The Daly Weekly (7/24)

The Odyssey backlash, anti-Israel sentiment among young Americans, the Iran War, and more.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Now, let’s get to your questions…

(Feel free to wait to answer this one if you haven’t watched it yet but plan to):

So now that The Odyssey movie is out, what do you think of the weird tantrums some Right Wingers had over it? To me, much of it is based on the assumption that there’s ONE canon version of the story that Nolan’s version must be judged against. But even before we get to the “Woke casting” or whatever; the movie actually isn’t just based on the Odyssey. The character played by Ellen Page, Sinon, doesn’t appear in the Odyssey at all, but does appear in the Aeineid and later works.

Now, the “Odysseus tricked Sinon into tricking the Trojans to let the Horse in” Nolan version differs from the Aeineid. But that version of the Troy story is already very different from the Odyssey or Iliad. And Odysseus as a character has already been re-imagined many times. Homer may have portrayed him positively, but Sophocles made him more of a problematic anti - hero, and Euripides basically made him into a Greek version of Tywin Lannister, a scheming villain who is responsible for pretty much all the atrocities committed by the Greeks.

So I don’t find it at all problematic or outrage worthy for Nolan to re - imagine the Odysseus story yet again. —Aylene W.

Hi Aylene. I haven’t seen the movie yet, and though I think Nolan is a great director (I’ve been fan since Memento), I’m not really in a hurry to see it; I’ll get to it eventually.

The backlash from the Right, prior to the movie being released, brought back memories of 2020’s The Hunt. Some may remember that lots of folks (including cable-news commentators) on the MAGA-right trashed the The Hunt (based on its trailer) for glamorizing violence against "deplorables." Trump himself even called the movie “racist,” for whatever reason. Then… it was released, and people actually watched it and discovered that the "deplorables" were the protagonists, and liberal elites were the villains. It was a ridiculous controversy.

This time with The Odyssey, however, I don’t think most of the backlash to it was sincere. I think it was largely fueled by play-acting right-wing “influencers” who figured they could get lots of attention/clicks by pointing to the “woke” casting of a transgender actor/actress, and making a culture-war battle out of it. I don’t think the story of The Odyssey or Odysseus was even much of a consideration to them. Matt Walsh, for example, who’s been very outspoken on this issue, has apparently never even read the book.

Personally, I find this stuff exhausting. As an online acquaintance remarked the other day, “A right-winger calling something ‘woke’ is starting to mean about as much as a left-winger calling something ‘racist.’” Our country has serious issues. Stuff like this isn’t among them.

A recent Harvard-Harris Poll showed that 60% of Americans between 18 and 24 years old support Hamas over Israel. Do you believe those numbers, and what/who do you blame? — Alex D.

I am indeed inclined to believe those numbers, Alex, and I blame social media for a lot of it. There’s just so much propaganda (much of it foreign) and other disinformation out there. It’s pushed (with the help of dopey, supposedly cool “influencers” like Hasan Piker) to an age group that’s not exactly well-versed in critical thinking. That’s not to say that older folks aren’t susceptible to the same type of online indoctrination (they are), but anti-Israel sentiment is primarily aimed at younger Americans.

Sir John: why won’t Trump just obliterate the Mullahs in Iran and the IRGC? It’s obvious they don’t want to make a deal with him. It’s obvious that what he’s been doing up to this point isn’t working. He told the Iranian citizens that “Help is on the way..” A victory over the Mullahs and thus freeing the Iranian people would be a victory for Trump and the Republicans going into the midterms. So the question is: why won’t Trump and Hegseth just do it? it your thoughts? —“No More Mullahs & IRGC” regards from The Emperor

If you’re asking me why Trump doesn’t kill all of Iran’s current regime, and let the citizens pick up the pieces from there, I would argue that’s a huge oversimplification of the matter. It’s worth remembering that Iran is roughly the size of Alaska, and over 93 million people live there. What you’re suggesting is much easier said than done.

But to try and get to the basics of your question, Emperor, Trump clearly doesn’t want to commit to complete regime change in Iran. By his own admission, he (foolishly) believed this operation would be similar what we did in Venezuela — in how our military took out their top leadership in very short order, and then the administration worked with the remaining regime toward a more positive future. Aside from Venezuela’s future still being very much an uncertainty (despite Trump rhetorically treating it like an enduring victory), the “partial regime change” model was never going to work with Iran, in part due to the religious ideology factor. Full regime change could work, but it would require a lot of time, patience, alliance-rebuilding, and military assets (including ground troops) that Trump doesn’t want to employ. He just wants this conflict over, and the Strait of Hormuz back open, which is why he made so many ridiculous concessions in the (now defunct) MOU.

Will he change his mind, and commit to full regime change at some point? It’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely. I suspect this will end with some form of us cutting, running, and declaring victory.

Hey, how come you didn’t give us any Grand Lake pics? I liked your Yellowstone ones. — Ben G.

Here you go, Ben! The first three were from our trip earlier this week. The last two were from previous trips. Like I said, it’s beautiful. I wrote a personal substack about Grand Lake a couple years ago, if anyone’s interested.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.