His win in the primary boosts his chance of loss in November

Since October I’ve been working behind the scenes to get a proposal on the Michigan ballot. The effort up to this point was to gather signatures. I mentioned being a part of this during the second and third No Kings rallies. The proposal is to get corporate money out of Michigan politics by banning utilities from donating to the politicians who regulate them and banning political donations to government entities they have contracts with. I mention all that because today was the day to turn in all those signatures to the Secretary of State office. We need about 356,000 signatures and the leaders say we turned in 500,000! Of course, there was a big press conference outside of the Secretary of State office building. Part of it was for the leader to say why we did it. Part of it is to show off the boxes of signatures. Here’s a screenshot from the presser.

Once it is on the ballot, of course the utilities will spend big to defeat it. I hear 80% of voters are for it. I recently wrote about the nasty guy’s phone and how he asked for deposits, but was taking a long time to actually produce it. A recent change to the agreement said the phone may never show up. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported the phone is now being delivered. Perhaps the bad press forced someone’s hand. Then again, a CNET tech reviewer has a phone. No word on whether regular people have one. The opinion of the reviewer is that this is not a recent model of phone. The only thing it has going for it is that the nasty guy’s Truth Social is already loaded. You may debate whether that’s a reason to get one. Also, the logo of the US flag is missing two stripes. And instead of being made in the US it was designed “with American values in mind.” There were claims there were preorders from 590,000 people. The real number may be only 10,000.

What all of this makes clear is that there’s no world where Trump Mobile is a real, viable company that stands on its own. Only 10,000 customers and one lone, crappy, outdated phone? Anyone who doesn’t have a daddy in the White House would have gone out of business months ago.

Emily Singer of Kos reported that Ken Paxton won the Republican primary for US Senate in Texas. He’s the one the nasty guy endorsed. His win means Sen. John Cornyn’s career ends with the year. Democrats are delighted because Paxton has a “laundry list of scandals” including an impeachment (but not removal) from his job of state Attorney General and alleged adultery leading to divorce. His win in the primary makes Democratic nominee James Talarico much more likely to win in the fall. Talarico claims Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America. Sorry, I reserve that spot for the nasty guy. I can agree that Paxton is the most corrupt in Texas. In this case we thank the nasty guy for his efforts. His win in the primary boosts his chance of his loss in November. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Jamie Dupree and an article from NBC News saying the South Carolina attempt to gerrymander to eliminate the last Democratic seat has ended. The state Senate voted to reject the map, including 12 Republicans on the no side. Their concern was voting already started and that the map was created by outstate constultants and they didn’t have time to study what it meant. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community wrote of the results of a study released in Nature put hard numbers to the algorithms in the social media platforms and their effect on the 2024 election.

Researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi created hundreds of “sock puppet” TikTok accounts in New York, Texas, and Georgia (via VPN), uploaded to them either pro-Democratic or pro-Republican videos to show their political leanings, and then watched what TikTok’s algorithm fed back to them every day over the 27 weeks leading up to Election Day. Across more than 280,000 recommendations, Republican-seeded accounts received about 11.5 percent more “party-aligned content” than their Democratic counterparts, while the pro-Democratic accounts were force-fed 7.5 percent more attacks from the other side.

No, the algorithms were not giving people what they want. They were giving people what the tech bros wanted them to see. Hartmann reviewed the bias the tech bros have for the nasty guy. He then gave some recommendations: 1. Require algorithmic transparency – platforms must disclose how they weight political content and they must submit to independent audits. There is a bill to do this and it needs sustained public pressure. 2. Repeal or reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, “so that algorithm-driven platforms are treated legally like the publishers they are, rather than like the telephone wires they used to travel over.” 3. The Justice Department must treat these companies as monopolies and break them up. The 2024 election was not free and fair. Back on May 1 NPR show Marketplace included an excerpt that is part of their series My Economy, in which individuals describe the money issues they face. The audio is under four minutes. This is about the economy of Lois Moore, retired. She inherited a big chunk of money from her mother and a rising stock market added much more. She saw that like billionaires, she had more money than she could ever use. So she decided to put a cap on her net worth and start making big donations to charities. She thinks she will adjust the limit downward in the coming years. Yes, this can be scary because so much was of her life was geared towards accumulating. Friends ask her whether she might regret giving so much away. Maybe. But she can’t foresee a lot of things. The market is based on fear and greed. She doesn’t want her life based on that. She wants contentment instead.

What to do with a Supreme Court of corrupt liars?

The NPR show The 1A had an episode last week that discussed what can be done with the Supreme Court. The current Court (or at least a good number of its members) appear to be corrupt liars – they have been influenced by outside money and have done the opposite of what they said under oath. They also act in a partisan manner, supporting Republicans and blocking Democrats. Too many of their rulings are through the shadow docket without arguments or explanations. They’ve lost the respect of a large number of people. So what should be done? Guests on the show are: Kate Shaw, professor at University of Pennsylvania and co-host of Strict Scrutiny. Alicia Bannon, the judiciary program director at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Daniel Epps, professor at Washington University School of Law. I am working from the transcript. At the top I’m told the transcript may contain errors. Right off I see the speakers are not identified by name and the method of identifying them by number isn’t consistent. So I may not be accurate in identify the speakers. The discussion began with opinions about the Calais case that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by declaring gerrymandering can proceed without regard to race. Bannon said that there is such a thing as the Purcell principle that says the court should avoid making election changes too close to an election. A map may be discriminatory, but it must be used for the imminent election. Epps added a reason for that is one of the parties may give reasons why the decision should be reconsidered. Overall the court should exercise caution. That wasn’t invoked in this case. The justices seemed eager to let legislatures revise their maps, leading to changing maps as an election is proceeding, causing chaos over the primaries. Also, issuing the ruling in April, rather than January or June, was the month to cause the most election chaos. Much of the show was host Jen White reading suggestions of Court reform from listeners and sometimes asking her guests to comment on them. I skipped most of the suggestions that didn’t get comment. Shaw said this Congress is unwilling to regulate the Court. The Court would not want Congress to regulate it. Alito told the Wall Street Journal in which he said Congress has no constitutional authority regulate the Court, which Shaw says is flat wrong and a stunning statement. Shaw said she thinks there are things Congress could do: Mandate a code of ethics. Limit when the shadow docket is used. Set the number of members (which had been done in the past). Shaw added we (most of us) want a Court that protect groups that are too small to protect themselves. But this Court is overprotecting the rich parts of the majority that don’t need protecting. Epps said the current system of selecting justices works to give us more extreme partisan views. Listener Matt proposes the idea that the Court be made up of a rotating body of one judge from each Court of Appeals, with a new panel every year. Shaw responded by saying it’s interesting and she doesn’t see a constitutional problem with it. The current Court chooses cases that allows them to give the answer they want to give. Perhaps outsourcing that function would be good. Listener Augustus proposed justices get an 18 year term that expires just after the presidential and midterm elections, giving a vote of confidence from the electorate and avoids making an appointment during an election year. Bannon added this idea would tighten the democratic link between the court and public while also respecting judicial independence. Over time the Court would more reflect public values. Historically, Carter had no Court appointments and the nasty guy had three. More regular terms would prevent that imbalance. Also, the Court wouldn’t be so high stakes. Shaw reviewed the way justices get on the Court. The current Senate hearings are politicized, choreographed, and not informative. Senators give speeches and the candidates evade questions. No one learns much. We don’t know anything about how a president picks a nominee, including whether they give assurances on how they will decide a given question. We do know when the nominee gets before the Senate such questions are evaded. Listener John suggested that a nominee should get approval from 75% of the Senate. Epps agrees that would give us a more moderate candidate. We used to have a filibuster on nominees, which required a 60% approval, but Republicans got rid of that in 2017, so requiring 75% approval isn’t going to happen. Shaw said even if reform of the Court doesn’t seem possible right now a public conversation still needs to happen so that perhaps in a decade reform can happen. Bannon added we need to create the political momentum and opportunity for reform. Emily Singer of Daily Kos wrote about the nasty guy’s $1.8 billion slush fund he wants to disburse to traitorous insurrectionists – people who attacked the Capitol, broke the law, and were correctly prosecuted. But there are people who actually deserve a payout from a weaponized Department of Justice. These are people who had to go to court to defend themselves from fraudulent charges brought by the nasty guy. They had to spend their own money to do it and suffered pain and anguish from being the focus of attack by the nasty guy and his minions. Singer lists some of these people and says the list is not exhaustive. In her list are: James Comey and his daughter Maureen. New York Attorney General Letitia James, the one who successfully prosecuted him for falsified business records. John Bolton, who wrote a book saying the nasty guy had abused power. Former Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell who refused to let the nasty guy dictate interest rates. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who the nasty guy tried to fire because she didn’t support lowering interest rates. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, wrongly deported and facing deportation again. ChongLy Thao, wrongly arrested by ICE in a dangerous manner. The DC sandwich thrower. The Broadview Six, who were arrested for protesting inhumane treatment at the Broadview detention center near Chicago. Last week Oliver Willis of Kos discussed the report by Judd Legum in his Popular Information newsletter that correlated the nasty guy’s financial disclosures with public statements showing that he praises companies while purchasing their stock. Willis wrote:

Legum wrote on X that he tracked the story’s coverage in mainstream media, with zero mentions by CBS, CNN, Fox News, NPR, PBS, Politico, Semafor, and Business Insider. Of course, Fox News is effectively right-wing propaganda, and CBS is now owned by the pro-MAGA Ellison family. NPR and PBS have been targeted by defunding legislation. But the other outlets present themselves as providers of critical, unbiased journalism, so their silence raises significant questions.

Even so, the general public is hearing about the nasty guy’s corruption. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that the vice nasty is working hard to root out fraud. It’s strange because didn’t DOGE get rid of fraud last year? The cases he is on now (and loudly proclaiming how wonderful his efforts are) appear to be making claims of fraud where very little exists or where states have been already been aggressive in rooting it out. He also wants to make sure he takes these cases to red state judges because blue state judges are “corrupt.” Wrote Needham:

There’s no question that the anti-fraud initiative is about attacking blue states, but it’s also a pathetic attempt to recreate the DOGE era to get conservatives whipped into a froth about endless fraud without acknowledging that it was supposed to have been eradicated.

I’m sure his definition of fraud is that money is supporting the kinds of people he doesn’t like.

A report on the Titanic sinking that doesn't mention icebergs

My Sunday movie was 10Dance. Netflix showed it ecent. I read what it was about and since I saw no reviews I decided to take a chance on it. In the world of competitive dancing there are two broad categories, Ballroom and Latin. Each has five different dances. The dancers in one rarely do the other. The exception is the World Championship, when the dancers do all ten dances from both categories. This is a challenge because dancing in one category means by the time a couple gets to the finals they have danced each one four times, or twenty dances. Doing both categories means doubling the effort and stamina becomes an issue. The setting is Japan. Shinya Suzuki is a male (we Americans don’t always know the gender of non English names) dancing in the Latin category. He dances with Aki (female) and he has some Cuban ancestry. His dancing emphasizes the erotic. Shinya Sugiki (yes, the names are quite similar) is a top competitor in the ballroom category. He is elegant and cultivates being a gentleman and dances with Fusako (also female). He can’t seem to win first place. Sugiki proposes to Suzuki that they go for the 10 Dance. After his manhood is challenged Suzuki accepts. Each is to teach the other their style of dance. And that requires a great deal of close contact. Aki and Fusako see the men look at each other quite differently than they look at the women, though the men take a while to figure it out. Along the way there are more dance competitions, explorations of the past, and mentors telling them that a major component of dance is love between the dancers. Before watching I had checked Metacritic for reviews. They had none. Afterward I looked it up on IMDb. It doesn’t link to professional critics, but does have user reviews, which give it 6.9 out of 10. I enjoyed the film, though that rating seems about right. One question IMDb did not answer was whether the leads were dancers that had to be trained in acting or actors that had to be trained in dancing. They were quite good in both talents. I found online reviews, though the one I read today was on Fangirlish, not a major media outlet with well known reviewers. The writer was Lisette Lanuza Sáenz. The story is taken from a Japanese Boys’ Love manga by Inouesatoh. The choreography is great. The ending begs for a sequel. When you make it, add more yearning. But please drop the stereotypes of Latinos! At least the show wasn’t as racist as the original manga. Recently I wrote the Democratic National Committee declined to release the autopsy on the 2024 election to explain what led to Kamala Harris’ loss. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that party Chair Ken Martin has now released it.

But the actual document is a puzzling 192-page compilation made by Martin ally and Democratic strategist Paul Rivera. The report avoids conclusions about party strategy during the election and omits references to key issues, like former President Joe Biden’s initial decision to run for reelection and controversy over his stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Rivera neglected to interview Harris, Biden, and senior campaign operatives. Also, the report contains many basic factual errors and is annotated with remarks from the DNC distancing itself from the report’s assertions. The autopsy does note that Democrats were unprepared for the right’s political onslaught, which included smears of Harris, her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and the wider left-wing movement. But as a “comprehensive review” of what went wrong, the report comes up woefully short, which makes the decision to bury the document for months even more curious.

The mess is another reason why Martin isn’t the right guy to head the DNC. Some Democrats are now calling for his removal. Stephen Fowler of NPR also discussed the release. The article discussed Martin and his reasons to delay the release. Then Fowler described the report, referring to Martin.

He defended the work the national party has undertaken in his year and a half as chair to invest more into state parties and reiterated his belief that the Democratic Party brand needs fixing and its infrastructure needs to be updated to focus on year-round organizing. Similar themes emerged in the autopsy, which said since former President Obama's first election in 2008, the "Democratic Party has vacillated between stagnation and retrogression." Former President Joe Biden's name only appears a handful of times in the document, but one key takeaway the author suggests is that the White House "did not position or prepare" former Vice President Kamala Harris to help Biden govern.

If the Democratic Party brand needs fixing and its infrastructure needs to be updated, when is that work going to begin? There is little evidence that it has. After Fowler presented the basic story host Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Paul Begala, a longtime political strategist who helped orchestrate Bill Clinton's presidential win in 1992. Inskeep asked Begala what he had learned from the report.

Oh, my gosh. It's not just the errors and omissions, OK? It's - I mean, as your reporter mentioned, affordability, cost of living inflation - it's barely even mentioned. Imagine the after-action report after the sinking of the Titanic and it doesn't mention icebergs. That's what drove the election. By the way, apparently, they didn't even speak to President Biden, Vice President Harris, Governor Walz or any of the top strategists. Not Mike Donilon, not Anita Dunn, not Steve Ricchetti, not Bruce Reed, not Jen O'Malley Dillon, not Steph Cutter. So imagine a medical autopsy, where you don't examine the brain, the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys. But, man, we know everything about her left foot.

Asked if Martin was doing a good job:

It's hard to argue he's doing a good job. OK, we are winning, but I don't think anybody believes Democrats are winning because of the party chair.

One big problem with Harris’ campaign was people felt the economy was in a bad way and she didn’t run on economic change. Another problem was, according to James Carville, “she didn't get any votes on Election Day she didn't already have on Labor Day.” As for the current election cycle Begala said Democrats closer to the center are doing better than those farther to the left. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted G Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers discussing the Democrat’s 2024 autopsy report.

But the biggest problem is that the autopsy straight up ignores the major reasons Harris lost in 2024. Yes, it’s bad enough that the report doesn’t mention that party bosses failed to coordinate an early exit for Joe Biden, who was too unpopular to win. And there is no mention of Israel/Gaza, low turnout in the cities, and nothing on Harris’s race or gender. But this is a data-driven site, so I want to really focus in on what the numbers can tell us. When we boot up the data, it’s obvious the main reason Harris lost — and the reason I am going to explore here, at this website, it being a data-driven website — is that 2024 simply had too much inflation-induced anti-incumbent sentiment for the incumbent party to overcome. This is curiously missing from its main diagnosis. The word “inflation” isn’t mentioned in the autopsy a single time (except in the context of inflation-adjusted ad spending). ... Another reason consultants don’t focus on structural factors more often is that they can’t sell you any services to solve that problem, because there’s nothing you can do about them.

Jonathan Cohn of The Bulwark discussed the Ebola outbreak in Africa and the hampered world response to it compared to the previous outbreak (in 2015?).

After a slow start, the Obama administration poured personnel and materiel into the affected countries, while helping to coordinate the global response. It was, as officials said at the time, a “whole-of-government” effort, with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) playing a big role because it possessed the knowledge and contacts necessary to make public health efforts work on the ground. USAID isn’t part of the American effort this time. Trump and his then-adviser Elon Musk effectively killed the agency last year. And according to almost everything I have seen and heard, including several advocates and scientists I interviewed over the past forty-eight hours to gauge how seriously we should be taking this outbreak, the withdrawal of so much American assistance has left African governments and independent organizations less able to mount an effective response.

Andrew Mangan of Kos discussed a recent survey:

Let me make you an offer. I want to build a warehouse of machinery that will fill the ears of every passerby with the soft whine of industrial noise, will drink up your water reserves so much it lowers the pressure in your shower, and will jack up your utility bills—if not force your town to risk losing its access to electricity altogether—all in support of a technology expected to cost millions of Americans their jobs. In return, my warehouse will hypothetically provide you with significant tax revenue, though you will need to give me a 90% tax abatement for the next 20 years. Fair trade? It is little surprise the vast majority of Americans say no. In fact, about half say, “Hell no.” Over 7 in 10 Americans oppose the idea of an AI-focused data center being built in their area, according to a new poll from Gallup. Nearly half (48%) “strongly oppose” it.

Near data centers wholesale electricity rose 267% in five years. Around Lake Tahoe in about a year the nearly 50,000 residents will lose electricity because it will be redirected to data centers. Another worry is data centers use vast amounts of water for cooling. A big center can use as much water as a town of 50,000 people. There is a need for more water infrastructure – and more water when much of the US is in drought. Data centers may require hundreds of workers to build the place, but may need only 20-50 people to run it. So the claim of creating jobs is hollow. This article includes a map of the number of data centers in each state. The highest is Virginia with 603 and the lowest is 3 for Vermont. Even Alaska has 8. That got me wondering how many data centers are there (so far) across the country. I went to the source of the data for the map which is Data Center Map. It says there are 4287 data centers across all 50 states. I work that out to be about one data center for every 79,000 people. https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/ Not surprisingly a citizen revolt is building. Both major parties are responding to it. Some towns are enacting bans and some states are enacting moratoriums. I’ve written about the slush fund the nasty guy created to pay the Capitol attackers for the indignity of being found guilty. Last Thursday Emily Singer of Kos reported that many Senate Republicans are furious at the nasty guy for creating that fund, furious enough to refuse to pass a needed immigration funding bill. Because of the fear of them putting limits on the slush fund and enraging Dear Leader Senate Majority Leader John Thune started the Memorial Day recess a day early. The nasty guy just might endorse more primary opponents.

That means putting an amendment on the floor that blatantly rebukes Trump could cause them just as many problems as allowing this corrupt slush fund to proceed.

Why couldn’t the nasty guy announce the slush fund until after the important bills were passed? In a thread unrolled on Threadreader Barb McQuade listed the way the slush fund is corrupt. + He’s suing himself, strange for the unitary executive theory. + He’s evading judicial review. + In the background case of leaked tax returns the DOJ didn’t follow procedures and didn’t show actual harm. + There is no “weaponization” statue. + The money is going to people unrelated to the nasty guy’s original suit. + The fund will be administered by Blanche, who had been the nasty guy’s personal lawyer. + The deal pushes the false claim that the attackers were victims instead of perpetrators of serious crimes. In Friday’s pundit roundup Dworkin quoted several sources discussing Republican fury at the slush fund, including this one from Semafor:

The most urgent reason for the delay is boiling anger among Senate Republicans at the president’s $1.8 billion fund of taxpayer money for people who allege they’ve been targeted by the government. That includes, potentially, rioters who participated in the 2021 Capitol attack. But the bill is slowing down for other reasons, none of them related to immigration: Trump is unsuccessfully pushing for security funding for his White House ballroom renovation, and his goodwill with GOP senators is at a second-term low as he seeks to defeat his second Republican incumbent in as many weeks. Republicans had little appetite for giving Trump what he wanted this week, according to senators and aides.

Senators are furious at this slush fund because many of them were in the Capitol when it was attacked by the people slated to get the money. In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted The Bulwark

How far beyond the pale, how ludicrously far outside the bounds of law and morality, is Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund? Far enough, apparently, to shock even the dead, embalmed consciences of GOP lawmakers back to life. House and Senate Republicans do not, as yet, share my view that the creation of the Slush Fund from Hell is a cut-and-dried impeachable offense. But the energy to oppose it is stronger in both houses than I expected it to be. In the House, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) joined Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) to introduce a short, simple bill: “No federal funds,” it reads, “may be used for the payment of any claim submitted to the Anti-Weaponization Fund, established by the Department of Justice on May 18, 2026.” And in the Senate, Republican anger over the fund burned hot enough to derail, for now, the must-pass reconciliation bill intended at long last to restore funding for ICE and the Border Patrol.

Robert Kagan of The Atlantic discussing the Iran war:

The outlines of President Trump’s endgame in the Iran war are now emerging. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, Trump reportedly explained that the United States was negotiating a “letter of intent” with Iran that would “formally end the war and launch a 30-day period of negotiations” on Iran’s nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The purpose and effect of such an agreement should be clear: The United States is walking away from the crisis. Trump may launch another limited strike to look tough and satisfy the demands of the war’s supporters, but it would be a performative gesture. Endgame in this case is a euphemism for “surrender.”

In Sunday’s roundup Derek Thompson wrote:

Again and again, the president has taken the federal government in his hands, turned it upside down like a child’s piggy bank, and smacked it on the side until billions of dollars poured out of the hole in its back. As Republicans excuse his behavior by alleging misdeeds by the other side, I fear that a warped philosophy of amorality is settling over American politics, where fewer people are arguing for universal principles of decency and more people are perfectly comfortable justifying their own side’s uninterrupted immorality by insisting on the enduring presence of a greater evil on the other side. This is no way to build a world. After years of conservatives criticizing the left for “virtue signaling”—that is, cravenly performing a version of virtue for public approval—we now have something even worse than its opposite. The president and his allies are not merely vice-signaling. By empowering a figure who is oblivious to virtue and choosing to ignore his crescendoing depravity, we are creating a mode of politics that openly celebrates the death of morality. This is the age of vicemaxxing. The question is whether this is our new normal—or, I hope, the sort of cultural overreach that shocks our collective conscience and sets the stage for a more decent politic.

I’ve written many times about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported. A court required him to be returned to the US. Instead admitting an error the nasty guy administration has been working hard to accuse Abrego Garcia of something so they can deport him again. An article by the Associated Press posted last Friday on Kos reported that the latest case against him has been thrown out. The case accused him of human smuggling. Abrego Garcia’s team successfully argued the prosecution was vindictive. He was charged only because he was back in the US.

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia cannot remain in the U.S. They have vowed to deport him to a third country, most recently Liberia.

They aren’t giving up. Kos community member commander ogg says recent research confirms a statement attributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson, one I’ve mentioned in the past.

If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket, Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

The research was posted in Sage Journals and an article on Alternet discussed it, which commander ogg excerpted.

Research reveals that white people appear to support social safety net programs unless they perceive those programs as also helping nonwhites…“This effect only appears when people compare their political standing directly to that of racial minorities… …in many developed nations, high levels of income inequality usually lead to increased public demand for these programs…the U.S. is different in this regard…University of Delaware scientists Sumeyye Mine Iltekin Gocer and Joanne M. Miller learned…that hostility to safety net programs appears to be…primarily with White people — even those in poverty — because they fear the programs give nonwhites a boost.

Oliver Willis of Kos, in his series Explaining the Right, explores why conservatives get so mad at movies. This time I think he actually answers the question. After giving several examples of movies that get the Right in a tizzy, Willis wrote:

What the right’s serial anger about the movies is truly about is the influence that the arts have on society. When entertainment better reflects the diversity of the world, there’s a documented positive effect on society’s attitude toward race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. And that’s exactly what the right hates. Conservatives hate that a moviegoer—especially a child—might see acceptance and openmindedness on screen and adopt those attitudes. What also causes a backlash is the right’s ineptitude on this topic. Conservatives are notoriously bad at creative endeavors. For all the right’s political success, their movies, television shows, and books are niche with little to no cultural impact.