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This Is the New York Times. We don\u2019t do hot takes here. Yeah it was a huge week for the Democrats. The party scored major victories in high profile elections in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, California. Voters were fired up. Turnout was high. Even political junkies obsessively following these races, myself included, were surprised by the severity of the spanking that Republicans took. So I want to get this party started by talking about what all of this means for Democratic Party, for the Republican Party, and where American politics are headed next. So, Jamelle and David, I want your first thoughts. Give me your headline for what Tuesday\u2019s elections say about the country at this moment. I mean, I wrote this the night of the elections, but this is just a reminder that Donald Trump has never been a particularly good vote getter for other Republicans. For himself, he\u2019s been a very effective vote getter. And he\u2019s able to turn broad unpopularity into narrow electoral wins through his ability to mobilize infrequent and low propensity voters. But when it comes to other Republicans, when he\u2019s not on the ballot, he\u2019s an albatross around their necks. And that\u2019s been consistently the case. That was true in 2017. That was true in 2018. That was true in 2022. And it\u2019s true this year. In 2025 when Trump is on the ballot, voters will turn out to vote for Donald Trump. And I think that Republicans should not dismiss this as a bunch of blue states. Had these elections gone the other way, has Spanberger underperformed the averages, had Jones lost, had Mikie Sherrill lost \u2014 which the polling suggested was a possibility \u2014 if Andrew Cuomo had won, Republicans would be crowing right now about how they\u2019ve made inroads into blue states. So what\u2019s good for the goose is good for the gander. The scale of the Democratic wins should be a flashing warning sign to the Republican Party. Not just that the national environment is very favorable to Democrats, but that voters have ceased making distinctions between Trump and other Republicans. They\u2019re treating other Republicans like they would treat Trump. And that is like the nightmare scenario. It makes it much more difficult for incumbents next year to distance themselves from the president. So I would say if I were a Republican incumbent right now, I would be like, what can I do to distance myself from Trump. And interestingly, the one Republican who seems to have gotten this message is Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all people. O.K, a couple of things. First, we do not, under any circumstances have to hand it to Marjorie Taylor Greene for anything. So this is so harsh. Not on my \u2014 Not when I\u2019m on the round table. Giving Marjorie Taylor Greene credit for anything but the \u2014 Let me look at this from the standpoint of a similar metric that Republicans used after the 2024 election to indicate that their win, in their view, was broader than maybe the final outcome indicated. This very narrow. And that all kinds of places all across America, from blue counties to red counties, they all went more red. And so that gave a lot of Republicans of idea that what we\u2019ve done is we\u2019ve started a realignment. We started to push of the whole country more in this rightward direction. But if you apply the same analysis now, everything went blue late in the evening on Tuesday. It looked as if every single Republican, counting every single Virginia County was more blue in 2025 than it was obviously in 2021. And so applying that same metric, that would be a real warning sign for Republicans. Second, I really agree with Jamelle. I mean, we have been down this road for 10 years now. The MAGA world does not tend to do well when they\u2019re not named Donald Trump, unless they\u2019re in a super, super, super red place. When I was writing my book several years ago at the tail, at the very beginning of the pandemic, when I was wrapping it up, I did this thing where I went and I looked back at the rhetoric around every election cycle. So whether it was Bush winning reelection in 04, the Democrats having a big 06, Obama\u2019s ascendance in 08, the Tea Party revolution in 2010, and the rhetoric was always the same. It was, we\u2019ve cracked the code, we\u2019ve figured it out. We\u2019ve got the realignment. It is. We\u2019re winning from now on. And so you had that exact same rhetoric after Trump won in 2024. But if you have a memory greater than a goldfish that unless you actually sit down, hunker down and govern well and deal with core concerns of constituents, your victory is ephemeral. And so what did Trump do. He didn\u2019t sit down and focus like a laser on inflation and grocery prices and all of that stuff. He launched his vengeance tour. He has squandered the goodwill that he had when he was inaugurated and near record speed. Maybe the only speed that eclipsed it is his first squandering in 2017. It\u2019s not to be fair, David. He did build. He is building a glorious ballroom. I mean, that is what we all voted for. O.K can I say something that might sound lunacy? I think the ballroom might have mattered to people a little bit more than I thought. I think so too. I think so too. Yeah and I\u2019ll tell you why I think that. Because it\u2019s visual. It\u2019s visual. Oh, everything with him is visual. Well, the rule of law is not visual. I mean, the Constitution. I mean, you can see it in a case. But as a general matter for people, the Constitution is not visible. Corruption, unless you actually have it recorded on video is not super visible. But you tear down the White House without asking anybody\u2019s permission, and it\u2019s a living symbol that he\u2019s gone rogue. It\u2019s a very visual representation that he\u2019s gone rogue. I think it didn\u2019t do any many favors. I\u2019m sorry to take us down that rabbit hole, but. But I want to totally agree with both of you on the matter of the electorate. So I believe that the electorate tends to be thermostatic from one election to the next. And by that you see it in Virginia, especially whatever party\u2019s in the White House one year. The next year when they do the governor\u2019s election, they almost always go the opposite way. They did it again this year. So with individual races, individual cycles, I see that happening. But then I also am a firm believer longer term and that politics is a cycle. That wheel of fortune is coming back around to bite you on the [expletive] at some point, especially and it goes slower or faster in part, depending on how much overreach a party plays with. But I think certainly in this narrow off year race, we saw the thermostatic at play, but also a kind of hopeful that I smell a cycle starting to shift and people are going to start moving back in a different direction than what we\u2019ve been embracing for the last few years. Hope springs eternal, but I agree that it\u2019s not just New Jersey or New York, or Virginia. We had the Georgia Public Utilities Commission give Democrats two extra seats by some enormous margin. I mean, you saw Pennsylvania Democrats managed to hold their Supreme Court majority against their state Supreme Court majority against what expectations were. It was a serious, thorough thumping. So if I were Republicans right now, I\u2019d be sweating it. I got to say, some of so much of this was predictable. I mean, beyond the fact of Trump being bad for down ballot Republicans. What do you expect to happen when you give Elon Musk, Russell Vought and Stephen Miller control the federal government to let them do as they please. There\u2019s two reasons that\u2019s why. That\u2019s why that was an insane choice. The first, of course, is that these are ideological extremists, right. Who\u2019s own personal agendas are divergent from that of the American public, and have really nothing to do with what voters thought they were voting at least the critical voters thought they were voting for the 2024 election. But the other thing, and this is, I think, a little underrated, is that they\u2019re not politicians. They\u2019re just ideologues. They just have these substantive goals, and they do not or are unwilling to moderate or weigh those substantive goals against political realities, against the likely reactions from voters and lawmakers and civil society. And so if you were just if you were hell bent on pursuing your ideological agenda, voters are going to respond very angrily because voters generally do not like hard ideologues. They may be willing to tolerate and support, kind of like a set of ideological principles. In the Reagan era, small government and the F.D.R. era, a governor, an interventionist government, but the kind of hard, ideological, rigid approach they do not like. And what\u2019s strange to me, honestly, is the extent to which a lot of people a prominent political observers, business leaders, civil society leaders somehow got it in their minds that the country had become permanently MAGA. And so, political gravity no longer exists. None of that matters. So bye bye. It\u2019s just this Tuesday demonstrates the shortsightedness of so many people in the wake of Trump\u2019s reelection. I keep thinking back to 2024, and I remember writing about this at the time there. If you followed Trump at the rallies, that was one reality. If all you followed Trump by was commercials on TV or social media ads or whatever. Like you\u2019re a disengaged voter, one of those low propensity voters that you talked about where you\u2019re not getting really your news from anywhere, you\u2019re just living your life. And politics intrudes on it in some ways, mainly through TV commercials, et cetera. Then there were just two totally different candidates running for president. The rally Trump was vengeance. Conspiracies, vengeance conspiracies. \u201cFor hard working Americans, November 5 will be our new liberation day. But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and impostors who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day.\u201d The TV commercial Trump was inflation, immigration, inflation, immigration. \u201cWe have created seven million new jobs and it led to a growth like we\u2019ve never seen before. We developed the greatest economy in history by far.\u201d And those that was commercial Trump and commercial. Trump is the one who really won the election. Not rally Trump, but rally Trump is the one who\u2019s governing the country. The Trump administration in a lot of ways misread it\u2019s victory in a pretty dramatic fashion. It was not a mandate to pardon all the Jan. 6-ers. It was not a mandate to go after every dissenting law firm in America. It was not a mandate to put masked police all over the streets of American cities and engage in gross and brutal acts of violence out in public on a nearly daily basis, it was not a mandate to engineer military deployments to American cities on obviously false fake pretexts. So look, none of this should be surprising. This wasn\u2019t what he was elected by the big mass of people who are not MAGA. Yeah now you will find on Twitter all the time this sentiment where it\u2019s a very brutal video or a very vicious statement from Trump. And people will say, I voted for this, or the grainy videos of the drone strikes or the airstrikes in outside of Twitter\u2019s still not real life. But that\u2019s what I\u2019m saying. That\u2019s not real life. They have convinced themselves it is. And then the other thing here that unless the Republicans course correct, unless they get this through their head, they\u2019re going to continue to have this problem, is that there\u2019s no sign that the administration itself is really keeping its eye on the public, as opposed to this weird, bespoke world of right wing influencers. This is how they\u2019re gauging themselves a lot is how is their right wing podcast world or the right wing Twitter world reacting to me. And they\u2019re exquisitely sensitive about that. And they don\u2019t give a rip about normal political metrics and measures and normal political rhetoric. And so if they keep doing this, we\u2019re not at their floor yet. We\u2019re nowhere near their floor. And they have been they have been consoling themselves anytime they feel nervous with the idea that Democrats are even less popular than they are. So this was the first time since Trump\u2019s reelect voters have had a substantial opportunity to push back. And they have. So I want to get into a little bit of the juicy details on this, because again, the early evidence is that it\u2019s not just that more Democrats turned out, which they did, but also that there were votes stolen from Trump voters. Not oh my God, I don\u2019t want to say that there were votes. Stop the steal. No, the stop the. Stop the steal, Michelle. That people who were supporting Trump shifted over to the blue team. So we\u2019ve talked about how the toxic. The brand is for Democrats. But what happened here. I mean, my read of this is that obviously you have voters with strong and deeply felt partisan identities. But like a lot of voters, their sense of either party is very conditional and provisional. It depends on the broad set of messages they\u2019re getting from all the different kinds of sources that are in their life, whether that\u2019s media or social media or family or friends or what have you. And when it comes to the Democratic Party, I think that first in an election year, top of the ticket candidates have an opportunity to define the party\u2019s brand to a certain extent. They can\u2019t fully define it. But for the voters that they\u2019re reaching to they can create their sense of what a Democrat is. And in Virginia and in New York City and in New Jersey, even to an extent, the brand that the top of the ticket Democrats created was like, hey, we want these jobs. First of all, we\u2019re happy to serve you, right. This is Mamdani\u2019s big thing. Like, he always has a smile on his face. It\u2019s very clear that part of his brand is like, I want to be mayor of New York, and I want to serve you, but Spanberger as well. So much of her appeal to voters. So much of her pitch to voters wasn\u2019t just wasn\u2019t even I\u2019m anti-trump but said, I really want to be governor and I really want to be governor to serve you in that sense of service. And then the relentless focus on affordability that you saw in all the top of the ticket Democratic campaigns, I think, just created a positive impression of the Democratic Party for the voters that these candidates are reaching out to. The other thing, and I think the shutdown is something to play with this when you drill down in polls of the Democratic party\u2019s low popularity, I\u2019d say half of it is just general anti-party sentiment voters just don\u2019t like political parties. And I\u2019d say like a solid third of it is Democrats themselves. Self-identified Democrats are deep partisan feeling, saying, I wish the party would be more aggressive. I wish they would fight back. I wish they wouldn\u2019t be a bunch of weenies. And the shutdown, in a funny way, Democrats kind of holding the line on the shutdown may have served to improve the party\u2019s position with its own voters because voters can say, oh, look, Democrats aren\u2019t backing down. They\u2019re doing what we want them to do. And I would bet that this has also contributed to just more positive feeling. Now, I feel like the big lesson people need to take from everything, from all politics, is that nothing is static. Nothing stays the same. Like there\u2019s no such thing as a singular majority. There\u2019s no such thing as a singular people. Everything is fluid. Everything moves. Everything changes. And so for Democrats, having won this victory, they have to actually do things to maintain the momentum in the respective states. They actually have to deliver the things they promised they would deliver. And for the legislative party, it needs to. I think it continues to adopt this posture of opposition right to continuously signal to voters that if you put us back into power, we are going to fight for you. And then if they get into power, they have to deliver on this they have to deliver and they do not deliver. The thermostatic public will react accordingly. When you look at New Jersey and Virginia in particular, I think one thing that\u2019s interesting about both candidates is that both candidates in New Jersey and Virginia, really, they don\u2019t fit well with Republican messaging about what the Democratic Party is. So Republican messaging for a long time, especially, include especially including Republican messaging on Republican networks like Fox and Newsmax et cetera has been to basically cast the median Democrat as a 2020 rioter. So that. And I\u2019m only slightly exaggerating here that the median Democrat is an absolute wild eyed radical. And so may have your qualms about Trump or you may in ordinary times, not be super excited about, masked people in the streets. But these people, these people are the worst. They\u2019re horrific. And so then you have Spanberger, Sherrill, and they present about as opposite from that as you can imagine. They to neither one of them sets the world on fire in the charisma category. But in many ways, that\u2019s actually a little bit in their favor. So I think that the Democrats did a good job running people who were just living contradictions to a lot of Republican messaging. And I do feel like in some ways that Republican messaging and it will keep up because this is the irresistible momentum of the moment. On the right is everything is taken to 11. Everything is hyperbole that you\u2019re going to continue to see this. But if the Democrats are tacking towards reasonable, normal, O.K, where they\u2019re tacking towards somebody that you wouldn\u2019t be afraid if your kids are around them too much, then you\u2019re talking about a situation in which they\u2019re just going to be a living contradiction to a lot of Republican messaging. And the Republicans live in that alternative universe, the more vulnerable they\u2019re going to be. This is something that I\u2019ve did a lot of reporting into this year, the kind of national security moms, which Abigail Spanberger has a background in the C.I.A. and federal law enforcement. And Mikie Sherrill was military for years. And it\u2019s this interesting combination where I talked to some Democrats who were pointing out that the caricature of a national Democrat is weak, woke, and whiny. And both of these women kind of just you can\u2019t stick that to them. They tried to paint them as extremists in certain ways, but you can\u2019t paint them as soft on crime. Like you\u2019d want to. Abigail Spanberger did counterterrorism work for the C.I.A. These are not weak, woke, whiny, but at the same time, because they\u2019re moms and they can talk about their kids and their concerns about schools and jobs and economies and safety, and housing. I traveled on the trail with Spanberger a fair amount. And it was great to see that she could take those criticisms and just kind of jujitsu them to her advantage. So I agree that with governors in particular, there is this opportunity to redefine the brand because you\u2019re not having to worry about all those team dynamics. And I think both of them did a good job. But all three of them, I just want to stress again, what did they focus on. All three of them focused on affordability. Their opponents tried their best to make this about the culture wars in Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears aired ads that were explicitly anti-trans, trying to paint Abigail Spanberger as very extremist on this. She even had the riff that they had used on Kamala last time, which is that Abigail Spanberger is for they\/them. I\u2019m for you. But it did not work. And I think you have gotten to the heart of why that is. David it\u2019s like they weren\u2019t addressing the actual candidates they were running against. They were running against the national brand Yeah, exactly. I mean, other than the affordability, did you guys detect other through lines with the high profile races we\u2019ve been talking about. I think affordability is the big thing. There\u2019s been this ongoing debate about what Democrats should do. But I think to an extent, what you see, what they should do is they should run candidates that fit the particular areas that they are campaigning for. And they should those campaigns should be voter focused. They should listen to what the voters are talking about, what voters care about, and then focus on that and where ideology or approach might come in. And district comes in as how does a candidate interpret what that means. So Mamdani in New York City is hearing voters say, I care about cost of living and being his political background and his sense of how things should go. He says, oh, I\u2019m going to address that with these more government focused solutions. But I\u2019m a big believer in let the candidates figure out what works for them in their particular situations and let the candidates do the kind of serious outreach to voters that can only come through. Campaigning can\u2019t come through. Focus groups can\u2019t come. Well, that was one of the things Mamdani was so great at. Like, a lot of his stuff won\u2019t translate out necessarily outside of New York. And he just has that very intangible it quality that you cannot train like Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill never going to be never going to be that. But he also just worked his butt off like he got out there, talked to voters, built a ground game. And he had the good fortune of being up against Andrew Cuomo, who thought he was entitled to this whole job. But you\u2019re right. He was out there listening. And I think that if I had to diagnose a problem with Democratic Party politics over the last half decade, it is not just a defensive crouch. It\u2019s not just a timidity, but it\u2019s this. It\u2019s this. We can moneyball this. And it\u2019s is like you just have to have candidates who are willing to work their asses off, who are willing to from dawn till dusk, be campaigning, always be campaigning, always be. And that\u2019s not going to guarantee a win, but it can set you up. It can set up the conditions for winning. And it\u2019s a thing. It\u2019s an approach that\u2019s translatable. I want to know that in Virginia, Democrats swept the House of Delegates winning. They have a 64 seat majority going into next year, which is wild, right. That\u2019s a really impressive sweep. And part of what the Virginia Democratic Party did was just run candidates everywhere. Every single house of delegates district had a Democrat running. And they got some of them got lucky. And to me, that\u2019s the formula. Work hard, listen to voters. And the contrast you\u2019re making with your opponent is that I\u2019m actually interested in representing you. I\u2019m not running to be the president\u2019s little soldier. I\u2019m not running to fight a culture war. I\u2019m running to represent you. All right, before we shift over to a post-mortem for the Republican Party, I did want to just dig into one more point, which is that both Spanberger and Sherrill won Latinos by a two-to-one margin this time around, according to exit polls. Obviously, there\u2019s been a lot of hand-wringing about the rightward shift among Latinos in the Trump era. And with good reason. But what do we make of this particular shift back. Ooh, Michelle, I got stuff to say about this one. Hit me. O.K So if you go back to my rally Trumpist versus commercial Trumpist, this is where it\u2019s very salient because a lot of your Latino voters who shifted for Trump, what was the situation there. For a lot of them, there were actual concerns about immigration. You had a lot of working class Hispanic men in particular, who moved Republican. This is a group of people who were facing directly as working class folks and as folks along the border, the two worst failures of the Biden administration, which were immigration and inflation. And so they\u2019re receiving the brunt of it. So what does Trump do when he comes in. When Trump comes in. He treats all these New Hispanic voters like they\u2019re rally Trumpists. And he thinks for what. How does anyone think for half a second that you can go and start stopping anyone you know who speaks with a Spanish accent, or when you somebody who looks Hispanic or somebody who\u2019s speaking Spanish that you can now start stopping them, detaining them in brutal, sometimes in brutal conditions, disappearing them for days at a time. This is insanity. How did you think that you would retain a Hispanic shift by then winning a presidential election and beginning a nationwide racial profiling spree. Republicans, for a lot of very good reasons, took great pride in assembling a much more multiracial, working class coalition. That is something that I think Republicans have been looking for a very long time, is how does this party become more diverse. How does it become more multiracial? And in 2024, it did. And then now, what\u2019s one of the most salient issues that the G.O.P. is dealing with in 2025? It\u2019s the shocking realization that all of a sudden there\u2019s a lot of these young fascists, literally fascists in their midst, and this has become the dominant focus. For the last several days, in particular, after Tucker Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes, you\u2019re not going to keep together a multiracial coalition when you hand the keys to the car to a collection of online edgelords. But that\u2019s what\u2019s happening. So yeah, I mean, there\u2019s an extent to which if you organize a pogrom against people probably going to vote against you, they\u2019re going to take that. Jamelle, Jamelle. Take that real personal. We don\u2019t this is the New York Times. We don\u2019t do like hot takes here. Yeah, yeah. So, David, I was going to do target you as the formerly proud Republican. In the group. The party has just gotten a complete reality. Brutal reality check. What do you want to see. Or do you have any hope of seeing from Republican lawmakers who must be very nervous heading into heading into the midterms. But at the same time, it\u2019s not like Trump is going to ease up on them. He\u2019s not going to give them room. So what do they do. David what do they. This is a great question. I mean, I think you are already seeing the post-trump infighting emerging that is happening all around us. It\u2019s just no one is treating Trump directly like a lame duck, but they\u2019re already understanding that Trump is not going to be around forever. Just below the surface below all of this, unity behind Trump is the realization that nobody really knows what this coalition is going to look like going forward. Because one thing that Republicans did in 2024 is they created this pretty big tent that just had one condition for membership, and that\u2019s the red hat. If you put on the red hat, you\u2019re with us. Well, what happens when Mr. Red Hat is gone. And so prepare to see more and more infighting. But also, I would say, prepare to see an emerging resurrection of normie Republicanism because get out maybe I\u2019m wildly optimistic. I\u2019m \u2013\u00a0Michelle, maybe this is the worst aging comet I\u2019ll ever make. I love it, but if you break the sense that MAGA is the inevitable future of the party, is there a path for a change. But if there\u2019s one thing that we\u2019ve learned there, MAGA is not in control of its own electoral fate right now. O.K, well, the last electoral outcome that I want to get to before we shift gears is California redistricting. So Trump has been heading up this big push to rig the playing field in his favor. He\u2019s been pushing all these Republican state legislatures to redraw their congressional maps Texas, Missouri, Ohio. But on Tuesday, voters in big blue California were like, fine, we think we\u2019re going to gerrymander, too. Now, does the election in general that we\u2019ve just seen suggest that maybe trying to slice and dice the electorate whenever the mood strikes carries some risk. There\u2019s the flow that we\u2019re talking about. It\u2019s not a static situation. I should this be a warning about the redistricting craze as well. My view is that if I were a Republican incumbent who is living in a place that they\u2019re trying to do mid-decade redistricting, I would ask them to stop. I think gerrymandering, for good reasons, rightfully is a scorned term. It\u2019s basically kind of a boogeyman. But I think people I think that it\u2019s status as that kind of makes it hard for people to understand what it is. I think people imagine it is that you\u2019re creating new voters somehow. But no, you\u2019re shuffling around existing voters and in places that are already very gerrymandered, it\u2019s actually quite difficult to create more safe seats without sacrificing some safe seats. And what could very easily happen. Think, think about it as you have a bunch of if you\u2019re trying to do a Republican gerrymander and you have a bunch of dark red squares, moderately red squares and light red squares, and then a couple deep blue squares, and you want to make one of those deep blue squares a red square. Well, the only place you can actually get more red from is your deep red squares. So you move the red over and you make one of those blue squares a light red square. But all of a sudden you now have less red squares, and that\u2019s fine if everything\u2019s static. But if all of a sudden you have a big demographic shift, oh, let\u2019s say you were counting on Hispanic voters to break evenly for you, but now they\u2019re breaking against you two to one. All of a sudden, your gerrymander, far from protecting your seats, ends up wiping them all out. And I think that Tuesday suggests that you\u2019re going to have a very strong Democratic national environment next year, and that a gerrymander designed to pick up more seats may actually end up becoming what is known as a \u201cdummy-mander\u201d I do like that term. A redistricting that ends up helping your opponent. And so my hunch is that this is actually going to put a brake on all of this. And the fact that Democratic states are willing to go for tat, I think, also pushes against the inclination, that willingness, that willingness to just play hardball may end up de-escalating the situation, which for me is vindication for my view that you kind have to play hardball to end hardball everyone has to be willing to pull the trigger to get people to put their guns down Trump responded to all of Tuesday night with a little Truth Social tantrum, blaming Republicans for this in part because of the shutdown. And then just this week, the F.A.A. has taken the shutdown pain a step farther. They\u2019re going to have a reduction of percent of air travel flights into certain major hubs. This is only going to make people surlier. What do you think Tuesday does to the shutdown dynamic. I mean, if I were a Republican in Congress, I would be like, we gotta end this thing. The problem is the president has no interest in good faith negotiation. That I mean, he doesn\u2019t even really know how to do it. And the whole administration\u2019s attitude towards everything is I wrote this in my column this week. It\u2019s all stick and no carrot. We get it all. We\u2019re going to try to beat you into submission, and we\u2019re never going to offer any concessions. I think this F.A.A. thing is probably necessary given the strain on air traffic controllers, but it\u2019s going to tick off America. America does not like it when you mess with their holiday travel. And they seem to think that if we just make people angry enough, they\u2019ll blame Democrats. And that\u2019s not working. Well look, this is an administration that is absolutely allergic to compromise. It\u2019s a party right now that a national party right now that\u2019s absolutely allergic to compromise. And so I don\u2019t know that I see this shutdown ending anytime soon to be honest. And what incentive did the Democrats have to end it right now. They just had an election in the middle of a shutdown that they were definitely not punished for. But I honestly think the more this goes, the shutdown will not be viewed as some separate thing. It will be viewed as one part of the overall Trump chaos. It\u2019s just one not to use a Dungeons & Dragons term, but as a nerd, I have to. It\u2019s like just one side of the 20 sided dice of chaos. O.K, so we\u2019ve had our Dungeons & Dragons nod. So I think it\u2019s time to move on to recommendations for the week. What you got for me? Who\u2019s going first? I\u2019ll go first. I watched Barry Levinson\u2019s \u201cWag the Dog\u201d for the first time this week. Oh, you are way behind that curve. I\u2019m very much behind that curve. I was. Seven years old when that movie came out. So you\u2019ll forgive me. Oh, Jamelle. Eight years old. I was a child when that movie came out. So you\u2019ll forgive me. No excuse. Really, I watch movies in the 1950s, but it\u2019s. I\u2019m going to recommend it because it\u2019s such an interesting time capsule. It is both an incredibly cynical picture of the American public, but also not cynical enough in a lot of ways. For example, the precipitating incident is that the president might have had an affair, and that\u2019s what demands that they have to manufacture this fake war. And it\u2019s like today, if news came down that the president had an affair, that would be like a two hour news story. No one would care. Also, fun fact the movie comes out before the Lewinsky scandal breaks. That I did not remember at all. There\u2019s a whole set of movies basically beginning from when Clinton gets into office that I like to describe as what do you do with a horny president movies. Oh, God. And \u201cWag the Dog\u201d is one of them. The American president\u2019s one of them. There\u2019s a bunch of them. David? All right, so this is a streaming recommendation. Big shock, big shock, but with a caveat. O.K O.K. So there are some listeners who may have watched some documentaries on this family from South Carolina named the Murdaughs or Murdaughs. Sorry, this is a gothic Southern murder mystery story about a very powerful family of South Carolina low-country lawyers, and Hulu has done a miniseries about it. It\u2019s got some great people in it. And I will tell you this, having grown up in the small town south, I love and hate this show at the same time. Here\u2019s what I love about it. It\u2019s really captured the good old boy of small town Southern power, captured it very well. Here\u2019s what I hate about it. It has really captured the good old boy of Southern life very well. Because what it does, it reminds me of a lot of the people I knew growing up in a small town South. Now, thankfully, I did not grow up around any lawyer murderers, thankfully. But as far as the disposition, the temperament, the use of connections, the way in which people escape, accountability. All of that stuff is right there in front of you, and it\u2019s a slice of life in a particular kind of American corruption that is both captivating and repellent and repulsive at the same time. O.K O.K. I\u2019m here for it. I grew up not a small town South, but exurban South, suburban South. I\u2019m sure I will recognize some of these fine folks and all of my relatives in the process. O.K, so I\u2019m going completely different. I\u2019m going. Pomegranates. It\u2019s pomegranate season people. The juice or the little cups of sad seeds that you\u2019ll see sometimes it is time for the big, honking, red, juicy pomegranate. My family is obsessed with them. It\u2019s one of the fruits that a little bit like tomatoes. It depends seriously, what time of year it is as to what you\u2019re getting. And a good pomegranate in the fall. I got to go for it. They\u2019re a complete mess and they will dye your entire house red. And it will look like you slaughtered small animals with all the juice everywhere. But it\u2019s \u2013 It\u2019s worth it. Go I was going to say big, honking and juicy is how they were described in the \u201cSong of Solomon.\u201d That\u2019s a joke for you, David. I get that. I get that. I can\u2019t take you guys anywhere. What are we doing to this podcast. I know. On that note, I\u2019m just going to shut this down. We\u2019re landing this plane. You two are dismissed. Thank you so much. Let\u2019s do it again. See you next time. Bye, guys. Thank you, Michelle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This Is the New York Times. We don\u2019t do hot takes here. Yeah it was a huge week for the Democrats. The party scored major victories in high profile elections…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[7750,57,908,7749],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n