools (NJ) explicitly shifted the entire district to remote instruction from Jan. 3–14, 2022, with an anticipated return to in‑person learning on Jan. 18 because of COVID surges.(nps.k12.nj.us) Detroit Public Schools Community District (MI) likewise moved to online learning in early January and then extended remote learning until late January before reopening for in‑person classes.(chalkbeat.org) Prince George’s County Public Schools (MD) moved all schools to virtual learning from Dec. 20, 2021, through Jan. 14, 2022, returning to buildings only after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.(nbcwashington.com) These are all in states that vote solidly Democratic in national elections.
• By contrast, in Texas (a reliably Republican state), reporting at the start of January 2022 described many districts that “opted to power through omicron” and reopen after the holiday break with in‑person classes, with only some smaller districts briefly extending winter break rather than shifting to weeks of remote instruction.(texastribune.org) That aligns with the prediction that red states would be more inclined to keep schools operating “normally” in person.
• National data from the U.S. Department of Education’s School Pulse Panel / NCES show that for December–February 2022, less than 2% of public‑school 4th‑ and 8th‑graders were enrolled in remote learning, and most states—red and blue—had 98–99% of students attending school full‑time in person.(nces.ed.gov) This confirms that closures in 2022 were generally short‑lived and localized, not a return to the prolonged, nationwide shutdowns of 2020–21, but it does not contradict the narrower claim that some blue states would re‑impose closures while schools overall mostly stayed open.
• On learning loss, 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress data show that average scores for 9‑year‑olds fell 5 points in reading and 7 points in math versus pre‑pandemic results, confirming severe pandemic‑era learning loss persisting into 2022.(congress.gov) While most of this damage stems from earlier disruptions, additional short closures in early 2022 in the blue jurisdictions above naturally contributed at the margin.
• Finally, earlier research on the 2020–21 period had already documented a strong partisan pattern in school modality choices: districts in heavily Democratic counties were about three times as likely to open fully remote, while heavily Republican counties were much more likely to offer in‑person instruction.(phys.org) The 2022 Omicron responses in Newark, Detroit, Prince George’s County, etc., are consistent with that same partisan asymmetry Sacks was extrapolating from.

Putting this together: in 2022 there were fresh, COVID‑driven school closures concentrated in Democratic‑leaning states/districts, while Republican states like Texas largely kept schools open in person, and substantial learning loss was evident by 2022. The prediction somewhat overstated the scale and duration of renewed closures (they were mostly weeks, not months), but its directional claims about where closures would recur and who would stay open were borne out, so it is best classified as right overall.

The prediction had two key components, and both failed:

1. A national Republican “red wave” in November 2022. In the 2022 U.S. midterms, Republicans gained only a narrow House majority while Democrats held the Senate and actually gained a net two governorships (Republicans went from 28 to 26 governors, Democrats from 22 to 24). Analyses across the political spectrum noted that the widely expected “red wave” did not materialize. This directly contradicts the forecast of a sweeping red wave.

2. Democratic governors with strict COVID policies would mostly lose, with Newsom as the only one left. In the 2022 gubernatorial elections, numerous high‑profile Democratic incumbents who had imposed relatively strict COVID measures were re‑elected, often comfortably: Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Jared Polis in Colorado, J.B. Pritzker in Illinois, Tony Evers in Wisconsin, Kathy Hochul in New York, and Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico all won new terms. Gavin Newsom was re‑elected in California, but he was far from the “only one left standing.” The overall gubernatorial map shifted slightly toward Democrats rather than against them.

Because there was no broad red wave and most prominent Democratic governors with strong COVID restrictions retained office, the prediction is wrong.

Available data show that a large share, but not clearly “(almost) everyone,” has been infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 so far, and the prediction is explicitly about eventual (lifetime) infection, which we cannot yet observe.

Key points:

• In the United States, CDC seroprevalence data from blood donors estimated that by July–September 2022, 96.4% of persons ≥16 years had antibodies from infection or vaccination, but only about 70% had infection‑induced antibodies (infection alone or hybrid immunity). This leaves a substantial minority with no serologic evidence of prior infection at that time.

  • Any antibodies: 96.4%
  • Infection alone: 22.6%
  • Vaccination alone: 26.1%
  • Hybrid (infection + vaccination): 47.7%
  → Infection‑induced total ≈ 70.3%. (cdc.gov)

• A separate CDC analysis using NHANES data (Aug 2021–May 2022) found that 41.6% of adults had anti‑N antibodies, indicating prior infection, and noted that commercial lab surveillance for Jan–Feb 2022 estimated 57.7% infection‑induced seroprevalence for the overall U.S. population. (cdc.gov)

• CDC’s summary of U.S. antibody seroprevalence indicates that by the end of 2023, over 95% of adults and 90% of children had antibodies to SARS‑CoV‑2, but this includes vaccine‑only antibodies and does not mean nearly everyone has been infected at least once. (cdc.gov)

• Globally, the WHO stated in December 2022 that it estimated at least 90% of the world’s population had some level of immunity to SARS‑CoV‑2 from vaccination or prior infection, again reflecting immunity, not universal infection. (theguardian.com)

What this implies for the prediction:

• The normalized prediction is that eventually, essentially everyone (or nearly everyone) will contract COVID‑19.
• As of late 2025, evidence shows most people have either been infected or vaccinated, and a majority have likely been infected at least once, but there is no robust evidence that infection has already reached “almost everyone” (e.g., >90–95%) globally or even nationally.
• Because the claim is about what happens eventually (over people’s lifetimes) and the virus continues to circulate with uncertain long‑term dynamics, we cannot currently determine whether “nearly everyone” will, in fact, be infected at least once.

Therefore, the prediction cannot fairly be scored as either clearly right or clearly wrong at this time; it rests on long‑run outcomes we have not yet observed and on an imprecise threshold for “essentially everyone.” Hence the result is inconclusive (too early to tell).

Evidence from the November 2022 gubernatorial elections shows that Sacks’s prediction did not come true.

National outcome

• In the 2022 gubernatorial elections, Democrats gained governorships overall: they went from 22 to 24 governors, while Republicans went from 28 down to 26, a net Democratic gain of two rather than a Republican “red wave.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Only one Democratic incumbent governor lost re-election: Steve Sisolak in Nevada. Republicans flipped just that single Democratic-held governorship, while Democrats flipped Arizona, Maryland, and Massachusetts from Republicans. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Post‑election analyses widely noted that the anticipated GOP “red wave” in the 2022 midterms largely failed to materialize. (states.xhirp.com)

Blue/swing-state Democratic governors with strict COVID policies Numerous Democratic governors from blue or swing states that had relatively strict COVID rules and significant school closures were re‑elected in 2022:

• Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) was re‑elected by about 54.5%–43.9%, a margin near 11 points. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Tim Walz (Minnesota) was re‑elected 52.3%–44.6%. (en.wikipedia.org)
• JB Pritzker (Illinois) won re‑election 54.9%–42.4%. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Kathy Hochul (New York) won a full term 53.1%–46.7%. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Gavin Newsom (California) himself was re‑elected with about 59.2% of the vote. (en.wikipedia.org)

These and other Democratic governors (e.g., in Maine, Connecticut, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Kansas) retained office, and Democrats added governorships in deep-blue states like Maryland and Massachusetts. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because:

1. There was no broad Republican “red wave” in gubernatorial races,
2. Most blue-state or COVID‑strict Democratic governors were not voted out in 2022, and
3. Newsom was far from the only such Democrat left in office,

Sacks’s prediction is best categorized as wrong.

Evidence from 2022 supports Sacks’s prediction that there would be a political and economic correction away from what he called COVID “overreaction” policies, with the U.S. largely past those policies by the end of 2022, even though COVID itself was not fully over.

1. Economic correction of stimulus / monetary policy

• The major rounds of federal pandemic fiscal stimulus (CARES Act 2020, Consolidated Appropriations Act 2020, American Rescue Plan 2021) had all effectively ended by 2022; no comparable broad stimulus programs were renewed that year, despite continuing COVID circulation.
• The Federal Reserve pivoted sharply from ultra‑loose policy to aggressive tightening in 2022, raising the federal funds rate from near 0% in March 2022 to over 4% by December 2022—explicitly as a response to inflation partly attributed to prior stimulus and pandemic distortions, not to extend COVID-era support. (This is widely documented in Fed summaries and 2022 FOMC statements.)
• Pandemic emergency programs like enhanced unemployment benefits and broad stimulus checks were not restarted in 2022, indicating a clear policy correction from the earlier expansive response.

2. Rollback of restrictive COVID policies (lockdowns, school closures, broad mandates)

• By early 2022, U.S. schools were overwhelmingly open for in‑person learning; the 2021–22 school year saw a major shift back to normal operations, and full, long‑term school closures had largely ended, with only short-term or localized disruptions. (This is documented in reports from the U.S. Department of Education and multiple education research groups summarizing 2022 operations.)
• Lockdown-style stay-at-home orders and business-closure mandates were not in force across the U.S. in late 2022. Most states had already lifted such orders in 2020–2021 and did not bring them back in 2022, even during later COVID waves.
• Mask and vaccine mandates were rolled back through 2022. The CDC dropped its universal indoor masking recommendation for most of the country in February 2022 with its new “community levels” guidance, after which many states and cities ended indoor mask mandates, including in schools and businesses, and they were not broadly re‑imposed by year‑end 2022.

3. COVID not over, but response normalized

• Throughout 2022, COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continued in waves (e.g., Omicron BA.2, BA.5, and later variants), and booster campaigns continued. However, the federal and state responses shifted toward living with the virus: focus on vaccines/boosters and therapeutics, voluntary masking, and minimal use of emergency-style restrictions. This is consistent with Sacks’s framing that “we may not be completely past Covid, but … past this sort of overreaction to Covid.”

Assessment vs. the prediction

• He forecast “a further correction both political and economic in 2022” and that by then the U.S. would be past the overreaction (huge stimulus, lockdowns, school and broad restrictions) even if COVID itself persisted.
• By the end of 2022:
  • Large-scale fiscal stimulus had ended and monetary policy had not only normalized but reversed hard.
  • Lockdowns and broad school closures were gone, and national guidance and state policies had moved away from stringent restrictions.
  • COVID was still present, but treated more as an endemic risk with far lighter, more targeted policies.

Given these facts, Sacks’s prediction matches the observed political and economic trajectory in 2022, so the prediction is right.

The prediction is framed over “the next decade” after 2021 (i.e., roughly 2021–2031). As of late 2025, we are only ~4 years into that window, so it is too early to say definitively whether RNA-based technologies will have “transformed how medicine is delivered” across a wide range of diseases by 2031.

What we can say so far:

• Clear progress and early impact:

  • mRNA vaccines went from COVID-19 use to broader infectious-disease applications. Moderna’s mRNA RSV vaccine (mRESVIA) became the first non‑COVID mRNA vaccine approved in the U.S. and EU in 2024 and has since had its indication expanded (e.g., adults ≥60 and at‑risk adults 18–59). (investors.modernatx.com)
  • mRNA cancer vaccines are showing strong Phase 2 results. Moderna and Merck’s individualized neoantigen therapy mRNA‑4157 (V940) combined with Keytruda reduced recurrence or death by ~44–49% in high‑risk melanoma and is now in Phase 3 and being tested in other cancers, but it is not yet an approved standard treatment. (merck.com)

• Genetic and rare diseases: promising but still early:

  • The first CRISPR gene‑editing therapy (Casgevy/exa‑cel) has been approved for sickle cell disease and beta‑thalassemia, offering functional cures for some patients. This is a major step for gene editing, but use is still limited to highly selected patients and complex centers. (news.vrtx.com)
  • In 2025, researchers reported the first in vivo mRNA‑based personalized CRISPR therapy (mRNA-encoded base editor in lipid nanoparticles) for an infant with a lethal urea cycle disorder—an N-of‑1, proof‑of‑concept treatment showing what might be possible, but not yet a scalable modality. (idtdna.com)
  • RNA interference (siRNA) and related RNA drugs are steadily entering practice (e.g., patisiran and vutrisiran for hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, inclisiran for LDL lowering, plozasiran for familial chylomicronemia, all approved or expanded by 2025). (en.wikipedia.org) Large pharma is making multi‑billion‑dollar bets on RNA platforms (e.g., Novartis’s ~$12B acquisition of Avidity Biosciences for RNA therapeutics for neuromuscular diseases, with launches anticipated before 2030), indicating expectations that RNA will become a major modality later this decade, but that is still prospective. (novartis.com)

• Has it already transformed medicine broadly by 2025?

  • mRNA has clearly transformed vaccine development (COVID-19 and RSV) and is reshaping parts of infectious-disease prevention.
  • For cancer and most genetic diseases, RNA-based approaches remain largely in clinical trials, early commercial use, or ultra‑rare/experimental settings, not yet a dominant, routine modality across a “wide range” of conditions.

Given that:

• The prediction’s end date (around 2031) has not arrived, and
• Current evidence shows strong momentum but not yet the broad, system‑wide transformation across cancers and genetic diseases that the quote envisions,

the best judgment at this time is “inconclusive (too early)”. The trajectory so far is consistent with Friedberg’s thesis, but it is impossible in 2025 to say with confidence that RNA technologies will achieve the full transformative impact he predicted by the end of the decade.

Available election data show that Friedberg’s prediction of a broad, anti‑incumbent wave in local U.S. politics did not materialize, even though there were several high‑profile exceptions that fit his narrative.

1. Overall incumbents mostly kept their jobs, including locally.

• Ballotpedia’s nationwide analysis of the Nov. 8, 2022 general elections found that, across all levels (federal, state, and local), about 94% of incumbents who ran were re‑elected, with local‑level incumbents still winning about 90% of the time and local legislative incumbents about 84%. (inkl.com)
• A political science study of 2022 state house races found 96% of state legislative incumbents on the November 2022 ballot won re‑election, the highest rate since at least 2010. (degruyterbrill.com)
• U.S. House incumbents remained extremely safe as well, with re‑election rates around the mid‑90% range. (x.com)

These figures point to continuity, not “widespread local political turnover.”

2. School boards saw more contestation, but still no mass throw‑the‑bums‑out wave.

• In large districts Ballotpedia tracks, incumbents won about 53% of school‑board seats in 2022, down from 60% in 2020 but still a majority; non‑incumbent candidacies increased, yet incumbents remained more likely than not to retain seats. (inkl.com)
• A broader study of school‑board elections found that when incumbents do run, they win over 80% of the time, and that turnover is driven mostly by incumbents stepping down, not by voters ousting them for poor performance. (edweek.org)

So even in the area (education/schools) he specifically mentioned, voters did not generally remove incumbents en masse.

3. What did happen: notable but geographically limited backlash cases. There were several prominent examples matching his mechanism—voters angered over crime, schools, or perceived mismanagement ousting local leaders:

• San Francisco school board recall (Feb. 2022): Voters overwhelmingly removed three school‑board commissioners in a rare recall, blaming them for mismanaging the district and prioritizing symbolic issues over reopening schools. (en.wikipedia.org)
• San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin recall (June 2022): 55% voted to recall him, with analyses tying the result to frustration over street conditions, property crime, and public safety. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Baltimore City State’s Attorney (2022 primary): Incumbent Marilyn Mosby lost the Democratic primary to Ivan Bates, who campaigned on changing prosecutorial leadership amid concerns that crime was “out of control.” (thegrio.com)
• Alameda County DA Pamela Price recall (2024): Voters removed another progressive prosecutor just two years into her term, again amid intense debate over crime and prosecution policies. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao recall (2024): Thao was recalled less than two years into her first term, with coverage emphasizing voter anger over crime, homelessness, business departures, and a federal corruption probe. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Bay Area “recall fever”: Local media described a broader regional trend in which multiple Bay Area officials (school‑board members, district attorneys, supervisors, mayors) were removed via recalls over quality‑of‑life and governance concerns. (kqed.org)
• 2025 Utah local races: Reporting on municipal elections in Utah noted an unusually high number of incumbent mayors losing, with observers explicitly describing a “push against incumbency” tied to frustration over affordability, growth, and local decisions. (deseret.com)

These cases validate that in some places and on some issues—especially crime and local governance—voters did in fact “vote those folks out.” But they are clusters and high‑profile examples, not a pervasive national pattern.

4. Net assessment relative to the prediction. Friedberg predicted that across the nation and in many cities and localities, upcoming elections starting in 2022 would see voters broadly ousting the leaders they blamed for current problems, producing widespread local turnover. The empirical record from 2022–2024 shows:

• Persistently very high incumbent re‑election rates at federal, state, and local levels, including local legislative bodies. (inkl.com)
• Only pockets of intense anti‑incumbent activity (CA Bay Area recalls, a few prosecutors/mayors, scattered municipal upsets like those in Utah), significant politically but numerically limited.

Taken together, that means his forecast of a broad, nationwide wave of voters “voting those folks out of office” did not come true. The mechanism he described did appear in some high‑salience locales, but the scale and geographic spread fell well short of what he predicted. Hence: result = wrong.

The prediction had two parts:

1. School board recall outcome (Feb. 15, 2022)
   The prediction said that in San Francisco’s school board recall, at least two of the three targeted commissioners would be recalled. In reality, all three—Alison Collins, Gabriela López, and Faauuga Moliga—were removed from office in the February 15, 2022 election. (en.wikipedia.org)
   → This part of the prediction was correct.

2. London Breed would publicly support the June 2022 recall of DA Chesa Boudin
   Multiple contemporaneous reports state that Mayor London Breed declined to take a position on the Boudin recall; she did not issue a formal public endorsement of the recall campaign before the June 7, 2022 vote. (cbsnews.com) Coverage after the election likewise notes that she “did not take a position on the race”, even while having publicly clashed with Boudin and later appointing recall supporter Brooke Jenkins as DA. (hotair.com) Another outlet explicitly reports that Breed "has not spoken publicly about her stance on the race" prior to the vote. (courthousenews.com)

So although Breed was widely seen as tacitly favoring Boudin’s removal and did appoint a recall backer as his replacement, she did not publicly or formally endorse the recall itself in the run‑up to the June 2022 election.

Because the prediction required both components to occur, and the second (a public endorsement of the recall by Breed) did not happen, the overall prediction is wrong.

Evidence strongly supports that this prediction came true.

• On December 14–17, 2021, just as in the podcast timeframe, Mayor London Breed announced and then formalized a Tenderloin crime and drug crackdown, including flooding the neighborhood with more police, seeking more police funding, and declaring a state of emergency—explicitly framed as getting more “aggressive with law enforcement” and cracking down on open-air drug dealing and associated crime. (californiaglobe.com)
• On December 20, 2021, District Attorney Chesa Boudin publicly opposed Breed’s crackdown. In a San Francisco Chronicle report, Boudin joined other officials and activists “to criticize Mayor London Breed’s plan to flood San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood with police and crack down on drug dealers as well as people who use drugs in the open,” arguing the plan relied on failed, punitive policies and calling instead for treatment and housing. (sfchronicle.com) This is direct, public disagreement with her policing/crime agenda.
• Coverage of the period describes an increasingly fraught relationship between Breed and Boudin as crime and disorder became central political issues; Breed moved toward a more law‑and‑order posture, while Boudin championed reform and resisted punitive crackdowns. (sfchronicle.com) That tension culminated in Boudin’s June 7, 2022 recall, after which Breed appointed a tougher‑on‑crime DA, Brooke Jenkins, to replace him. (en.wikipedia.org)

The prediction stated that within the next political cycle after December 2021, Breed would “butt heads” with Boudin because he would not support her tougher policing/crime‑control agenda. The documented events show exactly that: Breed advanced a policing‑heavy crackdown plan; Boudin refused to support it and publicly criticized it, leading to an open policy clash that extended into 2022. Even though this conflict surfaced almost immediately (late December 2021), it clearly fits the predicted dynamic and occurs well within the predicted political timeframe. Therefore, the prediction is best judged as right.

Two central elements of Sacks’s prediction did not occur as stated:

1. No Republican “red wave” in November 2022.
   Pre‑election expectations widely forecast a strong GOP midterm showing, but major outlets and post‑election analyses agree that the anticipated red wave “failed to materialize.” Republicans only narrowly captured the House while Democrats held (and then slightly expanded) their Senate majority, and the overall performance was described as far better than historical midterm norms for the party in power.(cnbc.com) Since Sacks’s timeline and causal story explicitly hinged on a red wave in 2022, that key premise was wrong.

2. No clear, new “schism” between pragmatic liberals and radical progressives in 2021–2022, especially after the midterms.
   The Democratic Party has long contained moderate/centrist factions (e.g., New Democrat Coalition, Blue Dog Coalition) and a progressive wing, and those tensions were already evident early in Biden’s term, particularly around Build Back Better and related legislation.(en.wikipedia.org) But in 2021–22 Democrats nonetheless passed major bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act with unified Democratic votes in Congress, reflecting bargaining rather than a party break.(en.wikipedia.org)

   After the 2022 midterms, analyses emphasized that Democrats across the ideological spectrum performed better than expected; progressives gained some seats and influence, while centrists also notched key wins. Coverage framed this as an ongoing intra‑party debate over strategy and electability, not an accelerated rupture triggered by the election results.(onnradio.com) Articles noted that some moderates view progressives as hindering unity and vice versa, but the party remained a single “big tent” organization rather than splitting into two distinct liberal‑vs‑radical blocs.

Because the predicted triggering event (a Republican red wave) did not happen, and because Democratic intra‑party tensions did not qualitatively transform into the pronounced post‑2022 schism Sacks forecast, the overall prediction is best judged as wrong rather than merely ambiguous.

Evidence cuts both ways on this prediction.

Ways the prediction looks right (country moved out of “pandemic politics”):

• Nearly all state and local mask mandates and other COVID restrictions were lifted by early–mid 2022; by April 2022, general mask mandates had ended in every state, with remaining rules limited to narrow settings like some health-care facilities.(en.wikipedia.org)
• The federal COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency were formally ended in spring 2023, an explicit policy signal that the emergency phase was over and that extraordinary pandemic-era measures were being wound down.(abccolumbia.com)
• By 2022 and afterward, COVID largely disappeared as a top voting issue. Polling on the 2022 midterms and the 2024 cycle shows voters prioritizing inflation, the broader economy, abortion, immigration, and “extremism / threats to democracy,” with COVID only registering in low single digits as the “most important problem.”(news.gallup.com)
• Retrospective polling in 2025 finds Americans mainly arguing about whether there were too many or too few restrictions and rating officials’ performance, rather than pushing for new large-scale mandates—suggesting the active phase of pandemic policy conflict has passed.(pewresearch.org)

Ways the prediction looks wrong (politics did not broadly moderate):

• Overall U.S. politics did not notably moderate in the 2022–2025 period. Surveys show rising concern about political extremism and threats to democracy as the top national problem heading into 2024, ahead of even the economy, indicating that intense polarization and radical rhetoric persisted—just on other fronts.(reuters.com)
• Analyses of the 2020 and 2024 elections argue that while COVID-era policies (lockdowns, school closures, mandates) have mostly ended, their aftershocks reshaped the electorate in a more hard-edged, distrustful direction (e.g., some young voters and suburban parents shifting right over anger at pandemic measures).(axios.com) This is closer to a long-term radicalization than a simple “correction of overreaction.”

Why this is rated ambiguous:

• If you interpret Sacks narrowly—“we will leave behind the specific, COVID-centered era of mandates and pandemic-driven policy fights”—that forecast largely came true: emergency powers expired, mandates ended, and COVID faded as a core political issue.
• If you interpret him more broadly—“the radical strain of politics that the pandemic bred will unwind and national politics will moderate”—the data don’t really support that. Polarization and extremism remain high, with the conflict shifting to other issues rather than clearly calming down.

Because one key part of his claim (exit from pandemic-centric politics) is supported by events, while another key part (overall moderation of national politics) is not, and because the quote mixes these ideas, the fairest overall judgment is “ambiguous.”