This Is Jeopardy: Do Super-Champions Get Tired, Part 1

 

Not long after Jamie Ding's run came to an end last week there were a series of interviews with the man who has now won more games and more money than all but four people in Jeopardy history. Jamie has been enormously honest in his interviews and he admitted that by the end of his run he was started to feel more than a little fried.

Throughout Jamie's run I was preparing to write a piece involving 'Signs a Jeopardy Super-Champion Is About To Lose'. While this may sound like  clickbait  it came from nearly two decades of watching Jeopardy super-champions (particularly in the last few years) and having attempted to write a book on the subject a few years back.

Because Jeopardy is a competition. It may be more mental than physical but the physical part plays into it: both in terms of being quicker on the buzzer then your opponents and being able to play well at a consistent level. And Jeopardy players are not Watson: they're only human. It would be inevitable that they'd get tired the longer they were doing the same thing, the same way a professional athlete does over several months of playing.

This was almost non-existent in the first twenty years of Jeopardy. With a limit of five wins, to be a great you had to just get through one, two days of shooting at the most. Then several months later you would come back and if you could win four games over two days, you were officially the best player of the year. But to make the leaderboard of legends as they've now established it you have to play five games a day for days at the time. It's inevitable that at a certain point you'd hit a wall.

We now have a fairly large sample of super-champions to look through to see if this fatigue exists and when it becomes evident. To be clear the four players immediately ahead of Jamie Ding – James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider and Ken Jennings – never really showed any sign of this fatigue up until the end. Jennings and Schnieder's losses came as a shock to audience, Holzhauer was outplayed by Emma Boettcher and Matt Amodio's encounter was with a super-champion of his own Jonathan Fisher. But that still leaves us with fifteen players to look through and see if there were signs. That said, there were factors for each of them that we have to consider as well.

So let's start with the era from Jennings streak to the passing of Trebek in 2020.

 

DAVID MADDEN 19 WINS 2005

David's run straddled the end of Season 21 and the start of Season 22. So considering that there was a six week layoff we can only wonder if some rust might have developed over the summer. During the first week of Season 22 he won his first five games and he managed to run away with two of them. That being said he also got three of five Final Jeopardys incorrect including one the day before he lost.

By the time he ran into Victoria Groce in his twentieth appearance he was clearly starting to flag, particularly considering how close his last few games were.

I think by the end of it.

 

ARTHUR CHU, 2014, 11 WINS, 2014

Arthur's eleven wins took place in an odd way. He won four games, rested three weeks as the Battle of the Decades: The 1980s and the 2014 College Championship took place, won five straight, rested another week as the Battle of the Decades: 1990s took place and then came back for his next two wins. He ran away with game 10 then won his eleventh. On the 11^th it was clear he was having some trouble: he got 24 correct responses, including 2 Daily Doubles but he also got 8 incorrect responses including the last Daily Double in Double Jeopardy. He still ran away with the game but he was clearly starting to flag.

The next day he also gave 23 correct responses but also gave 6 incorrect ones including a Daily Double that cost him everything and from which he could never recover. He also got Final Jeopardy wrong. I think there's a clear sign that win 11 was a sign of just how fatigued he was.

 

JULIA COLLINS, 2014, 20 wins, 2014

Like Arthur Julia's streak was interrupted by the battle of the decades. Having won ten games, she rested for the final two weeks of the Battle of The Decades then won ten more. That said its pretty clear by the 20^th game she was running out of steam against Sami Siegelbaum and Wendy Hardenberg. She got 21 correct responses and four incorrect ones, including both Daily Doubles. By the end of the Final Jeopardy she barely was ahead of both of them and had to get Final Jeopardy correct to win her 20^th and take second place from David.

She came out swinging the Jeopardy round of her 21^st game, got the first Daily Double incorrect and then Brian Loughanne moved ahead of her in Double Jeopardy very close to the end. She got Final Jeopardy wrong and Brian got it right. I think its clear Julia was starting to lose momentum by that point in her run. But it was 20 games, who wouldn’t?

 

MATT JACKSON, 13 WINS, 2015

In Matt's case there was no warning at all. He was still running at full steam in the last two games before that. He slowed down slightly in Game 14 'only' getting 19 correct answers, including both Daily Doubles and getting two responses incorrect. But he was still leading going into Final Jeopardy, by the narrowest of margins over Michael Baker.

This was a triple stumper for Final Jeopardy and it came down to wagering. Michael bet the least and it ended up paying off. I don't think Matt was really tired; I think his luck just ran out.

 

SETH WILSON, 12 WINS, 2016

With Seth it was hard to tell because he was never quite as dominant as his predecessors. His model of victories were closer to that of Ryan Long. He did just well enough to win many of his games and much of the time he won because of his opponents mistakes. That said in his 12^th victory he was incredible getting 26 correct responses and only 1 incorrect one. For that matter he was even better in his 13^th appearance getting 27 correct response and 3 incorrect ones. He was ahead of Margie Eulner Ott in that appearance and he got Final Jeopardy right. The difference was he only bet $5 and Margie bet everything.

In his case I don't think he was running on fumes so much as his luck ran out.

 

AUSTIN ROGERS, 12 WINS  2017

Austin might have been slightly fatigued by the time of his 12^th win. He got off to a great start in the Jeopardy round and had $12,600 by the end of it. But in Double Jeopardy he started to flag he got all three of his incorrect responses and only five correct ones. Brian his nearest opponent found both Daily Doubles and got one of them wrong. Austin still managed to win a runaway but it was the closest one and it was by far his lowest score at the end of Double Jeopardy $15,400.

He improved the next day with 21 correct responses but also got five wrong the most he'd managed to that point in his run. That combined with a near perfect performance by Scarlett gave her the lead going into Final Jeopardy. I'm not the kind of person who goes by Coryat score but according to it he finished with $11,000 and its only because of the Daily Doubles he got that he actually had $16,600 at the end.

For that reason I think Austin really was starting to flag by this point. Which is understandable: he was playing at a level that hadn't been seen in a while. You can only average $35,000 per win for so long.

 

For the record there were no signs James Holzhauer was slowing down. He gave 25 correct responses in his 32 game. Emma Boettcher was just as perfect with 21 correct responses. The difference was she found 2 Daily Doubles to his one. That's how great you had to be to beat Holzhauer. You had to be perfect.

 

JASON ZUFFRANIERI, 19 WINS, 2019

Jason won six games at the end of Season 35. When Season 36 began he actually seemed to have gotten better with each victory. By the time he reached win 19 there were no real signs of flagging. He'd given 26 correct responses to run away with it yet again. His opponents had each done very well: getting 15 correct response apiece but not well enough to stop him from running away with it.

And he was perfect in his twentieth appearance getting 25 correct responses with zero mistakes. The difference was Christine Ryan and Gabe Brison-Trezise managed to find all three Daily Doubles ahead of him. Even then Gabe had to get two of the last three clues correct to make sure that Jason couldn't run away with the game. When Gabe got Final Jeopardy correct and Jason got it wrong that finally ended Jason's streak.

I don't think there was any sign of fatigue with Jason.

 

So with Arthur Chu, Julia Collins and Austin Rogers there's clear signs that they were starting to run on empty. For Jason Zuffranieri, James Holzhauer, Matt Jackson and Seth Wilson there's no proof of that: a combination of meeting better opponents and bad luck in Final Jeopardy brought them down. With David Madden I can't say definitively one way or the other and as we all know Ken beat himself.

In the next article I'll look at the super-champions in the post-Trebek era, sans Amy Schneider and Matt Amodio.

 

 

 

 

Back to the Island Emmys Edition: How Did The Emmys Do By Lost? One Critic (and Fan's) Opinion

 

 

When Lost debuted in September of 2004 the Golden Age of TV was in full bloom. When it left the airwaves in May of 2010 it was well into its second, equally brilliant phase.

When the series began HBO was essentially still the Big Dog with The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Deadwood regularly making visits while The West Wing was in its final two Sorkin-less seasons and 24 was still at its peak. With each new season it seemed both new networks and new dramas were coming out to prove that they wanted to enter the world of Peak TV, most prominently AMC but also Showtime, FX and the networks were still putting their best foot forward with such standouts as Friday Night Lights, House and The Good Wife.  I saw the majority of those shows when they were airing and I've seen quite a few of them since multiple times and they are everything we say they are and more.

During this same period I took the Emmys more personally then I do now. Much of this was due to the fact I was in my twenties and far more in the fan stage of my TV viewing then the critic I am today. I'm not saying I took the Emmys as the be all and end all of great TV – their attitude to shows such as Homicide and Buffy The Vampire Slayer had made it very clear to me where their blind spots were even then -  but I did rise and fall with the nominations and winners more than I do today. (And by today I basically mean within the last six or seven years at the earliest.)

It's only now I realize just how hard it must have been for the Emmy voters to make the decisions they did for nominating so many of these dramas, much less picking winners. More to the point until the mid-2000s the Emmy judges had tied at least one hand behind their backs because the nomination list in every category was capped at five no matter how good every performance or show was. They wouldn't begin to expand the nominees in every category for good until the end of the 2000s and they've still been toying with the rules every few years, never quite settling on a formula that makes everyone happy. (They never will, of course, but I respect the Academy for trying.)

As I wrote in a previous article Lost did incredibly well under these circumstances receiving 53 nominations and 12 awards over its six seasons. And while I'm not the kind of person who Monday morning quarterbacks any awards show I have wondered if there had the rules of today or other factors is it possible the Emmys would have done better by Lost? Or with hindsight are there nominees in major categories that look bad for the Emmys and that nominees from Lost would have made better?

At this point being an authority not just on the Emmys but having seen most of the nominees and winners during this period I think I can make some speculation. So what this article will due will look at the Emmys during the period Lost was on their air and argue how right the Emmys did by Lost, whether they could have done better and if so where? I'll try to limit my rulings based solely on that show, but I'll also give context by dealing with the series and actors who were nominated.

 

2005 Season 1 Lost (Nominees capped at five per category

Here obviously I have no notes as Lost deservedly won Best Drama over a strong field: Seasons 4 of 24 and Six Feet Under, Season 6 of The West Wing and Season 2 of Deadwood. 

Now do I slightly bare a grudge that Terry O'Quinn should have won a Best Supporting Actor Emmy for 'Walkabout' instead of William Shatner. Yes but it did work out for O'Quinn. The show deservedly won Best Director  for its groundbreaking 'Pilot' still considered one of the greatest episodes in TV history. It was nominated for its Pilot and Walkabout but lost to House but I'll be honest that year it should have gone to The Wire for Middle Ground (R.I.P Stringer Bell).

That said I do think the Emmys made a bad judgment by nominating and giving Best Supporting Actress to Blythe Danner for Showtime's Huff.  Had they expanded it to six nominees and they'd been willing to give a nomination to Lost I would have nominated Evangeline Lilly. I wouldn't have given her the prize: that should have gone to CCH Pounder for The Shield but Lilly was ignored by the actors branch for too long. Still they got it right by Lost.

 

2006: Lost Season 2  (Nominees capped at 5 PER category)

Twenty years later I'm still scratching my head about almost everything the Emmys did this year. The Shield was completely skunked in every category, especially Forest Whitaker for Best Supporting Actor.  They gave The West Wing too many nominations for its final season and not enough for Six Feet Under which was nominated for many major acting awards but not Best Drama. House was nominated for Best Drama; Hugh Laurie wasn't nominated. Grey's Anatomy got more writing nominations then The Sopranos.

The only reason I've never bitched is despite all of these mistakes the Emmys got it right when they gave Best Drama to 24 for its fifth season, not just its finest hour but one of the greatest seasons any show has had in television history.  I'm actually glad in hindsight Lost wasn't nominated for Best Drama because then I would have to root for one against the other and I didn't want to have too.

That being said having seen all of the seasons of the nominated shows Lost was as good as the final season of The West Wing and the second season of Grey's Anatomy and superior to Season 2 of House.  (I can't be objective about The Sopranos so I won't talk.)  Lost did receive nine nominations and three of them were pretty big deals: 'The 23 Psalm was nominated for Best Teleplay and 'Live Together, Die Alone' was nominated for Best Director and Henry Ian Cusick received a nomination for Best Guest Actor in a Drama.

I do believe that the nominations for Oliver Platt and Blythe Danner for Huff were still the wrong call. The following year the acting nominations would be extended to six and if I had by choice for which two actors I would have nominated in those categories I would have selected Michelle Rodriguez for Best Supporting Actress and Terry O'Quinn for Best Supporting Actor. Both gave the standout performances of Season 2 in my opinion.

 

2007 Lost Season 3 (Nominees capped at 5 for Drama; six for supporting actor for Drama that year)

 

How much you think Lost deserved to be nominated that year depends on your opinion of Season 3 overall. It's clear the first half did much to the erode many of the fandom's faith. That being said having seen all of the nominated shows (save Heroes) I think Season 3 was equal to those of House and Grey's Anatomy and slightly better than Boston Legal. That the latter two were ABC dramas and Lost was as well might have been a factor: perhaps the Emmys didn't want one network to dominate the nominations.

Otherwise the Emmys did pretty well by Lost nominating the iconic 'Through the Looking Glass' for teleplay and directing and giving nominations for Supporting Actor to Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn, with the latter deservedly winning the Emmy for it. That said I'm still irritated that Elizabeth Mitchell, who made Season 3 shine as Juliet wasn't nominated even though three actress from Grey's Anatomy and Rachel Griffiths for Brothers & Sisters were. I liked Griffiths and Brothers and Sisters but Mitchell deserved it over her no question.

 

2008 Season 4: drama and comedy at six, acting at five

Jack shouts "We have to go back!" at the end of Season 3. And the Emmy judges listened and nominated Lost for Best Drama.  I'm not sure which feat is more remarkable: even in 2008 'the rules' were that if you fell off the list of Emmy nominees for any reason you weren't invited back. I'd seen it play out for The X-Files, Law & Order and 24. And yet for some reason I can't fathom, after a two-year absence, Lost was nominated for Best Drama and stayed there until the end of its run.

The Emmys were right to nominate alongside the breathtaking first seasons of Mad Men and Damages as well as Season 2 of Dexter. Boston Legal and House were there; we hadn't yet realized how great a drama Breaking Bad was. They nominated Michael Emerson for Best Supporting Actor.

And yet for the only time its run it was ignored for directing or writing.  To be clear they screwed the pooch by not nominated the landmark episode 'The Constant' for writing or directing – though to be fair those nominations were still capped at 5. I've seen all the episodes that were nominated and trust me 'There's No Place Like Home' or 'The Constant absolutely should have been nominated for directing over Boston Legal that year. To be fair they nominated the former for editing and the latter for cinematography and musical score and they did give sound mixing to Meet Kevin Johnson.

I'd also have given a nomination for Best Supporting Actress to Yunjun Kim for her outstanding work in the Season finale. I saw four of the five performances all of which were from other ABC dramas and trust me Kim's in that episode is her best in an incredible run. From the moment she spots Jin on the freighter and starts screaming for them to go back to her hysterical scream of anguish when it explodes to the way she just goes dead in the final half-hour is an astonishing work of acting by anyone.

 

2009 Season 5 (all nominees for drama and acting at 6)

Lost received 5 nominations and I really don't have any notes. Sure it is one of the greatest seasons in TV history by the estimate of some (the argument is made in Back to the Island) But the same could be said for Seasons 2 of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Season 3 of Dexter and Big Love (nominated for the first and only time). They nominated 'The Incident' for Best Teleplay, the only nominee that wasn’t one from Mad Men. Michael Emerson won his only Emmy for Lost against a field that included previous winners William Shatner and Christian Clemenson for Boston Legal, Aaron Paul, who'd win three other times for Breaking Bad and William Hurt for his incredible work in Season 2 of Damages.

Now I do think Matthew Fox should have been nominated for Best Actor in a Drama ahead of Simon Baker for The Mentalist but honestly I'd have put Kiefer Sutherland in 24 ahead of both of them. I do think Elizabeth Mitchell should have put in ahead of Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson for Grey's Anatomy: Season 5 was where the wheels came off the bus creatively. (The Emmys agreed; the show has never been nominated for any major awards in all the years since.)

 

2010 Season 6 (all nominees in drama and acting at six)

No notes. I'm serious. The Emmys nominated the final season of Lost for 12 Emmys the most since its first season. That's remarkable in itself before you consider just how well the Emmys absolutely did across the board in this category.

In Drama its up against Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Dexter all at the height of their powers. The Good Wife was nominated for Best Drama. True Blood…well nobody's perfect.

Matthew Fox nominated for Best Actor against Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Michael C. Hall, Jon Hamm and Hugh Laurie. How lucky he must have felt.

Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson up against John Slattery for Mad Men, Andre Braugher for Men of A Certain Age, and Martin Short for Damages. Aaron Paul must have felt like he had no chance before he won his first Emmy.

The series finale was nominated for directing and writing which it deserved to be. (If you're going to nominate Made in America for The Sopranos the Emmys could handle a controversial series finale.) Elizabeth Mitchell finally got nominated for her work as Best Guest Actress in a Drama.

To be clear I don't think there's a single note I have (with perhaps the exception of True Blood) for any of the nominees in drama or comedy  anywhere  either at the time or in hindsight. That was maybe the first year I was covering the Emmys where I could say that with honesty. So to argue that Nestor Carbonell deserved a nomination for Ab Aeterno or the rest of the cast is the definition of petty. The Emmys got it right and that applies to Lost in its final season.

 

I should mention all of these choices for acting nominees are my personal preference before I get the inevitable backlash from Losties. I could have made arguments for any of these seasons for Josh Holloway or Jorge Garcia, later ones for Jeremy Davies and Emilie De Ravin (her work in Season 6 was a revelation) and really the entire cast.

The thing is I keep coming to the same question: Where would I put them? If you've seen any of the series I've listed among the nominees and winners during this epic period of excellent television you know that some of the greatest performance in lead and supporting were competing every year. Just because the Emmys was, in hindsight, correct 85 to 90 percent of the time with its track record in nominees doesn't mean that there weren't a lot of creative forces who kept ending up on the short end during this period. It's the inevitable record of any awards show that some of your favorites will be left out every year; the voters must have been in agony every time they chose some and left 'others' out.

So at least when it came to one of my favorite shows of all time the Emmys was right more often then not. I can't say that with a lot of other shows…but as my readers know I'll be dealing with those issues very soon.

 

Suggestions for A Post Trump America: Why Trump Derangement Syndrome Actually Pre-Dates Trump - And Why We Have To Deal With It

 

 

Like the rest of you I've long lost count how any criticism made of Trump from the start of his run to the White House right up to the current day, however legitimate, is mocked by the right on cable news, his followers and the President himself as 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'.

Like so many labels of conservatives for the 21^st century it has the added benefit of having an element of truth: so much of what he has done in the last decade has been done to piss off so much of the liberal establishment that it has increasingly made far too many of them so angry in their rhetoric of anything he does whether it is small, large or in between that much of the time they do sound deranged.  And long before he arrived on the scene the right has always known that if you can make Democrats sound upset about everything it negates all legitimate criticism of Republicans into noise which they can shrug off.  Fox News still does it after thirty years even after so many Democrats and left-wing thinkers will tell you how they are manipulating the masses. So many people on the left will tell you it’s a trick done to distract you – and yet every time there's a broadcast of any kind they will immediately do the exact same thing they have for decades.

Now I will admit during much of his first term there were times where I suffered from what both sides call TDS. It wasn't until I started doing my series about Hollywood and Politics (I will finish it) that I finally realized that we've been misdiagnosing this for years and in fact it existed well before Trump was making names as a developer.

What everyone has called TDS is actually RDL: Republican Denialism by Liberals. This syndrome has existed since 1952 when Richard Nixon gave his famous 'Checkers' speech which saved his political career. Nixon was the first major political candidate of either party to realize just how television could be used to win over the average American on a purely guttural emotional level regardless of what one knows intellectually. Liberals have never been willing to accept that emotion should play a part in politics: they believe every decision for voting should be made on a purely intellectual decision. That never in the history of the republic have voters based their decision for political candidates on that metric – right back to when Andrew Jackson brought about Jacksonian Democracy after running an emotional campaign over the intellectually superior John Quincy Adams in 1828 – is something that has never once entered so many intellectual minds, and if it does it's only to argue the electorate or the system is fatally flawed, never their perception of it.

Because Nixon was openly contemptuous of the liberal intellectual the same way they openly hated him: the fact that much of the Republican party as well as the voting public found sympathy to his tone is something that liberals refuse to accept as reality. This denialism has caused them to ignore right up until the 1968 election even the possibility the voters would pick Richard Nixon as their President. The fact that by this time the Democratic Party was fatally split because of so much liberal division rarely, if ever, enters the discussion of Nixon's winning the Presidency in 1968. And given how his character would end up destroying his administration and forcing him to resign in 1974 those same intellectuals have spent the last half century arguing that his 49 state landslide in 1972 over McGovern didn't count because of the corruption of Watergate. The fact that to this there are many people still convinced Nixon got a raw deal and that many of them would still effect our politics for the next half century has done nothing to stop them from negating that appeal – and it has continuously caused them to either ignore conservative victories that have followed as somehow tainted as well as any role the left might have played in them occurring.

This pattern can be found in almost every Republican triumph that followed in the next forty years. Reagan's landslide defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980 only happened because of the Iran Hostage crisis as well as the fact that people in Reagan's team engaged in behavior to stop the crisis from ending to give Carter an 'October surprise'. The fact that Carter's approval ratings were at 21 percent, that many  members of the left were so unhappy that Ted Kennedy ended up challenging him for the Democratic nomination in 1980, and the flaws of Carter as President – all of which were manifest long before the hostage crisis began – are ignored in this retelling.  Carter, a man the left of the 1970s loathed for not being liberal enough, is now a hero and martyr less for his Presidency's accomplishments but for losing to a man they've always considered a boogeyman.

Reagan's two landslide victories which completely destroyed the old-label of liberalism are swept aside as aberrations even though he managed 1014 electoral votes combined to his two opponents 59. Because the voting turnout was low compared to previous elections the left will argue that Reagan and the conservative movement were not popular and that liberalism really was what the public wanted.  The question why then did Democrats lose so horribly to Reagan is never asked?

By the time of Gingrich's revolution in 1994 the left has begun to lay the groundwork for the argument Republicans are rigging the game: the Heritage foundation and the Federalist Society have been established, the Fairness Doctrine has been repealed and Gingrich has spent years tearing things up in the House. In this narratives Republicans were perfectly happy being the minority party in the House and going along with everything Democrats did. Only after talk radio and Fox News came along did Republicans become vindictive and the public started getting brainwashed that liberalism was bad and conservatism is good. Again the public has no free will of its own and they are tabula rasa who can reject their built in liberal values simply by watching cable news for an extended period. The possibility that they might have always been Republicans in the first place is rejected, as is the fact that everything conservatives were doing to 'rig the system' liberals could have done just as well. The left's hands are clean because they never bothered to get them dirty in the first place.

By the time of George W. Bush's win in 2000 the narrative has become clear: the country wants Democratic administrations and its only because Republicans cheat by means of the electoral college that they are suppressing the true will of the people. The fact that the election was essentially a tie and then many of those people voted for Nader because they thought there was no difference between him and Al Gore is shunted aside by progressives. They start counting elections from 1992 on and ignore the ones from 1968 to 1988 where they were flattened by Republicans five times out of six, four of them in landslides. They point to Florida being stolen in 2000 which the circumstances at least have some basis in reality and become scurrilous in arguing the same thing happened in Ohio in 2004 though the margin was far larger and they have nothing but innuendo. Republicans only win the White House because they cheat; that they are winning both Houses of Congress during the 1990s and through 2004, completely dismissed.

When Obama wins in 2008 it's official: Democrats are the party of the future, Republicans are that of the past. Ignored is the fact that Obama's victory of 361 electoral votes is nowhere near the level of any previous Republican landslide or even Clinton's two previous victories. The GOP is dead, and it is their solemn duty to accept it and just become docile. That the left doesn't particularly like Obama is not important: by this point the Democrats are at best a necessary evil to smash the conservative movement.

The Republican rise of the Tea Party and its takeover of Congress to the point that by 2014 the party has margins it hasn't had since 1928 is dismissed by a combination of the wealthy one percent own elections, various Supreme court decision and racism towards the first African-American President. Senate leader Mitch McConnell and a succession of Republican speakers are thwarting the will of the President of the United States. The fact that many of these people screamed about how Bush-Cheney were running roughshod over checks and balances with their grand unitary theory of the executive just ten years ago is dismissed entirely. The President is the sole arbiter of government  and Congress should do whatever he says.

Well before Trump becomes the frontrunner for the nomination gospel has come: the GOP is only doing this because they are in their death throes. Racial identity has overpower them and they are all white men resisting the tide of the future. They need to accept the fact that Democrats will always win the White House from now on and live with it. The fact that over the last 24 years there has been a pattern of eight years of a Democrat followed by eight years of a Republican is ignored. Hilary will win in 2016 no matter who the Republican nominee is and of course the Republicans will never nominate a man so uncouth and intellectually unqualified as Trump.

The left ignores its own history and dismisses the emotional appeal he has over the electorate. That Hilary Clinton is, at best, a stilted and flawed candidate – one many of the left and the party find unlikable most of the time -is ignored as the fact of all of Trump's. Any abuse against her is of course a conspiracy of the right and sexism. No sane person would vote for Trump any more then they would for W or Reagan or Nixon.

In the aftermath of 2016 the fact that Hilary won the popular vote by three million leads the left to believe the system is rigged. Never mind that she won California by 4 million votes over Trump: the masses truly wanted her.  All the flaws of her campaign are erased. The system is rigged against true expression. The people have not been heard. That seventy million people voted for Trump is ignored: they're not real Americans.

Which brings us to today.

At no point in this narrative, you will note, has the average voters decision to vote Republican either for President or at any level been taken into consideration. That is because in the minds of so many people they can't comprehend why any rational person would vote Republican. That's because many of them can't comprehend why any rational person would vote, full stop. None of the denialism of Republicans appeal necessarily leads to unity with the Democrats either: if Democrats have lost elections at any point, it is because they spent too much time trying to appeal to people who voted Republican in the last election. The only reason Democrats have lost is because they haven't embraced a far-left agenda which all Americans clearly and obviously want. The fact that they have chosen Republican Presidents or representatives is because they're not smart enough to understand how great liberalism or progressivism or whatever left wing label is or alternatively, they are all secretly white supremacists, even the African-Americans and LatinX or all part of the patriarchy even those who are women.

Historically the left has always had an intellectual snobbery over the average American and it has become more pronounced with each Republican victory well before Trump ever ran for President. For all of their assaults on Republicans being the party of the elites and oligarchs and the one percent, the loudest and angriest voices from the Democrats have never come from the working class voter. They're always from the academic or Hollywood or the media or certain wealthy people, the overwhelming majority of whom are mostly white themselves. There are college students and high class people at so many of their rallies but the working class they speak for are rarely there.

Where they are, increasingly, have been at Trump rallies. These are the people, according to the left, who are being the most abused by the Republicans for decades and who need the most saving. But it is rare, if ever, they will try to talk to them and if they do it is invariably to mock them in Hollywood sketches or to judge them as unevolved species by academics.

So much of the left's philosophy on these people is to argue the kind of conservative ethos that they mock when Republicans do it in their speeches: they have to raise themselves up by their bootstraps, realize how they are being brainwashed by the conservative media and Republican politicians and they must do it without any help from those intellectuals who clearly know better. The liberal denialism prevents them from even talking to other Republican voters even if it helps them – and more importantly (you'd think) the country as a whole. But it's their job to make the first step and until they do, the RDL argument goes, it is perfectly acceptable for you to cut out people like that from your liberal life even if they are your friends, family or children.

The biggest problem with those who have RDL is not that the Republicans are not guilty of many of the crimes they are accused of – they are and some will even admit it – its that those who have RDL know about these crimes and every level do nothing constructive to stop it or dismiss using that method as a counterattack.  Every time the conservatives suffer even a momentary defeat, they learn from it and alter their approach. RDL's never learn from anything they do: they feel that their warning, even if they come long past the point to do anything, is sufficient to the cause. It is the responsibility of all of us to find a way to counterattack. They never give a method, they never give time to it, and they never give their money. All they do is write stridently and scream at the rest of us that its our fault for ignoring their advice. Most of the time they do sound – deranged.

I think the biggest problem with those who have RDL is that they can't accept the reality that Republicans will never truly disappear from America. No matter what happens after the midterms or 2028, no matter what reforms the Democrats might or can make in the interim, no matter what changes that happen, the Republicans will still exist. They might change their approach, they might change their policy, but they'll still be here.

And unlike all of those in identity politics, those who vote for them don't wear a Scarlet R on their chests or all live in flyover country or rural America. They vote in every election in deep blue states and are voting against members of the Squad no matter how futile the effort is. No amount of magical thinking by RDL will make them all disappear or even all vote Democrat. These people can cut them out of their lives, of their families, of their chatrooms – but just because they don't talk to them doesn't magically make them disappear. They exist; they're going to vote Republican. And unless you're willing to engage them in debate or acknowledge their existence, what reason do they have to change their mind?

I don't deny many on the right don't see much of what is blue America is as human. But I've spent too much time on this site and others to know that's not a flaw that is solely limited to those on Fox News or MAGA. A lot of them are on this site; I encounter them in my algorithm whether I want to or not.

This is reality no matter how many severe the case of RDL is. People who suffer from it can stay in their RDL bubbles as much as they want; it's not going to change that reality.  They can pontificate from the heights of their virtual ivory towers; it will not change those facts no matter how many claps they get, no matter how many favorable comments that approve of them. (Yes I am openly baiting some people here; as established I give no F's on what they think.)

Because I don't suffer from RDL. I live in the real world. I accept that Republicans exist. I may not agree with them some or even most of the time but then I'm in that same place with almost everyone else I meet regardless of their political affiliation. I accept that they live in the same country, state and maybe even the same building I live in even though I do live in New York. Some of their points of view may turn my stomach at some times but that's never been enough of a reason for me to wish them out of existence and its certainly not enough for me to say they shouldn't vote or run for office.

And anyone who can't accept these basic realities, well I hate to say it, then you really are deranged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post Trump-America Decision 2026 Annex: Graham Platner is The Best Thing to Happen For Susan Collins in 2026

 

 

So much of the media's focus has deservedly been on the chaos of both the current administration and the Republicans in Congress that many may not have noticed that things aren't exactly going well for those members of the far-left in Democratic Party. If nothing else, its more then demonstrated just how foolish and incompetent they can be when the spotlight's on them and how badly they can govern when given the opportunity.

AOC went to the Munich Security Conference with the intention of showing that she had chops in foreign relations in planning to run for higher office. Instead she engaged in word salad on an international stage and was so incompetent that not even her most loyal followers rushed to defend her. This past week a clip where Ilhan Omar, in the process of railing against Trump, referred to World War II as 'World War 11' has gone viral. Left out of it was that she did so when she was reintroducing one of her bills 'Neighbors Not Enemies Act' which never made it out of Judiciary when she introduced it in January 2025. Jasmine Crockett, one of the loudest members of the Progressive Caucus was humiliated in her run for the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Texas by James Talrico and it is likely her career in the House is at an end for the foreseeable future.

Most notably Zohran Mamdani, who rode into office on a wave of democratic socialism, has not exactly been killing it as Mayor of New York. In his first hundred days in which he promised to roll out seven major parts of a campaign platform, all but two have either been tabled or quietly dropped from his agenda. (The New York Times reported on this.) He has been forced to acknowledge that the city is suffering from a budget deficit and that most of his programs have no really chance of getting done, which has earned him mockery on the right and scorn from the left. This Tuesday there was an election in the New York City Council District 3 the first test of Mamdani's value in political endorsement. The day before the election he endorsed Lindsay Boylan. Instead Carl Wilson ended up winning by nearly seventeen points over her. Boylan had been endorsed by the New York Working Families Party and leaders of the Progressive Caucus. Mamdani carried this district with 55 percent of the vote. Boylan got 27 percent of it. The idea of Mamdani being a kingmaker in New York popped so badly its small wonder he wanted to get back to celebrating May Day to forget.

Nor have the Justice Democrats exactly been tearing it up at the ballot box. This past March two of the primary candidates they endorsed in Illinois, Junaid Ahmed and Kat Abughazaleh for the eighth and ninth districts respectively, each barely got more than a quarter of the vote in the Democratic primary. Two weeks before that Nida Allam challenged North Carolina 4^th and received endorsements from every single left-wing Democratic organization.  She lost for the second time to her opponent Valerie Foushee. Meanwhile the Democrats have been rejected left-wing candidates in the House and increasingly embracing a centrist position. This has been seen in the candidates who are running for the Senate in red states. I've already written in regard to why I believe Mary Peltola and Sherrod Brown will be formidable contenders and I will do the same for James Talarico. Roy Cooper is a similarly strong candidate in North Carolina and they may have a chance in states such as Iowa and even Florida.

In my introduction to this series I argued that in order to win back the Senate the Democrats needed to expand the map because they couldn't keep trying to unseat Susan Collins. It’s a good thing that they are because earlier this week the Democrats did the biggest favor possible in Collins's campaign to win reelection. Ada Mills dropped out of the race, leaving the field open to Graham Platner.

Platner is a problematic candidate for Senate the same way that Jeffrey Dahmer had a very specific dietary restrictions. He is the exact kind of candidate that I associate Republicans nominating in my lifetime well before the era of Trump and that they've never quite gotten away from. It has constantly cost them races that they absolutely should have won from nominating Christine O'Donnell for the Senate in Delaware, a woman whose biggest claim to fame was claiming she had once been a with, to Roy Moore's to fill Jeff Sessions' Senate seat in Alabama and losing to Doug Jones to the last midterms when Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker's candidacies in Pennsylvania and Georgia cost the GOP senate seats they most likely could have won with less eccentric (to use a euphemism) candidates.  But I've never seen a candidate for public office, much less a Democrat, who is running for a Senate seat whose essentially done the opposition research for his opponents before the primaries were even over.

Platner has no qualifications for public office. He may be combat veteran who has served his country with distinction but his most recent career is that of an oyster farmer. Perhaps I shouldn't be shocked that his main adviser worked for Mamdani – and considering we've just seen the limits of that in New York, I can't imagine how it'll play in Maine. He calls himself Maine's Mamdani because he has openly opposed Israel's war in Gaza.

In the lead up to last November several high level staffers included his political director, his campaign manager, and his campaign treasurer resigned. Several Reddit posts have made it clear that he is a 'communist, called cops bastards and said rural white Americans are stupid." The fact that he has a Nazi tattoo – and that somehow he wasn't aware of it until recently – is the least of his problems.

Platner has yet to be endorsed by the Justice Democrats but he essentially is following much of their platform, opening in favor housing affordability, ending US involvement in overseas wars, and Medicare for all. He argues for higher taxes on billionaires and while he's never called himself a socialist he has admitted that he was pretty far left and never supported Hilary in 2016. The closest thing he has to moderation is on gun control where he supports background checks but not a ban on semi-automatics.

Platner did begin his campaign early, long before Ada Mills could formerly organize, and by the end of March had nearly a thirty point lead over her in the Democratic primary. Mills was governor but is nearly 77 years old and couldn't compete with the financial lead Platner had built. She ended her campaign which means that Platner is the prohibitive Democratic nominee. Or to put it another way he's the greatest gift to the GOP since Mamdani came along.

This will almost certainly do long term damage to the Democrats regardless of whether Platner wins or loses. If nothing else his candidacy is going to put the Democratic establishment on defense for the next six months – a position that is bad enough most times and worse when your opponent actually has the moral high ground.  I saw an interview on CNN where the question was put forth to a young Democrat whether if the Republicans were to run a candidate like this Democrats would justifiably tear him down. Asked how they could defend a man with a Nazi tattoo, the best this young man could say was that: "Well, Trump has dinner with Nazis."

(Little advice from a Democrat. You spend a decade saying everything Trump and the GOP has done as the second coming of Hitler and your first argument for a freshly minted candidate for Senate wearing a Nazi tattoo is to go to the whataboutism defense, that's not a great look. Its bad enough for so many in your party to argue that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza; when one of your candidates for Senate does so with a Nazi tattoo,  that argument you're not anti-Semitic, you're anti-Zionist really falls apart.)

This is the kind of thing that Republicans will absolutely be making a meal of with every candidate for the next six months. I don't know how much good it will do them; they admi they're almost certainly going to lose the House and that the Senate is becoming an uphill battle.  What bothers me about Platner – aside from what absolutely should be obvious – is the defense the Democrats are trying to convince themselves for endorsing him: he's the only one who can win.

At best, I find that argument shaky. As I wrote in my previous article about Maine elections in the 21^st century Maine is by far the most conservative state in New England. This is a state that has a district that has gone for Trump twice and the only reason that Jared Golden was able to win was because he ran more to the center. You guys essentially pushed him out of the party for that and now you're trying to win a seat in the Senate with a guy who is arguably so far to the left that Bernie might be nervous by some of his statements.

I've already mention that for all the supposedly liberal nature of New England, the Justice Democrats have not been able to do well in this neck of the woods. Betsy Sweet tried to run as a Justice Democrat in Maine six years ago and she got flattened by Sara Gideon.

The current argument for nominating Platner is that he's leading Collins in every public poll in the race. Well six years ago when Gideon was challenging Collins she was leading her in every public poll in the race. Every major report said right up until the election day that at worst it was a toss up and at best it was going to flip.  Gideon was endorsed by Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy, the most progressive members of the Senate and every single progressive group. Gideon represented all the progressive positions including criminal justice reform, endorsing the affordable care act, and rejoining the Paris Climate Accord. The polls had Gideon winning by an average of 4 points

She lost to Collins by eight points.

As of this moment according to 270towin the consolidate average of all polls going back to November shows Platner with 49 percent of the vote to Collin's 41,7 percent. I grant you this will give the Democrats a heady feeling. You would think that the last decade involving Trump would have told them that you can't trust polls and you'd think if nothing else considering how the polls got the Collins-Gideon race so spectacularly wrong six years ago that they've had learned something from that. No one ever argued Democrats were quick learners.

Collins is, as I pointed out in my previous article, more popular in her state than Trump or any Republican has been in her tenure in office.  Considering that the Democrats last won a Senate seat in Maine in 1988 and that they're trying to unseat someone who keeps beating them even as they continue to win the state in national elections. And considering that this is a state where a Blue Dog democrat won multiple times  – and they're running one of his own in the Senate in Alaska – you'd think they'd have realized that in some states there's far more room in the middle then there are people in the left.

But no. Once again, demonstrating the belief of Charlie Brown saying this time he'll kick the football, they've decided the answer is to run the most far left candidate they can in Maine and leave a candidate who's already a centrist even more ground to pick up on when it comes to the fall election. That the center in this case also contains the moral high ground is another one of those unforced errors I really hoped we were done making after 2024.

Just a reminder. I am a Democrat (very) still and I live in New York. I didn't put Mamdani on my ballot when he was running for Mayor last spring and I voted for Cuomo in the general. I thought he was utterly unqualified to lead New York City as Mayor and he has lived down to those expectations over the last three months. I'm not shocked the institutions are against him and that so increasingly are the Democratic Socialists who endorsed him. Tuesday's elections just proved that Mamdani has less power over the electorate then everyone thought when he won by a landslide in November.  I believed at the time the only reason he won was because the New York Democratic party was in a shambles and that much of it was out of repulsion to Andrew Cuomo as governor rather than some great movement for democratic socialism that was sweeping the country. Nothing I've seen in the last six months has changed my thoughts on that matter. I really do believe the only place and time a politician like Mamdani could have been in New York City now and we're probably going to pay for it.

Needless to say Maine is not New York City. Or New York State. Or for that matter Massachusetts or Vermont. There are few places in this country where the brand of left-wing Bernie style populism plays with the electorate. Maine has never been one of them and that has not changed during the rise of the Bernie-AOC movement. Left-wing candidates can't win in  New England at almost any level and certainly not at a statewide office. 

I can only assume that when it comes to Susan Collins the DNC gets tunnel vision wondering how she keeps winning in a state they keep carrying. They're sure they can beat her. So in the case the Lucy whispering in their ear that this time it'll be different is Elizabeth Warren or AOC or any other member of the Squad overwhelming their good sense and telling them that if they just put their backs behind this left-wing candidate, they'll absolutely kick the ball this time.

Well I'm not going to stay around and watch the inevitable. I'm going to focus my attention on expanding the map and working to win in new states with moderate centrists who are trying to get elected without catering to the tempting whispers of the far left who overcome this logic.  I actually remember the results of past elections, not just in Maine but other states where we've tried this exact plan of attack. I have no reason to believe if we do the same thing we'll get different results. And if the DNC really thinks they can do it this time, I have two words for them:

Good grief.

Homicide Rewatch: Kaddish

 

Teleplay by Linda McGibney; story by Julie Martin, James Yoshimura & Ron Goldstein

Directed by Jean De Segonzac

 

It might be an exaggeration to call this episode Richard Belzer's finest hour on Homicide. What is fair is to call 'Kaddish' the show that makes us realize perhaps more than episode to this point just how much potential Belzer had as a dramatic actor as well as Munch being more than just comic relief.

Considering how much Munch has implied about his younger days as part of the counterculture and the bits we've seen over the years its radical for Homicide to look at John Munch before he'd even gotten that far. It's not that surprising that when we flashback to John's childhood and see that he was pretty much what you'd expected he was -  a gawky, awkward adolescent who was perpetually bullied growing up – but it deals with something the show has never truly dealt with in nearly five seasons: Munch's religion. We've been aware since the pilot that Munch, like Belzer himself, is Jewish but we've never seen that part of his faith the way that Pembleton's Catholicism was clearly central to who he once was and how much that loss of his faith has cost him. We know that Munch is antiestablishment so we've assumed he never had any faith or that it was never that important to him. 'Kaddish' actually explores Munch's Judaism in a way that it never has before and makes it central to his character.

The episode is also a portent of the future as Munch takes Kellerman with him as his secondary. This is a daring move because the two have barely interacted on a professional level since the show began. They've talked in the squad more than once and there's been the occasional comic storyline involving them but this is the first time they've partnered. Munch actually gets to act like the senior detective, giving advice that is almost fatherly: telling Kellerman that when you go out in the winter you have to wear a hat. And then John learns the deceased is Helen Rosenthal.

And he's struck in a way we just haven't seen in five seasons: he takes his hat off in something close to mourning. He knows the address even before its in the wallet and he tells Mike – and therefore the viewer that he used to deliver the paper. We then see a flashback with music that is from the other end of the 1960s and we see John as a teenager, looking at the door of Helen with something close to awe. When he tells Mike he used to go to high school with her, we already know this death cuts close to home. There's a patience to him that we've rarely seen when he talks about Helen to her daughter.

But he's stunned to see that so much of Helen's life never ended well. He's struck that the marriage to her high school sweetheart ended in divorce fifteen years ago and the daughter hasn't talked to him in a while. It's not until he talks to him in high school we learn that her husband was drunk and in an accident that killed their fifteen year old son. Munch understands why and when a detective from Violent Crimes tells them about a serial rapist who's already attacked three women, he lets Kellerman do it and wants to talk with her daughter. He asks Julie about her past relationship and focuses on someone she'd started dating recently: George Young, another student from Pikesville and apparently the high school bully. (In a superb gag we see John is being trailed by his younger brother Bernard who clearly idolizes him. Knowing how the two of them barely talk as adults its fun to see this.) In one of those twists George has proposed to Helen multiple times but she's always turned him down.

We see how John tries to work up the courage to ask Helen to prom and how she turns him down cracking his heart in two. She talks about how she and Joe are meant to be and it cuts us in many ways because we know how badly it will go for everybody. We can see that George knows this when they bring him in for questioning and while he calls him out for being lovestruck around her, George quickly pulls back and says he doesn't judge. He tells her to think about Helen and John does.

Munch's faith comes about slowly in this episode: when Cox talks about the tradition for burial he seemed bemused by the fact she knows more about Jewish law then he does.  There's a lot of humor as Kellerman tries to figure out Jewish law and confuses shiksa and shiva, something that Brodie seems to understand. "Boy you live in a big Irish cocoon," Munch says. He tells Julie the only thing he has in common with Judaism is that we both don't like to work on Saturdays. But he's clearly more annoyed with Kellerman with his gauche behavior at the funeral that goes beyond something we've seen before .We learn that Helen wasn't religious but after they moved back in with her mother they began attending synagogue for holidays and then she started going on her own. "She said liked the routine. I didn't understand it until now."

Helen's death, like almost every major one on this show, has nothing to do with any of the people in her (and John's past). It is a random killing and the suspect is caught with Helen's jewelry. When John tries to get the suspect to tell him why he never so much as says a word even after John looses his cool and practically throws him against the cell bars.

And its clear that this episode is very much the most openly religious one in Homicide's entire run because at the exact same time Munch is revisiting his faith, Frank is at rock bottom. We see him interrogating a suspect he's certain is guilty in the murder of John Abernagi. He's in the midst of one of his classic interrogations the one he's known for, his sweet spot. And when Howard comes in telling him that someone else has confessed and has the murder weapon. Kay tells Frank something we don't know if he's heard once in all his years in the unit: "You were wrong." And she doesn't know that in those three words she's basically taken out the final pillar of everything Frank's believed he was.  He uncuffs the suspect and tells him to go home so neutrally that you can't tell he's shaken by it. So he does something that his partner accused him of not doing last season: he invites Tim over for dinner. Bayliss is stunned  by this – perhaps thinking this is a joke – but he agrees. And then Frank tells him Mary left him.

When Frank reaches out to Bayliss he admits he doesn't know who he is anymore: every part of his identity has been taken from him and he feels lost. The one thing he's clung to ever since Season Five is being a Homicide detective again and having gotten such tunnel vision that he screwed up on a case has forced him to question even that. He doesn't know who he is anymore. "I used to be so sure," he tells Tim over an increasingly sad dinner. "I used to be your partner, Mary's husband, Livvy's father." When Tim tells him that a Homicide detective is who he is Frank goes further than we've ever seen. "I used to believe in my instincts. I don't even believe in them anymore." When Tim tries to return the favor, yet again he misjudges where his partner is

  For that reason he's so lost that we see him in a place we haven't seen him since he told us he and God were not a first name basis – and in fact when he tells Tim that's where he's going his partner thinks he's lying to him. We're stunned to realize that this is the truth. We're just kind of shocked as to who.

The scene at church is painful because as the mass is said and the parishioners say the prayers we see Frank standing out of deference but not repeated the words, nor taking in communion. He's come to see Sister Magdalena who we remember (and thankfully the episode flashbacks to it) from the murder of Catherine Goodrich. She surprised to see him and he admits he's not coming back. He tells her that Mary has left him and that there's no God for him there. He says there's no God for him at his job. She ask him: "Are you sure? Open your eyes a little wider." When Frank walks out instead of taking the wafer and the sounds of sirens (from a fire engine) go as he leaves the writers seem to be sending a message. But it turns out this is a misdirection.

The scene where Frank asks Tim to partner with him in a small gems. Howard basically has to act as the mother of the squad pushing them. Frank plies, Tim pushes back, and finally Frank comes in Pembleton terms to beg. Tim agrees in a passive aggressive way we associate more with Frank.  And they're called to the scene of the rarest of things. A natural death in which an eighty year old woman has peacefully died in her sleep. Ravel's Premade for Dead Princess is playing on the radio. In the context of Homicide it is a beautiful aberration and for Frank it is a sign, particularly when he finds the woman's crucifix by her bed.

The scene between Munch and Kellerman is beautiful as the two men talk about what adolescent love is like before sex gets in the way, becoming tongue tied in front of a girl, just wanting to hold her hand being enough for you. The final sequence is one of the most moving ones in Homicide history.

We see John at home, looking at his yearbook and the book of Jewish Prayer. We cut to the two other men who loves Helen in their own mourning. John likes a prayer candle and walks to Helen's home. We see him remember the past as music plays. We hear the Kaddish being said. We watch John don a Yamaoka and enter the home – and his voice being added to the prayer. It's an ending of beauty and faith for a show that rarely has much.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

St Elsewhere callback: Helen Rosenthal is a familiar name to fans of Tom Fontana. On St Elsewhere it was the name of the charge nurse played for six seasons by Christina Pickles. On that series Rosenthal was almost a Munch prototype: she'd already been married four times by the time we met her with several children and her marriage was breaking up at the start of the series. In later seasons she had battles with many of her colleagues and developed an addiction to painkillers that led her to make a mistake that led to a patient getting the wrong amount of medication and dying. She would go to rehab in the final season. Pickles would be nominated for Best Supporting Actress five times while the show was on the air, though she never won.

There's no chance that she and this character are the same one: Pickles was already in her forties when she played Helen and the former show had her relocating to Boston after this. Besides the backstory doesn't come close to meshing the way other links to between both of Fontana's series will become clear in later seasons. (Although there is a striking resemblance between adult Helen and Christina Pickles from St. Elsewhere…)

The X-Files also aired an episode called Kaddish in February of 1997. In fact because of scheduling it ended up airing the Sunday before this episode originally aired.  This is just a coincidence in scheduling; no one suspects a Golem was responsible for killing Helen Rosenthal.

From Simon's Book: The sequence where Bayliss and Pembleton see the elderly women who dies in bed is taken from the book, right down to Ravel playing on the radio.

Foreshadowing: I know that it's probably a coincidence considering how much the show would wreck his backstory but a better motivation for Munch going to work at Law & Order: SVU might have been the impact of Helen Rosenthal being the victim of a serial rapist. 'Violent Crimes' in Baltimore would seem to be the equivalent of that in New York.

Apparently George works for Cooder Plumbing, the organization that Colonel Granger used in the double billing scandal that Giardello revealed to the press and forced him to retire. Either the operation is under new ownership or no one went to prison after the media exposure (both are likely in Baltimore.)

Munch was Nostradamus! Remember that monologue at the start of Season Three where Munch told Bolander and Lewis that "Soon, very soon, everything you want you'll find on TV without having to rise from your Sealy Posturepedic." A monologue which was prescient in 1994. We see a flashback of him talking to one of his classmates at the end of that exact monologue in 1960. John missed his calling. He should have traded in futures.

Rabbi Munch: The comic highpoint: Munch egging Kellerman to say: "Oy vey mer. I'm so meshuga I could plotz." Munch has the biggest smile all episode and he deserves it given what's he going through.

On the Soundtrack: We're going back to the 50s and 60s. We hear Little Anthony's Shimmy, Shimmy Koko Bop as young Munch delivers the paper to Helen and The Shirelle's ' Dedicated to the One I Love' quite a few times.

Pamela Peyton-Wright returned to play Sister Magdalena in this episode.

It's the 1990s: Homicide bites the hand that feeds it by having Bayliss say he might watch some Must See TV, the catchphrase for NBC during this period.

Hey, Isn't That… Joe Perrino who seems to be channeling John Munch as a teenage boy had worked with Barry Levinson as Young Shakes in Sleepers. He would work in several small films as a teenager before taking a break. He would then play Jason Gervasi in the final season of The Sopranos and took the role of Joseph Perrino then. He'd later play Pal Scaramucci on the sci-fi satire Happy!. But he eventually would attain a sort of celebrity when he played Vincent Ragni on the Starz gangster series Power. He can currently be seen playing Brian Mott on The Night Agent. He's also done work in podcasting as the voice of Tony Kiritis on American Hostage and Josiah Bissell on The Foxes of Hydesville.

The Democrats Once Knew The Left Had No Economic Theory. In The Last Decade, They've Been Doing Everything To Unlearn This Lesson – And They Have To Stop

 

 

In my previous entry in this series I argued that today's left 'can't comprehend politics at a second grade level'.  But compared to how they understand economic theory, they are the incarnations of Einstein and Hawking.

In other articles I've argued one of the biggest problems the Democratic Party has had in my lifetime was that there's a significant wing of their voters who argue that America should basically ignore foreign policy and focus entirely on American welfare. That hasn't changed since the Vietnam War.  Interestingly their approach to domestic policy today isn't much different then how it feels about foreign policy – and in this case it's a reversal.

When I was rereading Theodore White's Making of the Presidency: 1972 I was struck how White, who would have called himself a liberal most of his life, was stunned as to how liberalism was being redefined. Much of what he described took place during the 1960s but as so much of it was critical both to the McGovern campaign and what has become liberal theology from that point its worth looking how White viewed it – and how it appalled him. He tells us that there were three incubators of change during the 1960s: the Vietnam War, the Black revolution and prosperity. We'll focus on that one for this article and I'll put in bold the parts that I believe are most pertinent:

The Kennedy-Johnson tax laws had stimulated the greatest economic boom in American history. The nation could fight a war, rebuild its cities, explore space, corset the country in highways, clear the ghettos all at once – or so it seemed.

Production was no problem; the problem was distribution, and wise men could direct the flow of the economy to moral ends to make a safer, healthier, more noble human society. Subtly this burst of production linked itself to another phenomenon, the development of the right of the individual as a consumer equal to his obligation as a worker. In addition to his right to a job, whether he worked or not, he had a right to consume…The citizen of the new era had the means to explore his own individual instinct for self-expression whether…in new modes of dress, taste for exotic foods, manners of expression.

All wanted the government to help them express themselves – and restrict others whose self-expression they found obnoxious.

We would see much of that above reflected in the Me Decade of the 1970s and the conspicuous consumption of the rest of the 20^th century.  What White worries about is the fall out as liberal theology which he states:

"If we can spend the money to put a man on the moon, we can spend the money to save our cities, solve cancer, purify our streams, cope with drugs, cleanse our ghettoes, etc.

White calls this with scorn: "The belief that money solves all problems." And while Democratic politics has found many ways to rephrase this over the half-century that follows that is essentially at the core of every aspect of so much of their politics ever since. The Democrats never stated it that way directly, but Republicans were more than willing to – and Democrats never were willing to usher a blanket denial.

I'll deal with how White viewed so many of the programs of the Great Society which are the foundation of this orthodoxy in a different article and focus on the fact that given the results of so many elections that followed in the remainder of the 20^th century it was clear that America was rejecting it outright. The only two Democrats to win elections until the end of the 20^th century were Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Carter was excoriated by the liberal wing of his party because he noted  (correctly) how the mood of the country had shifted away and Bill Clinton has essentially been repudiated by it in the aftermath of his presidency as a neo-liberal because of his acknowledgement of that reality. Carter was focused on balancing the budget and Clinton is the last President to finish with a surplus at the end of his term. In both cases they made the decision to raise taxes and cut spending.

Paradoxically in the minds of those who believe in liberal dogma the Republican revolution is the greatest evidence that these programs are successful or that they would work if Republican Presidents and Congress were not so determined to cut them, therefore stopping them for reach their pure effectiveness. This is part of the left's theory for basically every level of progressive dogma: the fact that the opposition is so determined to destroy it means it must be working better than their wildest dreams. In this mindset any election result proves not that there is something wrong with the philosophy but something wrong with the electorate. Because the left historically has utter contempt for the democratic process, all results of elections only make them cling even harder to the liberal theology to the point it is practically gospel.

Over the last ten years - ever since the rise of Bernie Sanders - there has been a significant wing of the party that has completely rejected what helped Democrats win elections in the past. Republicans for years have been able to win elections at every level by labeling all Democrats as 'tax-and-spend liberals' whether they were or not. Now people like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate and the Justice Democrats in the House are essentially saying that this term is not an obscenity but something the party should wear as a badge of honor.  That many of them proudly identify as socialists, a label the party has spent basically since FDR's first term trying to discard as a slur, shows not only do they know nothing of history but nothing of politics or economics.

No less than six of the eight bills that were used as the foundation for the Justice Democrats are the example of the belief that money can solve all problems: Medicare for All, Free College Tuition, Workers Rights, Women's Rights (which involves Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance) Environmental Justice and Criminal Justice and Immigrant Rights. The last one is labeled "Justice is Not For Sale Act' which is noble but ignores the fact that like everything else justice costs money. The policies go further in the platform, including a federal job guarantee, universal education as a right, including a free four year public college, making the minimum wage a living wage and tying it to inflation, passing the paycheck fairness act. Furthermore active social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid will never be cut, and single payer healthcare will become universal.

 This is Money Solves Everything on steroids mixed with amphetamines. And it begs the question how are we supposed to pay for all this? The only hint we get at this in the entire platform is the eighth part of the platform: Taxing Wall Street. There is some talk of chaining capital gains and income tax, increasing the estate tax and ending offshore financial centers. In other words were going to raise taxes – but only on the wealthiest people in the country – and that alone should be able to pay for everything on this wish list. Oh and we won't bother to supplement it with arms sales because we won't be selling to countries who violate human rights laws.

That so many seemingly intelligent people are willing to take AOC and Ro Khanna seriously as Presidential candidates considering how fully they embrace this platform can only be explained that after the 2016 election much of them decided to throw away all historic and statistical evidence and basically agree that the Democrats lost in 2016 because they didn't go far enough to the left.  Trying to pass anyone of these six bills on the Justice Democrat platform, never mind carrying it out into law, involves the kind of magical thinking that can only be described as progressive fanfiction. And its telling that all of these legislators have not managed to get one of these bills out of committee nor than any state or city has even tried to pass it.

The left has long since rejected any ideas of economic policy when it comes to cost, always phrasing it in terms of 'investing in our future' or 'how can you put a price tag on that'. The problem is that just because something is free to a consumer doesn't de facto mean it costs nothing to produce.  So for that reason the left basically chooses to phrase all its arguments against policy in terms of bigotry or racism which in their mind ends the argument, even if it only does by turning undecided people against the idea.

And if the left's idea of consuming something is not based in reality, getting the money is based in fantasy.  The idea that all of this can be paid for by taxing just the top one percent – and no one else –  argues that the money of that people alone can provide services for a nation of 350 million people spread over 50 states.

Even more they constantly confuse 'assets' with 'income'.  Now let's not kid ourselves when ever anyone on the left says "Tax the rich" what they really mean is we need to take every single dime the Zuckerberg's and Bezos's and Musk's of the world have and give into the government. Even this is a false concept because it makes the assumption that they their assets are not only all liquid but for all intents and purposes in Scrooge McDuck money-bins which are right next to their mansions.  The only thing keeping you or I from just taking it from them is…well, I don't think they've progressed that far in their thinking. Of course the reason the elected officials don't do it is because they're all in their pockets. Every single one of them. Apparently even Bernie and AOC because they haven't done it themselves in all their years in office.

And just to be clear it is only when the government itself pays this money to help the masses that it is a moral and right thing to do. If any other individual does it, even if it is a charity or foundation or grant, even if it is financed by many of those one percent, it doesn't count somehow. I guess the government has to launder it through taxation and government programs for it to be clean.

I need to be clear that the last three paragraphs are facetious. I think for many of these people and their acolytes they wish it was that simple. Because as we're seeing play out in California and New York, Governor Newsom and Mayor Mamdani are finding out just hard it is to do in action. California is trying to put a 'billionaire tax' on the ballot and because they have to do it in public, the billionaires in California are aware of it. That's how democracy works. Newsom can't just call in the National Guard to raid the house of Sergei Brin and Tom Steyer. He has to put it on a ballot and that takes a lot of time and energy.

Time, to be clear, that the billionaire class can use to do two things: use their money to try and defeat the bill – which could work, California may have progressive ideas but it has a hard time making them into law – or leave the state altogether so even if it passes they'd be exempt from it.

Mamdani can't quite do the same thing: he has to get the bill passed by the New York Assembly and City Council and then get it signed into law by the governor. How long this process will take is anybody's guess: much of upstate New York and Long Island is a lot redder than the city and both houses of the legislature are pretty evenly divided among both parties with some of the Democrats not being the kind that can vote for this and keep office.  The overwhelming majority of both parties in the state is not entirely wild about Mamdani in the first place and he can't do this by executive order.

All of which is to say is that it will be a long drawn out process which the wealthy in New York will do everything to drag out and stop and even if it passes, they will likely have enough time and resources to leave New York.

In both cases the one percent have the advantage that wealth gives you: the freedom to move about the world at will, which they always have and always will. That's  one of the perks of being that rich; you can afford to leave if conditions become unfavorable. It doesn't have to be a mob with pitchforks; it just be an elected official threatening to tax you and either way they have the means and opportunity to take themselves – and more importantly, their money – to a more favorable state or country.

All of this to be very clear is a lot of time and energy that has to be expended just to do something that will almost certainly not produce the results that the left-wing of the party says it will. When you shout 'Eat the Rich' at the top of your lungs on TV, the rich can hear you. They may be many things, far too many of them not good, but their senses work and they can read a room. Many of them may see enemies everywhere, and it doesn't help when you make it public that you are one of them. If nothing else, it takes away the element of surprise when you're trying to take the one thing they value the most and will protect.

I say all of this, to be very clear, as a Democrat and a liberal in the mold of White and who agrees with the majority of left wing ideas.  I'm no secret ally of the wealthy (if nothing else my arguments on Hollywood's politics should end that discussion) and I'm neither a DINO nor a MAGA. (Though I know I will be called both.) But I don't believe Money Solves Everything should be the policy of any government because it won't.

You can't get rid of society's ills just by throwing money at the problem. That's kind of how so many of the one percent tend to parent their own children and we all know how badly that screws them up. I'm not sure yet if I have a solution to any of the problems the world has but I know from painful experience that trying to get elected as a Democrat in my lifetime implying this policy or speaking about it directly has yet to elect a President, a governor or enough elected officials to even get part of their platform into law.

And if the Justice Democrats think otherwise, need I remind them the main reason they don't have a lot of office holders is because they won't spend money to get enough elected officials to make a majority in either house of Congress. In that case money may not solve everything but it does get you in a position to solve somethings. If you can't accept that…well, your own electoral record more than bears me out.