On the menu today: A few things you should be aware of if you purchase the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar or plan to vote in this year’s Wisconsin gubernatorial election; Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed wins by not nearly as much as polls suggested; Michigan’s Democratic state attorney general won’t attend her own party’s nominating convention because it isn’t safe for her; it’s a brand new day for superhero movies, and Joe Kent says that he, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie want Tucker Carlson to run for president in 2028. Read on.

The Wisconsin Gubernatorial Hopeful’s Unique Calendar

Dear Customer,

Thank you for purchasing the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar! Please note that in honor of its subject, the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar does not include several holidays that appear on our company’s other calendars.

FEBRUARY

Valentine’s Day is not marked on the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar, because Hong said, “I miss working in a restaurant every day . . . except on VDay. As if we weren’t invisible enough to those who don’t recognize the emotional & physical labor of service work, the worst of humanity comes out from folks ‘celebrating’ on another day capitalism tells you how to show love.”

Since romantic dining on Valentine’s Day brings out — much more so than, say, war or the Holocaust — “the worst of humanity,” this holiday is not marked on your calendar.

JULY

Independence Day is not marked on the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar, because Hong noted, “I do not enjoy fireworks.”

OCTOBER

Halloween is not marked on the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar, because Hong said, “I don’t allow myself to work Halloween weekend or the day of. I would actually ask every single person in costume to leave.”

NOVEMBER

Thanksgiving is not marked on the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar, because Hong urged in a since-deleted tweet, “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621.”

Please note that the gubernatorial candidate, when asked directly on CNN this week, did not say that she now wishes to keep Thanksgiving on the calendar:

KAITLAN COLLINS: You talked about your past positions that he keeps highlighting, and obviously, likely would continue to do so before November, should you win. One thing that they brought up as well was a post from you in 2021, where you said Americans should cancel Thanksgiving, should have done this in 1621. The post has been deleted. Republicans have been highlighting it. Do you still believe that Thanksgiving should be canceled?
HONG: I’m a chef, and one of the first meals that I made, that was for the community when I was 16, was a Thanksgiving meal. You know, I always think my hospitality background and owning a restaurant for seven, eight years that bringing folks around the table, to share conversation and build community, is always a good thing.
But Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so, I think there I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views. But views can evolve, and the position that I’m running for right now, and I think my background as a chef, will actually help me become a better governor that’s able to bring more people to the table.

(Also note that Representative Tom Tiffany, running to be Hong’s Republican opponent, observed that the desire to cancel Thanksgiving makes Hong “sound like a Dallas Cowboys fan.”)

DECEMBER

Christmas is not marked on the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar, because Hong said, “IT bro who was working on ‘our’ computer remotely changed the background theme to snow and Christmas trees. I feel slightly attacked . . .”

Kwanzaa, however, is still marked on the calendar, because Hong said, “The principles of collective responsibility, economic care, and unity are a model of community we should all strive to emulate.”

Please note that, in lieu of the traditional American holidays of Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar marks May Day.

Meanwhile, Out in Michigan . . .

Abdul El-Sayed is now the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan. But what was supposed to be a romp over his Democratic rival, Representative Haley Stevens, turned out to be a nail-biter; as of this writing on Wednesday morning, El-Sayed had 48.8 percent of the vote, and Stevens had 47.5 percent of the vote, with El-Sayed winning by a margin of 14,893 votes. Mallory McMorrow, the Democrat who dropped out of the race a month ago, had more than 61,000 votes.

People are asking more than fair questions about why the last eight polls had El-Sayed ahead by double digits.

El-Sayed was so confident that he spent part of Monday at a content creators’ pool party in Detroit with Hasan Piker. (Background on El-Sayed here, background on Piker here.) Over in Politico, Democratic campaign strategists called El-Sayed “unbelievably cocky.” I can think of some other adjectives that are equally applicable and even less flattering.

How are things going in the Michigan Democratic Party? Not great:

At a roundtable discussion with Jewish leaders and community members from around the state, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she will not attend the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention in August because she does not feel safe to be there.
“I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” she said at the Thursday event. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She criticized party leadership for not responding to concerns she said she has raised about members who have harassed her in the past, and compared the rise of antisemitism on the political left and in the Democratic Party to the proliferation of neo-Nazi organizations in far-right fringe politics.
“I will speak as a member of the Democratic Party here in Michigan, that some things have changed,” Nessel said. “This cannot continue, and the fact of the matter is, we have to be able to be a society where we can have intelligent discourse and debate about ideas without people being threatened, and certainly without people carrying out those threats.”

Wait, aren’t you the top law enforcement official in the state of Michigan? Don’t you travel with a personal security detail? Isn’t your job protecting the safety and civil rights of all Michiganders?

Are you telling me that the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention in August is now a “no-go” zone for Jewish elected officials?

If you won’t stand up for your own civil rights, including the right to attend a public event, why should anyone in Michigan trust you to stand up for anyone else’s?

Michigan voters, you have a choice this November when selecting your state attorney general. You can vote for Republican Doug Lloyd, a career prosecutor with decades of experience. Or you can vote for the incumbent who is afraid to attend her own state party’s nominating convention because it isn’t safe.

In June, Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers said of El-Sayed, “If he wins [the primary], I think we’re in good shape. I mean, I think he’s so radical. I think he’s going to lose big parts of the west part of the state. We think we can do well in part of the southeast part of the state. I think we’ll do well if he in fact is the nominee.”

Indeed, the limited amount of head-to-head polling shows Rogers with a small lead against El-Sayed or close to a tie; one survey in late July showed Rogers ten points ahead.

If you wanted this guy as your opponent, you had better go and beat him. Pardon me if that sounds harsh. It’s just that I’ve grown instinctively skeptical about guys named Ro(d)gers.

A Brand New Day for Superhero Movies

Lots of conservatives like to cite Andrew Breitbart’s remark that “politics is downstream of culture” — until it comes to discussing actual pop culture, and then they dismiss all of it, or almost all of it, as degenerate filth not worthy of anyone’s attention. I’m not saying you must love this or that movie, or watch this or that show, but you can’t have much influence on a discussion of culture if you refuse to take part in it.

A bit more than a week ago, this newsletter noted that the often-discussed phenomenon of “superhero movie fatigue” was starting to look awfully selective. Sure, Supergirl had flopped hard, but the anticipation for the then-upcoming Spider-Man and Avengers movies was high.

As of this morning, after being in theaters for about a week, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has made more than a billion dollars worldwide in ticket sales. And as that earlier newsletter noted, that’s not counting revenue from product placement, promotional tie-ins, or all the Spider-Man toys and other merchandise that’s getting sold.

Your mileage may vary, but I liked Brand New Day a lot. The theme that we can’t disappear into our work, that we need human connection with friends and family, to leave our homes now and then and take a break from looking at screens, seems particularly resonant for our post-Covid era of smartphones and screen time.

(Also, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Punisher character, but his bickering buddy-cop dynamic with Spidey was the best, funniest, and probably lightest version of the character we’ve seen on screen.)

Peter Safran, co-CEO of DC Studios alongside James Gunn, was correct when he said, “I never felt that there was superhero fatigue. I felt it was mediocre movie fatigue.” Make a superhero movie with beloved characters, charming performances, lots of action, and a lot of heart, and the audiences will return to the theaters in droves.

ADDENDUM: Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center under Tulsi Gabbard, recently appeared on The Young Turks podcast with Hasan Piker’s uncle, Cenk Uygur. Kent discussed his recent meeting with Tucker Carlson, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Representative Thomas Massie, and others, about the possibility of forming a new political party.

Uygur: Was there any conversation about who would lead the party?
Kent: Not quite yet. I mean, we’re, you know, going back and forth and I, they say all of us at one point in time told Tucker he needs to run and Tucker’s been pretty public that he’s not going to run. So, we all made our pitch to Tucker as to why he should run. Um, and hopefully he wakes up one day and Tucker says he’s going to run. I would fully support that. Um, but right now it was mostly just on how we need to work to build a broader coalition and then look at is it feasible to actually do a third political party? Could we get on the ballot in all 50 states?

This would be the first U.S. political party comprising about a hundred podcasts and no policy papers or door knockers.