Before the release of Nolan’s Odyssey, Wired‘s John Semley compared it to Emily Wilson’s nearly decade-old translation of Homer’s epic, specifically citing how critics thought Wilson’s work—the first ever by a woman—was “too modern, too plain” to do justice to such a core piece of the Western canon. Indeed, the discourse at the time of its release was that her language was very contemporary, lacked nuance, and was so simplistic it robbed the story of its grandeur. Persisting beyond the takes of the lowbrow mob, Wilson’s translation went on to be incredibly influential, including to director Christopher Nolan, who cited it as an inspiration for his latest film, which Emily Wilson called too modern, too plain.

Titled “An Uncomplicated Man,” a shot at both Odysseus and Nolan, Wilson’s screed starts out by calling the story “easy to follow.” This is a bold claim, because she spends the rest of the review thoroughly missing key, and frankly obvious, story beats that are articulated through the language of film. This becomes apparent when she says “survival is portrayed as a kind of triumph.” Nothing could be less true of Nolan’s version, which paints survival as causing deep physical and emotional injuries, but more importantly, as completely insufficient to heal the moral wounds. In fact, the film’s key choice in terms of structure—to have almost all of the narrative in the form of Odysseus recounting his journey to Calypso—is meant to show very pointedly, almost obviously, how meaningless survival can be.

Wilson goes on to say she experienced no emotional connection to the characters, even the doomed dog. What one emotionally connects with is of course highly subjective; in some theaters the death of dogs seemed to draw intense reactions, but as to her relationship with the characters, this is actually one of the very few instances where she seems to understand what’s going on. Nolan’s characters, with a few human and animal exceptions, are mostly not meant to be related to. Odysseus himself of course is slowly learning how hollow existence is once a moral injury occurs. Menelaus, here portrayed by Jon Bernthal, who hilariously claims to have method-acted a role where he was meant to just exist as his brain-dead, military operator-looking Punisher character, is a hollow husk. His brother Agamemnon, who is shot in the most triumphant and heroic way of perhaps any Nolan character, is revealed in the afterlife to just be a normal-looking guy, cut down as a result of his own commitment to survival.

Later, Wilson complains that the film doesn’t deliver its promised “big ideas,” but neglects to say what she thinks those “big ideas” are exactly. In fact, she doesn’t really seem to state any speculation as to what she thinks the film thinks about anything. The mark of a weak critic is hiding behind an articulation of the film’s goal to demonstrate one understands what it was trying to do. “You just didn’t get it” can be an exhausting retort to criticism, but one that is proven valuable when it certainly seems like someone did not in fact understand what they just saw. Even this response is likely somewhat incomplete as it can’t respond to how Wilson feels about the choices, because it’s unclear that she can identify the choices.

Charitably, Wilson concedes adaptations “needn’t and shouldn’t follow the original,” a generous concession almost certainly only born out of her understanding how hypocritical many would label her if she didn’t acknowledge this critique that was also liberally applied to her translation. Despite this, however, Wilson seems to object to almost every change Nolan makes. She says “There is nothing progressive about [the race-neutral] casting,” which immediately identifies a remarkable misunderstanding of the casting choices. They were not “race neutral” at all. Nolan chose a black woman to portray the objectified Helen and her sister Clytemnestra because black women are often the first victims of an empire’s upcoming implosion. He chose a young girl of color, Katerina Antemel Mpa, to play Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s sacrificed daughter, and Zendaya to play a slaughtered Trojan woman, to provide imagery that mirrors the brutal images of brutalized Palestinian civilians that have been flooding screens globally at a heightened rate since October 2023. Travis Scott is ultimately the bard trying to tell the story, but in his first of a few precious scenes, he’s interrupted and ultimately ignored. These roles could not have been played by white actors to the same effect.

The casting of trans actor Elliot Page as Sinon, the Greek warrior left behind to unknowingly help deceive the Trojans about the horse, is also misunderstood by Wilson, who states: “[t]he film doesn’t address the moral dilemmas raised by its own narrative invention, such as why it matters so much whether Batman told the whole truth to valiant Robin, given that he would be killed instantly either way—or why the sinless Sinon wants in on the scheme, if the sack of Troy was as bad as the movie wants to suggest. Odysseus’ lie to Sinon doesn’t start the Trojan War, and the Trojans would presumably have taken the horse into the city anyway…” It’s almost impossible to communicate how shallow this reading is. A trans man wanting to be part of the same violence as his cis male cohorts, but being neglected, put upon, and ultimately deceived and sacrificed just the same as the mortal enemy, isn’t an accidental choice. How anyone could not grasp this is almost beyond comprehension.

It’s a shame Wilson is apparently so ignorant as to film language because there is plenty of room here for a good faith criticism of the casting. By using women and girls of color, and a transgender actor, to visually signal the moral injuries of the West on the Global South and minorities within the empire, Nolan is participating in a degree of objectification himself. Using Scott as a bard too could present a litany or issues to a modern racial reading. One could say the ends justify the means, but it’s certainly a discussion to have; Wilson is seemingly incapable of having this, or any other serious discussion.

In her most maddening statement, Wilson says “There are no gods [in Nolan’s film], and yet shipwrecks and death are presented as the inevitable consequence of blinding the son of Poseidon and devouring the Cattle of the Sun.” Nolan is almost obsessed with communicating to the viewer that humans are in fact gods, completely powerful and capable of greatness in good or evil directions. The gods are not “punishing” the characters, but when the characters fail to treat all humans with the reverence in which they are meant to treat the gods, they create a world where their own mistreatment is inevitable. Nolan nearly has Matt Damon and Tom Holland look into the camera and say as much. It’s hard to imagine a simpler way to communicate this, but perhaps this is one Wilson is capable of grasping: Greek soldiers don’t deal with rough seas because Poseidon is angry with them; they deal with rough seas because they chose to sail across them to commit genocide for their own gain, not in a karmic way, but in the same way that if the United States didn’t invade Iraq, none of its soldiers would have died in Iraq. Perhaps to some that theming is too modern, too plain to be grafted on to the classics. It’s hard to know if Wilson feels that way, because it’s hard to know if she understood enough to even draw a conclusion.

Wrapping up, Wilson says “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.” This feels like a pickup basketball player saying they would be ashamed to play for the Boston Celtics. Wilson doesn’t create in the same way Homer or Nolan does. Translation is a noble and necessary craft, one that needs doing, but, like criticism, it pales in comparison to even the worst art. Both aren’t without their merit though, and good translations and good criticism can both spur along important discussion. Wilson is very capable of good, even great, translation, so why does she fail so tremendously at criticism?

The easy answer is that she isn’t a film critic. There’s nothing in her professional or academic career that would indicate she has any real experience with the medium. She doesn’t appear to write much film criticism, and it’s probably a safe bet she doesn’t read much either. Somewhere along the line perhaps she was cajoled into taking a film appreciation class in college, but if so, it doesn’t appear to have stuck; one hopes she saved the receipt for those units. This only explains why specifically she does such a poor job identifying reasons to be hostile, and articulating them; it doesn’t explain the hostility itself. For this, one can only speculate.

In James Cameron’s sequels to the epic Avatar, the veteran director cast Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ian Garvin, a marine biologist and academic who assists a private company and its paramilitary in hunting down and killing incredibly smart but incredibly valuable whales, despite his proclaimed respect and love for them. Cameron makes clear that he is indeed an expert, and he does in fact have a deep admiration for the whales, but he also makes clear that that’s insufficient. Garvin is ultimately attacked by the military he helped attempt to commit a xenocide, and if he does indeed love the planet’s whales, it’s not reciprocated and he’s attacked by the whales when they finally decide to fight back.

Cameron has a very low opinion of the academy, viewing it as at best useless, and at worst a hindrance to any kind of social or economic progress. They are enemies of the revolution, and their roles as gatekeepers of knowledge ultimately makes them incredibly vulnerable to being caught up in replicating and engaging in hierarchies themselves, even if rhetorically they oppose them. Nolan’s film ends with Odysseus (Christopher Nolan) vowing to heal his moral injuries and deal with the collapse of the Bronze Age by telling stories (making more movies). This fertile ground for criticism, with Nolan ultimately cheapening his grandiose themes about the role of the Western canon in imperialism and the boomerang of geopolitical violence, is missed by Wilson, who one can speculate is appalled at the idea that creative fiction, not rigid academia, is the pathway to salvation.

Throughout his illustrious career, Christopher Nolan has earned the reputation of a filmmaker who is seemingly obsessed with filling his movies with meta-commentary on cinema and storytelling. Everything from his own culpability in the Marvel franchise dominance in Oppenheimer, to the power and influence of a well-crafted story in Inception, seemingly fascinates Nolan. Although he will touch on other topics—like the preservation of the nuclear family in Interstellar, or the importance of national identity in Dunkirk, or of course the horrors of collectivism in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises—The Odyssey seemingly represents a desire to dive headfirst into political commentary.

Beating him to the punch were many of his own conservative fans, who felt aggrieved by the casting of a transgender man in Elliot Page as Greek warrior Sinon, and even more offensive to their sensibilities, Zendaya as a vision of Athena, and Lupita Nyong’o as both Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy. The reaction to the idea that a mid-forties black woman could launch a thousand ships became a dominant figure of almost all right-wing content for months on end. Although these two roles were the jumping-off point, this led to a variety of critiques on how the actors weren’t Greek, or that they all spoke in typical American accents. From just the trailers and early behind-the-scenes information, even some outside the conservative content blob wondered what Nolan could be up to, and if these were all deliberate choices or just another Troy-like disregard for tone in favor of modern casting trends.

It turns out these choices were deliberate. Helen and her twin sister (promoted from half-sister from the original story) must be black, because it visually depicts the internal depravity and disregard for humanity by the military men who claim themselves as their protectors. Agamemnon claims to fight for Helen, while carrying her dark-skinned niece to a cliffside to brutally sacrifice her for some decent winds heading to Troy. Menelaus doesn’t drop his sword at the sight of his lost love like in the original story, but instead brutally mutilates Helen’s face and then mocks her as now only being capable of launching five hundred ships. The casting of the brothers is deliberate too, with Agamemnon mostly shot from behind or in silhouette, but when he is finally revealed it’s a very normal-looking man and director of Uncut Gems, Benny Safdie. Jon Bernthal, who is fresh off being the face of Major League Baseball’s aggressively pro-America themed All-Star game, and who in a few weeks will be reprising his role as conservative fan favorite The Punisher, plays a Menelaus that is ostensibly stoic, but is revealed to be essentially a husk.

Page too isn’t here by accident. Nolan loosely adapts Sinon’s appearance in the Aeneid, where he is left behind by the Greeks and taunts the Trojans into bringing the wooden horse inside the city walls. In this version, he’s a boy who is forced to take the place in Ithaca’s draft lottery of a more prominent man’s son, who is a bit more of a model of masculinity. After being left behind by the Greeks and killed by the Trojans, his soul comes to Odysseus to ask why he was never fully trusted by the Ithacan soldiers to be one of them. However guilty Odysseus might feel, he keeps insisting that for his plan with the horse to work, sacrifices had to be made. No one is truly safe from the Greeks, including their own people.

Zendaya as Athena though becomes the central, moral point of the story. She haunts Odysseus throughout the narrative, only to be revealed to not be a god at all, but a hallucination of a Trojan woman who he watched beg for her life before being brutally beheaded by three Greek soldiers. Again, the choice to cast a non-white woman here is clearly deliberate. The victims of the Greeks mirror the marginalized in the contemporary West.

Anne Hathaway as Penelope also points out some of the hypocrisies of Greek culture, lamenting that despite serving on the throne for twenty years while her husband is away and her son is not yet of age, she is still not seen as fit to rule. When talk of “sea people” who threaten the shores of Ithaca reaches the city’s government, they insist she marry to take a king who can protect them from invaders. Of course, she later learns that the invasive “sea people” are in fact her own husband and his men, going island to island, taking what they want, gouging out eyes, burning sacred cattle, and of course committing genocide in Troy.

In short, this movie is about Palestine. Nolan came up with the idea for the film with his wife and co-producer Emma Thomas just after October 7th, 2023. He officially announced it in an interview that he took part in on October 7th, 2024. The actors all have American accents. Nolan changes Agamemnon’s motivation so that he’s just using Helen as a pretense to go to war for economic reasons. Nolan was in attendance for Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar acceptance speech for The Zone of Interest where he said “our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present.” The central running theme of Nolan’s Odyssey is that anyone can be a god, taking the dehumanization trend and flipping it in a way that leaves Odysseus, Menelaus, and Agamemnon as perpetrators, who lose their own humanity the second they stop applying it to others.

Regardless of intentionality, the reading of Nolan’s work is supported in the text pretty clearly. That is not, however, the reading of it most critics are focusing on. Instead, the movie is being heralded as yet another amazing meta-commentary on cinema, with the importance of storytelling playing a central role. Whether Nolan cares or even feels this is incorrect is not likely to be fully known or understood, but any reading that doesn’t view this as a condemnation of the United States and its allies is at best incomplete, which is just what Nolan deserves.

Despite the critical success of Uncut Gems, Sandler did not win Best Actor for his role. Many cited his numerous awful performances in terrible comedies as weighing down any meaningful Oscar campaign; his reputation made it impossible for anyone to view him as anything other than a clown. Nolan too is likely to be remembered as a talented, but very navel-gazing director. For much of his career, this has been the case. For these last two films, it seems he seeks to explore more, whether he’s recognized for it or not.

There is not a single person within the Democratic Party, or writing for any of the major newspapers in the United States, or on a major news network that believes rape is disqualifying to hold public office. This may sound speculative, but it’s a very measurable reality that anyone can play along with at home: simply take a person within one of those groups and Google their name plus Clinton, or Iraq War, or Afghanistan, or Israel, or even just Veterans Day or Memorial Day. Prior to the actual accusation against Platner, one of the main groups pushing pseudo-accusations was a former head of “Women for Kavanaugh,” the far more credibly accused rapist Supreme Court Justice. None of these people care about rape, and when it comes to policy positions, they often directly or indirectly support the mass rape of millions through US foreign policy. In fact, if Platner really has committed one rape (which given that he’s a former troop seems like a low figure), that would put him at the very bottom of the “rapes caused” leaderboard when compared to every other US senator or congressperson.

Read more

This odd piece of cartoon history has been discussed to death, with the backlash to the backlash to the backlash already being well worn ground. However, with the airing of the recent finale of the animated series The Amazing Digital Circus, there seems to be a repetition of some of the broader themes. What’s particularly noteworthy is that, unlike Steven Universe, The Amazing Digital Circus, and its somehow simultaneously enigmatic and exceptionally vocal creator Gooseworx, isn’t a show that, because of its demographic, has to mask many of its more complex themes somewhat. In fact, the midform YouTube series is perhaps so transparent with what it wants to say, if it weren’t so brief in its run it could easily be accused of being a little over the top in its messaging. Yet, the discourse left in its wake seems to bring up a question that Steven Universe once generated: are adult fans of animation illiterate?

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

(This is a list of who we believe WILL be the primary candidate; it is NOT a list of preferences. In fact my preference is all these people [Tucker made me redact this part].)

10. Josh “Holes in the Head” Shapiro (-3)

Dylan James Harper Analysis: At this point, it almost feels silly to include him. Not only does he seem to be a magnet for bad press, he never seems to be able to respond well to it. He’s like a pitcher that can hardly throw a strike, and when he does it’s right down broadway.

Tucker Joesph Pinochi Analysis: Consider this: when Donald Trump won in 2016, he had already been a major driver of national political discourse since 2012. None of the figures who could fit this description are in that position today. (Cuban, Stewart, McConaughey, Oprah, etc.) Similarly, there is no Eisenhower-level figure among military leadership that has the stature this would require. I think “Celebrity” doesn’t belong on the list, which would make room to resolve some of those ties down below… but that’s for later.

9. Rapheal Warnock

DJH: I don’t want to remove him, but it’s getting hard to see where the momentum would come from. The most his name has been in the news is in relationship to someone else on this list, never a good sign. He could still hang around for VP, but don’t expect to see him here next month.

TJP: I’m pretty comfortable saying he won’t run, and that VP might not even be of interest to him either. His choice to platform AOC at Ebenezer Baptist suggests he’s more interested in building power from his Senate seat. If Georgia continues trending blue, it’s very easy to imagine Warnock as a national party kingmaker from his comfortable perch in the Senate.

8. “Mayor” Pete Buttigieg (-2)

DJH: The desperation is practically wafting off of him, like a cartoon dumpster. His recent proposal to get rid of the electoral college is far too little, far too late, and kind of nonsensical. THe time to push that was after Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but now it just isn’t going to resonate in the same way. It still of course would be an improvement, but it’s hardly the centerpiece of a new rhetorical campaign. Support for it is low, but has actually risen over the past year. This is where the association with Biden hurts as well. You snaked Bernie to get in his cabinet, and so if you believed in this that strongly, why didn’t you do something about it then?

TJP: Ditto - #8 feels like a perfectly reasonable placement for Senator Kelly. Feels like a shoe-in for a respectable but insufficient showing in the primary, or a longshot to go all the way. I think that, like Shapiro, Mayor Pete is pretty far gone from the national conversation. As more charming, more progressive millennial candidates build influence across the party, his coalition for a Democratic primary makes even less sense than it did during his failed 2020 bid.

7. “Gruesome” Gavin Newsom (-4)

DJH: The new recent poll everyone is discussing actually has him lower than Pete. The latest headline he generated was about making a coin with Steve “Pina Colonic” Jobs’ face on it. There’s still a pathway to victory as “generic white guy” but even that lane is getting really crowded. The most telling sign at all that his momentum is stalled is that Trump has barely bothered to mention him for a while now.

TJP*: Gavin Newsom’s status as the governor of the nation’s largest blue state and thirst for blood were, for a while, enough to make Democratic primary voters seriously consider him as their 2028 candidate. As it stands, he is being eclipsed by younger, more appealing candidates who check a box he never could: offering a positive, humanist vision that goes beyond nostalgia for the heady days of post-Clinton liberalism.

* - Tucker was forced at gun point to complete this section while sleep deprived in a Delta Airlines holding room at an unspecified airport.

6. “Posting” Ro Khanna

DJH: This is a baffling placement to me, and I’m the one who made it. Yet it is undeniable that there’s increasingly some weird momentum behind him. It doesn’t really seem sustainable, but at some point you can only see him on people’s short lists so many times before you start to wonder if they know something you don’t. I reserve the right to fully remove him from the list, but I feel compelled to include him, if for no other reason than so I can have the joy of smugly removing him later.

TJP: Absolutely not – he simply does not have the juice to sell his own candidate profile. Awkward, wealthy Silicon Valley guy who has only ever served in the House does not sell like plucky bartender-to-Congresswoman. His brightest future is as a sometimes-powerful committee chair in the next Democratic Congress. If you wanted, he could be on a cabinet shortlist, but this man has absolutely no chance of winning a Democratic primary.

5. Kamala Harris (-1)

DJH: All the discourse around her seems to be why she doesn’t seem to be able to hold her position as a front runner. Even her most fervent supporters are starting off their rhetoric by making excuses for her previous losses. The mystery of her electoral ineptitude is easily solved, however, when one simply remembers why Biden chose her: because she’s inept. Her lack of charisma, horrific electoral instincts, and lack of direction ideologically all point to someone who is going to fade as soon as others catch up on name recognition. However, that recognition persists, and it’s overall somewhat of a weak field, so dismissing her entirely also seems risky. I also am going to get out in front early and predict the possibility of her playing spoiler to a further left candidate, should one arise. It’s unlikely that context would arise, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

TJP: I want to contest this downgrade, but I can’t in spite of my reservations about the analysis. The recent buzz around other, younger candidates risks highlighting the reasons she hasn’t won a national election. I think that her post-midterm rebrand will be instructive, and I’m keeping an eye out for how she interacts with basically-confirmed candidates like AOC. It may not be enough, but as of now she still can’t be discounted as the clear frontrunner for the southern state primaries. That still means a lot.

4. Mark Kelly (+3)

DJH: Trump’s continued focus on him seems to keep fueling an upward trajectory. Along with Newsom, he is also a sort of “generic white guy” figure that appeals to a certain type of liberal voter who would have one believe that the reason Clinton and Harris lost was demographically determined, rather than an indictment on their skills as politicians, or even their actual policy positions. Politically, Kelly offers very little, but that hasn’t stopped him from creeping along, surpassing Beshear and Shapiro, and steadily making his way in polling towards Harris, who is moving in the opposite direction. What will be difficult for him is when he has to answer a single policy question. Expect a big drop.

TJP: I don’t think he’s faded enough to be removed from the list, but this upgrade for Kelly is baffling to me. Brighter stars are eating up a lot of the attention, and will continue to do so until there’s none left for the generic white guys. Kelly is VP material, at best, but if he has to be on this list he certainly shouldn’t be above Harris. Consider this also: our last truly bald president held office before the famous Nixon-Kennedy debate. Can a cue ball, even a highly decorated and perhaps qualified one, go the distance in the era of mass media? I don’t think so.

3. James “Texas” Talarico (+2)

DJH: There’s a bizarre subset of very online Kamala voters who treat Talarico’s ascendancy as an apocalypse. It’s unclear what, other than the defeat of Crockett, a fate that she completely self-imposed, prompts the vitriol, but if it was meant to slow his momentum, it has failed miserably. It’s tempting to put Talarico in the one slot, but him losing badly in his Senate bid is still a distinct possibility. A win, however, would put the new Texas senator in prime contention.

TJP: Unthinkable to me that his chances have climbed before we know the results of the 2026 election. Unless he achieves a blowout that another Democrat can replicate without him, he’s going to be parked in the Senate for at least 6 years. Since the seat will be up next during the 2032 presidential election, he’ll be under pressure to stay put assuming he wins. A presidential election cycle is higher turnout for Republicans, and will be a huge test for the hypothetical Blexas.

2. Jon Ossoff (-1)

DJH: The top generic white guy remains probably the best positioned to become president. A Senate Democrat from a large southern state is basically the dream of the classical political playbook. He is still not committed to running, and if he’s very wise, he’ll wait and see how the field plays out. He’s dropped out of one because one does have to actually run to win.

TJP: I don’t have a lot to add to your analysis, really. He’s just as viable as before, but we’re watching AOC take up a lot of oxygen. If she manages to keep that up through the midterms, he may find himself in the VP chair (I sure hope so, anyway).

1. AOC (+1)

DJH: At this point, it would be shocking if she didn’t run, and with the latest poll putting her firmly ahead of not only the other Democratic contenders, not only above Trump, but above the elusive “generic Republican” option, it’s starting to look like winning is firmly on the table. That said, many in her own party despise her, and many in her own political lane despise her. She’ll never be left enough to respond to claims that she’s a shill who has been captured by the party, and she’ll never be right enough to be accepted by party leadership. Thus, she remains in this bizarre middle-left liberal lane that currently only she occupies. Fortunately for her, it seems to be a lane many in the country feel resonance towards, and the polling numbers indicate that, at the very least, there will have to be some maneuvering by the Democrats to prevent her from winning, which is a victory in and of itself.

TJP: Honestly, I think our position on the political spectrum is an impediment to our ability to see her strength. There are some loud, analytically sharp voices that share our critiques of AOC but do not carry a ton of weight in the Democratic primary or general electorates. Without a serious alternative name to put forward or a serious, end-game strategy to get a 3rd party candidate across the finish line, these left critics will mean almost nothing. She is very popular, an excellent fundraiser, and a highly sought-after endorsement. In spite of being on the left of the party, she has managed to build relationships with other parts of the coalition. Senator Warnock, one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats if we look at Georgia’s numbers, wouldn’t have been associated with her if she didn’t have broad appeal. By appearing with Senator Warnock, one of the highest-ranking and highest-profile Black Democrats, at MLK’s church, AOC showed that she is serious about bringing progressive politics to segments of the party coalition with which Bernie never broke through. How successful she is remains to be seen, but the applause doesn’t lie.

Read more

Read more

Read more

One area in particular was a question regarding budget allocations for state- and territory-level DNC outposts. Whichever Pod Jon crawled out of the tube that day to conduct the interview kept insisting that it made no sense to invest in any area without federal implications, to which Martin awkwardly responded that he didn’t care and wanted to try new strategies. The response in the comments was overwhelmingly negative, with some going so far as to say this signaled the end of their willingness to financially contribute to the party at large.

While Martin is clearly incapable, and obviously plans to continue the DNC tradition of ensuring a certain number of losses to prevent the Democrats from ever again having the requisite power necessary to achieve any kind of change, he is objectively correct here. When not committing war crimes and sabotaging elections, Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz piloted a new and innovative way to lose when they collectively served as the official and spiritual DNC leadership. Presuming that demographic changes would result in the Democrats winning every federal election forever, they completely divested from state- and local-level party infrastructure, infamously claiming the top-down approach would matter more because winning matters most.

This obviously backfired spectacularly. It turns out divesting entirely from anything other than federal races saps all energy necessary to conjure up federal victories. Clinton paid for their mistakes, although she didn’t exactly help with her own choices during the election, and the Pod Jons have been trying to talk their way around that ever since. Reinvesting in state and local infrastructure is the only chance the Democrats have of retaining any sort of long-term electoral power, but this belief is clearly not uniform within the party or its broader coalition of sycophants.

If there’s any hope at all of elections being viable as a way to reduce harm, which arguably has not been the case basically since Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats have to do more than win. They have to establish enough of a political machine that they can actually wield enough power to maintain energy levels in a post-Trump world, in between presidential elections. This isn’t likely to happen, as it has never appeared to be what the Democrats want. Building enough of a base to rally to push through Medicare for All would necessarily mean not being able to lie and pretend that there’s any desire from the Democrats to pass Medicare for All.

It was quite enjoyable to see Martin’s annoyance at the (hardly) hostile interview, like Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen annoyed that a prisoner who was only sleep deprived and malnourished was in his fake gladiator fights, rather than sleep deprived, malnourished, and drugged. Hopefully, Martin’s ego and desire to separate himself from previous DNC chairs accidentally creates a circumstance where there is some investment in state and local infrastructure that competent politicians to the left of the Democrats, like [no example located], can hijack and at least use to soften rules around unionizing and organizing in general. Even this feels unlikely, but it’s at least sufficiently intriguing that it becomes an area to watch. Expect the Obama-spawn to continue to rhetorically oppose it, for their own selfish ends.

While the temptation is to start with presidential politics, the House is actually more likely to see immediate change. Pennsylvania’s first, seventh, and eighth districts are all exceptionally competitive with Republican incumbents. About one in five likely voters are Catholic in the Keystone State, so these already close races could be heavily influenced if Pope Leo calls on Catholics to turn against common GOP agenda items. At the presidential level in 2024, Pennsylvania’s precious electoral votes (19) went to Trump by around 100,000 votes. With 2.7 million Catholics, it’s hard to imagine the downward trajectory of their support for Trump is meaningless.

Staying at the presidential level, there are four states that warrant closer examination: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Michigan has the lowest rate of Catholic voters (15%), but aside from its seventh, eighth, and tenth districts all being vulnerable, its electoral votes (15) went to Trump by a razor-thin margin. The million and a half or so Catholic voters will need to hold pretty strongly if the GOP can’t pick up ground elsewhere to maintain the state. Nevada, by contrast, has the highest percentage of the above group (25%), with a quarter of its voters describing themselves as practicing Catholics. It also very narrowly went red in 2024. As the fastest-growing state in the West by far, these numbers from the 2020 census are almost certainly out of date, but the influence of Catholics remains significant for 2028.

Arizona and Wisconsin have almost identical percentages of Catholic voters (around 21%). For Wisconsin, there will be a preview of potential impact, with its vulnerable third district already being a staunch battleground for 2026. Arizona has been a strange state as of late, with very specific internal divides. Although weak politically, it also boasts a prominent senator culturally who is likely to be both involved in the presidential election and will make anti-Trump a primary focus of his state-level campaigning. He’s going to make Trump’s tweets about the church common knowledge among his constituents.

The big question everyone wants to focus on, though, is of course Blexas — the mythical “Blue Texas” that has been a liberal fantasy for years but has never come close to materializing. Although the gap is narrowing (9 points red in 2016, 5.6 in 2020, 5.5 in 2024), it’s still an uphill climb. Texas does boast a huge Catholic population by percentage (22%) and is second in overall size only to California, but turnout among Texas Catholics is exceptionally low compared to other state Catholic populations.

What makes Texas so exceptionally difficult to turn blue, especially from the Catholic perspective, is that unlike most states where some previously red-voting Catholics, presumably turned off by Trump’s statements, stay home, Democrats will need some previous non-voters to decide to come out. Essentially, the only way Catholics matter in flipping Texas is if lower-voting Catholic populations (young and Latino primarily) decide to vote blue, and the previous Catholic voters who historically help Texas remain a red fortress stay home. That’s a very specific outcome, and it’s unclear what factors could lead to this, so remaining pessimistic about Texas seems to be the logical mood.

In general, however, Democrats should be cautiously optimistic that Trump starting a rhetorical war with the first-ever American pope will help them significantly in 2026 and 2028. The close congressional seats in these Catholic-centered states, plus the razor-thin margins the Republicans cleared to win most recently, all seem to indicate that any negative impact for the GOP may have significant ramifications.

(This is a list of who we believe WILL be the primary candidate; it is NOT a list of preferences. In fact my preference is all these people [Tucker made me redact this part].)

10. [Yet to be Named Celebrity Candidate]

Dylan James Harper Analysis: It’s always interesting when people consider Reagan as the first celebrity president, rather than Eisenhower; there’s a tendency to view “celebrity” as synonymous with “entertainment” that might overly narrow the meaning. In this case celebrity should be taken to mean anyone whose fame is distinct from politics, and holds no political office. Mark Cuban is as much a player in this realm as Jon Stewart; the latter of the two seemed to hedge recently on Iran in such a way that would only be coherent if he’s thinking a bit more longterm. While still unlikely, this category should be dismissed with extreme caution.

Tucker Joseph Pinochi Analysis: Consider this: when Donald Trump won in 2016, he had already been a major driver of national political discourse since 2012. None of the figures who could fit this description are in that position today. (Cuban, Stewart, McConaughey, Oprah, etc.) Similarly, there is no Eisenhower-level figure among military leadership that has the stature this would require. I think “Celebrity” doesn’t belong on the list, which would make room to resolve some of those ties down below… but that’s for later.

9. Raphael Warnock

DJH: It’s really hard to have him on here over Pritzker, who has the ability to self-fund, but in a primary he would have several inside tracks to historically important veins of Democratic Primary voters. It would be difficult for him to articulate exactly what he’s accomplished in his brief tenure, and ultimately that may be his undoing, but his ability to simply say “I won” will play very well given present circumstances.

TJP: I don’t hate this placement for Warnock, but it’s more because I think he’ll be drafted to remain in the Senate. He could be higher, depending on what Ossoff’s reelection margin looks like and other statewide races in Georgia. It’s worth highlighting that a Warnock candidacy would introduce some hard-to-predict variables. Without undermining the historic nature of both the Obama and Harris campaigns, Warnock would be the first Black American candidate for a major party. It feels fair to assume that this would be a potent driver for Black voter turnout in key swing states. Senator Warnock wouldn’t be just any Black American candidate, either. His predecessor in that position, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, is a giant of American history and synonymous with moral authority in the Democratic Party (even though we all know there are many Democrats who “talk the talk” without “walking the walk,” so to speak). While his accomplishments are under attack and have never been fully accepted by the conservative establishment, his position in the broader culture is secure.

8. Mark Kelly

DJH: I need Mark Kelly like I need a hole in the head! Seriously though, he isn’t even the most talented politician in his own marriage, but neither was Barack. Much like forty-four, Kelly has turned a stay in the senate into a fundraising machine. It’s undeniable that he will have the ability to maintain a lengthy primary campaign if he wants to, and the more Trump World seems to hyperfocus on him, the more he seems to be popular with a base of Democrats with Trump Derangement Syndrome. He can’t be discounted.

TJP: Ditto - #8 feels like a perfectly reasonable placement for Senator Kelly. Feels like a shoe-in for a respectable but insufficient showing in the primary, or a longshot to go all the way. If I had to add a caveat to this more or less “meh” evaluation of Kelly’s prospects, it would be to echo your point about TrumpWorld’s hyperfocus on him (and more specifically on his military record). Kelly’s track record of military and public service (combined with his relatively unthreatening moderate politics) make him a clear foil to Pete Hegseth and other Trump flunkies. These same morons are determined to highlight that track record and raise Kelly’s profile. They do so at their peril: Kelly is precisely the genre of inoffensive, 20th-century coded politician who could scratch the nation’s proverbial itch… in 2020. We’ll see how much gas is left in that tank if he decides to throw his hat in the ring.

*It is not the view of this publication that any US politician should ever be referred to by their full title.

7. Josh Shapiro + Andy Beshear

DJH: There’s going to be a unique lane I suspect for “guy that would have helped win if Harris had chosen him” that’s only wide enough for one. This should have been a shoo-in for Shapiro, but he’s been imploding faster than a skull after being stabbed repeatedly. He also seems to have that Bidenesque ability to always be on the wrong side of history, but that didn’t stop Biden. Beshear is better positioned with voters rhetorically, and executive experience consistently plays pretty well all things equal, the downside of winning in difficult areas is that you’re accountable for those areas, and there’s a lot that’s going to be thrown at him about how he handled various Kentuckian crises. Neither seem strong enough to be on here absent the Harris campaign association, but as is, they remain default front runners.

TJP: The more I think about it the less this pairing makes sense to me. Politically they may be similar (and frankly that’s already a stretch), but they are absolutely not in the same lane when it comes to the “type of guy” variable. I also think the “association with the Harris campaign” angle is exaggerated. Shapiro in particular is running to distance himself from the Harris campaign (see his uncomfortable press cycle about the inner workings of the VP selection process). All in all, I don’t hate placing each of them as six and seven, with Shapiro a bit behind Beshear. They’re more different than this description would make one think.

6. Mayor Pete Buttigieg

DJH: And who could forget dear rat boy. The CIA often gets its way when it comes to presidents, just ask the Bushes or the remaining Kennedys. The fact that Pete is even still a household name is proof enough he’s not just going to disappear into the ether like many predicted. What that will look like practically is an unknown, and there’s going to be a reluctance to back someone with any sort of demographic relevance, but like the 2019 Toronto Raptors proved, sometimes it pays to just hang around and see if luck strikes.

TJP: He should be lower, maybe swap with Warnock. He’s certainly not going away, but best he’s going to get for now is climbing up the slow Cabinet ladder.

5. James Talarico + Jasmine Crockett

DJH: We initially started this before the primary, but I’m reluctant to remove Jasmine “Despite the Loss” Crockett because she impressively made herself a household name with the type of rapidity that is hard to come about without a core group of supporters. She’s also used America’s latest quagmire to give her some much needed direction, and clearly has her eyes firmly upward. Talarico, by winning, does look strong, but he’s now in a tough spot; if he loses, he’s a loser, but if he wins, the party will want to whip him into occupying that seat for a long time. Although savvy observers have long felt that Texas’ continued Republican loyalties are far more the result of Democratic incompetence rather than it still being a GOP fortress, the perception of the red death star remains, and even threatening a state wide office there will give a lot of people a lot of confidence in either of these two.

TJP: Crockett has torpedoed her career for the foreseeable future. Running for president in 2028 is certainly out. This is a good placement for Talarico, assuming he wins the general election. Depending on the margin, this might even be too low. It’s window dressing until he has that statewide victory under his belt, but Talarico certainly has the right persona for the moment we’re living through. He’s soft spoken but confrontational; he makes room for as many people as he can in his rhetoric while maintaining maximum moral clarity. Not for nothing, he’s also a fluent speaker of one of our most important political languages: Christianity.

4. Kamala Harris

DJH: Remember, the question is who will be the Democratic primary winner, not president. She will never be president. Biden dying was her best chance, and that didn’t happen, so here she is, about to run a third losing campaign. Whether the loss is in the general or the primary remains to be seen, and because no one else has really elevated themselves, she still remains a default front runner. The two sweetest words in the English language de-fault.

TJP: I think this is reasonable, but it’s important to remember that she’s never won the primary before. That’s a worse portent than her general-election-loser baggage, in my opinion. An important variable here is how far she goes in correcting her biggest 2024 mistake: failure to skillfully and adequately distance herself from the Biden administration. She will have to figure out a new way to relate to her time as Biden’s VP, and the most satisfying option would be a repudiation of his policy of support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It’s not the only way, though. I’ll give this one caveat: three years of Trump II may make the voting public’s concerns about Biden less germane when 2028 comes around. Harris will have to be attentive to that dynamic as she decides whether, when, and how much to distance herself from her former boss.

3. Gavin Newsom

DJH: His response to Iran almost got him bumped up a spot, but ultimately Gruesome Gavin may have found himself in a tough spot. He wants to tout California as the fourth largest economy in the world, but someone on the debate stage will ask him why he didn’t utilize that to pressure Trump to tone down his increasingly hawkish foreign policy. Some of his fiercest competition from the house or senate, however, can throw their names on any bill that’s even vaguely anti-war, and will get infinitely more credit even if they go nowhere; expectations for Democrats are just that low. It’s hard to envision what his future is exactly, but the fact that this much screen time has yielded him little separation is deeply concerning for those that have invested their life savings into polymarket “Gavin for President” betting pool. The screen time plays though, as does being a relatively normal looking white man whose only scandals involve him getting laid.

TJP: Fairly apt placement for our Governor*. It’s going to depend on how much people feel they can trust him. That’s a major vulnerability - he keeps cutting contradictory sound bites, trying to work whatever audience he’s in front of. Besides hating the homeless, what does he really believe? It’s linked with the questions about using the power of his office to oppose Trump. He benefits from extremely presidential vibes, but the visuals and the presentation angle are double edged swords for Gavin. He may look like the President, but he also looks like the slick asshole boyfriend from every 90s romcom.

*Hashtag not my governor.

2. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex

DJH: It’s the best thing that could happen to the left, it’s the worst thing that could happen to the left. She seems like she’s running, and if she does, she’ll be a force. There’s a lot of Bernie energy that she’ll capture, and a lot of people who spent the last several years sobbing about identity politics as their excuse to not vote for Bernie who may feel guilted into supporting her. Will that be enough? It’s hard to say at this early stage because there’s the near impossible task to start with, which is justify why a house seat should jump to the executive branch. A mayor almost did it, but the CIA likely doesn’t love AOC with the same fervor they love Pete.

TJP: Honestly, the counter narrative about jumping from a House seat to the Presidency writes itself. She’s just skipping the Lincoln step of returning to practicing law*. The historical parallel plays to her strengths: she’ll seek to project an image of radical, generational change in response to the sclerotic old system that cannot go on. I honestly wonder if she shouldn’t be at number one.

*It is not the view of this publication that a “bar” joke should have been passed over here.

1. Jon Ossoff

DJH: He could be even higher than this and it wouldn’t be enough. He just seems like he has an iron in every fire. He came out aggressively against military action in Iran, although he hedged with the “without a plan” angle liberal hawks love (“we should do imperialism the right way!”). He supports trans people, but mostly doesn’t talk about them. He’s a white guy. He’s from a historically red state. The pragmatists will love him, the centrists will love him, the liberal right wingers will love him, and the leftists won’t really hate him because he’s a do-nothing. Far and away best position as of right this second.

TJP: I agree, with a few important qualifiers. First, I think the same possibility exists for Ossoff as for Warnock. Assuming he wins (and if he loses, lights out on 2028 in my opinion), the margin of victory is going to determine how safe it is for him to leave the Georgia seat open. Second, I think you’re underrating AOC, and that therefore this should be the only tie on the list.

Dylan’s Rankings

10. Celebrity
9. Warnock
8. Kelly
7. Shapiro + Bashear
6. Mayor Pete
5. Talarico + Crocket
4. “Can’t Win” Kamala
3. Gruesome Gavin Newscum
2. AOC
1. Ossoff

Tucker’s Rankings

10. Ruben Gallego
9. Shapiro
8. Kelly
7. Warnock
6. Beshear
5. Talarico
4. Harris
3. Newsom
2. AOC/Ossoff
1. Ossoff/AOC

Possible VPs and Cabinet Picks Bonus Round

a. Gretchen Whitmer
b. Ro Khanna
c. Michelle Lujan Grisham
d. Beto O’Rourke
e. Mayor Pete
f. Chris Murphy
g. Lisa Blunt Rochester
h. Cory Booker
i. Deb Haaland
j. JB Pritzker

Celebrities (who might run) Bonus Round

a. Stephen A. Smith
b. Matthew McConaughey
c. Jon Stewart
d. Mark Cuban
e. Howard Schultz
f. Oprah
g. George Clooney
h. James Cameron

And there you have it, a phenomenal list of people totally ill equipped and unwilling to make the necessary changes to prevent further descent and collapse. What a shrill and pointless exercise. We’re never doing this again (see you next quarter).

Read more

What specifically is it to be serious from the perspective of an American President? Was Barack Obama serious? Many would argue yes. Obama remained almost entirely scandal free throughout his presidency. The quaint criticisms of the latte salute or the tan suit were artificial. Some liberal observers have pointed out that there were “no new wars” under Obama. Is this accurate? This apparently doesn’t count operations in Libya (Operation Odyssey Dawn), or Pakistan (Operation Neptune Spear), or drone strikes in Yemen, or Syria, or SEAL operations in Somalia, or surges in Iraq (Operation Inherent Resolve), or Afghanistan, that included thirty-thousand new troops on the ground. Obama’s military actions, which included the killing of countless civilians, including the drone bombing of American citizens without trial, were all very serious.

Matthew Yglesias almost certainly wants war in Iran. In fact, his biggest fear in all likelihood when he read that the United States and Israel had begun strikes on Iran wasn’t that this was another quagmire, or that there would be blowback that would kill American civilians, and certainly not that Iranians would die despite not in any way deserving to die (which should be the singular focus for any actual opposer to this actions: Iran does not in any way deserve this), but that Trump would taint this action. He worries that Trump’s lack of seriousness will lead to military action in Iran hemorrhaging support.

The problem with military action in Iran is that it’s a cruel and unnecessary attempt to control the region that will cost countless lives for the sole purpose of the enriching of a very small group of the the bourgeois. Countless Iranians will die for no reason other than a few bottom lines. Trump’s particularly undignified approach is immaterial. The seriousness of an Obama, Clinton, Harris, Biden, or Newsom changes nothing. There will be more military conflicts in the future, and many of them are likely to be supported by very serious people.

Read more