5/ Postscript: The reason Joyce's 'Ulysses' is brilliant is because it flips the script on 'The Odyssey.' If Homer's story is about a hero who is actually something of a dumbass, Joyce's is about a dumbass who is something of a hero.
4/ 'The Odyssey' is an immortal story for the same reason Macbeth is immortal for the same reason 100 Years of Solitude is immortal: They are stories that accurately convey that humans are dumbasses who get cocky about their own gifts and wind up getting royally hosed for it.
3/ 'I, Odysseus, the cleverest of the Greek generals, am going to piss off Poseidon while TRYING TO SAIL HOME.'
That's not a story glorifying an alpha chad, peeps.
2/ Musk and his fellow cultural ignorami see 'The Odyssey' as a male power fantasy and they think Nolan's interpretation is 'woke' because it actually conveys well the themes in the text about reckless dumbasses who constantly pissed off the gods and got fucked up for it.
Because being correct on the substance doesn't always win you votes. Especially if it involves someone else's family. This is a discussion for podcasters to have, not Senate candidates.
Counterpoint: Trump is a unique force in US politics to which normal rules don't apply. Call it the 'when you're a star they let you do it' effect. This stuff WILL hurt someone who isn't already a well known TV/movie celebrity.
Mamdani after winning the primary went out of his way to try to reassure voters who were skeptical of him. If AES wins the primary and tries the Chapo 'bend the knee' approach to electoral politics, he will lose.
Yes it's a bad, bad topic for him to broach and he needs to learn to STFU or he'll cost the party a seat. But I'm sorry: He's right. Vance's 'legacy American' hierarchy is fucking toxic.
Like, look: AES's success as a candidate won't just have implications for 2026 but 2028 as well. If he costs the party a seat, the Dem establishment will, with real justification, blame insurgent progressives for costing the party the Senate.
