TLP Weekend Edition (June 22-23, 2024)

What we're reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

If you’re looking for some fantastic music, check out Future Islands at The Anthem in D.C. this Sunday. A phenomenal live show. (Author photo)

📖 “Do Liberals Have It All Wrong About How to Beat Trump?” by David Freedlander. New York magazine takes an in-depth look at the smart strategic advice TLP’s friends and polling collaborators, Blueprint, are offering Biden and Democrats this cycle. Among their findings: “The EV tax credit and college-debt relief are both losers, according to Blueprint’s data, because they are both coded as preoccupations of the elite; instead, what Biden should be focusing on is his efforts to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals, take on big corporations, tax the rich, and lower prices in the face of rising inflation. Roth Smith believes Democrats talk too much about Trump’s odious character, his legal liabilities, and the threat he poses to democracy instead of his economic record that includes a massive tax cut for the rich, which Blueprint found to be staggeringly unpopular.”

📖 “Knowing About Politics Is Making People Feel Terrible,” by Shadi Hamid. Many Americans today are encountering the news, especially political news, more frequently in their daily lives than ever before. In a sobering piece, Shadi Hamid outlines how this reality has led to adverse mental health outcomes for millions of Americans—and specifically for young liberals. He questions whether the norms we have adopted around news consumption and "awareness" are good and worth the trade-offs that are becoming clearer by the day.

📖 “How Britain’s Labour Party Became Electable Again,” by Mark Landler. Reporting from London, the NYT’s Mark Landler examines how the Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Starmer has transformed from an electoral disaster saddled with leftist baggage into a party on the cusp of a potential electoral landslide on July 4th. “It’s the culmination of an extraordinary four-year project, in which Mr. Starmer, 61, purged his left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, and his loyalists; went after the anti-Semitism that had contaminated the party’s ranks; and pulled its economic and national security policies closer to the center.” Biden and Democrats—and center-left parties around the world—should take note of what a smart centrist and patriotic party can achieve.

📺 Monster, television series on Netflix. If you want a good escape from the heat wave taking over much of the country this week, try out this excellent adaptation of the award-winning manga by Naoki Urasawa. First released twenty years ago, the anime is equal parts mystery and philosophical inquiry about the nature of good and evil—and how people try to negotiate the grey zones in between and handle their own psyches. The intriguing puzzle unfolds over 74 short episodes.

🎸 Future Islands @ The Anthem, in Washington, D.C. TLP will be enjoying Baltimore’s finest synth lords at this huge (and hopefully well air-conditioned) D.C. venue this Sunday evening. FI shows are always a blast—Sam Herring is a force of nature on the vocals and William Cashion’s bass lines attach directly to your brain. Hoping to hear new songs like “Peach” and old bangers like “Ran.”