On this episode of Popcorn Politics, Ben Rosenblatt and I previewed the New York primaries on June 23rd. We discussed races like NY 9, where incumbent Yvette Clark is facing a rematch with challenger Adam Bunkeddeko. Clark won by 6 points in that race in 2018, this one is expected to be closer. The majority of our time was spent discussing Elliot Engel versus Jamaal Bowman. This race went from one that I thought would be interesting to the marquee race of the 2020 cycle for progressives.
Over the past 2 weeks, AOC, Bernie Sanders, the NY Times, Elizabeth Warren, and others have endorsed Bowman; and Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo, and Chuck Schumer have rallied behind Engel. This comes after Engel was caught on a hot mic telling Borough President Reuben Diaz Jr. “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care” in his first appearance in the district in 4 months.
In the second hour, Eric Cunningham joined me to discuss Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. We spent a great deal of time putting certain things that happened in the film into a canonical context.
Rogue One is a film that bridges the gap between Star Wars Rebels, and A New Hope. It’s a tone anomaly in the Star Wars franchise that explores the morally ambiguous side of the rebellion through the character of Cassian Andor, and the politics of the Empire through the lens of Orson Krennic. It’s also a rare film in that its 3rd act is it’s the strongest part, not its weakest. The 3rd act takes all the characters that have been established to that point and gives them thematically resonant endings that felt earned.
You can listen to the all of this in the latest episode of Popcorn Politics at this link.