Today, I am sad.

I am sad because my wife asked if we should sit near the front of the chapel rather than where we usually sit at the back to be further away from a potential gunman. I am sad that when I walked into the church building this morning to teach a scripture class to high schoolers, I wondered if I should lock the door behind us. I am sad that I’ve considered buying and bringing a gun to church even though that’s specifically against church policy, so that I can feel some degree of agency if something like this were to happen again. I am sad because I know people whose family members were in that congregation and/or regularly attend that church building. I am sad because there’s basically nothing I can do to prevent this from happening again or happening at my church building. I am sad because I don’t know who hates me because of my deeply held beliefs.

I almost want to title this Why Do You Hate Me? because that’s been the question on my mind today. It’s still too early to say for sure, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the FBI thinks the attack yesterday was targeted because the attacker hated members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that makes me sad because the thing is, I don’t think he’s alone.

Since I graduated high school, there have been a steady stream of anti-Latter-day Saint pieces of media that make us out to be anything from idiots to just downright evil. And about half of Americans don’t actually know a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So they’re learning about us from things like American Primeval (which spent over a month on Netflix’s top 10 list), The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Heretic, and Under the Banner of Heaven, among others.

Similarly, outright falsehoods and urban legends abound on social media. According to that same survey I linked to above, only 34% of Americans know that we don’t still practice polygamy (we haven’t since the 1800s). I would guess upwards of 75% of Millennials and Zoomers actually think Latter-day Saints are stupid enough to think that the urban legend of “soaking” is real. It’s not. I promise it’s not (though it was featured in the very popular (and fictional) tv show Jury Duty).

So I get why somebody could think we’re idiots. But I still don’t understand why someone would hate us enough to attack a place of worship where families with children were in attendance. The shows, movies, and other media cited above probably aren’t the reason. There almost certainly isn’t a good reason. And that makes me sad.

Related to this is a sadness at the human condition; that something like this had to happen to my people for me to feel this deep sadness. Attacks on Jews, Catholics, Gays, and other groups happen on the regular and they make me feel sad and/or angry, but not to this degree. Of course, this is natural and normal, but it’s still a weird thing to recognize within oneself.

I don’t know what else to say, but I needed to say this. Because, while I know that most people don’t hate me or my people, when Charlie Kirk was killed and I saw people celebrating, I wondered how many people hated me because I’m right of center. How many people would celebrate my death because I believe things they think are dangerous. Now I wonder how many more hate me because I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There’s no reason to hate me, nothing I believe is dangerous to you or yours.

I don’t think conversations about guns are productive, so I hope you’ll forgive me for skipping that. But rather, I hope you’ll join me in praying our political and cultural leaders can tone down the temperature; that we can stop speaking ill of one another, regardless of beliefs; and for the victims and their families as well as the family and loved ones of the attacker. I hope you’ll join me in finding new people to love and forgive. I hope you’ll join me in finding ways to be a good neighbor. Changing this rising tide of violence likely isn’t going to come from the top down. It needs to start with you and me.

The Literature

Here is what I’ve read:

• From a study out of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health:

  The proportion of children having borderline/clinical symptoms ranged between 0.9 and 12.9% for ASC and between 1.2 and 12.2% for ADHD. Results indicated that children prenatally exposed to acetaminophen were 19% and 21% more likely to subsequently have borderline or clinical ASC (OR = 1.19, 95% CI 1.07-1.33) and ADHD symptoms (OR = 1.21, 95% CI 1.07-1.36) compared to non-exposed children. Boys and girls showed higher odds for ASC and ADHD symptoms after prenatal exposure, though these associations were slightly stronger among boys. Postnatal exposure to acetaminophen was not associated with ASC or ADHD symptoms. These results replicate previous work and support providing clear information to pregnant women and their partners about potential long-term risks of acetaminophen use.

• This study out of WPLab (which, should be taken with a grain of salt given their whole thing is studying autism and acetaminophen):

  A systematic review revealed that the use of APAP in the pediatric population was never tracked carefully…. We concluded that available evidence demonstrates that early exposure to APAP causes neurodevelopmental injury in susceptible babies and small children.

• This one with authors from UCLA, Harvard, Mt. Sanai, and UMass:

  Of these, 27 studies reported positive associations (significant links to NDDs), 9 showed null associations (no significant link), and 4 indicated negative associations (protective effects). Higher-quality studies were more likely to show positive associations. Overall, the majority of the studies reported positive associations of prenatal acetaminophen use with ADHD, ASD, or NDDs in offspring, with risk-of-bias and strength-of-evidence ratings informing the overall synthesis.

• And finally this out of the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (though again, take with a grain of salt as the sample size seems to be very small)

  Our previous case-control study showed that use of acetaminophen at age 12–18 months is associated with increased likelihood for ASD (OR 8.37, 95% CI 2.08–33.7). In this study, we again show that acetaminophen use is associated with ASD (p = 0.013).

Conclusion

Now to be fair, I’m sure this is by no means comprehensive, just what I’ve find in my ChatGPTing and googling and there is at least one study out of The Karolinska Institute which controls for another possible confounding variable and finds that there’s no link. So, I am by no means saying that it’s proven that Autism and Acetaminophen are linked. What I am saying is that there are enough studies from varied and respected institutions suggesting that there may be and it’s reasonable to proceed with caution when it comes to Tylenol and ask for more studies. To say that it’s proven isn’t right, but I don’t think it’s right to say it’s disproven either (that’s also just not how science works). This is what Tom Wright-Piersanti wrote for the New York Times this morning:

For years, scientists have studied a possible link between pregnant mothers’ use of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and neurological conditions like autism and A.D.H.D. The findings are complex. Some studies suggest a link; others do not. None have found proof of a causal relationship.

So while it’s reasonable to be cautious and fund more research in this field, what’s absolutely not reasonable is for the President and HHS secretary to hold a news conference announcing definitive proof that Tylenol causes Autism. And unfortunately, the President and the Nutjob probably did more to hurt the cause of Autism research by doing this, than by just leaving things alone and letting the scientists fight it out. There’s nothing worse than introducing politics into science.

Also

I do want this Substack to be about more than politics. That’s honestly part of why I haven’t been writing, been trying to develop a habit and topics, etc. But I had already done this research since I have a small child and felt I could meaningfully add to the conversation.

One of my biggest issues with the Democratic party is their negativity. They’re can’t stop talking about the evils of the past long enough to realize their President is senile. And unfortunately, it’s a negativity that has infected the Republicans party as well. how many times in the Republican debate did we hear things like “We’re a nation in decline.” It’s a sentiment that has infected both parties and while by some measures it may technically be true, it is far from the truth.

Yes, life expectancy fell in 2020 and 2021; yes, we have more drug addiction and gun violence; yes, we live shorter lives than our peer countries; yes, our debt is out of control. These things are all true, and yet The United States of America is still the envy of the world and the greatest country on earth. And I’m here to help provide some perspective1.

Wealth

America is by far the richest country on earth and in terms of GDP per capita, we are in the top 10 and in terms of median income, the top 4. “But,” you say, “we spend more on healthcare than anyone else.” To which I would reply: actually, when you look at median income minus out-of-pocket expenditure per capita we still are in the top 4 in terms of adjusted median income2. Did you know that most Brits have their washing machine in their kitchen? We’re so freaking rich we don’t even realize it.

Freedom

Many countries are free, but America is by far the most free. Lauren and I visited the UK about a year ago and I distinctly remember on our bus tours of London they made a point to show you this area in the park where you have freedom of speech. I was struck by that, because where I come from you have freedom of speech everywhere. And even in that area of the park, there were limits to your freedom of speech. You may think I’m exaggerating, but the UK passed a series of anti-hate speech laws last year and people were literally arrested for things they posted online. Imagine that. You say something distasteful online, no intent of actually acting on it or anything and suddenly the police are at your door. Not in America.

In the EU, you don’t even have the freedom to buy a phone that doesn’t have a USB-C port. If next year they invented a better port than USB-C that was 1000% faster at charging and data transfer, it would be illegal. And do you remember the internet before the EU destroyed it? I do. There was a time when every website you visited didn’t ask you if cookies were okay. You could just go to a website and not have a full screen prompt interrupt your browsing. Yes, the EU has even made your life worse in America.

Choice

The iconic picture below of Boris Yeltsin visiting an American supermarket. The soviet leader had never seen anything like it. Not only is it stocked, there are an unbelievable amount of choices at your fingertips. And within 10 minutes of my house there are at least 3 of these. If you’ve ever lived in another country, you know this is an American phenomenon. Even rich, developed countries just do not have the same freedom of choice3 that we do.

And this is, in part, why we have lower life expectancy than other countries in our peer group. It is easier to be fat and unhealthy in the US than anywhere else on earth. And while obesity and the associated complications and chronic diseases are tragically killing too many Americans, it’s because we can choose to be fat in America! We can choose to own a car and never walk or take the bus, we can choose to eat crap every day, we can choose to buy a big screen tv because we are rich and then have junk food delivered to our door because we are rich and have different junk food every night because of all the choice we have. There’s something beautiful about this tragedy we’ve created for ourselves.

Trade-offs

I’ll end with this. When thinking about American issues, it seems to me that most people are not comparing America with actual countries. Does America have its issues, yes. But is there anywhere else on earth that even compares with this place? I mean not really. We are the center of tech, finance, pharmaceutical innovation, higher education, culture, entertainment, space exploration, and so much more. Yes, having all of these choices and freedoms has come with tradeoffs, some of them bad and some of them probably not worth it. But, before your next tirade into the evils of American capitalism, can you first just do a reality check4?

I’m not saying there aren’t thing we need to fix, but just stop with the fear mongering, guilt tripping, and depression. We are a successful, wonderful nation working to build a more perfect union. That’s hard work and we don’t always get it right, but that doesn’t mean we’re a nation in decline or that the whole system of capitalism or the American experiment is a failure.

Try-hards

Two men have my heart right now. And it’s for the same reason. One, no surprise to anyone, is Tom Cruise. The second is Timothee Chalamet. Timmy gave a speech last or early this year about how he wants to be one of the greats. And I fell in love. And now, Timmy has decided to stop hiding his aura under a bushel and I’m falling harder. Clearly he has felt some sort of burden lifted from off of his shoulders because he’s attending Knicks games dressed like Guy Fieri and getting so fired up he’s becoming the star of the show.

Same with Tom. These are two passionate men, giving their all to their craft and then with that same energy just being completely uninhibited in public life. Now the public like Timmy more than Tom, but public opinion is fickle, they could just as easily turn on my boy and think he’s a goon. Not me. You boys continue to unleash on the world and I’ll continue to have your back.

Coalition of Dads

Speaking of having backs, I wish everyone could experience being a dad in the world. Other dads just got you. It’s a brotherhood of emotional support for strangers and I think we should all seek to emulate it. I had a dad, just this week at the airport, just let me know he saw me and told me, “it gets better, I promise.” I’m not even sure what that means, because it really wasn’t that bad, but I guess when a dad sees another dad kicking his luggage to scoot it along because both of his hands are full, you gotta go in with the support. So, I exhort you to support those in your cohort like random dads have been supporting me, because honestly, I feel like I now know what it feels like to get a new bra. Emotionally, of course.

This summer is shaping up to be one of the most mid of summers to have ever happened. Two weeks ago, we got Thunderbolts. Next week, we get Mission: Impossible. We’re also getting a new John Wick, a new Wes Anderson, a new Superman, Jurassic Park, Freakier Friday, Fantastic Four, F1. We are in for a treat.

Now at the Midbrow Culture Club, Mission: Impossible is maybe the highest of all the holidays on the calendar. And we will be talking more about that in a pod coming out this week. However, right now I want to talk about how fun this summer can be if we just embrace it.

Two weeks ago, I walked out of Thunderbolts really disappointed. I mean I was ready to give it two stars. I hated the way it ended, I hated some choices they made, and I hated the way the climax was resolved. However, throughout the whole film I laughed, it felt well paced, the acting was good, and aside from a few choices I really like the story. But I let perfection be the enemy of the good. And after sleeping on it, I realized this and have since changed my opinion on the movie. I now give it three stars - out of five - and look forward to watching it again when it comes on streaming.

This summer there are going to be plenty of movies like that. Mission: Impossible won’t be one of them, it will be perfect; but many movies will be good not great. But that’s still good! Here at Midbrow we are going to be celebrating the fact that we even still have movie theaters and encourage you to do the same. Sure, these are all existing IP and will be unoriginal and predictable. But they will probably also be a lot of fun and if we’re so focused on perfection we’re doing it miss out on a lot of fun. Embrace mediocrity. Go to the movies. Have you mind blown at some big stunts. It’s going to be a blast.

The Winners of the Met Gala

Here at the Midbrow Culture Club, we believe that the reason you do anything is to win. That applies to fashion shows as much as it does baseball games. It’s why I write this newsletter. So, who won the met gala? I’ll tell you.

In third place: Sabrina Carpenter

Clean, elegant, and - as I saw someone say on twitter - something Bugs Bunny would wear. If you’re checking those boxes, you can’t go wrong. Sabrina kills it in this outfit.

In second place: Usher

Honestly, it’s hard to say whether it’s the outfit or the man, but something here is stunning. If you can’t tell already, I like a clean look. These enormous, unwearable outfits aren’t for me, so I’m a big fan of this classic look on this legend.

In first place, to the surprise of nobody: Zendaya

It’s just not even fair. She looks like the drawing this designer created when they sketched it out. How do you even compete against her. Should be disqualified from consideration next year.

Honorable mentions:

In most looks like the Joker: Andrew Scott

And

And in I really loved this outfit, but not enough to make the top three: Lupita Nyong’o

If you want to see the rest of the looks from the gala, you can see them here.

Two Good Things, I Guess

This administration has by and large been a disaster. I like a lot of the goals of the administration, but the means by which they are attempting to achieve those goals range from stupid to illegal to disgusting.

However, there are two proposals I have really liked.

1. The Gold Card. Trump proposed what he’s calling a gold card. Basically, you pay $5,000,000 and you get a green card. To some it could be seen as elitism or another way Trump is helping billionaires. To me, it’s a way to attracted highly skilled people with lots of disposable income who will immediately contribute to the economy. And again, it’s just a green card, not citizenship, they could still have everything revoked if they don’t pass muster, but by that point we already have their $5M.

2. This most recent drug pricing executive order. This week Trump signed an executive order basically saying drug companies can’t charge more to the US than they do to other countries. Now, normally I’m opposed to price caps. Big free market guy here. However, what do you do when other countries are setting price caps so then prices go up in your own country? Most economists think that all this will do is maybe slightly lower costs in the US and raise them dramatically in most countries, meaning they will become unaffordable for many people.

   This would obviously be a tragedy for second and third world countries but the executive order specifically says “comparably developed nations”. According to my understanding, what that means is first world countries that we are subsidizing will have to pay their own way. Good. Let prices go up, let them come to the table and ask us for a deal. In the case of NATO, I’m actually happy to subsidize Europe, in the case of healthcare I’m really not.

One Last Thing

If you didn’t catch it, Pope Leo was at the world series in 2005. The White Sox are now adding a plaque near his seat in the stadium. USA! USA! USA!

My sister is engaged! Sean, welcome to the family.

Don’t Mess With The Spectrum

A couple weeks ago, our idiot director of HHS - secretary of HHS? - whatever the moron’s title, his name is RFK Jr. - that guy held a press conference about autism. He says we will have the cause for autism by August or some nonsense like that. But what people have really gotten in a tizzy about is this section of his speech.

Autism destroys families. More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which are our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who, many of them, were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they were two years old, and these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted, and we have to recognize we are doing this to our children, and we need to put an end to it…

RFK Jr. is an idiot and conspiracy theorist and spoke poorly about autism generally. Many autistic people live fulfilling lives. I know and love many of these people. I have worked with and studied with many of these people. I have, at various times of my life, considered these people friends.

However, many autistic people truly are nonverbal and need round the clock care for their entire lives. As such, I found the outrage at his comments to be… expected I guess, but nonsensical. It totally parallels the left’s insane reactions to trans women playing in women’s sports. (I can’t believe I’m going here, but you made me!) To pretend like a person who has undergone male puberty doesn’t have physical advantages over women is simply nonsensical. By the same token, to pretend that autism, especially severe autism - as he is clearly discussing here - doesn’t make lives harder for everyone involved is just as nonsensical. I mean divorce rates are higher among parents of children with autism than those without. So let’s not pretend like what he’s saying is without cause.

That being said, is autism on the rise as he also claimed in this presser? I think the answer is we don’t actually know. There is certainly more awareness and better diagnostic tools which are leading to more diagnoses. But even severe cases of autism, which likely would have been diagnosed years ago, are on the rise1. Do I trust RFK Jr. to handle this study he wants to do appropriately, hire responsible scientists, and do said study like that in 6 months? Absolutely not. However, maybe him doing a bad study will lead the next administration or some responsible scientists to do a better study and we can eventually get some answers. And if we find an answer and can prevent or cure autism, should we? I don’t know.

Sweden, and many other countries, probably including the US, currently are preventing Down’s syndrome by way of abortion. I think that’s bad, both morally and societally. But I’m pretty biased because of my uncle. That being said, if, after my uncle was born, the doctors had said, “we have a cure for Down’s syndrome,” he’d probably be alive today and probably would have lived a much more fulfilling life. I doubt it would have been a happier life, dude was pretty happy and brought joy to many, myself included.

I actually kind of think disability, while bad for the individual, is good for society. It forces us to learn to love people who are different than us, to be patient, to sacrifice. Down’s syndrome shows us what pure love looks like. Autism forces us to look at the world differently. And what about Autism that we used to refer to as Asperger’s? I mean that’s basically just people who, generalizing greatly, don’t get social cues. What’s so bad about that?

So I don’t necessarily know that we should cure Autism, if that’s even possible, but I also don’t think we should pretend that it doesn’t make life harder. It does. However, I also kind of believe hardship is a good thing2, which again is why I’m not sure we should even try to cure autism or any other disability for that matter. I guess what I’m saying is let’s not commit the error of going so far in our criticism of this insane administration that we stop making sense ourselves. That’s how we got here in the first place. I guess the other thing I’m saying is don’t abort a Down’s fetus.

Speaking of Autism…

If you haven’t seen The Accountant, and you’re open to watching movies starring the lesser Affleck as he’s known around my house, I could not recommend it more. Not only is it a great action flick with well executed set pieces, the main character is autistic and that features heavily into the story; which is very compelling, if you ask me. I don’t quite know how to classify it, maybe action thriller with a light romantic dramedy? But it’s definitely not just a shoot em up with the barest bones story possible.

The Accountant 2 is fine. Story isn’t nearly as compelling and the guy isn’t even an accountant in it. But like the whole point of the first one is that he’s an accountant. That’s why it’s called The Accountant. Also, he has like a child army who are his “guy in the chair” in the second one, which is also less compelling. It’s good, not great. Recommend it, but don’t expect it to be anything more than a fun shooter action movie.

Shall We?

Three of you voted. Thank you. And unanimously said you’d like to do a book club. Cool. Me too. I’ll give you a month to prepare, but in June we will read a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while: Red Rising. I will create a calendar of books for the rest of the year so you can decide what months you’d like to read with me.

Catholicism

I just want to say how cool Catholicism is. They get a bad rap because of the perverts and the crusades, but man they’ve done a lot of good. And they are the reason Christianity stuck around as long as it did. I mean they used Christianity as a tool of empire, which isn’t ideal, but that was a long time ago. Gaah, sorry Catholics, I promise I’m trying to compliment you! Basically, what I’m trying to say is that Catholicism is pretty dope, and thanks be to Catholics for preserving belief in Christ for 2000 years. I mourn with you at the death of your Pope - who seemed to be a truly great man - and look forward to watching the chimney with you next week. Also, as has been said all over the internet this week: look at this drip.

(Less) Scary(er)

I watched the below clip. You may have seen it.

I’m not sure if I feel better or worse after watching it. On the one hand, I think I feel good that an actual insane person isn’t in the Whitehouse. On the other, is it better that there’s someone in the Whitehouse who is so intensely focused on getting and maintaining power that they are willing to credibly play an insane person? I’m genuinely not sure. Like the tariffs thing: The tariff rollout would not have gone any differently if there were an actual insane person in the Whitehouse. So does this clip give me hope? Not really. Is it interesting? Very.

Dad Quote of the Week

“The best part of having a baby is being able to use the express lane.” I’m dead serious. You can just zoom past everyone with just three people in a car. Best thing ever.

He Said It Better

As another piece of follow-up from last week’s newsletter, Brett Stephens wrote this which gives some better reasons than I did for not calling people Nazis. TBH, it was possibly brought on by this, which was a critique of the Bill Maher segment. Everything is connected. I actually think Larry David makes the point basically as well as Brett Stephens because of the absurdity of pretending Trump has done anything approaching Hitler’s levels of evil. Don’t call people Nazis.

Plants Are Cool

Real quick, to close things out, can we talk about how cool plants are? They’re so cool. Every other living on earth, maybe excluding some bacteria or something, have a defined way of being. A human has two arms and two legs, proportions are relatively fixed barring genetic mutations, two eyes, one mouth, yada, yada, yada. Quick, how many limbs does a tree have? It could be any number! How many leaves on a Rose Bush? Nobody knows. Oh no, there’s a fence beside the tree, how ever will it grow?! The tree will engulf the fence!!! So cool.

1. The name Your Mom’s Home was always somewhat embarrassing. I remember when I first launched the site, another Substacker I respected asked the name of mine and I was so embarrassed to say, “Your Mom’s Home.” I liked the idea in theory, but in practice, it just sounds juvenile. So, this name is just more professional.

2. It’s also more descriptive for those who come across it. With The Midbrow Culture Club, you basically know what you’re getting from the start, whereas with Your Mom’s Home, I mean that could be anything.

3. Tom Segura has a website and podcast called Your Mom’s House. Which was my initial thought for the name of the website because it was what we called our house in college. But then I saw his website, so rather than pivot away completely I switched house to home. But it’s still always felt too close for comfort.

4. I also want to start focusing more on the nonpolitical content. So something that states that in the name felt appropriate. Note: this doesn’t mean no political content. I chose the name because culture basically means anything, so I can do whatever I want and still be within the guidelines I set for myself. It’s called a cheat code. However, I do want to start writing about nonpolitical stuff as well as podcasting about it.

Any questions? I doubt it, but lmk in the comments.

Now, on with the show.

Space Girls

There has been a lot of online chatter about the recent Blue Origin launch that included Jeff Bezo’s girlfriend or fiancée or wife or something and Katie Perry. I have two things to say.

1. Some media made a big deal about this being an all-female flight. That’s like making a big deal about a subway car being all females. Probably somewhat rare, but entirely meaningless because it’s an automated flight. The rocket was launched, they got to space, and came back without any of them doing anything to guide it. Again, like being in an all female roller coaster. Rare, but definitely not a meaningful signifier of gender progress.

2. The rest of the internet seems to be trying to tear these women down, as the internet loves to do. And I get that I was just critical, but that was of the coverage, not the women. I’ve seen posts talking about how this money could have been used for more noble causes - some of them from other celebrities, who clearly have such a lack of self-awareness that I’m almost jealous.

   But for real. Shut up. Some of us want to go to space for a weekend in the future. The only way that happens is if billionaires do it first. There is simply no other way, rich people have to do it so that slightly less rich people can do it so that mildly wealthy people can do it so that the rest of us can do it. It’s how economies of scale are formed. Remember when flat screen TVs were enormous and expensive? I dare you to find a round screen TV today; but the rich had to pave the way so us peasants could enjoy it.
   And some of us peasants really want to go to space someday. Some of us have literally had conversations with our wives asking how much money they’d be willing to sacrifice for us to go to space. Not everyone can be a real astronaut, so please let the rest of us cosplay in peace.

Tariffs

Tariffs are bad.

Books

I have recently read the first three Dune books and am in the process of reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I had a lot of fun talking books on the pod and plan to do it more often; if you have read either of these books/series, please let me know.

Minecraft

I went to see A Minecraft Movie. Boy was it bad. Two of my friends saw it before me and also hated it, but I hoped they were just being cynical funsuckers. Nope, it’s bad. And yet has made a ton of money. Because I think Gen Z unironically likes it? Maybe Gen A too? I’m not quite sure, but it leads me to a larger point: what’s the point of critics?

I can find basically no correlation between what critics think about a movie and what audiences think about a movie and what I think about a movie. Here are examples from the movies I’ve seen this year.

A Minecraft Movie: 46% critic score, highest grossing movie in America, 87% audience score, I hated it

Mickey 17: 77% critic score, did not recover its budget, 73% audience score, I also did not like it, though Robert Pattinson was wonderful.

Novocaine: 81% critic score, small budget film but probably made a small profit, 85% audience score, I loved it. Easily the best new movie I’ve seen this year.

Captain America: Brave New World: 48% critic score, did pretty well worldwide though is one of the lowest grossing MCU movies of all time, 79% audience score, I actually thought it was fine.

I don’t know, maybe there are people for whom this all makes sense, but I guess I wonder why are there so many critics if their opinions don’t actually seem to have any bearing on how a film performs or what audiences (or I) think about it. What is the point of employing them?

I also wonder at what point you should be forcibly retired from being a movie reviewer, because at some point you really just inevitably become out of touch. Even my favorite movie podcast The Big Picture which is run by The Ringer, a media company known for being approachable, can be a little to hoity toity sometimes and I think it’s just an inevitable part of watching and reviewing movies. My thought is you get to do it for 20 years and then you retire or go into movie making instead. Idk, what do you think?

Happy Easter

To those of you who celebrate Easter, or passover for that matter, may you have a wonderful celebration of deliverance. And may it be with people you love. If you cook something delicious this weekend, send me the recipe. Especially if it’s something you grilled. And if you learned something new about your faith, I’d love to hear that too.

Dad Quote of the Week

“Babies are incredibly dumb” - DJ Belnap referencing nothing in particular, babies are just really dumb.

Rhetoric

Can we all agree that conservatives calling every liberal a communist is unhelpful? As is constantly comparing everything to Nazi Germany. My heck, people. This is not the Third Reich. I mean I don’t like a lot of what’s happening, but if you’re resorting to Nazi Germany to make your argument you might need to examine your motives. And if after that examination you realize you are actually trying to persuade, then maybe find a new argument. Deporting people without due process is bad on its face, you don’t need to invoke Hitler to make it bad.

That’s it for now. In F1 news, I really hope Lando chokes again. Maybe that’s mean, but he’s like a fake nice guy and that’s almost worse than just being a jerk like Verstappen. See you in a couple weeks maybe.

The videos referenced throughout the pod:

Harvey Weinstein and the Oscars: How Gwyneth and Shakespeare in Love Won

Mini - Canon: "Oscar Bait": A History

I didn’t vote for this. I don’t like this. I denounce this policy and that policy. I am against this person and that person. I think x is wrong because y. Yada, yada, yada.

I’ve seen a few of these, so I assume they’re going around, and you have too. Or maybe my Facebook friends are unique. Either way, I am just really irked by these posts.

Not everyone in the country voted for Trump and in our particular system of government, if you didn’t vote for the most popular1 candidate, you lost and you don’t get another chance to win for four years. Now, I guess there may be some value to letting people know where you stand; it signals to your team that you’re on their team and lets people know your political opinions. That’s basically what I do here, though I see this as both a more appropriate medium2 and a little more thought out than a social media post.

But by and large, posts like those I’m referencing are basically useless. You lost. And posting your opposition to the policies of the winner is maybe the least helpful thing you can do. Like for real, we know you’re opposed to these things, that’s why you didn’t vote for the person who won and is doing these things he said he would do. You voicing your displeasure at these things to a bunch of Normals on Facebook isn’t a good use of your time.

What would be more useful you ask? Maybe posting why you oppose a specific policy, or other kinds of attempts at persuasion. But even that will likely have limited success on Facebook3. More useful still, post about popular policies you do like. You see, there’s a reason you lost, and it’s not because everyone else in the country is stupid or ignorant or racist, it’s because your policies4 and/or messaging were bad/unpopular/ineffective. So maybe rather than talk about things you oppose that the new administration is doing, talk about things you want in a candidate in 2028. Better yet, get involved with your local democratic party and voice these things, because your party has shown exactly zero signal that they’re interested in getting serious in 2026, let alone 20285. If you want to win, you have to have popular policy proposals. Elections are quite literally popularity contests.

I guess what I’m saying is stop complaining and start doing because this is what democracy looks like and more importantly, this is what Democracy feels like when you lose, so let’s do something productive with that feeling. Virtue signaling will have an extremely limited effect on the outcomes of the next elections, persuasion might, activism might6, changing your party will. Make your policies more popular, don’t hope the current administration bungles it so badly we have to come running back to the Dems. Because while it looks like the Trump administration is very much overreading their “mandate,” I’ll remind you that it’s looked that way before. And yet, each election Trump has gotten more votes than the election before. You can’t count on the people not liking what the Republicans are selling, so you have to make your product more appealing.

Please, please no more #resistance

I told Emily on the pod that I’ve been wanting to write a post entitled “There is No World in Which I Vote for Kamala Harris, Except This One.1” The point was basically going to be that while I was very happy to cast my vote for Joe Biden, I seriously considered casting my first vote for Trump this time around. Because Kamala Harris and the faction of the Democratic party she represents is just out of touch with the average American - as we saw tonight. Ultimately, January 6th is disqualifying in my mind, but it was genuinely a tough decision, FOR THE FIRST TIME, whether or not to vote for Donald John Trump. If you voted for Kamala without a second thought, think about that. Me, a college educated never-Trumper who gleefully donated to Biden’s campaign2 seriously considered voting for Trump.

She was, and always has been, an exceptionally bad campaigner. You may remember she nearly lost her race for Attorney General of California to a Republican or that she couldn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses in 2019. You may remember that her approval ratings were always below those of Biden until literally the day he dropped out of the race. There are a litany of reasons why she was bad, including basically being Selina Meyer from Veep, but I want to focus on one that I think Democrats need to internalize: “Donald Trump is Bad” is not a winning message, so please leave it in the garbage where it belongs.

Look, he is a bad person. He’s been held civilly liable of rape, he’s apparently not allowed to operate a charity because he stole from one, he incited a riot at the Capitol that led to the deaths of multiple police officers and one of his supporters and then did nothing while it was going on. I could go on, but I think we’ve established that he’s not a good man. And yet, he is favored to win the popular vote. He not will likely sweep all of the swing states, pulled the senate to a Republican majority with him, and is winning the popular vote. Something Republicans haven’t done since 2004 when Bush was riding high on post-9/11 good will.

So it’s clearly not a winning message because it was basically Kamala’s entire campaign. “We cannot go back,” “I’m not him,” whatever the slogan used, most of what she said was about Donald Trump, not herself. She definitely also talked about inflation and price gouging and abortion was supposed to be the issue that put her over the line, but one of the main parts of her campaign was not being Donald Trump. And it was a losing message.

The people of this country had resoundingly decided that they don’t care about Trump’s character. And you know what’s not going to change that? Screaming at them again for four more years about how bad he is. We’re all sick of Trump. And the Democrats need to be a check on his power, the media needs to expose the crazy stuff his administration is going to try to do3. But by and large, Democrats should be focused on 2028 and starting now to convince people that the Democratic party cares about the issues voters care about. Because clearly they don’t believe that now.

Your anxiety isn’t going to change anything

I don’t want this to come off as harsh or insensitive. What I really mean to say here is if you’re mad about what happened, do something different. Fretting about the changes that are going to happen on the Supreme Court isn’t going to do anything. Honestly, protesting probably isn’t going to do anything, even though it feels really good to get out there and yell at people with other like-minded individuals. And tweeting4 isn’t going to do anything at all.

So what can be done?

1. Quit donating to candidates in deep red states that are never going to win. Nothing is so infuriating as seeing millions of dollars going to candidates who have no shot, but are running against an unpopular sitting Republican. Texas this cycle was a good example. If Beto couldn’t do it in 2018, it can’t be done. As unpopular as Ted Cruz is, even among Republicans; he ain’t going nowhere and there’s no reason to think Texas is getting purple enough to bet on that changing anytime soon. But more generally, there seems to be one every cycle and it needs to stop. If you want to know who to donate to, follow Matt Yglesias. Every cycle he puts out a list of Democrats in swing districts who don’t have good fundraising. I would advocate for donating to normal Republicans in primaries as well, but that seems like a lot to ask of a true-blue Democrat.

2. Look, you need to be introspective5. Democrats have really unpopular policy positions right now. And wherever you can, you need to tamp those down. I think we’ll know in coming days and weeks what actually made the difference as we dig into the returns and exit polls, but to name a few possibilities: extreme transgender ideology (meaning going beyond advocating for housing and other civil rights6), not securing the border, not standing up to these idiot college students about Gaza, this obsession with identity7. And the thing is, you could very easily make all of these winning issues if you would just tell the extremes of your party to shove it. Because Republicans are the party of power and vindictiveness right now, they’re not interested in doing things with an eye towards the humanity of the individual, they will seem extreme if Democrats will moderate. Be the compassionate, yet sane party. Rather than the compassionate, yet insane, and maybe a little nitpicky8 party.

3. Get involved. If you’re really, really upset at the outcome, then actually do something. Run for something, get involved in your local political party, volunteer on a campaign, volunteer at a local charity, start going to church, join a bowling league, anything. Just get involved in something that actually makes a difference in the world. Change comes from a lot of places, but you’ll have the biggest impact at the local level and I promise it will make you feel better than doomscrolling.

To end, I just want to say that I personally don’t think it’s going to be that bad. I’ve been wrong before - I also thought the supreme court wouldn’t overturn Roe v Wade - but we had one Trump presidency already and the country is still doing fine. We still have millions of people desperately trying to get here; we still are the center of business, tech, and innovation; aside from one riot at the Capitol, government has run basically as expected; things are, were, and will remain just fine. I know my words are probably basically meaningless to you as I can’t predict the future, but neither can you and I also know that a lot of my friends are going to waste a lot of time and energy worrying about something they can do nothing about and I really don’t want you to do that. I want you to live happy and fulfilled lives and politics and social media basically encourages the opposite of that.