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Biden certainly had a great South Carolina, blowing away polling averages.  Two polls came out this weekend - one was very bad for Biden and one was very good for Biden.  I think we won't know too much until we see what happens with all this immigration stuff, see how Americans start changing their thoughts based on the economy, and Trump's trials.

But an alarmingly low number of Americans even know what the trials are about.  So I think getting them started and getting regular news updates from mainstream media sources could help.  This is a bad dude who shouldn't be near the White House.

Getting really frustrated with the court system.  I get that the wheels of justice turn slowly, but this is benefiting no one but Trump.  In all but the New York case, Trump has used legitimate means to delay all these trials, and people (the DC Appeals court, Judge Cannon, etc) are playing into his hands.  I understand that people need time to prepare a defense, but Trump isn't arguing that he didn't do any of the things he's accused of.  He's essentially pleading guilty to the crimes but saying the crimes are wrong.  It's all so frustrating because it's important for the country that these trials are done before the election, and I don't know if any of them will even start before the election.

That being said, the trials are bleeding Trump dry.  He's spending so much of his campaign money on legal fees, and I don't know how he's going to be able to keep doing this and keep up with the spending of the Biden campaign.

Now both these guys are such known commodities that maybe spending won't matter.  But I don't know how you can be a Trump donor and not be furious that he's spending his money on that stuff and not trying to be president.

Yeah, I guess the last VP of a popular president (Biden) wasn't the nominee as soon as Obama left audience.  Harris could give a similar reason if she either doesn't want it or she's pressured to not take it.  And it's not to say that there aren't popular Democrats that could've run if Biden and Harris didn't run.  Obviously Newsom wants it.  I think Whitmer or Warnock would be really strong candidates.  I really like Mayor Pete, but he doesn't have very broad support and I just don't think America is anywhere near ready for a gay president.

I sorta agree.  That "Go to a Trump Rally" article I posted a few weeks ago really opened my eyes to the idea that I don't think Trump supporters have any idea what 2024 Trump is about.  He's gone so far down the far-right conspiracy theory stuff that I think if they heard him speak at any length, it would turn them off.  I'm talking about non-MAGA Trump voters that don't regularly watch Fox or the other conservative networks.

The few Trump voters I know don't like him as a person but like whatever candidate they feel will help them economically.  I think if the economy continues to be good and if they heard Trump parroting Q-Anon nonsense and talking about dismantling the Deep State and rambling about toilets and magnets, they might be less likely to care enough about minor economic benefits to actually vote for the guy.

I agree with most of that.  I think the Biden campaign's thought is that Trump's base hangs on his every word.  Biden's base might, but most of America doesn't.  I don't think the polling should be written off, especially since the polling has (in 2016 and 2020) underestimated Trump instead of overestimating him.  Now in 2020, for a variety of reasons, polls tended to be more Democratic than Republican so maybe they've fixed that and polls are just more accurate.  But I think that as soon as most "normal" voters are exposed to more of Trump, they'll remember why they were annoyed by him in the first place.

But I still think this is too important of an election to sit back.  Biden needs to win by as much as possible to make sure that most sensible people don't believe anything was rigged.  Because the election is only part one of the struggle - even if Biden is elected convincingly, we're going to have to watch as states refuse to certify votes and see what happens on January 6, 2025.

So the reason why I tend to agree that it would be very bad (not necessarily the end of the world but very bad) is that Trump is unlike most of the people that run for president.  Not only is he an (alleged) criminal, but he has shown time and time again that he's never going to put the interests of the country ahead of his own.  I think he's compromised, not only from a financial sense but from a personality sense.  I think having met guys like Putin and Kim Jong-Un, he wants to run our country like they run theirs.  He's already laid out a plan that would do damage to the way we run the country, and I think that damage would extend beyond four years.  He's also talked about not leaving after four years, and he's working to make enough changes that there might not be any one who can stop him if he tries that.

He also has legitimized the idea that elections cannot be trusted, he's empowered some of the worst segments of our population, and he's empowered a bunch of crazy people that think and act like him.  We were already divided politically, but he supercharged that.

And even if all the things above aren't true, I still think he cannot be allowed to be president.  Even if he truly loves America and is actively working to improve it.  Even if elections are horribly corrupt and fraudulent.  Even if the crimes alleged against him are bogus and political.  Even if every word he's ever said is true...

...he's still a terrible person.  He's still a loudmouth narcissist.  He's still insulting of soldiers and women and minorities and the disabled.  He's still crude and disrespectful and foul and awful.  And I have two daughters who will, between 2024 and 2028, understand what a president is and what he does.  They will be told in school that the president is a great man who is to be admired and respected, and they're going to talk about who is the president.  They might watch the news and hear him speak.  And for all of the flaws of the presidents of my lifetime.  Reagan might have been senile, both George Bushes might've been war criminals, Bill Clinton might've been a pervert, and Obama might've been a socialist (I'm not saying any of these things are true, BTW), but they all talked and acted like presidents when it was time to be president in front of the country.  You could disagree with them but you would respect them.  And I don't want my daughters to have Donald Trump as their president, especially now as they're in their formulative years.  Biden's old, but you can respect him.  I cannot respect Donald Trump.

So I'll do everything I can to make sure he cannot be president again.  And I'm hoping the Biden campaign is doing the same thing.  Compromise, pivot, engage, collaborate, campaign, travel, speak....do whatever you need to do to remove support from Trump to get the win in 2024, and make sure he doesn't tear down the country on his way out.

Maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world.  But Trump as president isn't a world I would be happy or proud for my children to live in.

Yeah, I saw that.  That was very good. Whether it's a legitimate problem or not, Biden needs to make sure he's addressing it.  If they can flip this on the Republicans, that would go a long way to Biden winning convincingly.

The border is going to be interesting.  Senate Republicans were trying to push through a bill that would address the border, Ukraine, and Israel.  They were urging House Republicans to take it because it's their only shot.  The thought being that, if Trump wins, the Democrats will be unwilling to negotiate on anything.  House Republicans freaked out, as did conservative media.  Then Trump got involved.  He wants nothing to happen so he can campaign on it.

Meanwhile, the Republicans in my state are taking matters into their own hands, ignoring federal orders and the Supreme Court.  Trump and a bunch of Republican governors are supporting it, and it's unknown how that's all going to be resolved.

But it's so bizarre.  Republicans are on conservative TV, talking to Republicans about how they're not going to pass any legislation at the border because it helps Biden.  So they're telling their voters that there's a problem, but they're going to leave it a problem for the next ten months to help Trump.  Meanwhile, they're going to allow/help Texas take matters into their own hands. 

If they succeed, the border will be less of an issue (because it'll be harder to cross the border, I guess) and Republicans can take credit, but would that also take the issue off the table?  Do voters really care how the problem got solved if it got solved?

I've said it before, but I think Biden needs to pivot to the right on the border.  He shouldn't pivot all the way to Abbott, obviously, but polling shows that almost everyone thinks Biden is too left on this.  There also aren't nearly enough people to the left of Biden that he needs to worry about.  Biden shouldn't wait on Congress and should issue executive orders that strengthen the border.  Work with anti-Trump Republicans to see what would be a good compromise and make it work.  He has to address it, or it's going to kill him in November.  And he can't say it's not an issue because voters think it is.

She's driving him insane.  He's attacking anyone supporting her, and this will cost him votes the longer she stays in.

He also released this long video talking about his plan to disassemble the Deep State.  Hopefully this video gets spread around because there's no way that plays with non-MAGA Republicans or Independents.  The crazier he gets, the more comfortable I get that Biden will win.  This far-right QAnon-focused campaign is not going to play.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

Haley is speaking out and convincing Republicans that Trump is literally talking crazy.  She's telling the truth, and people are listening.  It isn't enough people for her to win (any) primary, but any amount helps.  Of course she isn't going to win, but as long as she's in the race, she's going to attack Trump (even if it's weak or limited) and Trump has to campaign against her and not Biden.

I guess it depends on what she's trying to get out of this.  If nothing else changes, it's probably pointless to stay in the primary.  If she has the money, there's reasons to stay in.  If she's betting on MAGA falling apart after 2024, she's probably the frontrunner of the 2028 if she stays in long enough.  She doesn't have majority support, but she does have a lot of support.  Anti-Trump Republicans will remember, and it could put her in a good spot.

Let's also not forget that Trump is a) about to be on trial b) making an alarming number of gaffes and c) is 77 and not particularly healthy.  If he has to drop out for any reason, Haley is at least picking up delegates.  The more she stays in, the more delegates she gets.

And, again, if she has money, the longer she stays in the more she hurts Trump.  If she's legitimately concerned about Trump, staying in forces Trump to work and spend money to fight her, and it delays the whole party getting behind him.  Not to mention, he's losing more and more suburban women every time he attacks her.  Even if she loses every primary, I'm hoping she stays in as long as possible.

This is how I feel.  I think everything is set up for the trials to be background noise in the election instead of an actual issue.  Which sucks.  I think people would pay attention to a Trump trial and see all the things he's done.  Polls have shown that non-MAGA Republicans are willing to listen to reason and that significant swaths of them would abandon Trump if he's convicted of anything.

The annoying thing about Georgia is that they had to know that Trump and team would be looking for any distractions they could find.  Anything to appear political.  Anything to throw people off.  How could they not have thought about this before they proceeded.

I don't think it kills the Georgia case because it won't go to trial for a long time.  By that point, they'll either have their ducks in a row, or we'll have already talked it to death.

But like I said, our best hope is the DC case.  A strong case.  A judge that wants to move the case along.  I think as long as the case is more about Trump's election interference and less about January 6th (which non-Democrats seem to have stopped caring about), I think it could be deadly to Trump's cases.  We just need the courts to move this immunity appeal along.  They have to stop playing into Trump's hands with all the delays.

So there's two things at play here, and one is actually somewhat reasonable (although, of course, I disagree).  There are the MAGA people who believe that Trump got millions more votes and won states like California and New York and that there was actual fraud in the 2020 election.  This group includes Trump and has been proven false a million different ways.

Then there are the people who believe that state governments illegally allowed for voting rule changes without getting them fully approved.  That state governments "broke the rules" by allowing people to vote easier during Covid. 

Are they right?  Sorta?  I think some of the changes they made during Covid didn't go through the avenues they were supposed to go through.  And if you throw those votes out, it probably does mean that Trump had more votes.  And if you just go by that definition, Biden is illegitimate.

The problem is that you can't just throw those votes out, even if they impact the result.  Whether or not the way they voted was, at the end of the day, legal is irrelevant to the decisions that were made when the votes were cast.  If a Biden voter saw that they could drive-thru vote, they probably took them up on it.  It doesn't mean that they wouldn't have gone in and voted "legally" if they weren't given that option.  You can't assume they wouldn't have voted "legally" if that was their only choice.  They were legal votes counted by registered voters.  There was no fraud done by the voter.  It's the system that, if you follow the letter of the law, may have allowed voting to be done illegally. 

And I think the percentage of people that don't believe Biden is legitimate is comingling a lot of things.  I think there are people that believe there was voter fraud, but I think a lot of people a) are just saying that because they don't like Biden (I'm assuming a large number of the same people might say Obama wasn't legitimately elected) or b) they are thinking about state legislatures think all votes that were committed in a way that may or may not have been legal at the time should be thrown out. 

I still maintain that if 2/3 of Republicans truly believe that Joe Biden *stole* an election, there'd be more civil unrest.  That leads me to think that either they don't really believe it, they just don't like him so they're insulting his presidency by saying he's illegitimate, or they're talking about overreaching by state legislatures because of Covid and probably understand that it probably didn't impact the results but by the letter of the law is incorrect.

Biden should have a really strong campaign, I think.  The economy is doing well.  He's speaking out on the border, and it's Republicans that are currently blocking solutions at the border.  He's trying to thread the needle on Israel.  And as you said, Biden has actually followed through on a lot of his promises.  Biden himself might not be the best person to send that message because he looks so darn frail when he talks, but the message of the campaign is strong.

If it was the 60s, I think it would probably doom him.  But there's so many ways that people get their news now, and so little of it is going to come from Biden's mouth.  I'm not thinking that there's going to be any debates this year (I don't think either side wants to do it), and I think the average American is more likely to hear Biden's message from a Biden surrogate than Biden himself.

I agree that Biden probably needs to have as minimal of a presence in the campaign as possible, but I don't know if that's necessarily going to be as big of a problem as you think.

I do think there's a large segment of MAGA that is victims.  If all you do is watch Fox News, especially if you grew up a time when news was very respected, all you are going to hear is how bad things are.  And I think these people genuinely want good things for the country, and I think they genuinely think that they're facing a crisis that only Donald Trump can fix.  They've been convinced that the government is corrupt, and that Donald Trump (as an outsider) is the only one willing to step up to them.

I think this is both good and very bad.  Very bad, of course, because he's convinced a large swath of the nation that he's their messiah, and they're willing to disregard anything that steps in the way.  Good in the sense that, if Trump is the only one who can fix it, who's the heir to that?  What happens when Trump is gone?

My biggest fear post-2020 was a Trump-like figure who's more effective.  DeSantis seemed like that guy, but obviously he's not.  Because while Trump is good at getting his way, he's also very stupid and easily distracted.  He definitely wants to be a dictator, but he might run out of time before he gets to enjoy any of that.

So if Trump can be defeated until Trump is dead, I don't know if MAGA doesn't fracture.  Maybe a true heir apparent will show up, but I'm not currently seeing it.  That's why Trump is effective when he talks about staying as president or why "8 more years" was chanted.  There's no backup plan. There's no heir.  It's Trump until Trump is dead because that's all Trump cares about.  So when he dies, I don't know if there's going to be a succession plan.  And that means that some MAGA will follow DeSantis, some will follow Don Jr., some will follow Marjorie Taylor Greene, some will follow Jim Jordan.  And they won't be able to agree on anything, attacking each other and creating a bunch of never DeSantis, never Don Jr, never MTG, never Jordan, and never-whoever sects.

At least that's my hope.

*******************

I don't know what's happening with Trump (and I don't really want to speculate), but his flubs are getting worse and worse.  It might be in Biden's best interests to let Trump talk as much as possible.  I think the more non-MAGA people that hear Trump talk, the more people are going to realize that the dude is straight up crazy.  People will remember, and Biden should be able to cruise to a win (assuming he doesn't have his own flubs and the base gets in line).

I think these are fair questions, but to me, I don't think reason is going to prevail.  When a candidate loses a presidential race, there's a reckoning.  The party goes back in the lab, re-evaluates things, and tries to come up with a plan on how to win the next time.  That didn't happen this time because Trump has convinced a large (and somehow GROWING) segment of Republicans that he won last time.  He's essentially running as an incumbent.

So when anti-Trump Republicans give reasons why Trump is a bad choice, there's always an argument why they're wrong.

Trump is facing criminal trials!  "Those trials are fake"
Trump is doing worse against Biden in polls!  "Polls are always wrong unless Trump is winning"
Trump isn't as electable as Haley or DeSantis! "Trump already beat Biden once and he'll do it again"

It doesn't matter what the argument is - they're ready with a response.  Trump can't not be electable if we won last time.  Trump's legal issues aren't real because the trials are fake.  Trump's age doesn't matter because Biden is older.

ireactions, we have some good signs:

1. Biden seems to be doing slightly better at polling recently, and we're making headways on the economy and the border.  They're going to have to be able to correctly spin it, but the conditions for a Biden re-election are getting better.

2. There is some infighting on the Republican side.  I've seen a number of high-profile DeSantis supporters outright say that they won't support Trump in the general.  Now they have tons of time to come around on that, but if there are enough "Bernie against Hillary in 2016" votes, that's totally enough to make the difference.  We need Democrats to fall in line and enough Republicans to stay home, leave the top of the ballot blank, or somehow vote for Biden.

3. There's still overwhelming polling evidence that moderate Republicans will abandon Trump if he's convicted of a crime.  We just have to get a trial that actually starts.

4. I'm still not convinced that Trumpism continues after Trump.  I think he has a unique ability to get through to people that others don't have.  His sons don't have it.  No other candidates have really shown to have it, and the Trumpy people that have been elected to office are people that are typically in very red situations.  I think the GOP, win or lose, is going to continue to push "America First" issues, but I think Trump is unique. When Kari Lake tried to push the same kind of "Stop the Steal" nonsense, no one listened to her.  It only worked for Trump.  Now does that mean Trumpism ends in 2024 if Biden wins?  No.  I firmly expect Trump to run for president in 2028 if he loses (or I guess if he wins).  I don't see any reason why he wouldn't run (even if he's in prison) or any reason why he wouldn't win.

That's of course assuming there is a 2028 or an election at all.  But this is a positive post so I'll leave that to the side.

My beloved senator, Ted Cruz, has endorsed Trump.  What a spineless moron he is.  How can you wholeheartedly bootlick the man who called his wife ugly and accused his father of killing Kennedy?  I don't know too many people who have been attacked as hard as Cruz has, and I'm not sure there's anyone on the planet that defends Trump harder.

I know it's a longshot, but I'll be volunteering for and paying into the campaign for Colin Allred.

Very well written, ireactions.  I don't really have any response to that, but it was helpful to read.  I'm always fascinated by the people who are choosing to support Trump and why they do it.  It is so entirely foreign to me to follow him, and I've been trying to get into that mindset to I can understand it.  From what I can tell, it's most just fear fueled by misinformation.  Trump is most effective with older and undereducated people that are more likely to fall for misinformation.  So if he says that gas is $8 a gallon or that 8 million terrorists are coming into the country a day, they believe it.  And he's convinced them that anything else anyone says is a lie.  Again, I don't know how to fight that when people don't believe what they see anymore.

*******

Good news / bad news.

Good news - Something like 30% of Haley supporters in Iowa said they will support Biden in a hypothetical Biden/Trump matchup.  Something like 30% of all Iowans (including Trump supporters) have said that Trump is not fit to be president if he's convicted of a crime.

Bad news - None of that seems to be showing up in polling.  Biden has pulled closer in certain polls, but he's still trailing in a lot of the important ones.  Yes, it's early.  Yes, polls don't vote.  But I would feel much better if the 1/3 of Haley voters that claim they'll vote for Biden are showing up.  I know it's 1/3 of 20% or whatever, but that should move the needle.  And it hasn't yet.

Good news - I read a really interesting article yesterday called "You should go to a Trump rally" (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar … on/677119/).  You should read it yourself, but the TLDR is that Trump supporters that go to Trump rallys seem turned off / annoyed by actually listening to what Trump has to say.  That he rambles or goes off on too many tangents or whatever.  This tells me that as the campaign ramps up and people start paying attention, people are going to remember why they didn't vote for him in 2020.  Biden is front and center to most people, even people that aren't paying attention, and his flaws are front of mind.  Trump's aren't, especially if (as the Biden campaign maintains) that most 2024 voters think about politics 4 minutes a week.

Bad news - Trump demolished the competition in Iowa.  Instead of a dirty and competitive campaign that might lead DeSantis/Haley voters to abandon Trump (sort of what happened with Bernie voters against Hillary in 2016), it seems like the campaign might not last long enough for that to happen.  Trump might win all 50 states.  Even worse, even people that Trump has attacked (Reynolds in Iowa, Sonunu in New Hampshire) are already pledging to support him in the general.  I was hoping there would be less coalescing around Trump, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen.

Good news - Recent polling has shown that people are feeling better about the economy, which should be huge for Biden if those trends continue.

Bad news - Republicans are refusing to negotiate on their own fixes for the border.  Biden is either going to have to completely cave, or he's going to have to somehow flip the issue around on the Republicans.  Which he should be able to do, but it will be hard to convince Republicans / Republican-leaning people that Republicans don't want to fix it.

Overall...I feel okay about things.  I hope Trump's trials go to trial before the election, and I wish the polls would start showing a better race for Biden.  But maybe that will just happen in time.

This was a good call.

Yeah, I think the percentage of people that would've watched a continuation only if it had the original cast is so small at this point.  It might just be us.

Make it a rebootquel or whatever and tie it into the original continuity if you want, but younger people aren't going to watch a show about a bunch of people in their 60s.  And in regard to the original continuity, I think you need to essentially throw out Seasons 3-5.  I can't imagine a new audience wants to watch the show jump through hoops to get the original sliders back from where Season 5 left off.  And if you aren't using the original sliders, the point of using the original actors diminishes too.

So I would love for a reboot/continuation to happen at some point.  Like I said, I think a lot of people liked Sliders when it aired (although a lot of people obviously didn't watch it), and I think in the overall cultural zeitgeist of a certain age (obviously a lot of people under 30 wouldn't have even heard of it) is positive.  Like Quantum Leap (but less so since Sliders hasn't done much in syndication), I think if it was done well, it could be successful.  And obviously the lower the stakes (Peacock original?  Lower budget?), the better the chance of it succeeding.

The problem with a continuation is the ages.  1) it would be harder for older castmembers to do the type of stuntwork that we'd want from a show similar to seasons 1-2.  Not impossible but harder.  2) It would be harder to market the show to younger audiences if the characters are all very old.  Like look at this:

Current ages of the original sliders:
Jerry O'Connell - 49
Cleavant Derricks - 70
Sabrina Lloyd - 53? (Her age isn't on wikipedia, but IMDB lists her birthday as 11/20/70)
John Rhys-Davies - 79
Average Age - 62.75

Ages of the Golden Girls cast at the time the show premiered:
Rue McClanahan - 51
Betty White - 63
Bea Arthur - 63
Estelle Getty - 62
Average age - 59.75

Golden Girls was a show about retired old people, and their cast was younger than the Sliders cast is right now.  I'm not saying they couldn't and I would love to see it, but it would be a much different show.  I assume much more cerebral and much less action.  Which could be great and help with the costs.

I still think the best avenue and most logical one is a show about Jerry O'Connell with a bunch of younger characters.  The way I've always envisioned it (and the way I started writing a Earth 214 sequel series*) was with Quinn as the mentor figure in the Arturo role.  Quinn could either be our original Quinn looking for the original Sliders or something else.  One idea I liked would be a Quinn who gave up on sliding (maybe a version of Smarter Quinn never helped him), settled down, maybe went into teaching, and then a brainy kid like him finally cracks the code.  Something like that could be a good way to involve the original cast without making it about them.  Arturo could be the dean of the college or someone still mentoring Quinn in retirement.  Wade could be his wife (or ex-wife) that Quinn has to leave behind when he goes sliding.  Rembrandt could be harder to rope in, but maybe he teaches music at the same college or something?  Could also just be a fun cameo (maybe he's performing at the school in some weird concert that the young kids don't get, or maybe it's some sort of nostalgia thing that Rembrandt is taking advantage of).

I think there's a lot of ways to do it.  Jerry's the youngest and most active and most well known of the cast, and he's basically the exact age that JRD was when the show started.  I think it makes the most sense.

* Not that anyone cares, but I still think this is a good idea and I'm never going to write this.  My E214 sequel would've had my Quinn-1 (the original Quinn that rescues the original Sliders) taking a group of young scientists around the multiverse.  The show would've started out fairly standard with standard adventures - the timer wouldn't be damaged, and they'd basically have full-time communication with their home base on their home Earth through some sort of "satellites in the vortex sci-fi nonsense."  The twist would've been that on one of their adventures, one of the scientists gets injured and ends up in a coma in a hospital.  With no other choice, they break into the hospital to rescue their friend and take him back to their home Earth.  I can't remember if I did a time skip or waited an episode or two, but eventually the scientists would wake up from his coma...and it's not him.  It's a double that happened to be in the same hospital with a similar injury.

So they try to take him back to his world, but his world is completely off the map.  It's gone.  Its either been destroyed, wiped out of existence somehow, or is being blocked by something.  They can't access it.  Not only that, but the double of their friend that they have is nonverbal (I'm sure I would've written him as nonverbal autistic at the time but I don't know if that would've been an insensitive move considering my education level on the subject)  *and* can create wormholes organically (this part is lifted from a TF story, I believe).  So instead of finding a way back home, the plot would essentially be about finding a lost person.  I thought it was a pretty fun spin on things.  If anyone writing a Peacock spinoff wants to use it

Biden had a brutal poll come out where he was losing to Trump by almost ten points in Michigan.  I know it's early and it's one poll, but I'm hoping they're taking this election as seriously as they say they are.  It's been almost entirely one sided as far as campaigning goes, but Michigan is a state Biden needs to win.

Damn.  Rest in peace, Mr. Torme.  Thank you for sharing your art with us.  Thank you for sharing your mind with us.  You've inspired a lot of us to write, even if our writing paled in comparison to your own.

Even though Sliders was, at the end of it all, a giant mess, I still hear it brought up a lot.  Not just with nerdy folks like us but with normal people.  No one ever seems to remember seasons 3-5...it's always just how cool the premise was and not being quite sure what happened to it.

I don't know much about his personal life and haven't done too much digging into it.  But he created Sliders, and that says enough about him in my eyes.

Yeah I haven't seen anything that would indicate that Trump stands any chance of winning this argument.  And he's lying about having to be there - he's choosing to be there.  And then there's the question of whether or not the Supreme Court would take it up.  They denied Jack Smith's request to jump straight there (which would've bypassed today's proceedings), but it's unknown if they denied it because a) precedent - they don't often skip a step in the process, b) to help Trump, which seems unlikely because no one dissented the decision...if it was political, someone would've, or c) they aren't planning on listening either way.  I think C is the best route (and maybe a likely route) because the appellate judgment would be final and maybe we could still hit a March trial date.

I just want at least one of the Jack Smith trials (Florida or DC) to go to trial before the election.  I know New York will but that's such a weak case (allegedly) and we know Georgia won't go to trial before.

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.