Homicide Rewatch: Baby It's You (Law And Order Crossover)

 

 Written by Jorge Zamacona (both shows)

Directed by Ed Sherin (both shows)

 

Given the immense ratings for 1996's crossover with Law & Order, it made sense that NBC had demanded a sequel as possible. However Dick Wolf and Tom Fontana waited two years in order to avoid the logistical challenges that had burdened them the first time.

Last time Universal had insisted that the Law & Order episode be self-contained for the purposes of syndication. This time, however, Wolf made it very clear that this had to be a two-part story told across two shows. (Wolf would continue this pattern as the Law & Order spin-offs became more prominent and would do the same with his Chicago series at a more intense level, eventually having them take place on a single night.

Once again Zamacona and Sherin reprised their duties from the previous crossover and this time they chose to do several things differently. The first, and most obvious, was to keep things within Law & Order's format of ripping stories from the headlines. In this case the murder of teenage model Brittany Janaway is very much modeled on the Jon Benet Ramsey killings that had happened just a few months earlier in 1997.

While this would seem to be out of kilter with Homicide's formula the very nature of the way Janaway was killed – toxic shock from the result of being sexually assaulted days earlier – is one of the darkest stories that Law & Order did in its original run. (It would be much more fitting with the Special Victims Unit spinoff that came within two years – more on the direct link later.) This is a theme that was very keeping with the kind of stories Homicide viewers had become used to: death of a child was very much in the milieu. And considering that the crossover is doing much about the sexualization of teenage girls in the media the episode has, if anything, improved with age with the themes involved.

Unlike the first crossover the Law & Order episode takes its time bringing Baltimore in the picture. The episode shows Brittany dying and being worked on by her father Steven. Instantly the detectives are suspicious: why did her father take to her to his office rather then the ER?  And they're shocked to learn that while the pictures make her look like she's in her twenties, she's only fourteen. (She's been doing this since she was seven years old; this was clearly as direct a reference to the real life JonBenet as the writers wanted to get it.) Van Buren and the detectives never thought this was possible when they saw her pictures on billboards and its clear there's some kind of cutting.  The detectives are unsettled from the start how sexualized these girls are: when they interview one of the models they are stunned to learn she's in eighth grade and not in college.

It's not until the first act is over when they learn just how horrible her death was. She had been undergone a horrible rape and it took two weeks for the toxic shock to kill her. Immediately afterwards they go outside to eat and the media has gathered who knows details of the death that the M.E. just told the detectives about.  Here the show makes its first major shift from the last crossover: Jack McCoy shows way ahead of schedule and is angry about the leaks. When Van Buren makes it clear the leaks might very well have come from the Janaways who might know the investigation is coming around to them, the episode starts taking the turn not unlike the one we saw in the Blood Ties trilogy. The media has swarmed the penthouse that Janaways live in and they are far more hostile then they were in Baltimore. Briscoe and Curtis demonstrate that they are New York cops shouting and maligning the media circus in a way you think that Pembleton himself might tip his hat too. And by the time they get inside the Janaways have lawyered up with the wonderfully sleazy Leslie Drake.  He makes it clear that they are not allowed to talk to the parents unless they are given 24 hours' notice and without him present. He oozes with hypocrisy, saying that the Janaways lost their daughter and that should take precedent over finding out who might have killed her.

Its not until the first interview with the Janaways that Baltimore even gets brought up: the Janaways lived there until two years ago and they still have a residence there. Critically they were last there two weeks ago when the assault took place. Only then does the idea of calling Baltimore come up – and that when things get entertaining.

The second brilliant idea is to change which detectives are front and center. One of the best parts of the crossover was the banter between Munch and Briscoe so the detectives decide to call Munch. It made sense to put Bayliss and Pembleton front and center in the first crossover: they're essentially the stars of the show. But because there was so much combativeness with Frank essentially acting like a prick the whole way through it made the first part difficult to enjoy and overshadowed Law & Order's involvement in the second part.

This is good because it gives a chance to put the underutilized Richard Belzer at the front of a story and his discomfort is about the fact that Lennie slept with his first ex-wife. Al's reaction is to get over it and adds: "How do you know I didn't sleep with her?"  So Munch then makes the decision to call in Falsone, another brilliant move as Jon Seda gets a chance to be at the front of a story for the first time since the series premiere.

By this point the detectives at the precinct are essentially being bullied by the Janaways at  every level: Drake shows up with a profiler and a letter from the mayor demanded they listen and when they don't Drake goes on the news deriding them and posting a $250,000 reward to deluge the department with cranks. When McCoy confronts him with what he's doing Drake makes it clear he doesn't care about how much work the police have to do and he follows that up with a TV report deriding McCoy with the Janaways playing the heartbroken parents about the suspect involved. McCoy then subpoenas the Janaways essentially putting up a gag order. We have no idea if they'd have followed it because by that point we've actually got a suspect.

Munch and Falsone are making progress; they find a cranky neighbor who tells them of a report of a suspicious character around the time the Janaways were last here. They manage to track down the cab that picked him up, learn that he came from Penn Station (Baltimore's, not New York's) was wearing a Mets cap and not long after he dropped him off he saw the young man running away. By the time Briscoe hears of this one of the Janway's staff has come in, says she thinks she knows who did it and doesn't want the reward. She thinks its Johnny Ramirez, the son of an old babysitter who quit because Johnny was spending too much time looking at Brittany in a creepy way. The mother doesn't believe he did this – a look inside the young man's apartment makes us think otherwise – but he said:  "they were using her to make money."

By that time Danvers brings Munch and Falsone in. In a few short sentences he makes clear what we already know but because the crime might well have taken place in Baltimore he wants them to go to New York and extradite Ramirez. This is the third brilliant part of the crossover: it puts Zeljko Ivanek in a far more prominent role then he usually gets and we get to see him a courtroom, a place he rarely shows up. Much of his scenes in the second part are with McCoy and the fact that Ivanek can hold his own with a man who was already one of the greatest actors of all time makes you wish he'd had more to do during the series.

It's a sign of how much easier Munch and Falsone are to get along with that where Frank was aggressive about his present Munch just jokes about it: "I'm looking for a good piece of brisket. Can't find any in Baltimore." Munch is far less strident about it and he's willing to just sit at the desk and eat takeout. They joke about the suspect, Falsone asks Curtis about his kids and his ethnic makeup and he talks about his own.  And the camaraderie works: he and Briscoe figure out that Johnny might end up where they buried Brittany and while it takes a while, he does show up.

The interrogation sequence near the end is superb. Falsone takes the bad cop approach, Curtis divine, Munch and Briscoe almost fatherly. And eventually they get the truth: Johnny was there but as a witness. He saw somebody going at her – her dad's car was there. The final scene of the crossover suggests the idea that its clear Jack never wanted to think: Steven Janaway raped his daughter to death. The last lines of the first part are delivered by Emil Skoda: "You're about to look into a very dark corner of the human heart. Bring a shovel." He's not wrong – but he's not right either.

The episode begins with Ross and McCoy interviewing Johnny whose testimony is still too vague to be a good case against Steven Janaway. Ross suggests punting into Baltimore but McCoy says possession is nine-tenths of the law. And when the detectives go to pick him up the Janaways are gone and Drake is being his usually cheerful self. Munch actually gets him to admit they went back to Baltimore.

Back in Baltimore the first thing Frank says when he recognizes Curtis and Briscoe is to say: "Has Charon set his minions from beyond the river Styx?" He then shares with Falsone every detail of what happened last year, making clear that he still holds the two of them responsible for Rausch dropping dead just as he went back into their custody.  Giardello is annoyed that two of his detectives have been in New York for so long and he seems less happy to see Briscoe and Curtis then before. Updated Falsone and Curtis get a search warrant for the house while Giardello tells Munch "as unseemly as it may be, go with Briscoe" to the hospital where Janaway has privileges.  The difference is made clear from last time immediately: Falsone makes it very clear that he doesn't care where Janaway fries.

Munch and Briscoe hear from one of the doctors that Steven Janaway quit and moved two years earlier when Brittany came in bleeding badly. The father refused to give an explanation. When they talk to the treating nurse she remembers the case: Brittany was brought in with vaginal bleeding and that her father had treated her. Janaway had been adamant that no one breathe a word of it, saying he didn't want his wife to know.

 Falsone and Curtis talk amicably about how much they make: Curtis tells him his wife is the breadwinner in the family while Falsone's clearly blue collar, talking about moonlighting and even putting together  a calendar about the detective of Baltimore. Curtis asks what happened and Falsone jokes: "You've seen the cops in Baltimore?" (This is another subtle joke about how Homicide even in Season Six still wasn't hiring matinee idols for its cast.) When they get to the house they find Maureen Janaway frantically vacuuming her daughter's room. "There goes the crime scene," Falsone said resignedly.

Back at the squad as they bring Maureen Janaway in Falsone now finds another problem. His ex-wife Janine just called and something happened to his three-year old son that she seems inclined to tell him only after the fact. Curtis offers to hold off but Paul is resigned: this has clearly happened before and its too remind him his wife has sole custody. That may be part of the reason then when Falsone and Curtis talk to Janaway he starts getting particularly aggressive when it comes to her denials about her husband in regard to her daughter. And when he's told his son was in the hospital (after taking over  a day to call back) he's furious.

Then again considering where the investigation is, this is understandable. Homicide has frequently probed the depths of pedophilia almost from the beginning of the series but this is the first time it's dealing with the most horrific of subjects: incest.  No wonder Munch is pissed that after his daughter died, Steven felt fine leaving town to play 18 holes.

Briscoe tells Munch during that period: "You wear a badge and you speak for the dead. I think I know you." Perhaps its fitting that the two of them lead the first formal interrogation of Steven Janaway in the box. We haven't seen Munch in the box for a long time and it’s a rare treat to see just how good Richard Belzer is in an interrogation. The two of them start talking about the Janaway marriage and then John asks: "You ever get bored." Munch starts talking about just how much of a sucker's game marriage is (and even though its an act Briscoe mutters 'Now I know I know you.") Briscoe brings up the incident in the ER three years ago and Janaway says: "Why am I here?" The way Munch leads into the Miranda warning is searing while Briscoe slowly presents the facts: the nature of the crime, that the attack took place in Baltimore, Janaways previous actions regarding her condition. "Your daughter was fourteen, but when she dressed up for work, she looked anything like a pubescent teenager," Munch points out. Briscoe finally asks the question: "Did you sexually assault your daughter?" This finally provokes a emotional reaction from Janaway. When he denies it Munch whispers: "We think you did." Despite everything Munch and Briscoe say he says with the first sign of emotion: "Then prove it."

In New York McCoy intends to go to Baltimore to claim jurisdiction. Ross points out Danvers will argue felony murder – which is a solid argument. Jack says he's going to redefine the crime: arguing its depraved indifference, that Janaway knew his daughter was bleeding from the assault and did nothing to stop it. Ross mocks the idea but Jack says he's going down, in large part because of everything Drake put him through – and after the last two episodes, its hard to argue it.

When McCoy gets to the courtroom Danvers is deferential but he's actually worried. It doesn't help the judge is Aandahl. The show has a long memory and so does Danvers: two years ago she was the judge who released Rausch into the custody of the New York DA, finding a precedent that led to Rausch's memorable demise.  This time Aandahl tells us she worked for Adam Schiff and is almost girlish, saying that she's a Mets fan. "Adam's a Red Sox fan. After Buckner booted that grounder Adam wouldn't give me the time of day," she giggles.

Then we're back to the kind of argument we often get on Law & Order in pre-trial motions. On that show we're inclined to root for Sam Waterston, this time its harder to tell which side we want to win. Both Danvers and Jack make competent legal arguments.  Danvers, however, manages to negate the argument of depraved indifference by pointing out what we saw in the teaser of the Law and Order episode: he was on his knees performing CPR. Aandahl agrees with that part of it and grants jurisdiction. However she gives Jack a bone and allows him to serve as co-council.  Danvers doesn't have a problem with that and for once, neither does Jack.

The episode then does a time jump that is more common to Law & Order then Homicide; it's about a month later and Jack is at a bar where Falsone is drinking and he buys Jack a drink. This leads to the kind of conversation that, to this point on Law & Order, we rarely got: one of the attorneys getting to share his feelings about a case. Falsone is in a brown study, wondering what kind of person Brittany might have been had she lived.  Jack assures him Janaway will suffer.  Falsone tells the story of a kid he knew growing up who was beaten up regularly by his alcoholic parents who Paul wanted to take care of – and one day he just didn't come to school.  Then he gets to the core of it: how could any man sexually abuse his own child? And then Sam Waterston says something that in his previous four seasons he almost never got a chance to say on Law & Order. He tells how one day he was on vacation, on a beach, and he sees this beautiful looking girl with her back to him. "I started to think, you know what you think when you see a girl that pretty." And then she turned around and it was his daughter. (This is the first time we know Jack even had a child.) "I felt a little sick to my stomach," he tells Paul. "Some people don't have any conscience."

The trial scene is one we rarely get on Homicide. And it's not quite what we're used to in Law & Order. The courtroom is smaller and the crowd noises more clear. It makes clear that Drake is very much the kind of attorney in the courtroom: he's provocative, a gut puncher, ignoring the objections until the judge says otherwise. The trial cuts between the witness McCoy and Danvers put up, regarding the sexual assault in a very Homicide type way.

Drake decides to do something you never thought he'd do. After a very animated conversation he calls Steven Janaway to the stand. He barely gives much of a questioning and then after asking him if he raped and murdered his daughter and Steven says no we're surprised. Jack is baffled by this thinking that they're being set up but Danvers refuses to listen and starts questioning him. Janaway says he was in Baltimore the night of the attack but he wasn't at home – he was in a motel with another woman.  Danvers and Jack are furious – you're required to send alibi notification before a trial and Drake never did. Drake tried to assure them he didn't know a month ago. We have no idea if this was a trick by Drake – it really does seem like the kind of thing he'd pull – but Danvers and McCoy demand a continuance. They get 48 hours.

And the detectives to get to the truth: Janaway was at the hotel where he said he was, even ordered room service. Janaway has been an affair with Dr. Plotkin, a med school colleague for nearly ten years.  So they decide to bring in both Stephen and Maureen in separate cars and separate rooms. "This should not be pleasant or comfortable for either of them," Jack says. And it truly isn't.

For the first time we see the media vultures descend on the Janaways, first the husband, then the wife. Jack is part of the interrogation in one room with Falsone with Steven, Munch and Danvers go in with Maureen.  They are asked if they were good parents. Falsone is particularly cold with Steven "You were out with another broad when she needed you the most." He lays pictures of Brittany on the interrogation room table, demanding to know if he knew what happened to his daughter. Munch shows the same picture to Maureen questioning if she knew about her husband straying.

It is Drake, who seems to have committed to being Steven's lawyer, finally convinces him to answer the question. Jack asks why he risked a trial and possible death sentence. Finally Stephen answers and its almost heartbreaking: "Because I'm guilty." At some level he knew what was happening to his daughter – and that his wife was the one responsible for all of the horrific abuse.

Munch gets to a different point as to motive: Maureen seems to have acted out of jealousy of how her daughter was the attractive one and she never was. That her daughter got all the attention, was so successful and her father paid more attention to her then his wife.  And when the mother admits Munch is furious: "What the hell's the matter with you? You were jealous of your own daughter!"

It's a solution far neater then the one that came in real life (the case remains unsolved even now) but one can't exactly say Homicide took the easy way out. The idea of a father sexually assaulting his own daughter is almost easier to believe and comprehend then a mother doing the exact same thing to her child. It's a horrific crime and Homicide should be applauded for dealing with it, even in this fashion. And full credit throughout must go to Tom Tammi and Maureen Anderman as the Janaways for their work. Both spend the first episode looking frozen and as if their performing and the humanity and pain starts to come out by degrees in the conclusion, particularly in the final interrogation.

The episode only stutters a bit at the end: Falsone coming to Jack McCoy asking if he can pursue shared custody seems a bit off, and the scene where he comes to the Janaway home to give his daughter's things to the grieving father smacks of awkwardness: it really doesn't seem like the kind of thing either show would do, particularly the way the father lets him off the hook. But it's a small problem to go with what is overall a superb two-parter, dealing with a grim subject and not blinking once.

 

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

'Detective Munch': Munch gets to give as much as he ridden on. When Briscoe says we know him he says: "The one whose ex-wife I slept with?" Told he has to be more specific, he says: "The mediocre pool player." At the cemetery Briscoe mentions Gwen's flower preferences and John says: "I have no interest in anything about that little tart. (Ah but later this season.) He actually seems interested if Mark Twain and Walt Whitman are buried at that cemetery. "Better them then me," Briscoe says. As the Homicide parts begins Falsone says: "I can't prove it but I'm pretty sure that in a previous life Briscoe and Munch were married."

Perhaps the best line from Munch comes when they're at the club Steven Janaway's at. "We're a couple of Jewish cops; you think we have a chance of joining this country club?" It's rare for John to use his religion to make a sarcastic comment and you can tell how nervous it makes the club pro. Good for John. Briscoe seems to like the idea. When they say they want to wait he assures him: "Oh, he won't try to convert anybody. Trust me."

On The Soundtrack: On the streaming you will hear Meredith Brooks: "What Would Happen" as the detectives interview the hotel staff trying to prove Steven Janaway's alibi. On the DVD you will hear Blind Faith's classic: "Can't Find My Way Home" but honestly that song really doesn't seem to go with the final minutes when its used and the replacement that they get is much more fitting.

Oops! Sam Waterston's name is spelled 'Sam Waterson' on the credits sequence on Homicide.

There's also an interesting contradiction in Law & Order. In Baby It's You, J.K. Simmons appears as Emil Skoda, who by Season Eight had become the psychiatric consultant. But as everyone who watched the last crossover remembers in 'For God & Country" Skoda played Emil Rausch. Couldn't be helped.

This crossover was originally planned to be even more ambitious. At one point Wolf and Fontana considered bringing ER by that point NBC's biggest hit into the crossover. Fortunately John Wells and the producers turned them down. God knows how it would have worked. (Though it would have been fun to see George Clooney talking with Briscoe and Munch.)

Hey, Isn't That…Dan Hedaya is one of the most accomplished character actors in history. He began his career playing Herbie on the TV soap Ryan's Hope in 1975. He appeared in many films and TV shows during the 1970s and 1980s and ending up playing Joseph Keuhnelian on St. Elsewhere during Season 2. He also played Ralph in the first Season of Hill Street Blues. He was cast as Nick Tortelli in the failed Cheers spin-off The Tortellis. He'd actually appeared in Law and Order in Season three as a Lieutenant who framed a suspect for murder. (Somehow Lennie Briscoe didn't see the similarity five years later.)  His most critically acclaimed films were Blood Simple, The Addams Family, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Cher's Father in Clueless and Jeff Rabin, who has a famously messy office in The Usual Suspects. Known for his resemblance to Richard Nixon, he appeared in two films about the 37^th President Oliver Stone's Nixon in which he played Trini Cardoza and the sly parody Dick in which he played the President.

After this episode he went on to play Herb Spivak on ER, another attorney who is a wealthy corporate attorney in Season 4 and by Season 11 is operating out of a van. Other TV appearances of not include Joey Legs on FX's Lucky, the recurring role of Don on Yes, Dear, Father Frank on the sadly too short lived The Book of Daniel and Barney Frank on the TV Film Too Big to Fail. He has made appearances on Blue Bloods and Gotham. His last major film to date was on the Amazon film Influenced

 

 

 

 

How Volunteering For Mary Peltola Made Clear The Difference Between Activism And Politicking

 

 

Those of you who are regular readers of my columns know that when it comes to bringing about change know that there is the divide between the activist and the politician and that I've always believed that the latter will be more effective. You might also know from previous columns that in the past few months I've begun doing volunteer work for Mary Peltola's campaign in Alaska because I wanted to do more in that field.

What I've been doing has been as difficult as I expected. But it's also given me firsthand experience of what the difference between the two really is and why I can understand at a certain level why so many people would prefer activism.

I've more than aware how frustrated and upset people are that America of today and how so many people could feel helpless and what to do something, anything, to bring about change. So taking what I believe is the one thing that will get be the least pushback from my position as a white cis male, let's say you decided to attend a No Kings Rally.

I've done much to deride them over the past couple of years but in a way I do understand the appeal. You go on a website where one in your region is being held, you design some signs or T-shirts and then you go. You spend the better part of a Saturday there, you spend time with people who complete agree with you, you get to express your contempt for the President in a loud and unfiltered way. You're covered by certain TV stations who share you point of view, you get a lot of coverage on social media and then you go home, thinking that you've struck a blow being part of 'the resistance'.

My personal feelings aside I can get at an objective level why people would want to do this. It's an outlet for your genuine feelings of frustration; the amount of effort you have to put in is relatively little (I'll get to that) and you immediately get the dopamine hit of feeling like you've achieved something because you see it on TV or the internet. You haven't actually accomplished anything – Trump is still President – but it feels like you've done something important and for all my criticisms of that approach I understand why that would matter to a lot of people. It does satisfy the immediate idea that you've accomplished something and the fact that you've spent the day surrounded by people who agree with everything you say makes you feel that you are part of something.

And that's the difference between activism and politicking. In activism, you are always surrounded by people who are in lockstep with your point of view and there are clear differences between who's on your side and who you're against.  The activist has a very binary view of the world and there is a comfort in that.  But that is the very thing that almost always limits any good the activist can do. As long as there is your side and their side and you're the one who can permanently define the other side as the enemy you can spend your life in activism and never have to leave your bubble. I don't deny there's an appeal to that; in my own life its always been very hard for me to leave the safety of my comfort zone in almost everything. But as a way of making the world a better place, it's only going to feel like you're changing things. You're never going to actually change them.

Now the last month or so I've been working the phone banks for the Peltola campaign. At this stage of things we're mostly trying to call former Democratic voters in Alaska who may not have voted in an election or two and get them to come out in the fall. This is harder then it sounds and in the few times I've done it I can assure you it's not that easy.

I've joked to my friends and family that this experience has given me a respect for telemarketers that I never had. And that's what working the phones for a campaign is like. You're cold  calling from a list (or the campaign is doing it for you in a sense) you wait and see if someone will pick up (a lot of the time it goes straight to voicemail) and if they do you have to read from a script to see if they'll talk. In most cases they will hang up on you very quickly. And while I've had several people say they will be voting for Peltola for all I know its just something they're saying to get me to leave them alone. Some have actually said they want me to take them off their list and I've talked to more than a few people who've moved to other countries. This last week I talked to someone who'd moved to Costa Rica a while ago.

By contrast to being an activist where you immediately get the feeling you've accomplished something if you're working for a campaign you have to deal with rejection far more often. And I'm doing this from the comfort of my own home on the other side of the world. I have immense respect for those people who are leading the campaign in Alaska and have uprooted their lives to work for this candidate. (I've met a few and in a different article I'll probably discuss them.) These are people who will have to spend a lot of time organizing campaign events and voter outreach events in the biggest and densest state in the Union, never mind just how horrible the weather is on most days. It's difficult enough for me to make these phone calls; I can't imagine what it will be like to travel to Nome or Anchorage in September or October.

And even the successes you achieve as a campaign worker are in a sense more ephemeral than the activist. In all the sessions I've done so far I think at best I've convinced maybe ten people to vote for Peltola in November. I'm not denying every vote counts in an election, especially one that by this point every political website is ranking as a toss-up. But even in the best case scenario I'm not going to know if I made a difference to the campaign unless we end up winning in November – and the thing about politics is that nothing is carved in stone.

This is something I'm aware of. Alaska may be more of a purple state then we try to say it is but it's still going to be an uphill fight to get Peltola elected. A lot of it will depend on the grass roots efforts on the ground but I'm fully aware that Dan Sullivan has the advantage of incumbency in a state where Democrats have a difficult time winning elections. Mary Peltola has proven that it is possible for that happen – she has won elections twice in a district Trump carried – but there's a difference between 'possible' and 'certain'.

Even from the relative comfort of my home in New York I have no illusions how difficult the work I'm going to be doing is. And this is just trying to win over former Democrats. In the weeks and months to come I'm going to have to try to win over Independents and Republicans and try to convince them to vote for a Democrat. That's not going to be fun and it will have less rewards.

But that is the very reason why the political approach is the one that is necessary to building real change. As an activist you can easily torch anyone who might even have questions about your approach and being undecided makes you as bad as the opposition. The politician doesn't have that luxury. Their job is to build coalitions, not just when it comes to getting voters to elect you in a ground game but if you actually want to bring about the lasting change that so many activists demand but almost never get for their efforts.

As we've all become more painfully aware in the last decade in particular bringing about lasting reform is a never-ending marathon, a race you can never stop running because the opposition is just as determined to keep tearing down all the victories you thought you've achieved forever. It is understandable that many people would feel overwhelmed and lost – indeed I've talked to quite a few Alaskans who said they would vote for Peltola because they genuinely do feel that they're drowning in bad news. And I get the impulse that so many people, particularly the young have, that they need to do something, anything. But there's a difference between doing something immediately and doing something that's actually constructive. The former makes you feel good in the moment but nothing has actually changed in society afterward. The latter takes far more time and effort, almost always has more negative experiences on a daily basis that positive ones and at the end of the day, there's no guarantee of success.

It's for that reason I have immense respect for the people in the Peltola campaign – and not just them. The ones working for Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Josh Turek in Iowa and James Talarico in Texas. All of them are going to be fighting uphill battles in climates that have a long history of being unfavorable to the kind of reform America needs. If you've read my articles about them over the last several months or know anything about politics in general, you know exactly why this is the case. There are rarely moments of glory in the work they'll be doing in the last few months and very little of the media attention that the anti-Trump rallies have gotten and will continue to get. But if they succeed, they will have played a part far more important in bringing about the kind of long-term change activists desire but never do with their marches and rallies.

As for me, I will keep doing the work. To paraphrase a former President I choose to work for Mary Peltola and do the other things not because it is easy but because it is hard. That's the real difference between activism and grass roots politics. It's a lot of work but if you do it right the rewards are significant and glorious even if you never know for sure the role you played.

 

 

Could Caleb Groen Become the Fifth Superchampion of Season 42? The Answer Is...

 

On July 3^rd 2024 Isaac Hirsch defeated Kelly Proulx to win his first Jeopardy game in a narrow runaway. He would go on to win eight more before being unseated by Jay Fisher on a Final Jeopardy no one could get correct, finishing with 9 wins and $215,390.

This total would earn him a bye into the semifinals of the 2025 Tournament of Champions where he would ultimately fall short of defeating Nilesh Vinjamuri and eventually an invitation to that year's Jeopardy Masters where he surprised even himself by finishing fourth.

Exactly one year to the day Scott Riccardi would manage to defeat Jason Singer. Jason had the previous day become the first player in an unprecedented fifteen consecutive games to win two games. Scott would win quite a bit more eventually reaching super-champion status with 16 victories and $455,000 before being shockingly defeated by Jonathan Hugendubler in a come from behind victory.

Scott's total of wins and money won was by far the most of any participant in this past year's Tournament of Champions but he would be thrashed, along with TJ Fisher in three consecutive runaways by Paolo Pasco this past February.

And on July 2^nd 2026 Caleb Gruen won his first game on Jeopardy and went on to win the next eight.  He was attempting to win his tenth game almost two years to the day Isaac  had failed to win his and the same day one year later Scott  would win his tenth.

Such synchronicity is nearly unheard of it forty two seasons of Jeopardy; it's the kind of story you couldn't believe if it were fiction.  But there were differences. After Isaac's streak had ended, no one would come close to winning as many games until Scott came along. By contrast since Scott's departure it has seemed like a super-champions has emerged every month. Indeed Caleb's streak began when he defeated Richard Nguyen who just two days earlier had beaten Adam Remsen after 12 consecutive victories which had given him a bye into the semi-finals of the 2027 Tournament of Champions – something that he had earned by winning two more games then Tristan Williams who had become the first to win exactly ten one month earlier.  Now Caleb was treading on Adam's tail and would have to win at least another four games to guarantee himself the bye Adam thought he'd earned.

Of course Caleb was not thinking that today. He had to concentrate on whether he could manage to win his tenth game. No small issue. To be sure Caleb had managed six runaway victories in his nine appearances but Monday's and yesterday's matches had left him with very little margin for error. On Monday's game he'd only found one of the Daily Doubles in Double Jeopardy and he had to come on strong in that round to narrowly put the game out of reach by the end of the round. On Tuesday he got off to a big lead early in the Jeopardy round, then lost it all on the Daily Double. In Double Jeopardy he was actually in third for a while but then managed to get going and thanks to finding the last Daily Double late in the round he managed a narrow runaway again – and this time he needed to because his nearest opponent Patience Bruce got Final Jeopardy right and he didn't. (Expect to see Patience as a likely Second Chance Tournament player this year.) In both games he was getting more and more incorrect answers – six incorrect on Monday's, five on Tuesday's.

There was no question when Caleb was good, he was very, very good. On Thursday he managed to win $60,000, the highest amount won by any player this season, a mark not even Jamie Ding had reached during his incredible 31 game run. But aside from that win he had a weakness: Final Jeopardy. He had won his first three games despite never responding correctly on Final Jeopardy in what had been three consecutive triple stumpers. He'd gotten in right on what was his fourth win when he absolutely needed to and four straight runaways.

That was the question going into today's match as he faced off against Marisa Rizzuli and Amando Marin. Did Caleb have what it took to succeed where Isaac failed or would his streak end? The answer was… he absolutely could.

It took a bit for Caleb to get to that p0int. While he had $8600 at the end of the Jeopardy round Armando was putting up a challenge. But three clues into Double Jeopardy it was clear is was going to be Caleb's day.

After responding correctly on the first clue he found the Daily Double on the next one in NOTORIOUS. He chose to wager $4000:

Robert Stroud, who became a self-taught ornithologist during his years in solitary, is best known by this nickname. He just needed a moment: "What is Birdman of Alcatraz?

Then he found the Daily Double on his next pick in POEMS. This time he bet $5000:

Milton's poem this man 'Agonistes', meaning enduring a struggle, describes him as 'eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves'.

He knew it was Samson. Just like that he had $19,800. It was all over but the shouting after that. He had another dominant performance: 31 correct clues and only 2 mistake and finished with another impressive total at the end of Double Jeopardy. $38,000.

The only suspense left was how big was his payday going to be as he officially became a super-champion.

The category was 20^th CENTURY HISTORY. "The U.N. Conference of April 25, 1945 opened with a speech that said this man 'gave his life while trying to perpetuate these high ideals." Caleb knew the correct answer: "Who is FDR? (He'd died just two weeks earlier. The wager was $22,067. Caleb had surpassed his own single day record with $60,067 and achieved super-champion status with a very impressive 10 day total of $300,567.

As Ken remarked Season 42 was already a season of super-champions. And Caleb was already impressive in his own way. In just ten games he'd won nearly as much as Adam Remsen had in twelve and it took Scott Riccardi, his super-champion twin twelve games to get where Caleb was in ten.  And while even if his streak continues to the end of the season he won't be anywhere close to Jamie Ding in total wins, in one way he's better than Jamie. By winning $60,000 or more in two games he's accomplished something that only a handful of super-champions did: Jennings himself, James Holzahauer, Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider, Austin Rogers and Jason Zuffranieri are the only super champions who've managed that feat.

With Caleb's victory Season 42 of Jeopardy has officially equaled Season 38 for the number of super-champions who played during the length of the season. And with seven players already who've won six games or more it has also tied it with producing the most players who won that many in a season. (I'll publish the official list in my summation of Season 42 at the end of next week.) The 2027 Tournament of Champions is going to be a doozy and we're still three months away from the end of the eligibility period.

At this point the only real problem Season 42 is facing is that with so little time elapsing between Jeopardy champions there may not be enough players to fill out the Jeopardy Wild Card Tournament this year. But honestly that's a problem few Jeopardy fans would consider a real complaint.

I'll be back at the end of the season to summarize what has been an incredible year of Peak Jeopardy.

 

 

Stephen King Writing As Richard Bachman: Rage (1977)

 

We may never know one way or the other but there's an argument that Rage, the first novel King published under his pseudonym may have sold the poorest of any book King ever wrote.

It's not merely because almost no one bought any of 'Bachman's' novels when they were under his name. It's that when the truth came out about Bachman, all of King's books under that label were published first in an omnibus volume and then only in the mid-1990s did they begin to get released individually. And then outside events intervened that lead to the author essentially pulling the book from the shelves voluntarily.

You see Rage is about a high school named Charlie Decker who on a bright May morning has a mental breakdown. It's been a long time coming as he admits. He's called to the office by the principal Mr. Decker, who talks to him about his most recent psychiatric evaluation. Decker tries to be polite about but then Charlie starts to 'get it on' which as we will learn is to mentally dress down an authority figure in the meanest possible terms and with vulgar language. Decker reacts like any principal should and expels him. This is Charlie's reaction:

I went down the staircase whistling. I felt wonderful. Things happen that way sometimes. When everything is as its worst, your mind just throws it all into the wastebasket and goes to Florida for a while. There is a sudden electric what-the-hell glow as you stand there looking back over your shoulder at the bridge you just burned down.

He then goes to his locker, takes out his father's pistol and his bullets. Then he goes back to his classroom and shoots his algebra teacher.

After the shootings at Columbine King voluntarily had Rage pulled from all bookstores which as we all know ended school shootings forever.  The truth is King no doubt this as a preemptive strike. For his entire career even then his novels always were being put on 'banned books' lists because of their violence and language (as they still are basically to this day.) Rage was no more responsible for all of the shootings that had happened before that horrible event then those who would eventually try to blame films such as The Basketball Diaries immediately afterward. But King had to know that this would be something that those on the right (who had less influence over censorship back then but it was still significant) would use as a cudgel to get all of his books off the shelfs and do everything to destroy his career in the future. Besides this was an easy sacrificial lamb compared to others that were far more worthy of it.

So the only way you can get Rage in the 21^st century is either if you find a copy of the book at a used book stores or more likely if you can find the omnibus collection on eBay or other places. Now I've had the latter for decades obviously, so let me tell you some more details.

First Rage is almost certainly the first book King ever wrote. He started  it while still a teenager, either 18 or 19 depending on his telling of the story. "At one point I found it moldering away in the cellar of the house I grew up in – this rediscovery was in 1970 and I finished it in 1971." This book, like The Long Walk, was one of two very early novels he wrote before Carrie ended up being published that he thought was 'pretty good'. In fact under the title Getting It On Doubleday had almost bought it and published it two years before Carrie was sold. So it became the first book he submitted as Bachman in 1977. It was released, like all of the first four Bachman books, without fanfare and sold just as badly.

Now I've read it multiple times over the years. It does not, as King himself referred to it in 'Why I Was Bachman' "suck like an Electrolux" but honestly its not very good King or even very good Bachman. The Long Walk reads far better, is more tightly written and does a better job getting into the head of Ray Garraty, who's the same age as Charlie Decker. Rage, by contrast, is uneven and rambles too much.

Part of the problem is Charlie just isn't that interesting a character. He ends up telling his story to his classmates as part of his 'defense' for what he does but there are times even he acknowledge its not that interesting a story.  The reason he claims to have done everything he did is because of how bad his father was. "My dad has hated me for as long as I can remember'. The thing is we never get a clear reason why because the novel's entirely from Charlie's perspective. He served in World War II and he was clearly proud of doing so and he doesn't seem happy to be a recruiting chief for the Vietnam War. And he is abusive to his son at times but not in a particularly original way.

Honestly Charlie's grievances are so small: his father yells at him and hits him after he breaks the windows of the car, he hates wearing a corduroy suit his mother gives him at 12 and has to wear it to a birthday party (by that point his father doesn't even talk to him, he has a terrible sexual experience at sixteen, finally he takes a pipe wrench to school and finally nearly kills one of his teachers.  'Bachman' really only seems interested in what's happening in the present and not what made Charlie who he was.

When King first wrote the novel he was a teenager in the 1960s when the Vietnam War was going horribly and the generational clash that to this day shapes every aspect of our American experience was going on. Its praiseworthy that he tries to put us in the heads of his fellow teenagers and to do so in an act of violence might be a good way to do it. But Charlie doesn't come across as that interesting a protagonist or an antihero. There's no good reason for Charlie being who he is – he's basically a stick figure.

If Rage had ever been done in any other medium (which it almost certainly never will be) it probably would have worked better as a play.  In the hardcover its barely 125 pages long and it basically unfolds over an hour and a half from the moment Charlie is excused from class to the end of the hostage situation. And since it's also basically set in a high school and the majority of it a classroom, it would almost certainly work dramatically better.  

The main reason that I actually think King was premature in removing Rage from the shelves is that its actually improved with age in many ways. I'm not talking about the shooting in the school, I'm talking about how it gets the core of so many of the problems driving teenagers that are nevertheless true; the loneliness, the desire to conform, the way they all seem frustrated. And that's what actually makes Rage work.

After Charlie shoots his homeroom teenager none of his fellow students react:

Nobody said a word. They sat in utter stunned silence, looking at me attentively, as if I had just announced I was going to tell them how they could all get passes to the Placerville Drive-in this Friday night.

They barely manage dull surprise when Charlie says: "This is known as getting it on.

Nobody said anything for five minutes…They looked at me, and I looked at them. Maybe they still could have bolted and they're still asking me why they didn't. Why didn't they cut and run, Charlie? What did you do to them…I don't answer any questions about what happened in Room 16. But if I told them anything, it would be that they've forgotten what it's like to be a kid, to live cheek-in-jowl with violence…

I'm just telling you that American kinds labor under a huge life of violence, both real and make-believe…I knew they thought they'd be all right. That's part of it. What I wonder about it is this: Were they hoping I'd get somebody else?"

No one can look at so much of what teenagers, both in this country and around the world, are living through and not realize how dead on that statement still is in 2026. That King wrote this thirty years before social media and active shooter drills were become the norm for the average teenager is yet another example where King/Bachman saw the future without meaning to.

The only person who honestly seems to think that something horrible is going on is Ted Jones, the most popular kid in high school. Everyone else seems to almost be having a good time from the start, they're fine if he's smoking, one actually asked if he can do homework.

Charlie acknowledges to one of the students that he's nuts but he can't explain why. "If I knew what was making me do it, I problem wouldn't have to." What Charlie can't explain is why everyone in the room is almost immediately on his side. He's actually shocked when they start to turn on Ted, who's the only one who wants to end the violence.

One of the sequences that is the most powerful in the book comes when Don Grace, the school shrink tries to talk Charlie down. He tells Grace that the next time he asks a question he will shoot someone. This leads to a four page tour de force. Done entirely in short sentence in which Charlie engages in a back and forth that eventually tricks Grace into asking a question by quoting the bible and finally causes him to walk away utterly broken.

What's more frightening is after this the classroom erupts in joy, which he describes as on the outside as something unsettling.

Very early in the novel Charle basically states his thesis about the universe and that he thinks for most part it is sane orderly and logical. But:

The other side says that the universe has all the logic of a little kid in a Halloween cowboy suit with his guts and his trick or treat candy spread all over a mile of Interstate 95. This is the logic of napalm, paranoia, suitcase bombs carried by happy Arabs, random carcinoma. This logic eats itself. It says life is a monkey on  a stick, it says life spins as hysterically and erratically as the penny you flick to see who buys lunch.

No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that. You look at it if you hitch a ride with a drunk in a GTO who puts up to 110 and starts blubbering about how his wife turned him out ; you look at it if some guy decides to drive across Indiana shooting kids on bicycles; you look at it if your sister says, "I'm going down to the store for a minute, big guy" and then gets killed in a stickup.

It's a roulette wheel, but anyone who says the game is rigged is whining. No matter how many numbers there are, the principal of that little white jittering ball never changes. Don't say its crazy, it's all so cool and sane.

And all that weirdness isn't just going on outside. Its in you too, right now, growing in the dark like magic mushrooms.

I find it impossible to argue with that logic and anyone who thinks otherwise is as crazy as Charlie knows he is.

Charlie uses this statement right after shoots his algebra teacher to make it very clear he knows that he's insane and that by contrast proves his sanity. He can't explain what happens next, how the teenagers with a feud turn on each other and then decide to become friends, how everybody begins to share secrets that even horrify Charlie. Finally he realizes something horrible:

At times I was almost tempted to feel (foolish conceit) that I was holding them by myself by sheer willpower. Now I know, of course, that nothing could have been farther from the truth. I had one real hostage that day and his name was Ted Jones.

The real horror in Rage is not the violence that Charlie invokes upon the faculty but that comes in the real climax of the novel. It is something that is genuinely horrific and can't be explained by such things as Stockholm Syndrome. It's so unsettling that Charlie doesn't describe it himself in the book and almost feels compelled to comfort Ted after its happened. We know in the aftermath of the horrors of that day that Charlie has been institutionalized and all of the teenagers seem to have gotten through their experience completely fine with no signs of trauma. And why should they? Charlie was never the real cause of it.

I'm relatively certain in my lifetime, certainly not King's that Rage will ever be on library shelves or available in a new edition. The thing is, if you realty want to understand just how crazy the world is today, reading 'Bachman's' first novel might give you some insight. It won't explain the nightmare that unfolds with Charlie and his classmates but if we realize that at some basic level those problems with teenagers have always been there, that the craziness of life is just below the surface and that all of us are just one little thing away from exploding then there's an argument we need to read it.

And as we all know there are still Charlie Deckers in our world and our society is no more prepared to understand them now then they were in 1999 or in 1977. The only real difference is that there's a place in the world where they're accepted for who they are. That being said Charlie Decker would have no use for Andrew Tate or those in the manosphere. They'd be too close to Ted Jones for his liking.

 

 

 

 

Coalition of the Sane:The Left Is Not Taking Over Anything, Least of all The Democratic Party

 

 

One of the stories that I've heard so many times this election cycle is the narrative that 'the radical left is taking over the Democratic Party."

Fox News has been using it as a talking point since it was founded of course but now more old school conservatives such as George Will and Bret Stephens – who should know  better – are echoing it in editorials. MSNOW has modified the term radical at times but they'll trumpet it when they have too. There are enough supposedly intelligent commentators on CNN that will say so. And of course the left's spokespeople on social media will never hesitate to trumpet it.

What this demonstrates to me is that a full decade after Trump arrived on the scene, the media still can't find its collective asses with both hands and a flashlight. Anyone who calmly, coolly and objectively looks at the raw data and electoral results would find with a two minute Google search that the left is no closer to taking over the Democratic Party then it was ten years ago.

 I'm not saying that those who aren't alarmed by those loud, vociferous and frequently demagogue like rhetoric have no right to be concerned by their mere presence. I am as well but in the sense that I would be concerned of an itch on my hand. Compared to the many, many other problems in American politics – and make no mistake they are still mostly coming from the other side of the aisle – the left wing's attempts to take over the Democratic Party barely rate the level of a hangnail or blister. It's a nuisance but it can be easily taken care of with the proper treatment. It certainly should be – and I'll actually discuss methods of that later – but its vitally important to recognize the severity of the diagnosis rather then just go to the worst case scenario.

 I've actually reviewed in many other articles the failures of the AOC-Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic multiple times in my columns and in many comments on this blog. I have no doubt I'll have to keep doing it because I know that the political audience and the left in general has no interest in hearing a narrative that doesn't fit their own reality. (Again they have so much in common with their right wing counterparts then they want to believe.) So let's break down the narrative and the reality.

First the narrative which is now being preached by AOC herself is that in 2018 she was almost singlehandedly responsible for the blue wave that cycle. That is simply false and doesn't remotely pass the stink test. As I've mentioned before the Justice Democrats ran in 79 primaries for the Senate, House, Governor and Lt. Governor that year and only four of them managed to win both their primaries and the general: the Squad as they dubbed themselves.

The Democratic Party, having come off the upset of 2016, were still reeling and were no doubt looking for any cudgel they could use to catch the breeze and beat Trump in two years' time. So they decided to play off the fact that Fox News had chosen to weaponize their outrage machine about the radical left on Ohmar, Taib, Presley and AOC to try and use that to their advantage. In retrospect that was clearly a mistake but no one ever accused the Democrats of having great judgment.

And its not like there weren't a lot of other things to celebrate. The Party had won the popular vote by the highest winning percentage on record and had picked up the largest gain of House Seats since 1974. We should have focused on places that were more important to us as a party such as wins in Kansas,  Oklahoma and Utah as well as swing districts like Pennsylvania and New York. All the Justice Democrats had done was change the members of the Democratic Party. Kevin Yoder, Kendra Horn and Ben McAdams helped us increase it.

Still considering we were going into what was going to be a tough fight to take the Senate and the White House back in 2020, it's understandable the Democratic Party chose not to make it focus those seats. At this point any House Democrat was an ally in the fight against MAGA. We had other priorities.

Its understandable given everything that happened in the immediate aftermath of November 2020 but down the ballot it was not a great election for the Democrats. Given Trump's massive unpopularity most expected the Democrats to expand their majority by up to 55 seats.  Instead not a single Republican incumbent was defeated and thirteen incumbent Democrats were ousted.  Considering that several successful Democrats won their race by smaller margins then expected, we were actually lucky to hold the House 222-213 .  This was still by far the smaller majority the Democrats had in the house since 1942.

Make no mistake: we took a pounding in the House. And the Justice Democrats did zero to help. In fact they actually hurt us. To be sure they did win advance Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Marie Newman. But Georgette Gomez who was competing in the 53^rd district in California and Kara Eastman running in the second district in Nebraska both lost their elections against incumbent Republicans. That was the first clear sign that the Justice Democrats were a liability to the National Party.

We got many more signs during Biden's first two years, the only two we controlled both Congress and the White House. Biden's infrastructure bill was torpedoed in his earliest form because after it passed in the Senate almost everyone in the Squad chose to vote against in its current form. The major argument was that Biden had 'sold out' when he'd compromised with Joe Manchin. At that point it was clear to the Democratic leadership that the Squad was anti-leadership and it didn't matter which party was in charge. Considering the Democrats had spent the last four years running that they were the party of sanity compared to Trump, this made us look incompetent in the eyes of many Americans. But again we basically chose to ignore it because everyone expected there was going to be a red wave in 2022 and democracy would end sometime shortly thereafter.

Except, of course, that didn't happen. The Democrats had their best midterms since 1962 gaining a seat in the Senate and barely losing control of the House with the Republicans getting their smallest majority since 2000.  By that point the Democrats had managed to win seats in Alaska for the first time in 50 years and had even gained seats in Montana and four in Florida. 

The Justice Democrats by contrast had more of the same. They endorsed six newcomers and only two of them Summer Lee and Greg Casar managed to win. When Odessa Kelly ran with the party's blessing in the Tennessee 7^th and lost in a landslide, it marked the last time the Justice Democrats even competed in a seat that was deep red. Combined with the fact that the Democrats were managing to win in districts that Trump has won with representatives like Jared Golden and Mary Peltola, it was now becoming clear the lesson was to win back the center.

In the leadup to 2024 the Democratic Party seemed to have realized that the Justice Democrats were not helping them do what they hoped and win back control of Congress and the Senate consistently. Considering that they were now openly becoming more disruptive then they were helping the Democrat Party did something that it almost never did and openly primaried two of them.

It is true that much of the reason Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush lost their primaries had to do with their positions on Gaza and their anti-Israel rhetoric. But lost in that is the fact that both of them had become by far the most openly activist members of the parties and had gone out of their way to not even bother to make token appearance with the Jewish members of their district. In Bowman's case in particular that was a fatal decision considering that the Jewish vote was a critical part of the base in the New York 16^th and he had gone out of his way to isolate them, not even bothering to make the kinds of outreaches he had years before. Bowman had actually been primaried before in 2022 and he'd barely won it with just over 54 percent of the vote so it would have more politically astute for him to walk a middle path.

Instead like almost every other Justice Democrat he chose to double down and George Latimer humiliated him with Bowman getting just 41 percent of the vote.

In Bush's case a bigger problem was her own personal corruption. Earlier that year she was under investigation by Biden's Justice Department and FEC for alleged misuse of federal security money. She'd also spent tens of thousands on personal security for herself while also saying Democrats should defund the police. And she'd made no efforts leading into the primary campaign to try and doing anything to shore up support, saying that she never returned the calls of people who disagreed with her. In both cases committees like AIPAC were a factor but if the Democrats had wanted to keep them in the party someone in leadership or would have spoken up for them: the fact that they remained silent made it clear they didn't want them around.

It's worth noting even original Squad member Ilhan Ohmar was not immune to these challenges. In 2022 Don Samuels would launch an attempt to primary Ohmar by running to the right of Samuels on crime as well as her support for defunding the police. Ohmar survived by the skin of her teeth, winning by just 2.1 percent. The result was enough for Ohmar to realize the danger and do sufficient spadework for her district so that she could easily win during the cycle. But the fact of the narrowness of her defeat was proof that even in districts as blue as hers, there was only so far left you could go.

After their second straight devastating and somehow still shocking loss to Trump in 2024 the party once again made outreaches to the left, this time because of polls saying 66 percent of Democratic voters said the party should not work with Trump. The party spent much of the next year making efforts to indulge the left flank as much as possible and getting burned whether they went along with them, as when they hired David Hogg as DNC Vice Chair and he made vows to primary incumbent Democrats, when they didn't, as when they voted to keep the government open rather then filibuster Trump's budget bill or when they tried to meet them halfway such as the government shutdown in September of 2025 and when they met damnation when they reopened the government after the November elections.

But by that point the Democratic Party realized that they in a few years' time Trump was going to be gone from the world of politics.  That meant trying to figure out what the party was going to look like in that not-too-distant future. And after the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, along with all of the overperforming that year, it was very clear that they had to go back to an old standard: the economy, stupid. They reframed as affordability but it was an issue that had done them well in the past.

They also realized because they did have eyes and ears – and more importantly could count votes – that the Justice Democrats were not helping the party in all of its weak parts: white working class voters, rural America, the South and the West. They had not won a single statewide office in four election cycles; they'd stopped even trying to run for those in 2020.  And in four straight election cycles they had not flipped a single Republican district. The only people they could convince were the ones already inclined to agree with them and after eight straight year it was clear to everyone but them, that it was not enough to help their Party win an election.

If they needed any more convincing on the subject the Justice Democrats proved it themselves. In the aftermath of the 2024 election they made a very public announcement that they were heading a recruitment drive to have candidates to run in all 50 states. And by the time 2026 started they had exactly fourteen – one of whom was Cori Bush trying to get her seat back. Meanwhile the DNC and the party was making a major effort to recruit and win seats in all fifty states as both a national and local level, something the Justice Democrats had never tried and they were doing a far better job.

Now I can't speak for them but after the 2024 elections the Justice Democrats had to know that their position in the party was becoming tenuous. They had been tolerated as long as Trump was priority number one and that period was coming to an end. Though they would never admit it (and God knows the media will never call them out) they also knew that their efforts to take over the Democratic Party from the left was running bone dry. They had far too many failures after four election cycles, no policy achievements to speak of in that period and a massive social media following that never led to turnout at the polls. In addition their standard bearer Bernie Sanders had announced this would be his final term and there was no voice big enough on the left to take its place that had a position nearly as big. Warren had failed in her 2020 Presidential run and had never proven as big a draw as Bernie and for all the photogenic nature of the Squad, they had never succeeded beyond the narrow scope of their rallies.

And none of them had endorsement power to win outside their narrow circle. This had been proven when Sanders, Warren and every left wing member of the Squad had joined the establishment to endorse Sara Gideon in 2020 against Susan Collins. When Gideon lost by 8 points despite the polls saying otherwise up until election day, it proved that they couldn't convince voters in New England to come out for a like minded Democrat. What hope did they with the party at large?

So much of 2026 has been spent with the Justice Democrats increasingly sitting this election cycle out. AOC didn't even endorse a single candidate during the primary season and its worth noting Chevalier and Claire Valdez didn't need it to win their primaries. Outside of New York City, its been decidedly hit or miss for the Justice Democrats in the House and that includes those that Sanders or Warren endorse anywhere else.  They had no effect in the Maryland primary to choose Steny Hoyer's replacement and Sanders efforts failed to stop Ben McAdams to win the Democratic primary in Utah to get his old seat back.

It has been even worse throughout the attempts to win Senate races. Jasmine Crockett was blown out of the water by James Talarico in the Texas primary and Warren's endorsement of Zach Wahls resulted in humiliation when Josh Turek beat him by nearly 25 points in Iowa primary. Annie Andrews and Jamie Davis may have the hearts of every progressive nationwide but in South Carolina and Louisiana respectively that counts for almost nothing.  (Lindsay Graham's sudden passing might change the calculus in South Carolina but Andrews's odd of winning that seat in a deep red state are very remote.)

For that reason the decision for almost every major Congressional left wing figure, from Ro Khanna to Bernie Sanders on down, to stand by Graham Platner no matter how horrible each new revelation was to both his candidacy and a smear on all Democrats makes a certain practical sense. They might argue that it was important to defeat Susan Collins but that was only a beard.  The left-wing of the party needed to prove to the Democratic establishment that they could flip a statewide, red seat during the midterms. And because they don't like fights they don't have a chance of winning they focused on a state that was Democratic. Sanders and Warren should have known better more than anyone – they had gone down this with Gideon six years earlier and Platner was infinitely less problematic -  but the left has always been more inclined to say the ends justify the means.

It even explains why after the first story of rape allegations came out a week before the primary Sanders, Warren et all chose to stand by Platner when most organizations were getting as far away as possible. They had christened this sinking ship; they had to stay on it even as everyone else was running for the lifeboats. Which made things only worse for them when the second allegation came out last week and the party made it clear it was pulling its funding for Platner.

By that point, even as they withdrew their endorsements and funding the damage had been done and it goes beyond whatever happens in Maine this November. The faithful will almost certainly stand by them but whatever chances they had for influence in this election cycle has been damaged for this cycle and for the foreseeable future.  

We may see it in the Michigan primaries next month where last Sunday the withdrawal of Mallory McMorrow from the Senate primary may shift the balance to Haley Stevens for the Senate Primary. Abdul Al-Sayed was a narrow front-runner in that race though his loud and often violent rhetoric shared much commonalities with Platner's and caused many Democrats to fear a loss if he won the primary. With McMorrow gone and with Al-Sayid being endorsed by many of the same progressive voices that openly backed Platner, many voters are now presented with a choice they never got when he was running. And it is worth noting that in every Democratic for a Senate seat between a progressive and a moderate, the moderate has always won.

And its clear whatever relatively free ride the most left wing candidates have gotten from the mainstream media detonated with Platner's candidacy. Many publications and commentators on the left have publicly admitted their failings when it came to Platner and while that is hypocrisy if they mean it, they will have to ask the same hard questions of left-wingers that they never did of Platner when he was a candidate. They will do so many because their reputation has been torpedoed in the eyes of the right-wing media more than out of a greater good but as long as they do it, I don't mind the reasons and neither should anyone else.

Don't get me wrong: the left wing of the party is going to be a problem after the elections for the Democrats going forward. How big a problem depends on how big the majorities are in Congress and which seats were won. Regardless the Democratic establishment can freely take scalps for what losses take place this fall and the left-wing has much less leverage in the party then it did even a month ago – and that was always more based on perception then reality. Reality, as anyone knows, has never been the left's friend.

I suspect very soon the only people who will still be saying the radical left are taking over America are the same people who always said it. The problem was that the radical left believed their own blurbs on Fox News. And that never helped them win elections in the first place.