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I thought Jordan was going to be able to bully his way in, but he got shot down.  That's a pretty solid loss for the MAGA movement.  I don't think this is the beginning of the end, but it's a sign that Trump doesn't have full control over House Republicans.  This was Trump's guy, and he was running unopposed.  Whoever gets the job now will not be (as) in debt to  Trump.  I think that's significant.

And I gotta think this hurts them politically.  Republican voters want to send money to Israel and we can't right now.  And Biden went to Israel so again maybe that helps with fringe voters.

I don't know what a good solution is for Democrats.  Who is the most moderate Republican in the House?

I wonder if the Democrats made a miscalculation when they booted McCarthy. (Note: McCarthy is terrible, and I don't support him).  He's a liar and two-faced (one republican said his superpower is that he doesn't believe in anything) but he actually worked with / caved to Democrats to get some deals done to keep the government funded and working.

If we get Jim Jordan, that ain't happening.

Now I know the Democrats can spin this to win the House in 2024 or maybe even to win the White House.  Jordan is essentially Donald Trump in the House, and if Jordan pushes for a government shutdown (which I have to assume he'll do), that will bounce back on Jordan and Trump with independents and soft/non-MAGA republicans.  There's already been a decent amount of pushback from conservative media about what a clown show this whole republican House situation has turned into.

But giving Jordan power seems like such a bad idea, even with only a year or so to wield it.

RFK Jr has a pretty high profile a politician.  He shows up on Joe Rogan's podcast (I don't listen or pay attention to that, but I know he does) and DeSantis has mentioned that he'd hire him if he were president.  I think that's a higher profile than Kanye, but I can't speak either way about his overall popularity.

Not to bring up polling again, but he polls fairly high especially among Republicans.  They're also less likely to be picking RFK on a poll because he's not Biden or because of his name (the primary reasons he was getting high poll numbers in the Democratic primary).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics … publicans/

And even if you're right, I guess it just depends on where the 100,000 votes are.

I'm intrigued by RFK Jr. going into the race as an independent.  He's been strongly supported by MAGA as some kind of spoiler to Biden, but that's because he's philosophically a conservative.  He's straight crazy, and he's supported by Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis, and Joe Rogan, among others.  He made a lot of noise early because he was polling in the teens/20s in certain polls.  Experts said it was essentially name recognition driving the polling because, again, he doesn't have any of the same ideals that Democrats would ever vote for.

But as an independent, I think he's much more dangerous to Trump than Biden.  I think the test will be whether the Democrats can convince their voters that RFK is *not* a true Kennedy and whether or not conservatives can convince his true believers to vote for Trump.

What do we think?

....no?

And I'm not even sure how you're getting that from anything I said.  I'm obviously on Biden's side.  But I'm also able to see that this election is going to be very close.  It doesn't matter whether Trump is a racist or a sexist or a rapist or a fraud or convicted in four different trials.

So Biden would be wise to do whatever it takes to get people on his side.  He's very unpopular, even with people who like him, on immigration and the border.  If he can get one vote from a Trump supporter by making concessions on the border, that's one vote closer to Biden being president and Trump not being president.

Just doing what he's been doing isn't enough.  He has to do more.  Otherwise, there's a real risk that Trump becomes president again.  That's not my opinion.  It's just the facts.

Well, Biden has been underwater for a long time for his approval rating:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/bi … al-rating/

You can cherry pick whatever poll you want for over a year and it'll be underwater.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trouble … =103436611

This is the poll that had everyone in a tizzy.  Everyone thinks it's an outlier poll, but it's from a reputable source and they chose to release it.  But even if you throw the poll out, you have to look at some of the results and pull some results out of it.  The poll had 42% of people choosing Biden over Trump, but only 37% of the people approve of his performance.  That means that even Biden voters are disapproving of his performance.  It gets worse when you see that only 26% of people don't think he's too old (so 16% of people think he's too old but still would vote for him) and 23% of people approve of his handling of the border (19% of people that chose him over Trump still disapprove of his handling of the border).

So even if the poll is bad, there's info you can pull out from the people that chose Biden.  And they're saying that they'll vote for Biden but don't necessarily approve of him or his performance.

Now Biden has a ton going for him.

1. He already beat Trump
2. Trump's legal troubles might cement him with his base, but they can only lose him voters in the middle.  I can't imagine even an acquittal doing anything positive for him with independents
3. Biden's actually accomplished quite a bit in his term.  Democrats just need to be made aware of the progress because non-political-junkies aren't going to have heard of any of it.  That's going to obviously depend on how much info Democrats can get out during the election cycle.

But one place Biden can grow quickly is the border, and I'm sure there are tons of things that he can do to gain support from moderate republicans (believe it or not, they exist) and independents.  Not only would it bolster support with those groups, but it would take away Republican talking points.  Because MAGA is just a third of the Republican party.  There are plenty of Republicans that aren't die-hard Trump voters, and you don't need them to vote for Biden.  You just need them to vote 3rd party or not vote at all.

And you do that by convincing them that a second Biden term wouldn't be so bad.  The economy is already improving and should be much better by next year unless something bad happens.  Educating voters on Biden's accomplishments will help there too.  But they also need to attack on Biden's weaknesses.  His age they can't do anything about, but the border is something they can really work on.  Since Harris is already in charge of the border, they could probably kill two birds with one stone.  Harris could spend the next year at the border, "acting tough" or whatever and it would make a difference.  Both in improving Biden's favorability regarding the border and in improving Harris' own ratings

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/po … la-harris/

Because if people liked Harris more, they'd worry about Biden's age less.

But does that matter?  I'm not sure it does.

Recent polling (and I guess all polling) has shown that Biden's handling of the border is very unpopular.  He's extremely unpopular (38% favorable) on his handling of the border.  That's not just Republicans and it's not just the Fox News crowd.  That's a lot of independents and probably some Democrats.

So whether or not the GOP and conservative media is lying, the majority of voters think Biden isn't doing enough.  So my question is...what are some things that Biden can do that would improve the border situation in the 20-30% of non-MAGA people's eyes?  The economy is improving and there's not a ton more Biden can do there.  But the border is both very visible and it's easier to see progress.

If Biden announced that he was going to restart progress on the border wall, that wouldn't move the needle for any hardcore Democrats (who are voting for Biden no matter what) or Republicans (who would vote for Trump no matter what).  But would that convert some potential Trump voters to Biden voters (or non-voters)?  If only 38% of people approve of Biden on the border, would he lose any votes if he got more "conservative" on the border?

My point is this: Biden needs to win the next election.  And I think some out of the box things are going to need to be done to get the Independent voters and soft Republican voters that Biden is going to need.  They obviously wouldn't do everything the Republicans want, but I think they gotta do *something* besides putting Kamala Harris in charge.

Again, if it was me, I would be reaching out to conservative groups and getting their list of demands, and I'd be cherry picking the ones that are a) possible and b) won't conflict with progressive values.  And then I'd be going on Fox News every chance I got, and I'd be telling conservative voters what we were doing at the border or on the economy or whatever issues Biden polls poorly on.

Maybe Trump will lose votes as these court cases drag on, but he's not losing any support in the GOP primary or in national polling.  I don't think we can spend the next year hoping that will change.

Yeah, I think Democrats need to do what they can to investigate any and all Democrats accused of misdoing.  Within reason, of course.  If they only investigate Republicans, they're feeding right into the whole "Republicans are being targeted" nonsense. 

******

So...the border.  This is something that the Democrats just get hammered on all the time.  Is there not more that Democrats are willing to do?  Are they doing more but not enough?  Does this come down to the Republicans wanting more extreme / less humane things and Democrats aren't willing to go there?

I just wonder if the Democrats would be smart to make some concessions on the border.  No separating families or putting kids in cages, of course.  But make it a point to fund the border patrol more?  Maybe even do some ceremonial work on the border wall / fence (even if it's been shown to be ineffective).  I'm sure there are some prudent and very visible things that the Democrats can do to take a chunk out of the anger that many people feel about the border.

I'll admit, even in Texas, I don't really know what is being done.  Maybe it's as much as possible.  But I assume this isn't just a Fox News thing.

I know it may seem like I'm stressing about continuity.  It really doesn't bother me as much as it may seem.  I can watch Strange New Worlds and not get bogged down by TOS continuity, particularly since I don't remember much of TOS continuity.  What I'm talking about here is more issues with overall continuity.  If Vulcan is okay in 3190, it is in no danger in 2410 or 2500 or any year in between.  If there's some sort of Federation Civil War in 2600, we know it eventually works out because the Federation survived (in some sense) in the 32nd century.

From a certain point of view, Discovery is now the official Trek "present" and everything else is prequel territory.  Just like TOS became prequel when TNG started.

Now ireactions is right that the future is fluid.  So maybe something will happen that will wipe out Discovery's version of the future.  We've already seen the TOS version of the future (and the past) altered.  Again, not a huge deal.  Just an annoyance.

Ahsoka Episode 5 spoilers

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So I don't know enough about Star Wars lore, but Anakin seems to be Force Ghost Anakin in physical form.  So he's definitely post-Vader but different than Force ghosts we've seen before (in that he physically interacts with Ahsoka).  The World Between Worlds hasn't been fleshed out that much so it could be anything.  Anakin is both calm and angry, and he sorta takes Ahsoka to the past (or a vision of the past - it's vague).

What's interesting based on our last conversation is that we actually see young Ahsoka for a decent chunk of the episode.  So Clone Wars Ahsoka.  And here's where I missed Ashley Eckstein the most, but unless they had a child actor mime the dialogue and used Eckstein's voice, I don't know what they could've done.  The voice wasn't exactly right but I thought she did a good job.  This was essentially live action Clone Wars which was cool.

Was Picard less successful than the internet made it seem like?  I thought it was quite the phenomenon, and I would've suspected that they'd want a follow-up from Matalas.  But there's been no word, despite massive fan interest.

Of course, I have no idea how the "Trek on Streaming Only" model works.  Maybe it's more expensive than the money it makes.  Maybe they do just want to try movies again.

SPOILERS FOR AHSOKA

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Is it confirmed that the Anakin we see at the end of episode 4 is post-Vader?  Where they are is in the World Between Worlds so past, present, and future are happening at the same time.  The Vader/Ahsoka fight that you referenced is actually a big part of that because Ezra is able to look at the fight as its happening (even though it happened much earlier) and rescue Ahsoka from the fight.  She gets pulled into the future.  That's how the fight ends.

So this Anakin could hypothetically be pre-Order 66, post-Vader, or maybe even some sort of parallel version of Anakin that never went to the Dark Side.

I think the Clone Wars movie is terrible and had the same thought.  I think the first part with the battle scenes is fine?  The kidnapping plot was boring and I was very uninterested.  I think if you look at some of those condensed lists, the movie is either left off entirely, you're told to only watch a certain amount of it, or they include it simply because of character setup.  I don't think anyone in the Clone Wars fandom thinks its good.

And there is a lot of filler episodes, but I never found myself bored or annoyed by the show the way I was bored by the movie.

Regarding your spoiler

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I think it's interesting.  I really like James Gunn's DCU approach.  If a character is going to be in a DCU property (be it animation, live action, or video game), he or she will be voiced by the same actor.  It adds a level of consistency that I appreciate.

That being said, when I watch something that's supposed to be the same thing, I usually defer to the original performer.  So Matt Lanter is an animated Hayden Christensen.  Rosario Dawson is a live-action Ashley Eckstein.  I guess on some level, it's weird that a relationship that started animated with two different actors is now being presented in live action with two different actors, but I guess it'd be the same thing with Ezra and Hera.

I've softened on my whole canon ideology, and since these are both explicitly canon, I think I'm just going to merge it all together in my head.

I think watching it would definitely upgrade your experience.  I think the show does a good job of explaining who the characters are at a high level, but you're obviously not going to get a lot of the context if you've never watched Clone Wars or Rebels.  So Ahsoka talks about how she's not a Jedi, but there isn't really any explanation for why she'd say that.  It talks about how she was Anakin's apprentice, but there's no sense for how long / how that relationship developed / where it landed.  So it might be a little like watching A New Hope without watching the prequels (you know Obi Wan was a great Jedi knight, but you don't really know what that means) or even watching The Last Jedi without seeing the original trilogy (you know Luke was great but not what he did to be great).

There are also a couple main Rebels characters (so far) that have appeared.  They're more or less archetypal characters who don't need a ton of explanation.  Hera's a former rebel and a pilot.  Sabine is a Mandalorian with a connection to Ahsoka.  And there's also how Rebels ended - the first two episodes are a retelling of the epilogue of Rebels from Ahsoka's perspective.  So without Rebels knowledge, you're not going to understand who Ezra is or why he was important, you're not going to know who Thrawn is or why he's dangerous, and you aren't going to know how they ended up where they are.

All that to say, I think the show is constructed to be watched by someone who has never seen any of Rebels before with story and character beats that are probably best for people who have been along the entire journey.  And I'm interesting to see how they try to explain (SPOILER) to a general audience without being handwavey or way too involved.

That being said, if you want to get some of that context without watching hundreds of episodes of two cartoons, I've seen lists that will either:

- Cut down Clone Wars and Rebels to only the key arc episodes.  This way you can experience the full feel of both shows without some of the filler or kiddie or irrelevant episodes.

- Cut down Clone Wars and Rebels to just the episodes that are relevant to Ahsoka/Sabine/Hera/Ezra/Thrawn.  Ahsoka isn't in every episode (or even every arc) of Clone Wars, and she's in much less of Rebels.  People have determined which handful of episodes from each show are give you the gist of these characters' journeys without any of the stuff that won't be relevant to Ahsoka.

So depending on your time commitment, you could do either of those.  But honestly, you could also probably watch Ahsoka first and get the context later.

Selfishly, this will allow me to catch up on a long backlog of things I have to catch up on.

To be clear, I'm on the side of the writers and actors.

At the end of the day, I say no.  The show is good and there's no Star-Trek-like open continuity errors in dialogue.  The show never tells the characters' ages, and any continuity errors are simply based on assumptions or logic.  Jason Street and Tim Riggins are best friends.  They happen to be different ages and wouldn't have had any classes together or worked on projects together or been on the same football team.  They are two years apart (an enormous gap from my experience) but met at some point and became very close friends.  Same with Landry and Matt.

The differences in the girls' ages is less of a thing because high school girls' tend to work their way into the lives of older boys.

The show never said anything, and that's okay.

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

The other interesting thing about Friday Night Lights, which ties into your examples, is the Writer's Strike.  Season two of FNL is pretty reviled by the fanbase, mostly because of a hysterically stupid storyline where one of the characters kills someone (in self defense) and tries to cover it up.  The show occasionally tries to ingratiate itself into the world of crime, and it never really works out. 

Season two also follows up on a lot of season two storylines.  Superfan Buddy Garrity tries to bring street-smart Santiago onto the team to play defense, even allowing him to live in his home.  Smash Williams tries to toe the line between being socially conscious of being a black man with some name power in a somewhat-racist town in Texas.  He starts to lose some of his scholarship opportunities because of it.  Lyla becomes religious and rejects the advances of Tim by dating another boy from church.  Meanwhile the team is trying to repeat the successes from the previous season.

But after episode 15 of the season...the strike ends the season.

Now on most shows, they could pick up where the last season left off.  But Friday Night Lights moves one year at a time with each season being the full football season.  I guess we'll never know.

EXCEPT....

Friday Night Lights just moves on.  Not just as if nothing happened but moves on as if the remaining 7 episodes happened and aired.  There are references to things that happened (Smash got his scholarship situation figured out but then got hurt, Lyla and Tim ended up together, etc) and there are some "flashback" scenes that show some of the things that happened but it's no more than would've happened in a typical "reset the stage" scene.

It's both clever and bizarre.  They don't do enough to cause any problems, but it does give you a bit of whiplash as you try to distinguish between the stuff that actually happened and the stuff that you don't remember because it didn't air.  The show always does this in some sense because each season ends in November/December and starts back up in July/August.  So there's always a time jump and stuff always happens in the time jump.  But it's just a bit bizarre for the show to be like "we had a plan and we're sticking with it, whether those episodes aired or not"

Interesting.  It's been a while since I've watched much TNG, but I've always thought that Riker's arc was that he was a highly ambitious and high-rising officer who really wanted to be the captain of a ship but who eventually enjoyed being on the Enterprise enough that he maybe got too comfortable and was essentially passed over and forgotten by Starfleet Command.  But it sounds like I'm pretty wrong about that.

As you know, I like to try and re-write certain pre-prestige-TV shows in my head.  I think a modern TNG would've had Riker show up as arrogant and defiant, thinking he's better than Picard and that he should be commanding the Enterprise.  Maybe a season one of constantly trying to communicate with his admiral buddies about open commands.  Maybe even to the point where Picard has to tell him to focus on his current job and not be focused on the others.  Maybe by the time we get to Best of Both Worlds, Riker and Picard are openly hostile towards each other.  And when he finally gets to command the Enterprise and Picard/Locutus wrecks him, it humbles Riker.  He asks a de-Borged Picard to mentor him and things get better.  Then maybe Riker finally gets offered a command and turns it down (like he did on the real show).  And by season 5 or 6, I think Riker should be thrust into command of his own ship and we'd see him grow that way.  Maybe that means Riker leaves the show, gets spun off into his own show, or the show focuses on two ships.

But thank you for your excellent analysis!

Don't get me wrong - I don't remember enough about TOS to really care whether or not they break continuity.  I get that continuity, especially in that era, is fragile.  And I really don't care enough about any of it to really get bothered.

What makes me a little crazy is that *they seem to care*.  By choosing to do a prequel, the writers/producers/creators care about the continuity.  Otherwise, why do a prequel at all?  For a mainstream movie like Star Trek 09, maybe you do a full reboot with a new cast because you want to reach the right audience.  And you pick the characters that have the most cultural footprint - some random person in Wisconsin or South Carolina is going to know Captain Kirk before they know Captain Janeway or Captain Sisko.  So you pick the most famous characters and hope to get the biggest audience.

But as we've discussed before, there's no reason to do Discovery in the pre-TOS era except for the fact that they wanted to borrow some of the credibility that comes with Spock and that specific era.  But they didn't even really want to do that (maybe Brian Fuller did) because they had new uniforms, new sets, new Klingons.  They were distancing themselves from that era, and they eventually just abandoned that idea anyway.

Strange New Worlds made a similar decision.  I don't know if the Enterprise crew was put on Discovery as a backdoor pilot to a new show, but you gotta think that was part of the decision.  But instead of taking a great cast and making a new show in a new era, they decided to do another prequel.  And this one lent itself to being a prequel with the same uniforms and some of the same storylines.  So they have to care about the continuity because why else wouldn't they just do something new.  They like this era, they like the uniforms and they like the characters.

And when you do a prequel, you're choosing to live dangerously.  When Picard decided to do a follow-up, they can do whatever they want.  They could make Picard a father or bring back the Enterprise D or have Q fight the Borg Queen.  It's all new so it doesn't matter.  If they'd decided to say that Picard was a father for the entirety of TNG and just never mentioned it...that's an issue.

Because, to me, the point of the a prequel is to flesh out the stories that have already been told.  You learn about Anakin and Obi-Wan's friendship and it colors the way they talk about each other in A New Hope.  It isn't perfect and maybe the story sucks but that's the whole point of the prequels - to flesh out the story.

If you're just telling new stories in an existing timeline, it's like going back in time.  If you're not super careful, you're going to change something.  It's just too dangerous.

If I ran Trek, I'd make the executive decision that no prequels.  If you go back in time, it looks like the 60s in the TOS era and the 80s/90s in the TNG era.  That's just how it looked.  If you want things to look better, tell a story set in the future.  The model was perfect when TNG jumped forward a century.  Things look better because technology got better.  End of story.

Strange New Worlds is way better than Discovery, and I'm willing to forgive any continuity errors.  I just don't like the idea of retreading if there's no narrative reason to do that.  Strange New Worlds in the 26th century is still a great show.

I liked the finale.  Very tense.

I will need our Trek historian ireactions to help me understand if we're screwing up continuity too much with this much interaction with the Gorn.  My limited understanding was that Starfleet hadn't really seen the Gorn until Kirk and that the Federation hadn't really interacted with them a ton.

I also struggle to see how this species became technologically advanced, but maybe I'm just not being creative enough.

Trump's money problems are going to be a problem.  I think the GOP would love for someone to step up, but DeSantis was probably that guy and he has so far really screwed up.  I'm interested to see how the debates go.  Trump might look like a wuss if he doesn't debate, and he might get his ass kicked if he does debate. 

The problem with both parties is that neither really has a strong backup.  Who's going to win the GOP if not Trump or DeSantis?  The field is weak.  Same with the Democrats.  If Biden were to drop out for whatever reason, Harris would be a pretty rough nominee.  Mayor Pete isn't super strong and I think it's the wrong time to risk a LGBT candidate.  Newsom has issues.  Whitmer might struggle.  I think Warnock would be nice but you'd risk losing the Senate.  Both parties need new blood.

*******

And I agree with your assessment.  I don't think Trump has the votes in the general election.  But it is absolutely ridiculous that a man under two federal indictments is this close to being able to win the presidency and pardon himself.

Trump indicted again.

My question is...since these indictments only matter depending on whether or not he wins the election, are more indictments helpful or hurtful to Trump's election chances?  Obviously hardcore Republicans won't care and hardcore Democrats weren't going to vote for him anyway.  But what about non-MAGA Republicans or true independents?  Does adding another indictment to the pile make him less electable or does it add to the idea that this is all a political witch hunt?

I haven't read the Shatnerverse novels, but I love the way they resurrected Kirk.  I would love to see him resurrected in some way and get a proper sendoff.

Hopefully another show is greenlighted.  I know SNW and Lower Decks will continue and they're working on a Section 31 film, but that's the only Trek that's coming once Discovery ends, right?

To be fair, Kirk later admits that he is wasting time so that his timeline still comes to path.  He thinks that distracting Singh and not doing anything will preserve his own timeline.

Well, Kirk does destroy a bunch of people in chess for money and then brag about it later.

*****

Of course, I've only seen TOS once and long ago so I'll defer to you.  But one explanation I've read for the difference is that Kirk hasn't yet experienced the tragedy on the Farragut.  I assume this is a good reason even though I have no idea what Kirk would've experienced on the Farragut or why that would make him act more like the way you'd expect him to act.

Yeah, I'm not trying to convince you.  I'm just saying I wrote it off as a baby's show, and it really wasn't that.  If it was a fully-realized show like Rebels or Clone Wars, I would probably try harder.  But it's 20 episodes with an uncertain future - it probably isn't worth your time at this point.

Yeah and next week is a musical.  I loved the crossover and loved the Klingon episode, but they were such drastically different tones that it was a bit shocking.  And since they aired the crossover early, they aired within days of each other!

I'm not saying it was bad, but it definitely gave me thematic whiplash.

No spoilers, but airing 2x08 in between 2x07 and 2x09 is....a choice.

Yeah, I have just been thinking that there has been 8 years where Democrats could have been talking to Trump voters and finding some sort of workable compromise.  And instead of antagonizing them, I wonder if listening to (some of) them might've ended this threat instead of keeping it alive.

And, again, to be clear, I'm not talking about listening to the white nationalists or the insurrectionists or the Matt Gaetzs or Jim Jordans or Rand Pauls or MTG or Boebert or Trump himself.  Those people aren't interested in improving the nation by working together.  But that's not 70 million people.  I think Biden could've tried town halls in red states (or, for his protection, pink or purple states) with Trump voters to listen to their concerns.  Air it on Fox News and reach more Trump voters.

Then Biden should've gone back to his braintrust and Pelosi and Schumer and put together a list that was acceptable.  Work on the stuff I mentioned or do whatever made sense.

And this wouldn't even be about growing the Democratic Party.  It would simply be about eroding confidence in Trump.  Because I know there are Republicans that don't like Trump but still vote for him.  I don't know them personally, but I live in Texas - I know of them secondhand.  And if we could get to "well I don't like most of Biden's politics, but he seems like he's working on some of the things I care about and I really don't like Trump" with just a small percentage of Trump's 2020 voters then Trump has almost no shot of winning and the threat of Trump is neutralized.

If they'd just done a few things here and there that they could point to, they could've done exactly what they did the rest of Biden's first term and it would've been an enormous success.  Right now, I think they've still done enough but I'm not sure why more effort wasn't made to win over the people that were win-over-able.

I want to have a brief discussion on a topic that could get a bit controversial so I want ireactions ready to blow this out of the sky if necessary.

I think most middle or left-leaning people acknowledge that Trump and his movement are the most dangerous threats to democracy.  I think most people would also agree that the Democrats haven't done enough to a) hurt Trump, either politically or legally or b) bolster their own support enough that 2024 is a lock.

And something that's always bothered me is that I don't think 70 million people are fascist or racist or want America to go down a dark path.  I think a majority of those 70 million are upset about something much smaller and want someone to listen to their concerns.  And Donald Trump, for whatever reason, shows up as someone who is listening to their concerns.

Biden sold himself as an aisle-crosser in his 2020 campaign, and he has passed a lot of legislation that is at least partly bi-partisan.  But Democrats have still been pretty adversarial against Republicans, Trump, and MAGA.  And as the two forces appear to be colliding again in 2024, I have to ask myself...was that the wisest strategy?

I think America does need a uniter.  And I think Biden wants to do that, but I think Democrats are still playing like its 2015.  We saw a huge movement elect a monster into the White House.  Shouldn't the Democrats' top priority to figure out why and do something about that?  Maybe seek out the people that are so angry and listen to them?  Because I have to believe that a lot of them are reasonable and have reasonable (at least to them) concerns.  If the Democrats suddenly started listening, wouldn't that achieve some of the healing that Biden seems to want?

Here are some rough examples:

- The border.  This is a huge one and one that comes up whenever a Democrat is in office.  Biden immediately stopped progress on the infamous wall and tried to return to Obama-level treatment at the border.  A softer, gentler, more friendly face at the border.  But should this have been a better area of compromise?  Should they have had a more united front on the border, an obvious area of weakness?  Obviously I'm not talking about any sort of immigration ban or abuse.  But cosmetic changes at the border.  Maybe find some sort of compromise that allows the wall to be finished without wasting too much money.  Take Republican concerns into account and find a compromise.  If Republicans start seeing progress at the border run by Democrats, it takes a huge weapon out of Trump's 2024 arsenal.

- China.  One place that Republicans and Democrats agree is that China is a threat.  Should Biden have joined with Republicans to have a stronger front on China?  Especially considering the fact that they knew the Republicans would attack Biden on being soft on China.  Biden needed to separate from Trump on NATO and Ukraine, but China seems like an easy win.

- Hunter Biden.  Biden knew that his DOJ would be taking on Trump.  He had to have known the optics of that.  The Hunter Biden charges are baseless but they appear serious and are important to Republicans.  So should they have made the investigations into Hunter Biden more public?  More of a spectacle?  Do their best to get to the bottom of it?  It would be hard for Republicans to accuse Biden of weaponizing the DOJ when he went after his own son with the full weight of the department.  Would it be a waste of time and money?  Sure.  But if they could get everything out there and make it seem like they're uncovering everything they could, it would probably help publicly exonerate Hunter.

Just some ideas.  Obviously stuff like LGBT rights, civil rights, voting rights, etc would need to be off limits.  The White Nationalist side of the party would still need to be attacked and condemned.  But I imagine there are some areas that Biden could've compromised on.  And if they did, instead of fighting MAGA, they might've converted enough of them that the 2024 election would've been a walk in the park.  And some of the former-Democrats that turned MAGA loyalists might've come back to the team.

Am I wrong here?

I love Strange New Worlds.  I think it is fantastic, and I genuinely have enjoyed every episode I've seen.

I hate Star Trek prequels.  I will *always* prefer to move the story forward.  I understand not wanting the past to look ridiculous, but the past will always look ridiculous.  Star Trek was made in the 60s with a limited budget and limited technology.  But that's when it was made and it was the best they could do.  They were also limited by the thoughts and morals of the time.  And I understand wanting to update that and also feature classic characters.

But I would leave the past as the past.  If they want to do a time travel episode, they have to do it the way DS9 did it. If they want to explain differences, they have to do it the same way ("we don't talk about it with outsiders").  The past is the past.

TNG looks outdated.  But Picard didn't gloss over the differences - they called them out.

Now DS9 and Voyager look outdated.  But if you're consistently moving forward, it will always make sense.

I know I'm probably in the minority of this, but I would've loved a 25th Century story with the Strange New Worlds cast.  I would've always set Discovery in the post-Voyager era.  Move things forward.