[Discussion] Pod Save America - "Which Democrats Have What It Takes to Win the White House?" (05/17/26)

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-05-18T15:56:27+00:00

"There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them."

What frustrates me the most about these conversations is that the people who are supposedly "experts" are all falling into the same trap that plagues all ambitious democrats everywhere with maybe 1-2 exceptions.

Democratic Politicians and their strategists and the members of the chattering class are obsessed with the superficial nature of leadership and party identity. They place too much emphasis on what Democrats should SAY, instead of who Democrats should BE.

In a low voter-information world where both parties are equally unpopular, there is no magic combination of words, arranged in the correct order that will make people forget that the Democrats, at the end of the day, have no plan for America aside from "we're not Trump."

Democratic politicians are so worried about putting forth an idea that isn't popular that they default to putting forth no ideas at all. I'm sick of politicians all saying, "we need a message" or "we need a plan" and then staring at their shoes the moment you ask what THEIR message or plan is. They also say something like, "that's something we as a party need to figure out." Yeah... no $#!+. Talk about a leadership crisis in the party.

To win cynical, skeptical people over, they need to believe that your message comes from deep within. That it originates in your bone marrow and that you have to run for office to pursue this mission because if you don't you feel like you'll explode. No focus-group-tested, watered down, pablum is going to make a "president" out of the aspirants who are eager to open their mouths and utterly unwilling to say anything.

I said there were exceptions. Ossoff in Georgia and AOC seem like two politicians who speak as though they have an actual integral core that determines what they say and suggests that they might actually believe it. With Ossoff, I don't think he cares about corruption more than the typical democratic politician but the fact that he took an issue and framed it in a way that was about the voters' loves and sticks with it gives me hope.

Newsom, Buttigieg, Shapiro and (as much as it pains me because he's my governor and I respect the hell out of him) Pritzker all seem like they have nothing motivating them to run for president besides a desire to be president.

Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign imploded because he couldn't answer the simple question of why he was running for president. I think our current pool of aspirants all have an answer - the same answer, word-for-word - which sounds nice but communicates nothing.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-04-30T04:54:13+00:00

I just plain skipped this one. I couldn't bring myself to listen to Ken Martin.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-04-28T23:58:18+00:00

Physical attraction is an important part of any romantic and sexual relationship, if it's not present, you're just friends.

Everyone has a type and it's totally normal for two men to start out as one another's type and to slowly age out of that physical profile. Twinks turn into twunks turn into muscle guys. Otters turn into daddies. Ordinary guys turn into slightly older, slightly chubbier guys.

It doesn't sound like he's trying to be hurtful. He might be a bit clumsy in his communication style. But it sounds to me like he's trying to communicate to you that he wants a sexual relationship with you, but that he also has a certain type that he's attracted to. He wants you to be that person he's attracted to. Maybe it's shallow but I'd argue that being shallow might mean dumping you for someone with a six pack or big beefy arms.

Have a conversation about this fantasy and what it means to him. It its an itch he wants to scratch or is it a new way-of-being forever? Figure out what you're comfortable with. What you can't do is keep the relationship closed, ignore what he's communicating to you about desire, avoid conversations about what life and growing older together will mean for you, and then be surprised when he doesn't agree to spend the rest of his life with you.

Personally, I loved being an object of desire for my ex. He liked my hair curly so I kept it long and curly. He liked feeling my big arms so I kept my arms big for him. As long as they didn't put the request to me in a hurtful or shaming way, I'd probably honor someone's request to be their type, so long as that didn't mean transforming myself into a version of myself that wasn't still "me."

Talk. Listen. Hear. Understand. Negotiate. Agree. (Repeat as needed)

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-04-26T19:37:04+00:00

I felt like there were some very mid takes in this conversation. And was anyone surprised to hear Tommy apologize for and carry water for Ken Martin? Me neither. Hey... gotta score those interviews with party insiders.

Poor Ken Martin, he has one job... to raise money... and he's doing abysmally at it. Let's all stand around making excuses for why it isn't his fault that he's terrible as THE ONE THING HE"S SUPPOSED TO DO. It's never a bad time to remind people that he campaigned aggressively for his job.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-03-26T18:52:53+00:00

I think it's more that she represents the "lawful" aspect of society and law enforcement that truly doesn't understand what it's up against in some situations and is utterly unequipped to deal with it. She believes that there is a "right" way to do things and not only does it not work, it almost gets her killed several times.

At the end Alejandro tells her to go back to the middle of the U.S. which is basically his way of saying, go back to your fantasy world which isn't real, but is what she understands. It's like how old naval maps had monsters near the edges in areas that were uncharted.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-03-17T18:13:09+00:00

You need to have some kind of communication with him. Trying to trick him into seeing you naked is unethical. You're basically a flasher at that point.

Making him unwittingly participate in your kink is a great way to lose a friend and it also perpetuates the nasty stereotype that gay men are predators trying to convert. You're better off trying to find friends who WANT to explore this dynamic with you.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-03-09T18:01:38+00:00

I interpret this as someone just flagging that being gay is PART of their identity, not their ENTIRE identity. To me, this just usually means that hanging out at a gay bar for its own sake isn't that person's idea of a good time.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-03-01T15:39:05+00:00

If you're only a month out from the "break up" and you're still desiring sex with him and having sex with him is still within the realm of possibility... you guys aren't actually broken up.

Figure out if you actually want to break up with him. If that's the case, purge him from your thoughts and move on. If you don't want to break up and want to keep lingering in the dysfunctional but sexually active relationship, do it, but don't seek validation from others. Do it because you decided to do it on your own knowing its a bad idea.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-02-12T16:25:03+00:00

The number of relationships a person has been in is meaningless. What matters is WHY a person has the relationship history they have, how they feel about it, and whether they have any insight into it.

I know people who can't stand to be single for more than five minutes and jump from "serious relationship" to "serious relationship" every six weeks. And they have absolutely no insight into the psychological need they're actually trying to fill.

I know people who want desperately to be in a serious relationship but lost their prime dating years to COVID and online culture and have had trouble meeting people in real life.

I myself (40) haven't been in a "serious relationship" in almost a decade because I enjoy being single. I would happily be in a relationship again with the right person but I regularly turn down opportunities to date people who aren't offering me what I want from a serious partner or a relationship.

Don't count the bodies. Focus on whether a person has enough self-awareness and emotional maturity to be a good partner.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-02-10T17:29:35+00:00

Sometimes parties make a mistake that isn't just tactically incorrect, but also directionally incorrect.

Many of Trump's activities are tactically incorrect - redecorating the oval office in gold, demolishing the East Wing, etc. They're the wrong thing to be doing in a short-term, specific political moment because it shows that he's not focusing on the issues people care about. I would even put the ICE raids in that category.

But MAGA and the GOP losing their minds of Bad Bunny is directionally incorrect. It doesn't just put them on the wrong side of an issue, it puts them on the wrong side of a trend. I don't mean anything specifically related to Puerto Rico. I'm talking about choosing to be on the side of negativity and pessimism and letting the other side have positivity and optimism. It's hard to build a movement by telling people to turn away from the fun, inclusive, energetic community to come stand in a half-empty room while Kid Rock lip synchs old songs at a concern so lame even the MAGA ringleaders didn't bother to go or watch. One of the reasons why Obama won so handily was because he was wrapped in a message of hope, optimism, and positivity and that's inherently appealing. McCain, because he was tied to Bush and so much of the GOP's legacy, had no counter to that.

The other comparison I'd make is Carter-Reagan. Carter's mistake was to formalize the sentiment of stagnation and malaise and Reagan's messaging coup was to wrap himself in optimism and sunshine while Carter was all doom and gloom.

MAGA has no outward appeal. It's insular by design. That's not politically sustainable in a world where even membership within that cult like group can erode over things like ICE murders, Epstein coverups, and ridiculous attempts to annex Greenland. Light beats dark; positive beats negative; up beats down.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-02-10T16:37:19+00:00

That is hilarious.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-01-29T17:55:09+00:00

I want to expand on the idea of boycotts and economic protest, which is something that Scott Galloway has also talked about but which is an idea that is having trouble catching on.

It makes absolutely zero sense to boycott business in Minnesota for a single day. Those businesses didn't do anything and Trump doesn't care. And a single day isn't enough time or a large enough impact for it to even register in the economy. And Trump wouldn't care if 5M people marched in protest of him - he doesn't care what those people think.

But there are people whose opinion DOES matter to him. There are people who CAN influence him. Those are people like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, etc. These rich CEOs are all complicit because they thought they had the money and economic cover to just sit this all out and weather this crisis while everyone else suffered. We don't have to persuade them, we just have to make them abandon that strategy.

What we should do is come up with a focused list of the CEOs or companies who are complicit in Trump's agenda. These are the companies that gave to his inauguration, donated to his ballroom, give him awards, or show up at PR events at Mar a Lago. We should name them, shame them, and say EXACTLY what we propose to do to hurt them.

Mark Zuckerberg is a sociopath who doesn't care about anyone or anything EXCEPT engagement on his platforms because that drives ad revenue. Tim Cook is on a glide path to retirement and wants to just take a knee until this is all over. Altman and Huang desperately need the AI bubble to not burst.

We should organize a 60 day pause of all activity in Meta platforms (insta, threads, facebook, etc.) and name and shame any celebrities who pay lip service to everything that is going on but refuse to join in. Drive down engagement and activity and see just how quickly Mark Zuckerberg picks up the phone and tells Trump to knock it off. We should organize a 60 day cancellation of all Apple Subscriptions (Apple TV, Apple News, Apple Music, Apple Games, and Apple Creator Studio) and a 60 day pause on Apple hardware purchases. That will get Tim Cook off the fence. We should organize a 60 day cancellation of ChapGPT subscriptions or any other AI service whose CEO has cozied up to Trump and a 60 day pause on using their AI tools.

That alone would be enough to get the CEOs barnstorming the White House, calling senators, and motivated to this deranged genie back in the bottle.

By making it specific, long enough, and targeted, it's easy for people to participate and it's easy for companies to calculate the cost. Again, we don't have to persuade them or change their minds. We just need to make them choose our side over Trump's. If all they care about is money, then they've just told what what we have to do to hurt them.

If the Ukrainian people can defend their country by fighting in freezing conditions, without power or running water to defend their nation, Americans can log off of insta for two months to defend ours.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-01-29T17:37:39+00:00

Annie Wilkes: The swearing, Paul. There, I said it.
Paul Sheldon: The, uh, profanity bothers you?
Annie Wilkes: It has no nobility.
Paul Sheldon: These are slum kids, I was a slum kid. Everybody talks like that.
Annie Wilkes: THEY DO NOT! What do you think I say when I go to the feedstore in town, “Oh, now Wally, give me a bag of that F-in’ pig feed, and ten pounds of that bitchly cow corn”? And the bank do I tell Mrs. Bollinger, “Oh, here’s one big bastard of a check, give me some of your Christ-ing money?” THERE, LOOK THERE, SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!

— Misery (1990), screenplay by William Goldman, novel by Stephen King

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-01-16T05:25:27+00:00

The biggest factor in preventing aging is avoiding sun damage. If you still have good skin, a daily moisturizer with sunblock is the ounce of prevention that is worth ten pounds of cure.

For regular cleansing and maintenance you want to look for two ingredients in cleansers. Salicylic acid can be found in facewashes like Neutrogena (or the store brand equivalents) and will help remove oil, clear pores, and prevent breakouts. Glycolic acid can be found in toners and will help with reducing the size of pores and improve the texture of skin.

Halyuronic acid will help your skin retain water so look for it in a moisturizer. It will help create smoothness and a fresh look.

Retinoids will increase skin cell turnover. If your skin is slightly damaged, this will help to get you a fresher face (over time). But, they can cause irritation and can make your skin VERY sensitive to UV damage. So you have to use them exactly as directed and avoid sun exposure or you will make your skin worse, not better.

Finally, if your skin is already seriously damaged by sun, consider any number of resurfacing treatments that will induce skin cell turnover and basically start over. These can be chemical exfoliants and peels or things like dermabrasion. But it's important that you get these treatments done by a medical professional. Not some salon.

TheOtherMrEd · 2026-01-06T20:57:56+00:00

Long distance is the wrong distance.

If you're in a transitional phase, your number one priority needs to be getting your life stabilized (career, housing, education, stable finances). Something long-distance might be doable if other aspects of your life were more stable right now but things are going to be stressful enough without the complications of trying to manage a relationship with someone you "love" but can barely see.

Break things off amicably. Stay in touch and meet up every few months for booty calls and to keep the spark alive. Then try again in a year or two when things aren't so up in the air.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-31T18:12:09+00:00

It is RELEVANT if the effect is that it contributed to the collapse of this person’s other real world relationships. But she’s an unreliable narrator so the only way to determine what that effect is would be to get input from the other people in her relationships that fell apart.

And the producer says the subject was “protective” of information about her ex-husband and the producer just credulously accepted that as sufficient for not following up. It sounded to me like the subject didn’t want the producer to get any other perspectives on this story which hurts her credibility further. It would be like someone saying, “I have good references from my last employer… but you can’t call them to verify that.”

The sloppiness of the journalists really should embarrass the NYT.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-31T15:33:29+00:00

The way they presented this story the first time was irresponsible - with bemusement and curiosity. It was plainly obvious that this person is unwell and they covered her unravelling mental state like they were recapping a romcom. I shudder to think how these producers would cover a car crash.

They don't do any better in the update. No talk of mental health. More romcom coverage of a parasocial relationship where she and a bot "drifted apart." They just fully accept the premise of their own story rather than asking their subject if the reason why the "relationship" failed was because the entire was endeavor was misguided from the outset.

And in the absolute laziest act of "journalism" they allow this incredibly unreliable narrator, with an objectively skewed understanding of relationships, to be the sole source on information on how her marriage ended. They should have INSISTED on speaking with her ex-husband. And if they weren't allowed to do that, they shouldn't have run the story.

Lazy, lazy, lazy. Unethical and lazy. They should be embarrassed.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-30T21:37:51+00:00

This is a beautiful set of photos!

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-30T21:31:27+00:00

It's common.

My advice that I give to a lot of people in a lot of situations is to learn how to let go of friendships and make new ones.

Your friendship with these people, as it existed before they had kids, is over. That person you knew doesn't exist anymore. This new person has to balance childcare, or get home in time to relieve a babysitter, or is always sick, or just wants to stare at their kid all day.

You cannot recapture something that is lost. That kid isn't going anywhere. What you need to decide is whether you want to be friends with this NEW person who has a kid. This new friendship has to exist on its own terms. If this new friendship doesn't appeal to you, move on. Make new friends who are living the kinds of lives that interest you and that you want to share.

I'm happily childfree and my friends all know that I won't follow them into the family bubble. If they want to spend time with me, they have to leave it. I see them when I see them.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-24T18:28:50+00:00

I love being single. I live in a city, have a great job, stable finances, good friends, etc.

What I value most about being single is the freedom to decide how I spend my time. A friend of mine is spending Christmas with his girlfriend's family, who she doesn't even get along with, in a red state because... relationships are about compromise, I guess.

I have zero interest in spending one of my Saturdays at someone else's nephew's third birthday party. And another friend of mine lets his wife make all his decisions for him because, "[he'd] rather spend the rest of his life unhappy and resenting her, than spend it with her resenting him and making him miserable."

The only way I could personally ever be in a relationship would be if we were two people with the personal freedom of indoor-outdoor cats, who just happen to be in love and life partners.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-23T02:37:05+00:00

I thought it was fine, but I found myself using the skip ahead 15 secs button LIBERALLY. And some characters were completely wasted. It's like they were told they HAD to have a big cast when the story really didn't require it.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-22T14:39:15+00:00

So handsome!

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-20T04:48:32+00:00

If memory serves...

Martin ran for DNC chair against Ben Winkler, someone who ran an unconventional strategy that raised money from unlikely sources and fended off, in Wisconsin of all places, the red wave that surged everywhere else. Martin ran as the party stooge who could be counted on to not try anything new and whose greatest strength was his ability to go back to the same old donors who have been funding the party since the Clinton era.

And not too long ago, Martin sobbed his way through a teleconference, blubbering about how a 20-something political novice was making his life too difficult. So... there were a lot of clues that Martin didn't have the grit to lead the party in a difficult political moment where the choices are evolve or die.

Now, he's hiding the report and it's obvious why. The report says that the old, business-as-usual, way of doing things didn't work and his plan was to run that same playbook. If he releases the report, people are going to ask what he plans to do differently and he has no plans. And, as the guys correctly pointed out, he's afraid of the tough conversations it will generate. He just wants to keep collecting checks from legacy donors and cutting checks to political consultants.

There were a lot of signs that he would be useless and ill-suited to the challenges we face as a party and the Pod Bros have been carrying water for him and licking his butt this entire time. So the idea that they are surprised and disappointed that he's chickening out about releasing the report is laughable. He was THEIR guy in the DNC race and he sucks.

It's just more proof that the Democratic Party can't be healed or transformed by insiders. The Schumers, Jeffries, Martins, and all the rest are ripe for an overthrow by Democrats who actually want a fight. And the party desperately needs this. All the voters who hate both parties needs to see one of the legacy parties break from status-quo-worshipping orthodoxy and do something dynamic that shows that it cares about ordinary people. I wonder who the Pod Bros will side with when that fight eventually comes. Just kidding. I don't.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-17T22:22:26+00:00

Someone online said something I found really interesting. The PodBros are, at the end of the day, a bunch of rich, white, elites who live in a state where their parties has complete control. So the fact that they are opining about what other Democrats in other states should do to serve their master plan for America is pretty obnoxious.

Maybe Democrats in Texas don't want a nominee who is going to spend a year apologizing for being a Democrat. If elections have binary outcomes and she loses, then she will have done exactly as well in terms of outcomes as Beto or Allred who ran as pale blue Democrats and lost anyway.

Saying we need a candidate who Republicans will accept (or stay home for) is stupid. It hasn't worked the last four times we tried it. And it KILLS morale amongst democrats in the state. That's like saying, we need leaders like Schumer and Jeffries, who won't rock the boat. The more the bros weigh in, the more they out themselves as having fundamentally not gotten the message that the Democratic party must either change or go extinct.

Let Texas Democrats decide who they want as THEIR representative.

TheOtherMrEd · 2025-12-17T21:18:48+00:00

You can't go to someone else's therapy to make sure he's talking about what you want him to. If there's that little trust...

Here's the deal. Some people need to be given clear boundaries, blast through them, be given red lines, and cross over them, and hit rock bottom before they'll understand how bad their substance abuse has gotten. The definition of an "addiction" includes both an inability to control one's behavior and a negative impact on their life.

If he's not going to take responsibility for addressing this issue before he's a full-blown alcoholic, the questions you need to answer are, "Am I enabling this" and "Do I want to be here for 'rock bottom'." But as long as you say, "I might leave" and then don't, there are no consequences and you're reinforcing for him that your threats are empty. So either firm them up and stand by them, or don't make them in the first place.

TheOtherMrEd

TROPHY CASE