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To be fair here, I do think the Biden campaign is doing a better job of handling this than the Clinton campaign did.  I don't think Biden is a perfect candidate by any means, and I genuinely wish there was a better candidate.  But there isn't.  Any replacement is almost certainly worse (Harris), extremely flawed for the current times (Buttigieg), or simply too unknown to hop in this late in the game (Whitmer, Newsom, or my personal favorite, Warnock).  The Democrats needed a wide-ranging campaign to get a sub-70-year-old candidate ready for 2024, and they didn't pull it off.  Like it or not, Biden is the guy.

But the economy is doing much better.  The stock market is up.  GDP is up.  Gas prices are down.  Inflation is falling.  There will be a large swath of the country that isn't going to give Biden credit for any of this, but assuming there isn't a reversal of any of this in the next ten months, the economy should be much better by November and people will have over a year of a strong economy in their memory banks.  Now the Biden campaign is going to need to hammer this in the next ten months (and not just on social media like they are), but if it comes down to the economy, Biden is going to be in a good spot.

And I agree this election cannot be about social issues.  Biden needs to downplay essentially all of those.  And even though it's a big issue for me, I think he's going to need to downplay stuff like climate change.  Biden would obviously be much better than Trump on climate, but I don't think that needs to be the center of any debate.  Like I've said a bunch of times, Biden needs to move to the right on as many issues as he can to reach the largest amount of people he can, and he needs to trust that people on the left will vote for him anyway.

Yeah, I assume so too.  But if they're in disarray, that means it failed again.  Which would be frustrating.  I'd like a time period where the good guys are able to do something without it immediately falling apart.

Yeah Gunn is doing it the right way, and Marvel couldn't have anticipated something like this at the time.  As I said in the other thread, I don't really fault What If.  It'll just be fun to have that level of continuity in the DCU.

Watched Rebel Moon.  I don't think I'm a Snyder guy.  Most of his movies are fine on a first watch but I'm never all that interested in rewatching them.  I didn't think the Snyder Cut was all that much better than Whedon's version, especially when you take into account that Snyder would've had to edit the movie at some point.  Snyder had three movies that he claimed were building to an epic story, but we never ended up getting there.  It reminds me of the Flash's final season, when the producers claimed that they had these big stories they were going to do if they'd been given more episodes.  Snyder had three movies and just needed a couple more to tell the good one.

Rebel Moon certainly feels like a part one.  It doesn't feel like a complete movie.  It's got everything you love from Snyder (slow motion, bleakness, characters who have given up), but at least it's only a few minutes over two hours.

I hope Snyder's fans love it.  He seems like a genuinely good person, and I'm glad that Snyder fans have something that they really enjoy.  It just doesn't seem like his stuff is for me.

I think the voice acting is great.  Downey and Johansson have very distinct voices, and I'm sure a talented voice actor would have no issue doing a seamless impression.  I feel like the actor that replaced Chris Evans didn't nail it as much, but Evans doesn't have as distinct a voice.  I'm not sure you can do an "impression" of Evans, and it might sound silly if someone tried.  I assume the creative team picked the best voice for Steve and just had him use his normal voice.

Again, I don't mean to insult Wingert or Bell.  Nothing about the voice work was distracting or bad.  It's almost more distracting when it's a fake Chris Evans talking to a real Chris Hemsworth.  Then I spend time wondering if that's really Jon Favreau (and it is...he just sounds off even when he's playing normal Happy Hogan).

I think the production did the best possible job.  They got as many of the real actors as possible and filled in the rest the best they could.  I still just think it's a little weird that they get some people and don't get others.  I get Chris Evans not wanting to ruin the legacy of his Captain America with a cheap return or Downey not wanting to get paid minimum wage after he's made a fortune off his Iron Man.  But I have to assume a lot of these guys did recordings at home, and they're all playing alternate versions of their characters.  Maybe it's just the principle of not coming back.

*******

I watched all of What If...? Season 2, and overall it was really good.  I feel like maybe they played way too hard into the Captain Carter thing?  She's a fun character, and I'm glad she's getting some spotlight after she sorta got shortchanged in live action.  But she's the star of 1/3 of the episodes, and almost every line of dialogue from Uatu is about how great she is.  It's just a little odd that it's a show about endless possibilities and we keep returning to the same character over and over again.

She's said she would turn it down.  She may underestimate Trump's insanity and think that being Trump's VP makes you the nominee by default in 2028 as long as she doesn't make him mad.  Obviously that didn't work out for Pence, but a) Trump is still running and b) Haley may think she's smarter/better than Pence.

But I think Trump is just as likely to a) try to stay in power for a third term b) name one of his kids as the next nominee or c) pick someone absolutely random.

On the 14th Amendment

I don't think there's any question that Trump committed in an insurrection attempt.  Having read the text, I think it's vague enough that a true reading of the text should disqualify Trump.  He doesn't need a conviction to qualify.

There's two issues I have with this, and I think they compound each other.  The first is that I don't think that the Supreme Court will agree.  I think they're not going to want to set that precedent, and I really don't think they want to be involved.  I also think they'd be (rightfully) afraid of the social unrest that would happen if Trump was deemed ineligible.  He still has millions of fervent followers, and I think if Trump was declared ineligible, there would be violence.  Second, I do think it plays into Trump's narrative.  Trump supporters only believe Trump, and he insists that "the deep state" is out to get him.  If Trump is kicked off the ballot, it fits Trump's narrative.  If he's not kicked off the ballot, the attempt itself will fit Trump's narrative.  And like the indictments, it could increase his support, not limit it.

I think Trump getting kicked off the ballot is, long term, the best solution.  If someone does what Trump did, they shouldn't be allowed to run again.  And if there were real consequences to Trump's actions, it would deter others from doing it.  But I think short-term, win or lose, it might be better to just defeat him in November.

On Nikki Haley

I don't like Nikki Haley, but if you gave me the choice between a guaranteed President Haley and the risk of another term of President Trump, I'd take President Haley*.  I think Haley sucks and would be bad for the country, but she wouldn't be catastrophic.  Trump is another level of terrible, and I think Haley, while misguided, wants the country to succeed.

What I think the problem is that Haley/DeSantis know that they cannot win the nomination without people that are devoted to Trump.  People that would fight and die for Trump.  And as much as they seem to hate it, they cannot speak out against Trump.  That's why their argument is "Trump is great, but pick me"

And that means not upsetting white nationalists.  I'm sure she sees it as a means to an end, but it's still deplorable for her to do it. 

*Just to clarify again, I do not like Haley and would not vote for her.  But if it's her or Trump, I pick her.  If it's anyone and Trump, I pick anyone.

On John Schneider. 

If he's a conservative, that's fine.  I don't want Hollywood to only be liberals or progressives.  Entertainment should be for everyone.  But Schneider crossed so many lines, and it's disappointing.  Be mad at Biden if you're mad, but there shouldn't be any more inciting of political violence.  Schneider should be investigated and punished if possible.]

It sucks because I think Jonathan Kent is a great character, and he was great in the role.  And now it's kinda tainted for me.

Hopefully Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum continue to be good people.  Smallville's cast is looking rough on re-examination.

One thing I'm struggling to determine.  I fully expect the Supreme Court to overturn Colorado, but is the Supreme Court's decision (whatever it ends up being) going to apply to all states?  In other words, would the determination on Colorado either make him allowed to be on the ballot in all 50 states or make him eligible in no states?  Or would this hypothetically need to be 50 separate Supreme Court decisions?

What's frustrating about this stuff is that this is something that could've been done years ago.  I keep reading that all these decisions might be too late to actually keep him off any ballots.  I understand why the Jack Smith cases needed years to come together, but I feel like this could've been figured out in 2021.  No?

It doesn't have to be devoid of conflict, but I just didn't like that instead of being a new conflict, it was essentially the same conflict again.  Instead of Endor being the end of one war, it was a footnote in a much larger war.  That's what was frustrating.

If there are sequels to the sequels, they would obviously still be about war, but it should be a new war that looks different.

Thank you for the information!  Unfortunately, Biden has to advertise something because that message isn't getting to voters:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics … r-AA1lHyvN

Voters aren't getting the message.  There's still plenty of time for them to get the message, but Biden is going to have to be really careful about how he sells it.  Whatever he's doing (and again, thank you for letting me know) is not getting through to voters.  For Biden's base, I'm sure what he's doing is enough.  But, especially now that the Republicans are campaigning and Biden isn't, the message is that the border is wide open.  Stories with thousands of people at the border isn't helpful.

My response would really be theatrical, not policy.  I think Harris is the best one to handle this (and she's in charge of the border anyway), but I think the administration needs to appear harsher on the border.  Americans don't really dig into statistics (obviously), but they tend to follow a "vibe" - if people around them are saying something, even if it's 2nd/3rd/4th hand, they're going to tend to believe it and do no research.  And unfortunately, Biden is going to need a ton of those people to vote for him.

Like with the economy, I don't think Biden needs to do anything different.  He just needs to change the narrative.

(Although, like I said, I'm willing to punt the issue entirely and let the Republicans have a victory in the negotiations.  If it means aid for Ukraine and a better chance at Biden's re-election, I'll sacrifice the border issue and deal with it again in 2025.  Because no matter what the Democrats agree to now, it'll be so much worse with Trump).

I'm making my way through the What If episodes.  You're telling me that they can get basically everyone (Michael Douglas, Kurt Russell, etc) to come back and do voicework for this, but they can't get Downey or Evans to do anything?  It's a little distracting to get everyone back and not have those guys.  I get that they're done, but a lot of these voices are done.  Wouldn't this be like 20 minutes of work they can do from their own house?

I'm not saying they owe us or anything.  If they want to be done, they're free to be done.  It's just a little weird that they got so many and the big two just aren't coming back.

Sure, but you can essentially erase the original trilogy from existence and it no longer matters.  If someone was in a coma when Rogue One happened and stayed for 15-20 years, he'd wake up in a galaxy that was basically the same with only minor differences.  They blew up a couple Death Stars, sure, but they didn't even kill the Emperor.  They made the Empire go into hiding/hibernation, but they definitely didn't beat it.  It just makes, at least, to me, the main trilogy seem pointless.

I don't think they needed to get rid of the "Wars" - no one would want to watch a sequel trilogy about Luke doing a peaceful Jedi academy with no conflict.  But the Expanded Universe did a bunch of different stories without just re-doing A New Hope again.  Do something new.  Or at least sell the idea that they're now stuck in a never-ending Groundhog Day of fighting the same enemy (slightly renamed) over and over again.

Say what you will about the prequels, but at least it was a new story.  The sequels (and I'm including all three in this) don't break any new ground.  And, worse, they essentially make most of the original trilogy pointless.  That's what sucks (to me).

Reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbMsvu7193U

Okay, but you get that it doesn't matter right now, right?  If Republicans are able to trick voters into thinking that vampires are a significant problem, Biden needs to do something to "fix" that problem too.  It might mean putting garlic on every intersection in the country or doing subsidies for the timber industry to lower the cost of wooden crosses, but he'd have to do something whether or not the problem is real.  Otherwise, he loses.

And what's crazy, at least to me, is that a fake problem is much easier to solve than a real problem.  And in Biden's two biggest problems with voters (the economy and the border), I think his solutions are more theatrical than anything.  On the border, as I've said a bunch of times, I think Vice President Harris is the key.  1) she's got a lower approval rating than Biden and needs a boost 2) she's a former prosecutor who thrives in that role.  So send her to the border and "take care of it"

Biden is legally required to build more border wall.  So make it an event.  Take credit for the wall you're building.  Take tons of videos and make Harris the star of those videos.  Then you can make campaign videos of actual border wall being made, with Harris looking prosecutorial, and intersperse it with videos of Trump saying he's going to build the wall and long stretches of unwalled border.  Take a loss and turn it into a win.

It's going to be theatrical and it isn't going to convince everyone, but there are absolutely voters (particularly in the southwest) that are only voting against Biden because they think the border is open.  And I don't think doing nothing or telling them that there isn't a problem is going to work.  I think they're actually going to have to do something.  And if you're going to beat Trump, I think theatricality is a way to work.  The people that have switched from Biden to Trump fall for it, and I think it would work to get them back.

As for the economy, the hard work is already done.  They just have to sell it.  People are now separating their personal financial situation from the situation of the economy as a whole.  They either need to tie that back ("If you're doing well, America is doing well") or with theatrics.  Trump has convinced people that gas is $5-$8 a gallon across the country.  As gas prices continue to fall, they need to celebrate that.  Do ads that show gas prices all over the country.  Do events at gas stations where gas is under $2 no matter where that happens.

Wherever he can, he needs to do what he can to bring prices down for staples.  Bread, eggs, milk, meat.  If he can also help American farmers, I think that would be good.

And, again, the key to all this is exposure and exposure to the right people.  He needs reliable surrogates that can go on Fox News (and even places like Newsmax) and talk about how border crossings are dropping, how much oil is being drilled for, how prices are dropping, how the stock market is doing, how the infrastructure plan is helping etc.  These need to be surrogates that non-MAGA conservatives are willing to listen to or it won't matter.

Running a typical campaign might work to get Biden re-elected.  But I think making things a bit more theatrical would a) reach voters b) make Biden and Harris more likeable and c) ensure re-election.  Even if it's not the most liberal path, it doesn't matter if it means Trump stays out of the White House.

Apparently these types of judgments aren't protected by bankruptcy.  So I think he still has to pay these out.  Of course, they're probably SOL either way because Alex Jones hasn't paid a penny to the people he defamed, and he's still living a lavish lifestyle.  Last I checked, the people are willing to take a fraction of what was awarded just so they get something.

The Republicans complain about how the courts are out to get them, but they seem to be insulating Rudy, Trump, and Jones.

I get that it has to be about a war, but if the wars are endless and repetitive, then no action done by anyone has any impact.  It makes winning any particular battle (or even war) meaningless if the cycle just repeats a few years later.

I worry about the Colorado decision.  Obviously I would love a situation where Trump isn't allowed to run.  I do think he tried to overthrow the government and stay in power, but he doesn't have a conviction.  Barring a conviction, what's stopping red states from doing the same thing (under bogus circumstances) to a future Democratic candidate?  It's a slippery slope that I'm not entirely comfortable with.

It's the same as Trump going to jail for the Georgia case (if convicted) if he's re-elected.  Should a state be allowed to jail a sitting president?  If Alabama was able to convince a jury that Biden committed a crime there, should Biden have to spend time in jail?  There are reasons for some of these rules and regulations, and I'm worried what Republicans would do if we opened things up to get to Trump.

Again, I'm not saying it's not the right thing to do.  I'm just worried about what would happen if the other side tries the same stuff for false reasons.

One of the things that I think Biden's going to really struggle with is that people don't seem to care about the truth of the matter on anything.  Trump was talking at a rally in Iowa the other day, and he talked about how gas was "$5, $6, $7, and even $8 a gallon" now.  But those people would've gotten into their cars after the rally and passed stations where gas is $2.84.  I looked it up myself....that's the price of gas (on average) in the town where Trump spoke.

So are those people so disconnected with reality that they think gas is $8 when it's $2.84?  Or are they thinking "well I'm fine but imagine those poor people who really are paying $8?"

How do you convince people that see something different from what everyone else sees?  Based on recent polling, this isn't an issue that's just MAGA being crazy.

All this is true.  Unfortunately, voters aren't (yet) seeing it that way.  I know you don't like polls, but people still think the economy sucks.  I assume the economy will continue where it's at, but even if it does, are people's opinions on Biden re: the economy baked in?  Will they judge him based on how the economy was in 2024, or are they going to compare where they're at in 2024 against where they remember being in 2020?

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/12182915 … ation-jobs

I still think Biden has to do something about prices.  I don't have any idea what he could do that wouldn't steer right back into more inflation, but he either needs to make it happen or very publicly try to make it happen.  And quick.

The Democrats already had the means to lock out republicans and any hope of victory, and they handed it away.  Ironically, they did it to court people like me (white, college educated, and focused on forward-facing issues like climate change).

After 2012, it looked like the Democrats would win every presidential election.  Democrats had a huge coalition of blue collar workers, people of color, women, and several others.  Republicans seemed like they had rich white men and nothing else.  The problem was that as Democrats tried to improve their coalition, they started alienating other sides.  Right or wrong, Democrats started focusing on issues that appealed to certain groups (LGBT issues, climate change, etc).

And it worked!  Between Trump turning off college educated white people and those people appreciating the forward-thinking of the Democratic Party, that segment of the Republican base started to flip.

But in exchange, Democrats lost the working class that used to be the backbone of their party.  Why should Joe Smith worry about climate change in 2050 when they're struggling today?  Why would he want their politicians to focus on LGBT bathroom issues and preferred pronouns when they couldn't put food on the table?  Why would they want to gear towards renewable energy when the coal plant in town was all that was keeping it alive?

(These are not my opinions, BTW.  Just an example).

Instead of being for unions and entitlements and working class wages, the perception of the party became pronouns and transgender bathrooms and climate change.  To some, Democrats cared more about illegal immigrants than Americans.  Republicans *talked* about the things they wanted to talk about.  The economy.  The border.  Sticking with fossil fuels that kept them paid and their towns alive.

Don't get me wrong.  Republican policies don't actually help blue collar workers.  But Republicans are at least saying the things that they want to hear.  Democrats are trying to straddle two different groups with wildly different agendas.  It's like with Israel and Palestine.  Most Americans support Israel.  Progressives support Palestine.  How can Biden support Israel (the largest part of the country) and support Palestine (people in his party)?  Essentially what Democrats have to do is pick one and hope the other still supports him.  He has decided to support Israel (keeping him strong with Independents and older people) and hope that young progressives that support Palestine stick with him because the alternative is worse.

That's why I think Biden needs to pivot to the other side.  A lot of the worker-focused items from the Inflation Reduction Act got removed in favor of climate-focused items.  The college-educated people can have those things to hang their hats on.  But now Biden needs to ignore them for a minute and focus on blue-collar workers.  If these people, especially in Pennsylvania and the Midwest, think that the Democrats are more about LGBT issues than the economy, Biden can lose.  If Biden can just remind them that Democratic policies are better for them than Republican rhetoric then the Democrats can build a coalition that Trump can't beat.

To me, the answer is somewhere in the middle.

1. There's no real sense in panicking right now.  The election is a long way away, and Biden hasn't really started campaigning.  He should have the most money to spend on campaigning (even if Trump gets more in his war chest, he'll have to spend a ton of it on legal bills), and there's no way the trials against Trump help him with any additional votes (the people that think it's a political witch hunt already support him).

2. Biden's approval rating is terrible.  It's not quite as bad as Trump's was during his presidency but it's really close.  And what's bad is that I'm not really sure what's leading to it.  The economy is doing better.  Inflation is down.  Jobs are up.  The stock market is up.  Biden overwhelmingly supported the more popular side in the Gaza violence.  What are folks mad about?  Well...it may just be that their opinions on Biden are baked in.  Even if the economy is doing better, people think he's bad at it.  Unless the economy continues cruising, people might not care.  A recent poll said that something like 80% of the population says their personal finances are doing good but that the overall economy is bad/fair.  I don't know how you reconcile that if you're Biden unless he can do something to bring all prices down to pre-2020 levels.

3. So where does that leave us?  If Biden's accomplishments don't matter to the majority of Americans, then we're going into 2024 with a deeply unpopular incumbent vs a potential felon.  It's such a disaster for both parties.

4. I still think there's things Biden can do.  I think he needs to move to the right on immigration / the border.  He just needs to.  Not forever and obviously nothing like Trump-era border policy.  But he's getting slammed there, and if you listen to complaints about Biden, it's all about the border.  He has to do something there.  And again, I'd have Kamala Harris do the work there.  This is an area where she can look strong and tough, and they *desperately* need people to like her.  You can't have an unpopular president who is very old and also a very unpopular vice president.  If people trusted or liked Kamala Harris more, I think Biden's age would be much less of an issue.

5. And the campaign needs to do much better to get the word out.  If there's a new bridge anywhere in the country, it needs to have a Biden campaign flag showing that Biden got that done.  If there's new cheap high speed internet available in a rural area, Biden's name needs to be everywhere.  The Infrastructure bill is a huge accomplishment that is helping people, and people need to know it.  And Biden surrogates need to be on television every day telling voters about how strong the economy is, how much domestic oil drilling is happening, whatever Biden is doing at the border, and anything he's doing to help working class people.  He needs Spanish-language media all over the place.  He needs popular surrogates that can convince his base and independents that he's making the country better.  And he generally just need people to feel better about the direction of the country.

Biden should win.  He should win easily.  But for whatever reason, Biden is very unpopular.  He's even unpopular with people who voted for him three years ago.  And whether or not you believe in polls, that has to change.  And it has to change quickly.

The Biden impeachment and the Hunter Biden indictments look like wins for Republicans....but are they?  Or do they undercut the arguments that Trump is making?

If Trump's two impeachments were just political witch hunts...what is this?
If Trump is "innocent" of the crimes he was charged with because the senate didn't convict...won't Biden be "innocent" too?
If Biden is weaponizing the department of justice to go after his political opponents, why is he going after his own son?

I think Grizzlor is right and the impeachment is probably good news for Biden as opposed to bad.  I think the Trump and Clinton impeachments actually improved the approval rating for the presidents involved, and I would expect this would also boost Biden's popularity, particularly if the "evidence" is as flimsy as it seems like it is.  I think Democrats that are disillusioned with Biden will come back into the fold, and I think, depending on how Biden handles it, might paint him as an underdog/fighter/resilient.  I don't know if any of those boosts would help him a year from now, but it wouldn't as we move into an electoral cycle.

And for non-MAGA voters, it's going to be really hard for Trump to spin that the DOJ is going after him at the same time that DOJ is going after the president's son.  Especially if both are convicted by the time the election happens (again, I'm doubtful that any of Trump's trials will be finished by the time the election happens....Trump is bad at pretty much everything but he's great at stalling legal troubles).

Because Trump is going to sell all his trials as witch hunts and MAGA will eat it up.  But will non-MAGA Trump and/or undecided voters be able to disconnect "Biden himself is trying to jail Trump" from "Biden is trying to jail his own son?"  I really don't know.  But it's much easier for Trump to make that argument if Hunter Biden isn't on trial.

And I don't know what Hunter Biden is accused of (like QuinnSlidr, I don't care), but if he's guilty, I hope the DOJ goes after him hard.  No sweetheart deal, no plea, a hard, contentious trial that the government tries to crush him in.  The worse things go for Hunter, the better I think things look for Joe (assuming, of course, Joe isn't dragged into any of it).

Biden's numbers are bad because people think the economy sucks (when it actually doesn't) and they have a fondness for how their lives felt during Trump's presidency.  I'm not saying people aren't going to think that Biden is feeble or old.  I'm not saying people even have to like the guy.  They hate Trump about the same as they hate Biden.

Biden needs to a) do something that will convince working class people (white and non-white) that he's actively doing things to help them and b) convince people that the country isn't going in the wrong direction.  I don't think he even needs to convince people that it's going in the right direction.  Just that it isn't going in the wrong direction.

Because I really didn't think Trump's national numbers would go up.  I was obviously wrong about that.  But I still don't get the idea that non-MAGA Trump voters want to vote for him.  I think they see things going in the wrong direction under Biden and want a change.  If Biden can just convince them that things are fine, I think they'll either a) not vote or b) switch back to Biden.  Not because they like Biden but because they really don't like Trump.

I generally agree with pretty much everything Grizzlor said.  To me, I think the Democrats either need to treat this like a do or die election, or they're going to lose (or make it way too close for comfort).

I listened to a podcast that was talking about non-college-educated workers.  That's the meat of Trump's voting block right now, and they're a ton of people that voted Democrat historically (as recently as Obama).  This is where Biden needs to win people back.  I don't think the majority of them are MAGA or *want* to vote for Trump, but they feel abandoned by the Democratic Party.  If the Democrats get any percentage of those people back, Biden wins in a landslide and the pre-2016 talks of the Republicans never having another president again are back.

The problem is that the Democrats are targeting two different groups with two different agendas.  Democrats appeal to working-class people because they support entitlements and unions and labor and all that.  The problem is, once they started appealing to college educated people, they shifted some / a lot of their focus to social progressive issues and things like climate change.  These are things that are important to me, but working class people can't worry about carbon in 2050 if they can't put food on the table today.

And here's the thing: a Republican strategist on the podcast could not point to a single policy that Republicans face that appeal to the working class.  It's all simply a vibe that Democrats are elitist and care more about transgenderism and electric cars than the economy.

So I think the things Grizzlor said are a good start, but I think it needs to go way further.

Please note: I'm not talking about any of this as a long-term policy shift or anything like that.  This is basically an emergency lever designed to to keep Trump out.  If we need to keep Trump at any cost, we need to mean it.

1. Biden needs to get as many of the non-MAGA working class back as possible.  I don't know if that means passing policies / signing executive orders / passing subsidies / whatever to get prices to come down, they should do that.  Basically anything short of another stimulus bill.  Obviously, further inflation is the opposite of what they want, but they need to be actively doing something.

2. The US is drilling for more oil than we have in a long time.  They need to be blitzing the right wing media with that as much as they can.  Whatever right-friendly people they can get in front of people on Fox and the fringy networks, they need to do it.  We are drilling.  We are not dependent on foreign oil.  We are doing what you want to get gas prices down.  They don't have to do any more on it, but they need to tell the right people that it's happening.

3. Whatever the left's position on the border is, they need to move to the right.  Right now, Ukraine aid is being held up because of border arguments.  Stop it.  Biden needs to be front and center on whatever "border security" means.  And, honestly, the person who needs to be front and center is Kamala Harris.  The Biden administration is legally required to build new stretches of wall on the border - Kamala needs to be there celebrating it.  She needs to put her prosecutor hat on and do press events at the border standing by border agents and talking about how criminals can't be allowed to cross the border.  Even if you don't think criminals are crossing the border, she needs to get out and say it.  It's pandering but we need pandering.

4. Biden and Harris need to stand against extremism on both sides.  I don't know how they walk that line, but there needs to be some sort of stand against social progressiveness.  You can't push too hard, but they need to speak out against whatever "woke" is.  I'm 100% for LGBT freedoms and discussions about race, but it's 100% not the time right now.  Let the next guy push that.  Biden needs to display for the next 10 months that he's focused on the things that are important to blue collar workers, and gender-affirming care shouldn't be on that list.

5. I don't know how he does this one, but he needs to embrace the grandpa look.  He speaks slow and he looks frail.  That isn't going to change in the next year.  But people love their grandpa.  Where Trump is cruel and angry, Joe needs to be kind and loveable.  I'm terrified of a debate between Biden and Trump because Trump is going to appear more pulled together and with it.

Again, this isn't a long-term strategy.  I don't want the Democratic Party to move to the right.  I want Joe Biden to move to the right.  I want Joe Biden to change what the Democratic Party's perception is.  It isn't a party that only cares about climate change and social issues. And I don't want it to stop caring about climate change and social issues, but they will not win the election on climate change and social issues.  They'll win it with the support of blue collar workers that voted Democrat 8 years ago.  And that's going to mean being a little less socially liberal and a lot more traditionally Democrat.

In 2025, go back to whatever you were doing.  Biden has done good work and the college educated people that have joined the left have done some good work.  The bills passed by Biden in his first term have been great.  But no matter how to the right Biden goes, he'll never go as far as Trump will go.  Abandoning social issues will not do the damage to LGBT/POC that a Trump presidency will do.  Devaluing climate change will not do the damage to the climate that a Trump presidency will do.

Make a choice.  Do you want to continue down the path you're on and maybe win?  Or do you want to run a meat and potatoes down-the-center campaign that appeals to a huge part of the country that you've lost and almost certainly win?  Is Trump the greatest danger that we face?  And if so, are you willing to do what it takes to beat him?

Totally fair criticism.  To me, I would've appreciated less hopping around and a bit more character stuff.  Indy is a little reluctant to get back into the action, but to sell the theme of the movie (that Indy needed a little more adventure to get him out of the depression he was in), I would've hammered home that point a bit more.  To get specific, I'll go into spoilers.

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By risks, I guess, I think the movie needed more stakes.  And if this is truly the last movie, I think it needed to feel like it.  So I might've entirely dumped the deaged stuff.  It was fun to see young Indy, but I don't think that scene added anything to the theme of the movie.

So you start with depressed Indiana.  He's teaching his class and no one cares.  It's a stark difference to Raiders when everyone is hanging on his every word (mostly because of Harrison Ford but he can pretend history).  I'd also do two things - I'd have him mess something up in his lecture.  Maybe it's a misspeak, maybe it's carelessness, whatever.  Someone (Helena?) corrects him, and he's very embarrassed.  Second, I would have Indy pass a mugging or something.  His instinct is to run in and help, but maybe he reaches for a whip that isn't there.  Or a hat that has long-since been hung up.  And either he calls for help (instead of intervening himself) or someone younger jumps in to help the person being mugged.  Indy awkwardly limps away.

I want to show two things.  That Indy is off his game and out of the heroism game.  Even if he wants to, he can't do it anymore.

I also think Helena needs to be related to someone else.  Could she be Brody's daughter?  I don't know if the timeline works, but that would work for me.  Maybe even a half-sister from some other child of Henry Jones Sr.?  I'm just thinking of the characters we know that could've realistically had a child Helena's age.  I just don't think it should've been a new character.

And here's the important one.  When Indy gets dragged into the mess, he should be actively trying to stay out of it.  He shouldn't be fighting or running or anything like that.  He should be surrendering immediately, even if it means Helena is in danger.  This is an Indiana who has given up so he can't immediately be up for a fight or an adventure.  Maybe Helena runs off and has to rescue Indy from either a police lockup (if he's been arrested) or the Nazis (if he's been captured).  He doesn't want to go on this adventure, and he's taken against his will.

In Tangier, he doesn't jump into the action either.  He doesn't want to drive the tuk-tuk.  He doesn't want to fight at the auction.  He wants to go home.  He needs to rest.  His body hurts.  He cannot do this adventure, and he's going to be helpless to save anyone if people keep making him.

But time after time, Indy has to step up.  Maybe he has to grab a gun and fire.  His arm is a little shaky, but he hits his target.  Maybe he punches a guy.  It really hurts, but a little smile escapes his face.  He's getting back in the saddle.  And the Nazis should escape Tangier because of something Indy does a little too slow.  But instead of being down about it, Indy starts to feel better.

And as the movie goes on and on, he starts to be a little more Indiana Jones.  His friends need to prod him a little less, and he has to prod himself a little less.  The muscle memory starts to come back.  He starts to enjoy himself a little more.

He's coming back.

Because while the movie makes a big deal about Indy being old, it isn't consistent about it.  He talks about how much everything hurts, but he's alternating between slowly climbing up a cave and jumping from vehicle to vehicle.  Indy's limitations need to be consistent, and he needs to use his brain where his muscles used to do the work.  He's older, but he has something the rest of them don't have: experience.

The Antonio Banderas character is fine but who is he?  Who cares?  That character needed to be someone.  Maybe that's where Sallah comes in.  Maybe that's where Short Round comes in.  I don't know but it shouldn't be no one.  I know there aren't many people that character could be put pick someone.  And whoever dies needs to have impact.  Indy needs to have a reason to doubt himself again if we're going to believe he's going to stay in the past.  I don't want Sallah to die any more than anyone else, but his death would launch us into an uncertain third act.

The core of the movie is fine, I think.  By "chances" I don't think they took advantage of the fact that this is a depressed Indy that doesn't want to do it anymore.  And by "it" I mean anything.  The movie sells that adventure brought Indy back, but we didn't see Indy gone.  People say that he's depressed and he talks about being depressed but they don't sell it.  At least they didn't sell it to me.

He's sad at the beginning but he's basically Indiana Jones the entire time.  To sell that Indy is "back", Indy needs to be "gone".

The alternative is to maybe make this entire movie juxtaposed with flashbacks.  We get two, but maybe we need a lot more.  Let's see a scene with deaged Indy and Marion in the middle of the film.  Let's see their marriage break down.  Let's see Indy try to do an adventure between Crystal Skull and Dial that goes horribly. 

That's what I would've liked.  Outside of a couple of scenes and a couple of lines, Dial of Destiny could've had Indiana be 50.  If this is about a guy coming out of retirement to do one last adventure, make it that.

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All that being said, I did like it.  The scene with Marion is beautiful.  The scene where Indy talks about Mutt is legitimately Oscar-worthy acting out of Harrison Ford.  I think I just wanted a little more out of it.

Hold on....Annihilation cost *more* than the first movie?  How is that possible?  Less star power and way worse effects.  From my memory, the whole set was just a big quarry.  I know there were a couple CGI-ish characters but really???

Annihilation came out at a time when I basically thought every movie that came out was awesome.  This was one of the first movies that came out that I walked out thinking, "wait, was that not awesome?"

I think of the original Mortal Kombat as one of my guiltiest pleasures.  I still enjoy that movie quite a bit.  Annihilation is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The newest remake is...fine?

Holland will appear in a Venom movie because Sony desperately needs him to.  Sony is making a valiant effort to generate a shared universe with the scraps they have left from their Spider-Man deal, but they almost backed out of the deal with Marvel already.  And I assume if Madame Web, Venom 3, and Kraven the Hunter (ALL REAL MOVIES) all bomb, Sony will just cut an enormous check to Holland to have him essentially do for Venom what Downey Jr. did for Spider-Man Homecoming.  He'll do a couple scenes out of costume and the rest will just be the Spider-Man CGI model.

I can pretty much tell you how I think they'd do it too.  It will be "Sinister Six" or something, and the plot will be Venom, Madame Web, Morbius, Kraven the Hunter and I don't know who else (Spider-Woman? Scorpion from Homecoming?  The Vulture?) teaming up to fight whoever the biggest villain that Sony has the rights to.  Let's say Hobgoblin.  And that will be the movie.  But there will be a couple of scenes where Tom Holland (out of costume) will interact with Tom Hardy and let's say Dakota Johnson.  Not as Spider-Man and he doesn't know who they are (Madame Web knows).  And in the finale of the movie, Spider-Man (in costume with voice over from Holland) shows up (with a big shot of him web-swinging and landing directly in front of the main characters) and has a misunderstanding with the main characters.  He has a quick fight with Venom, he throws a punch or two at Morbius, he says something to Vulture maybe.

Then Spider-Man realizes the Hobgoblin is the problem and leaves to go help civilians or something.

"You go save them," Eddie Brock says before the Venom mask reappears.

"This guy is ours" Venom says.

Spider-Man leaves and doesn't reappear.  But Sony will absolutely market this as "Spider-Man vs the Sinister Six" and call the movie that.  They'll put every second of Spider-Man / Tom Holland footage in the trailer, and people will be really disappointed.  "Sinister Six" will be an in-joke inside the group "What are you trying to do, make a super group?
Like the Sinister Six?" that won't make any sense outside of that one scene.