At midnight, Nate Silver ran his election model’s simulation 80,000 times. 40,012 times Kamala Harris won. 39,718 times Donald Trump won. 270 times the election ended in a tie.
But this morning I went for a run, hit shuffle on my workout playlist, and it presented a much different picture: Kamala Harris will win this election and it’s not even going to be that close. Here are the ten tracks in the order that they played that pushed her to victory:
A little on the nose, but there’s nothing subtle about these pieces of the glass ceiling we’re walking over.
The ultimate good vibes song: the world of the muppets may be a slightly different one from ours, but only because they choose for it to be that way.
You’ve got everything you need / right in front of you / nothing’s stopping you / nothing that you can’t do / that the world can throw at you
(Some of you may be asking why this was an option on my running playlist to begin with. Everyone else also has it on their running playlist.)
There are only a few people that have lost a presidential election more than once. But if that happened to me, I imagine I’d be a lonely boy.
Rodrigo’s ode to cringe kicks into another gear during that final bridge. Kamala may be brat, but the one thing she hasn’t shied away from is cringe.
Admittedly this seems like it would be a song that indicates Donald Trump is going to win. But remember, there’s not a single line in the song that indicates she actually did take him back. I choose to interpret this as Donald Trump saying “I want you back” and the women of America saying “Nah, we’re good”
When we all finally realize that the melody of The Star-Spangled Banner is from an old English bar tune, I’m pretty confident this will be our new national anthem.
‘Cause the supersoaker red, white, and blue them all away / with a kiss as unclean as the words that you say
No one will accuse Kings of Leon of having lyrics that make sense. But I can think of someone that the supersoaker red, white, and blue him right away!
Roll the windows down, kill the radio / I’d rather hear the wind than hear that song I’m supposed to know / by some fucking bro
Stone cold and what the men of America need to hear.
There are a lot of us that want to get him back, that want to key his car and tell his mom he sucks.
There are an almost equal amount of us that want to get him back, that wanna make him lunch and kiss his face.
Life is weird. People are messy. Ambiguity is often the definition of what it means to be human. But somehow– somehow – we’re all still Americans. There’s one side of today’s election that believes we’re stronger together. There’s another that believes we’re stronger apart.
If you are– like I am– on the side that believes we’re stronger together, that means together. You don’t have to like what everyone is doing and you can and should call them out on it, but leaving people behind is not the answer. That’s what Donald Trump wants to do. Let’s not do it.
(Just a reminder that this is the fourth single from 2023’s GUTS. My God, that album is a masterpiece)
[We’ll] probably never make a sociopolitical record. But if we did, it might sound something like this…
When I heard get him back! come on, I pushed hard for that to be the last song. But I wasn’t quite fast enough. No matter. While get him back! may be the song most indicative of today’s election, the first song off the Avett Brothers 2019 album “Closer Than Together” is the perfect capper to this list.
Equal parts angry and disbelieving in the situation we find ourselves in, this song sounds more like something from The Black Keys than the Avett Brothers. But there’s hope. There’s always hope:
Y’all left me behind, but I can find you / If you don’t wander too far away
Today is our opportunity to not wander too far away. I have faith we’ll stay close.
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
Trump is a bad guy. But the bottom line is that everyone knows that he’s a bad guy and most people don’t care about it. Is that bananas? Yep! But is it true? Also yep! Any attempt at trying to convince people that Trump is a bad guy is wasted breath. But– good news– he has three weaknesses:
Republicans think of abortion as murdering babies. Ask yourself an honest question: do you think Republicans will “leave it to the states” to decide whether or not murder should be legal? If Donald Trump is elected, Republicans will push and potentially succeed in a nationwide abortion ban.
During his first term, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans tried to take health care away from millions of working families to give tax breaks to the rich. It failed because three Republicans voted with the Democrats. If Donald Trump has a Republican congress, he will try to do this again.
January 6 was a violent day: Donald Trump told supporters to storm the Capitol. Police officers were beaten with American flags. People died. Donald Trump has continually called for more violence. He & many Republicans- including his running mate- have said that he did not lose the 2020 election
If you’d like to help Kamala Harris win, focus on those three things. Put aside that Trump’s a bad guy and the outrage about his immigration policies. Avoid talking about inflation. Pretend like you don’t know who Joe Biden is. This is going to be close. We must be strategic on how we talk about it.
If you–like me– would like to see Kamala Harris win, we should do a better job of focusing on the issues that are good for her!
Slow Horses, Season 4: this is a show firing on every cylinder– the difficulty of grounding this twisty of a plot in its characters is off the charts. Very excited this has already been picked up for two more seasons
Trip: Eastern Shore
Wolfs: This was a totally fine movie.
If we would like for our adult-focused movies to be better than fine, we need to pay multiple American dollars to watch movies that are better than fine.
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
If you’re ever feeling down about being an American, please remember that Alexandra Petri is also an American
It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president
If you’d like to help Kamala Harris win, focus on those three things. Put aside that Trump’s a bad guy and the outrage about his immigration policies. Avoid talking about inflation. Pretend like you don’t know who Joe Biden is. This is going to be close. We must be strategic on how we talk about it.
January 6 was a violent day: Donald Trump told supporters to storm the Capitol. Police officers were beaten with American flags. People died. Donald Trump has continually called for more violence. He & many Republicans- including his running mate- have said that he did not lose the 2020 election
During his first term, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans tried to take health care away from millions of working families to give tax breaks to the rich. It failed because three Republicans voted with the Democrats. If Donald Trump has a Republican congress, he will try to do this again.
Republicans think of abortion as murdering babies. Ask yourself an honest question: do you think Republicans will “leave it to the states” to decide whether or not murder should be legal? If Donald Trump is elected, Republicans will push and potentially succeed in a nationwide abortion ban.
Trump is a bad guy. But the bottom line is that everyone knows that he’s a bad guy and most people don’t care about it. Is that bananas? Yep! But is it true? Also yep! Any attempt at trying to convince people that Trump is a bad guy is wasted breath. But– good news– he has three weaknesses:
Slow Horses, Season 4: this is a show firing on every cylinder– the difficulty of grounding this twisty of a plot in its characters is off the charts. Very excited this has already been picked up for two more seasons
I always take these projections with a grain of salt, but I just bought a “like new” refurb M4 iPad Pro and the magic keyboard case for a thousand dollars less than retail. Seems like there’s a lot of these in the pipeline.
(whether I needed this or not is irrelevant–pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
iPad Pro Shipment Projections Slashed on Sluggish OLED Panel Demand
This was a totally fine movie.Â
If we would like for our adult-focused movies to be better than fine, we need to pay multiple American dollars to watch movies that are better than fine.
The new Reeder and Project Tapestry do 97% of things the same. But in the 3% they don’t– 1.5% of the time I like what Reeder does better and 1.5% of the time I like what Project Tapestry does better. I’m in a pickle.
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
The Wild Robot: just as much a meditation on the necessity of community as the plight of parenthood. Screenplay did a ton of good work introducing a lot of tough concepts without flinching. This also may be my favorite animation that Dreamworks has ever done.
Finished reading: On the Edge by Nate Silver 📚 Silver lays out a clear and compelling case for us all to be taking more risks. His framing (gambling, crypto, AI, with a dash of politics) is inevitably going to turn people off, but he gives each subject a fair shake– none of it is universally negative or positive. His conclusions are not far from my own.But…this book is Exhibit A of what people don’t like about Nate Silver: while I think he’s “right”, his prose is dripping with the fact he knows he’s right. He spends the book showing the divide between two groups–the Riverians and Villagers– with a very clear framing of building up his side (the Riverians). But then in the last three pages of a 500+ page book, he concludes that the members of the two tribes need to stop moving towards the tails of their group. He’s right about this, but I wish he’d spent more time on what a hybrid Riverian/Villager looks like.
Overall, if you can put aside the negatives, this is a vital book– risk is a subject that’s not well understood and Silver clearly shows why this is hurting society. jordon.me
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: the world and cast are left (mostly) intact, so it would be very difficult for this to be a bad movie. But wow– it did its damndest to be completely forgettable: no new ideas and nothing to say
The Bear, Season 3: this was the vibes season. Not bad, but it just didn’t have the propulsion that previous seasons had. Still one of the best on TV
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
Just as much a meditation on the necessity of community as the plight of parenthood. Screenplay did a ton of good work introducing a lot of tough concepts without flinching. This also may be my favorite animation that Dreamworks has ever done.
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
Finished reading: On the Edge by Nate Silver đź“š Silver lays out a clear and compelling case for us all to be taking more risks. His framing (gambling, crypto, AI, with a dash of politics) is inevitably going to turn people off, but he gives each subject a fair shake– none of it is universally negative or positive. His conclusions are not far from my own.
But…this book is Exhibit A of what people don’t like about Nate Silver: while I think he’s “right”, his prose is dripping with the fact he knows he’s right. He spends the book showing the divide between two groups–the Riverians and Villagers– with a very clear framing of building up his side (the Riverians). But then in the last three pages of a 500+ page book, he concludes that the members of the two tribes need to stop moving towards the tails of their group. He’s right about this, but I wish he’d spent more time on what a hybrid Riverian/Villager looks like.
Overall, if you can put aside the negatives, this is a vital book– risk is a subject that’s not well understood and Silver clearly shows why this is hurting society.
Be kind. Keep it simple. Tailor the message to the audience. Listen. That’s how you change minds. All elections are important, but this one is doubly so: these two have very different views of what America is and what it should be. I think America is great with some tweaks. So does Kamala Harris.
The anonymity of political canvassing is nice: you go to a stranger’s door and make your case. It’s clean. It’s low on emotion. But I’m skeptical of its effectiveness. Instead, speak to your neighbors! Post on your socials! Blog about it! The people who know you know you. They trust you.
That’s why I wrote this blog post about why I’m voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and posted a link to it on the front page of my blog. It’s my digital yard sign– one that can have as many characters as I like and can go into the nuance of why I’m voting the way I am.
There’s been lot’s of talk in the decreased efficacy of political canvassing and I’m sympathetic to the idea it’s in part because a good portion of our lives are now lived online. Bumper stickers and yard signs may still be worthwhile, but to be effective, you probably need to do more.
Over the course of a week, I saw three shows– Bruce Springsteen at Nats Park, the movie Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Weezer at The Anthem– that all induced varying levels of nostalgia for me.
Bruce Springsteen is a long-time favorite of my family’s and I last saw him 12(!) years ago in Philly. Springsteen’s music itself leans heavy on imagery and nostalgia, but never to the detriment of a hopeful vision of the future. His shows reflect this well– there’s a core group of songs that he typically plays on a given tour, but there’s a lot of changes around the margins from show to show. The pure energy he brings is unparalleled: everyone can get something out of them whether you know every word by heart or have never even heard of the guy.
I don’t have the same affection for the movie Beetlejuice as I do for some other movies of that era, but I have distinct memories of watching it as a kid. I rewatched the original a few days before going to see the sequel and it’s just as deliciously weird as I remember it. But this sequel just completely missed the mark– it wasn’t bad–but it could have been great! I kept hoping for a movie that focuses on just how forever death is and how thus how little meaning time has. Which could be perfectly encapsulated by Beetlejuice himself! One of the strengths of the original was how little the character of Beetlejuice was in it– but the sequel couldn’t resist showing him within like the first five minutes.
My brother was the bigger Weezer fan and though the Blue Album was a bit before my time, the Green Album was on complete rotation during high school. As a person who still listens to albums as a whole, it was impossible for me to pass up hearing a band I really like play what is definitively their best album. But the show was designed around a schtick: Weezer is here on Earth and they need to board a spaceship to “voyage” (i.e., play some of their other material) to the “Blue Planet” (i.e., the section of the show where they play the Blue Album).
So three shows– all rife with emotions and memories from my childhood–why did Springsteen work when Beetlejuice and Weezer didn’t quite hit the mark?
There’s a half life to what nostalgia can provide. No matter how well something is crafted, there’s a limit to how good it can be if it doesn’t introduce anything new or fresh. Springsteen realizes this: he used earnestness, spontaneity, and inclusion in addition to nostalgia to put on an amazing show. And while Beetlejuice and Weezer weren’t just pure nostalgia– there was more they were trying to do– they leaned heavily on quirkiness to fill the gaps that nostalgia couldn’t.
Nostalgia itself is not a bad thing– there’s a lot to be gained from reflection on positive memories. But in our age of everything old is new again, there has to be more than reflection: there has to be introspection of how the things from our past defines the us of the present.
The world and cast are left (mostly) intact, so it would be very difficult for this to be a bad movie. But wow-- it did its damndest to be completely forgettable: no new ideas and nothing to say