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But even that is fixable in time.  You can rehire the people that leave the government or hire new people.  We've had bad presidents before.  We've had terrible presidents before.  The next president cleans up whatever mess is created.

I maintain that Trump is a singular enemy and that "Trumpism" doesn't have the same ferocity without Trump both being alive and in power.  Even if you're being really generous, Trump is dead in ten years.  And without their messiah, I don't know if there's any singular vision for Trumpism.  It could splinter.  It very well might split the party in two or more pieces.  His voters will almost certainly splinter.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.  It might be two years away, it might be four years away, it might be 100 years away.  But Trump won't win forever.

Disney+ released the first two episodes of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" - I think they were entertaining, but it's weird that this show exists.  I get that they don't want to isolate themselves to a small section of MCU Peter's story, and I guess the cartoons are all kinda their own thing (What If is the most MCU-relevant and even that doesn't really take place in the main MCU universe at all).

Oh and people are mad that they race-swapped the Osborns, and they're also mad that they race and gender swapped Dr. Connors.

I think it's important to let people reassess their thoughts and clarify.  I think it's possible that Grizzlor has some misconceptions, and I think people should be allowed to make mistakes.  This thread is called "Discuss and Debate" and I think it's important that we have differing viewpoints.  Informant went off the deep end, but I think we lost something when we lost our most conservative voice.  I think a Republican (not necessarily a kool-aid MAGA person) might've helped us understand what happened and why it happened.  In our case, since we were all fairly behind Kamala, we were a bit lost.  It was more of a consolation session than a debate.

Grizzlor has been a member here for almost ten years and God knows how much longer before that.  He's been in the Sliders community for around as long as I have (the Sliders BBoard Hall of Fame has his oldest post in 2002 and mine in 1999 but both are probably before either of those dates), and I don't think he meant to offend.  I don't want to speak for him, but I think he would take the time to think about how his remarks bothered you and try to either reframe, restate, or form a new opinion.

We have a handful of people that post here.  Informant has the third most posts and hasn't made a post in six years.  He, Transmodiar and ominmercurial are in the top ten in posters that haven't posted in years.  We had 8 registrations in 2024 who made zero posts.  I want everyone to be kind, but this group isn't going to get any bigger.  The last episode of Sliders aired 25 years ago next week.  I would like Grizzlor to feel welcome here, and I want Grizzlor to make others feel more welcome here.

That's my thoughts.

I watched it.  It wasn't really bad.  It was just...nothing.  I don't think I gained anything by watching it, and I don't understand what the point was even if this went to series.  If we wanted a "spies but Star Trek", we could do Starfleet Intelligence.  Especially if these guys are supposed to be mostly good guys.  If there's Starfleet oversight into Section 31 to make sure they don't do anything Starfleet wouldn't approve of, then there's literally no point in Section 31.

What the Georgiou movie should've been

This movie shouldn't have taken place in the Prime universe.  Georgiou should've been sent back to the mirror universe and should've tried to get back to her position of power, only to uncover a plot to take over the Prime Universe.  And she should've had a change of heart and decided to thwart the plan.  To stick with canon, I imagine she couldn't have regained her power, but maybe she ends as some kind of 3rd party mercenary doing some good.  I don't know.  But "MIRROR UNIVERSE STARRING OSCAR WINNER MICHELLE YEOH" would've sold as well as Section 31:the Movie.  Maybe better.

What is Section 31?

I think Section 31 is mostly entertaining, but it fails in a couple ways.  It does nothing to help us understand Section 31, either in this era or trying to mash it into something that fits in the DS9 era.  I'm pretty good at headcanon, and I still can't think of a great way to fix this.  And I truly hate new Trek's way of "here's a deliberate screw up of canon and we'll write a way around it later"

I would've rather had new Trek do that thing where they invent a dark ops Starfleet division, and then at the end of it, Section 31 shows up and shuts it down because *they're* the real dark ops Starfleet division.  Make it one of those things where it looks like they don't know their canon - have it called "Darkfleet" or something stupid like that - and then at the end, two guys dressed like Sloan show up and shut it all down.  Or recruit whoever into the real Section 31.  Basically retcon it like they did the Mandarin in the MCU.

But this watered down Section 31 that's out in the open just doesn't jive with what we've already seen.  And this movie doesn't help that in any way.

I just didn't think this movie needed to be made the way that it was, and I think they need to stop with Section 31 unless they're going to do a Q-level mindwipe of the entire galaxy.  I love ireactions' idea of "Section 31 captured a Q somehow" - that could be a really cool story.  And if it ends with the Q forcing Section 31 to go deep deep underground, then...sure.  But outside of that, leave the whole thing alone.  You've done enough.

In the interest of being our resident peacemaker, I want to add some things:

1. I don't think Grizzlor meant to offend
2. I don't think Grizzlor is MAGA

I add the second point because of the question I asked: where does Grizzlor get his news.  And I ask because I feel like, oftentimes, Grizzlor uses language and talking points that I've seen come from right-leaning politicians and media members.  The fact that he's regularly used the word "woke" is, in particular, odd to me.  Because, up until the date of the election, I considered myself to be pretty plugged in to the discourse, and I'm still not 100% sure I could define what wokeness is.  When you ask MAGA, they describe it in a sort of "you know it when you see it" or "I know I don't like it" way.

If I was forced to guess, "woke" means treating people with kindness and empathy regardless of what their situation is, and trying to get to a place where everyone can be treated fairly and equally.  So if a person gets here illegally in pursuit of a better life, it's finding a way to treat them with respect and try to help them find that better life they sought.  If it's a transgender person, it's helping them find their true self and treating them the way they want to be treated.  If it's a black male, it's helping them navigate the systemic racism that exists in our society (whether we want to see it or not) so that they can have the same opportunities that I (a white male) have.

I don't think being woke is negative.  I also don't think I saw Democrats embracing "woke" or "being woke" or even defending aspects of "being woke."  When asked about transgender prisoners getting sex change operations, Kamala Harris said she followed the law.  The same law that was followed under Trump's administration.  And yet it was twisted into some sort of ridiculous plan by Harris to turn everyone transgender.  Trump talked about kids leaving for school one gender and coming back another.  As if that process doesn't take months/years, and as if schools are allowed to give major surgeries in some sort of coat closet without parental consent.  What's true is that schools can't even give out an aspirin without parental consent.

Republicans have created this word and then they create conservative nightmares out of thin air.  They twist words and they find extreme examples and make it seem like it's the norm.  If "woke" is "being nice to someone even if they're different" then I don't see a problem with it.  If "woke" is forcing children to undergo dangerous surgeries against their will, then that's just a boogeyman that never has and never would exist.

So I feel like Grizzlor must get his news from something right-leaning even if that's not his intention.

Now I do think Grizzlor is right that Democrats need to veer away from socially liberal topics because Republicans have made them incredibly toxic.  Ted Cruz, someone who is generally pretty hated in Texas even by conservatives, was able to win what should've been at least a pretty competitive race by running almost exclusively on "Colin Allred wants to sex change your kid".  He didn't run on the border or the economy or anything else.  Just trans issues.

I don't know how they pivot away from these issues without leaving behind people that have already been abandoned by too many people, but I don't see how Democrats can win if they don't minimize their public support for stuff like this.

Democrats need to focus on economic issues and helping low-income people.  Anything else they need to put to the side for now.  Society will come around and support marginalized peoples - it always does - but now seems to be a time when progress simply isn't going to be able to be made.

My guess is trying to capitalize on the fact that they had an Academy Award winning actress.  I assume if "Everything everywhere all at once" didn't exist, this movie wouldn't either.

I'm like 20 minutes in, and I don't think anything has happened?  I'm not sure I remember where Georgiou ended up on Discovery.  I know she was dying because she switched times and universes, and the Guardian helped her.  But I guess they just sent her back to the original Discovery time period?  Wouldn't it have been more interesting to put her back in the Mirror Universe and have a movie set there?

I would love to chime in, but I have no idea what Trump did yesterday.  I paid no attention to his inauguration - I only found out it had been moved inside in passing.  I took my kids to a basketball game and watched no news.  As my wife watched the news this morning, I listened to a comic book podcast while I helped get the kids ready for school.

I don't know what Trump did, and I'm going to do my best to not find out on my own.  Anything I learn might come from here.  I'm not adverse to knowing, but I'm not going to allow that man any more headspace for me.  If he wants to burn the world down, I'll enjoy whatever time I have left.

Yeah.  It's not necessarily a terrible era to be in.  The Empire is gone but there's new dangers.  There's an excitement of something new.  I don't think the First Order has shown up in any way in any of these shows.  It feels exciting and fun.

But it's like setting a fun show in the World Trade Center in the late 90s.  It's a morbid thought but the entire New Republic is destroyed in the Force Awakens.  By the end of the Last Jedi, the entire Resistance can fit on one ship.  There's just an ominous feel to this whole era.  Even when things are good, you know it eventually turns very bad.

I know I harp on this a lot, but it's just such a dark cloud on any new Star Wars.

Yeah, still doing well here in Texas, although we've had some snow.  Thanks for looking out!

What If is both an interesting show and a hugely missed opportunity in my head.  I think the stories they told were interesting, and I'm glad the show exists.  But it's a little crazy what it decided to be when it could've been so many other things.

To me, What If should've been specific to things that happened in the MCU.  I would've liked to have seen different takes on stories that the MCU told, and I don't think we got nearly enough of that.  Maybe take one of the movies and change out the ending.  Something like "what if the other half had been snapped?" or "What if Captain Marvel never left Earth?" or "What if Ultron had worked?"

Instead, they did a lot of "what if this character was here?" or "What if this character was this other character instead?" Which is fine and I think worked most of the time.  And I think they told interesting Marvel stories but not necessarily MCU stories.  I know they wanted to create their own characters and craft their own stories, but I just think it was a missed opportunity to follow divergent paths that the movies didn't take.

The more I think about it, the more it would just end up being "What if the battle with Thanos was changed by X" but they didn't even do that once!

I mean it was a former president on trial.  The media eats up any trial of anyone of significance.  Remember OJ?

And the strongest case was the documents case.  Trump took documents and did God knows what with them.  It was thrown out because Cannon is a huge Trump sycophant, and he might put her on the Supreme Court for it.

Show Trump for who he is.  Cover the things that Trump has said.  Cover the things that he wants to do.  Cover the entirely of what he said, not finding 2-3 second sound bytes that made Trump sound normal.  I'm telling you that I watched local news and the Today Show (it's what my wife watches in the morning) and they didn't mention any of those things.  If there was no other news, I would've thought that Trump is John Kasich.

The media has an obligation to tell the truth and show the world for how it is.  The media for the 2024 election did their best job to make Trump into a boring candidate with no policies at all.  Which is what Trump wanted.  He ran on "everything was perfect when I was president" and people believed it.

Again, people are idiots.  The good news is that the idiots that voted Trump in are going to get exactly what Trump told them they would get, and they're going to suffer for it.

Yeah not only that but the character is broken.  Superman has no connection to humanity outside of Lois Lane.  It was the entire plan for Superman in the Snyderverse - Lois gets killed and Superman goes evil.  He has no friends, and he doesn't seem particularly interested in being a superhero or saving people.  I don't understand why he does it.

Again, I know you could just say Cavill is playing a different version of Superman, but you'd need him to play a Superman in is 30s.  I don't think he could realistically play a young Superman.  And so a Cavill Superman either decided to be Superman as an adult, or he's well into his career.  And that's clearly not the story they wanted to tell.

I assume Cavill will have a role in the new DCU.  I think he'd be a pretty good adult Shazam, and it might be fun to have him play a different spin on what's essentially Superman.

With all due respect, I have no idea what news you were watching.  I think they absolutely normalized him.  Whenever I saw non-cable news, anything he ever said was heavily edited to make his speeches sound normal and traditional.  Whenever he said something wild or crazy, non-cable news didn't cover it.  He gave hundreds of speeches, and the only sound clips I ever heard were him saying stuff like "we are going to lower prices" or stuff like that.

I also think there was an amazingly small amount of coverage of Trump's economic plan which will absolutely wipe out huge number of struggling Americans.  No attention was spent on the logistics of Trump's idea to deport millions of people.  If I'd only watched those news, I would've thought that Trump was basically John Kasich - a completely normal Republican.

The media allowed Trump to take advantage of the idea that electing Trump will mean a return to pre-Covid life.  Even when he did press conferences, they never got him to clarify anything.  He got away with stuff like having "concepts of a plan" and never forced him to elaborate on anything.

People assume that all Trump voters are locked into Fox News, but Fox News is far and away the most popular cable news network and they don't even average enough viewers in primetime to cover all the people in Texas that voted for Trump.  Cable news coverage is a drop in the bucket.  Non-cable news isn't as big as it used to be, but it's still bigger than cable news.  And network news was so terrified of looking biased against Trump that they ended up being biased for Trump.  Which probably was great to the owners of the major media outlets, which were all behind Trump.

Again, Trump has all of the big media money and all the stupid people.  It's a great group of people to have.

What's dumb is that Section 31 really only had one thing we knew about it - it didn't exist.  And basically everything they did with it is wrong. 

Now would Starfleet need an on-the-books counterintelligence department?  Almost certainly.  Would stories there be interesting?  I think so.  And instead of co-opting Section 31, they could've done something new and creative.  And the annoying thing is that Section 31 is a pretty deep cut as far as Trek stuff goes - a true fan had to have given them the concept and just allowed it to be bastardized.

What's weird is that I don't really have a headcanon for how Section 31 goes from open in the Discovery time to a complete secret in DS9.  It's like Han Solo never believing in the Jedi when he was a teenager when they all were killed off.  Maybe there is a good reason that can be created, but I can't think of it.

Ha I've spent no time thinking about it, but I'll give it some thought and get back to you tomorrow

The media is very much to blame for Trump's re-election, and they're going to pay for it.  Like I am with Trump supporters, any suffering is on them and they have no one to blame but themselves.

If we survive the Trump era, we need a complete revamp of the media.  Right now, far too much media is controlled by right wing money.  Bezos ordering the Washington Post to cancel its endorsement of Harris was abhorrent.  So if Trump destroys the media, maybe we can rebuild it into what it used to be.  Probably not but a man can dream.

I can understand a lot of what those voters were feeling.  I do think white blue collar workers had pretty much been abandoned.  I think blue collar jobs are drying up, and I think those people were hit especially hard by the pandemic and inflation.  And while the stock market is doing well, I would guess that very few of those people are even in the stock market.  It's hard to buy stocks when you can't afford food.  I can understand being upset and wanting a change.

The problem is that Donald Trump isn't change.  They're also against the sorts of things that Trump has openly said that he wants to do.  He's against unions, which will further hurt blue collar workers.  His tariff plan will make costs go up further.  Extending his tax cuts won't help anyone because taxes won't actually go down - they'll stay the same (or go up).  Trump is looking to end social security and medicare which these people depend on.  If people voted for a new candidate, I think I could get all the way to understanding where they're coming from, but they chose to make their lives worse.

I do think Democrats need to spend the next two years talking to those people.  I think they need to spend money on focus groups and town halls and community groups and figure out what they want and how to get it to them.  Democrats need to get back in with union leaders and union members.  They need to say what they're going to do, and then they're going to do it.  And I think Democrats need to spend more money in small towns and rural states.  I know they can't spend money everywhere, but they can't just abandon half (the land) of the country and just let that be Trump country.  They need to start playing long games like Republicans do - plant seeds and then wait for them to grow.  We went from "there may never be a Republican president again" to three straight elections that Republicans either won or almost won.

I also think that Democrats need to be careful with black voters not to just assume that they'll vote Democrat forever.  Black people need to be listened to and helped.  I still maintain that Democrats got too excited about their shiny new toy (suburban white voters) and lost their way.  I think they need to go back to meat and potatoes issues that low-income voters care about, and they need to leave educated voters to make the pragmatic decision.  The Democratic nominee should do literally nothing to help me because a) I don't need any help and b) I'll make the pragmatic decision.

And seriously they need to start now.  They have a ton of work to do and if we're right about Trump, there are people that are going to be even angrier.  They need to be ready to welcome those people back with hard work, not empty promises or jargon or memes.

I'm looking forward to the finale of Lower Decks, a show I both love and struggle with.

Silliness

On one hand, I think an animated comedy in Star Trek doesn't work.  I think the show means too much to too many people to make the show a joke.  It's okay when the Orville does it, but it's different when the show is making fun of itself.  We can do a parody of Sliders on Funny or Die to let Jerry O'Connell be silly, but Quinn shouldn't be silly.

Then ireactions said something that resonated with me - Trek has always been silly.  Trek always took itself seriously, but the show is silly.  It's funny.  It's ridiculous.  The stuff that happens to people on Lower Decks has already happened to people in the "serious" shows and that stuff happened in canon.  Lower Decks can make fun of Tuvix but that stuff happened.  Lower Decks can joke about a virus that causes someone to evolve and devolve at the same time, but that stuff happened.  The show is making fun, but it's all stuff that works in canon.

And the characters are sillier than normal Trek characters, but for the most part, the show doesn't make non-silly Trek characters much sillier.  The closest was Riker, but Riker is a bit of a silly character on TNG and the movies.  He's a bit of a jokester, and maybe as captain of the Titan (without Picard there to ruin all the fun), he was a bit sillier.

And of course some people in Trek would be silly.  Maybe someone would make a big statue for Miles O'Brien.  I'm sure there would be collectables for Voyager.  All of that makes sense once you understand that we're all supposed to be in on the joke.

Self Awareness

After you get passed the silliness, there's the fact that these characters know way too much.  For the jokes to work, they have to make references to past Trek shows.  They have to know about specific things that happened on the other shows.

But "Those Old Scientists" (the crossover with Strange New Worlds) sorta made that work.  These are huge nerds who love Starfleet - maybe they would know stuff.  I would assume that everything that happens on these starships (outside of classified things) is public record.  Every one of these characters does a personal log and an official log - that has to go somewhere, and people must be able to access some of them.  Maybe they all go to a database that people are allowed to read or listen to.  And I'm sure there are people that track that stuff and "report" on them.  Journalists or just super-fans probably track all the missions that happen on all the ships.

And you gotta think that super weird stuff gets around.  "Did you hear what happened to Barclay?"  "You gotta hear what happened on Deep Space Nine."  "You'll never guess what Worf did" - these are people, and I gotta think Starfleet is a bit of a small world.  These guys serve with each other and know each other, and I gotta think gossip happens.

There's also the whole "what is entertainment in the Star Trek universe" - and maybe it's Starfleet stories.  Something weird happens and maybe it gets around.  Or is turned into a holo-novel or even some sort of animated show.

Final Thoughts

So when you get passed those criticisms, Lower Decks is just a consistently funny show that both treats longtime fans of the show and moves the story along.  Lower Decks belongs not just as a part of the legacy of the show but as part of the canon.  I would love for Boimler or Mariner or Freeman or any of these characters to show back up in live action someday.  These are sillier characters than we're used to, but they absolutely belong.

And I think you can make a case for Lower Decks, as short as it was, being the best Trek show from beginning to end.  It was consistently great, and you really can't say that about any other Trek show.

I worry about NATO but, again, assuming Trump doesn't name himself king for life (and even then), there would be nothing to stop us from rejoining NATO.  And the only one that wants to leave NATO is Trump, and he only wants to do that because he's in love with Putin.  This is a Trump thing, not a Republican thing.  Now it's a Republican thing because it's a Trump thing, but a lot of this stuff dies with him.

Trump won.  And not just the election.  He won whatever he wanted to win.  We lost.  And there's no doubt it sucks.  But Trump won't live forever, and a lot of the stuff he wants dies with him.  The next president, Republican or Democrat, will be harder on Russia, will be more helpful to Ukraine, and will be better for America and Americans than Donald Trump.  I still say he's a singular enemy, and now we need to wait him out.  Either until he dies or voluntarily leaves office.

Either way, the clock is ticking.

Threat of primary is a real thing, but remember that some of these senators are more powerful than Trump in their own states.  For example, I think John Cornyn (who is somehow the best senator from Texas) has fought with Trump on a handful of things and he'd still win a primary easily.  And some Republican senators don't have to worry about primaries because they might not be up for re-election until 2030.  I don't know how effective "this guy didn't vote for this random cabinet pick six years ago"

It might be a useful tactic for some people who are moderately anti-Trump and up for re-election in two years and don't have a strong incumbency, but who is that?  I'm not super worried about Elon Musk trying to bully very specific people.

I think Project 2025 is dangerous, but project 2025 isn't permanent.  Anything that can be done in project 2025 can be undone.  Even if Trump guts the federal government and institutes loyalists only, the next administration (Republican or Democrat) could undo it.  You also have to remember that part of the reason that the government isn't loaded with party loyalists is that the government can't function that way.  Some of the stuff in project 2025 would actually hurt Trump's ability to do certain things.  Not to mention that Trump loyalists aren't going to be as good at their job as career experts.  Which would suck for everyone, but it would also suck for Trump.  An inefficient government is bad for him.

I do worry about Ukraine.  I'm not sure there's anything that Biden can do to salvage the situation, but I'm hoping that Zelenskyy can defy Trump like he's defied Putin.  I'm hoping the Ukrainian people don't let our election destroy them.

I didn't interact much with the performers because I was by myself (my kids don't know what Star Wars is so I went in by myself to save on costs of the trip).  I was held prisoner with a family and they tried to use me as a scapegoat as the Resistance spy.  I did move quickly when we were asked (by the First Order or the Resistance) but I was mostly silent.  It didn't impact my enjoyment

And they still have Star Tours!  I had heard that they updated the ride with references to the Mandalorian-era TV shows.  And maybe they did - the only characters I recognized were Chewbacca and C-3PO, and the ride could've taken place in any era, really.  But it was fun, still.  Probably as fun as Smuggler's run but obviously less interactive.

Two notes:

1. As I mentioned, I went to Disney World which means I got to go to Galaxy's Edge.  It was a pretty cool experience.  I got to ride Smuggler's Run a couple of times (as a pilot and an engineer), and I rode Rise of the Resistance.  As I've said, I'm not a huge fan of the sequels (and how I feel they sorta mess with the legacy of the original movies) but that's a really cool ride.  Of all the rides I did (including the new Guardians roller coaster), that one was easily the best.  Very immersive.  I would really like for Disney to someday retheme Galaxy's Edge to take place during the original movies (which would take very little effort) or at least move them to a trilogy I like (maybe episodes 10-12 when those happen) but I really liked that.

2. I started Skeleton Crew, and the Disney+ shows are so bittersweet to me.  I'm so interested in this era of Star Wars and how things are going with the Original Trilogy era heroes running things.  But it bothers me so much that essentially everything that is happening is meaningless.  It's really fun to see how the New Republic is trying to work through things, and they're wiped out so quickly and easily.  Maybe Rise of Skywalker fixed everything and now the galaxy can have a minute to breathe, but narratively, that whole thing is super frustrating.

I was worried about the budget, but I think they did a good job, not only of hiding the fact that the budget was lower but by hiding the fact that they didn't have all the actors.  They were basically able to tell a cohesive story without having to find things for the supporting characters to do.  And it didn't feel like characters were disappearing for episodes - they just weren't necessary to the plot.

Sometimes, it's very noticeable when the budget is slashed.  I think in this instance, I think they did a great job.

The Superman & Lois finale was amazing.  I didn't expect to really love this show, especially when it was separated from continuity from the rest of the Arrowverse.  But in terms of consistency from beginning to end, it might have ended up being the best of the shows.  It certainly had the best finale.  I don't know about anyone else, but my room got awfully dusty towards the end.

I have no idea who the cameo was.  I googled it and it's Bitsie Tulloch's husband who I had never heard of.  I was hoping for some kind of connection to either the Arrowverse or the greater CW Superhero universe (i.e. Smallville) but I have no idea how they would've done anything like that without doing some kind of ridiculous turn that wouldn't have fit. 

All in all, a wonderful end to a wonderful show.

I hate to say it, but I think Democrats are just terrible at politics.  I think they trust systems too much, and I think they care too much about doing things the right way.  I think they're afraid to play dirty or do what it takes to win.  And I think that's why they don't win.

Republicans decided in the early 90s to win at any cost.  They had a long-term strategy to overturn Roe.  They had a plan and they executed it.  They came off as evil and corporate and uncompromising and unsympathetic, but it didn't matter electorally.

Democrats were too slow to go after Trump for his crimes.  They were too slow to swap out Biden.  They were too trusting that people just wouldn't vote for Trump because of who he is.

They have the right message and the right people and they're on the right side of history, but they need to take a page out of Republican playbooks and get the win no matter what.  Because if you do things the right way and lose, this is where we end up.

Agreed.  What's frustrating is that Republicans denied they lost and went with the same strategy as 2020 and won big.  Election denialism and racism and revenge and all of that was popular and was an effective electoral strategy.  Plus, it was huge that two people in prison got sex changes on taxpayer dollars.  If you divide the cost by every taxpayer, it's gotta be pretty close to a cent per person that taxpayers paid.  Enormous.

So I don't really know what to say to that.  It wasn't Kamala being a bad candidate because Democrats lost across the board.  I still think it's a coalition problem and the coalition needs to change.  Swapping out blue collar workers for upper middle class workers was a bad trade for Democrats.

I also don't know what they can do to fix it.  Biden and Democrats were very pro-union, and the union workers voted overwhelmingly for Trump.  If Democrats give union workers what they want (and Trump talks about firing striking workers openly), I don't see what Democrats can do to win them back.  They don't listen, they don't pay attention, and they don't seem to care.

That's why I'm going to wait to see whether or not those people are annihilated by Trump's policies.  If they are, I think the Democrats' work becomes very easy.  If they aren't, I don't think Democrats have much of a shot whether Trump allows elections or not.

Oh I agree, and I think that's where the narrative would've gone.  It would've gone from Clark keeping the secret to the family keeping the secret to his expanded family to the town to the whole world. 

I think there's some narrative potential in Clark trusting Smallville to keep his secret.  I don't know if this idea fully works, but I think you could do a POV episode where paranormal detective analogues (maybe like Sam and Dean, maybe like Mulder and Scully) come into town because they've heard something strange is happening in Smallville.  The town seems nice at first as they run into the Kents and some of the other characters on the show.  But people are dodgy when certain questions are asked.  Nervous.  Suspicious.  Then weird things happen.  Fires mysteriously go out.  Cars on a collision course suddenly don't collide.  A weird streak appears in the sky.  And something happens that causes them to leave town, but those characters are our focus the whole episode.  I think it could be fun.

But like I said, no one blabbed it.  Not the young woman who's almost certainly active on social media.  Not the old lady who could use the money.  Not the high school football coach who seems starved for attention.  Not the drunk ex-con who wanted an explanation more than money or fame.  When Clark appears in costume in the Smallville diner, no one seems to take out their phone and film anything, and no one seems to have released that footage to the public prior to Clark making his announcement.

I agree that it's beyond belief, but it's the reality of the show.  No one told anyone the secret outside of town.  Obviously expanding that beyond a handful of people puts the secret in jeopardy, but it would be better than telling the whole world.  And Clark could easily explain that a) the town owes him this and b) if people found out, their town would be overrun.  Which is what episode 8 is about.

I completely agree, but within the confines of the show, we were already there, right?  The whole town essentially knew.  I know the Kents were treating it like it was only a couple people here and there, but even if that's true, those people were keeping the secret.  The secret wasn't getting out.  Even when Clark revealed himself to everyone in the diner, Clark still had time to arrange a nationally televised interview to announce the secret himself. 

That means for an entire day (at least), an entire diner full of people who literally saw Clark Kent turn into Superman (in full costume) didn't blab on social media about it.  No one took out their phones and uploaded a video to Instagram.  The secret was being kept.  So I really don't think it's that much of a leap to say that if Superman stood in front of the town and politely asked them to keep his secret and protect it from others, I have to assume they would.

I agree that it's not super realistic, but it probably wasn't realistic that the girl at the convenience store would keep the secret either.  Or even the old lady that Lex tried to buy the farm from.  Candice's dad sure as heck wouldn't have kept it.

And we see this kind of thing in sci-fi all the time.  A town with a secret, and they all band together to keep it.  Whether it's witches or vampires or whatever.  From Supernatural to X-Files to Doom Patrol to Hot Fuzz.  That's what I'm thinking.  A town that's pretty closed off from the rest of the world that would band together to keep a big secret.  I don't see how this would be that much crazier than any of that.