Volume 5, Issue 30: Hot Sun

"Shouldn't I be doing something? What can I do? What can I do?"

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There is a scene, a great one among so so many, in the film Boyhood that I have been thinking about all week, this wild, exhilarating, foundation-rattling six days in American history, six days when a deadening sense of resignation that the world wasn’t ever going to snap back to normal was replaced by a legitimate rush of hope and enthusiasm, even euphoria. The scene takes place in 2008, when Mason and Samantha, the kids played by Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater that the film follows over 12 years of their lives, are out putting up lawn signs for Barack Obama, largely because their unreliable but good-hearted father (Ethan Hawke) is a supporter. The kids like Obama, but, really, they’re just trying to make their dad happy. After running into a man who scowls “do I look like a supporter of Barack Hussein Obama? This is private property, get off. I could shoot you,” (Mason just shrugs), the kids talk to a woman on her front step. She is thrilled by what they are doing. Very thrilled.

“I love it,” she says. She’s a white woman and a mom, who alternates between frenzied mania and utterly vacant exhaustion in a way that feels even more familiar a decade later. “Obama supporters out on the trail, this is great! … We’ve just got to pull together to get this win, right? I just love him so much. I have these dreams where I’m just kissing him, I just love him so much. He’s so cute, isn’t he? You know, I made these T-shirts for my kids, ‘my momma’s for Obama.’ Do you like it? It’s good, right?” Lorelei smiles, a little taken aback by her intensity but also charmed by the sentiment. It’s good to care about things. It’s good to believe. Even too much.

Watching that scene in 2014, when the film came out, 10 years ago this month, I chuckled not just at the woman but as a remembrance of that feeling that I also had back in 2008, that, through change, through hope, through a collective selection of a new direction, through a rejection of close-mindedness and divisiveness—the true belief that, having exhausted all other options, we can all come together and make the right decision and make the world a better place. And I did chuckle a little. After all, I didn’t have that feeling, not nearly as strongly, in 2014 as I’d had it in 2008. By 2014, Obama was no longer an empty vessel in which we could pour all our grandest optimism; he was just a President, one who was doing a good job, I thought, but also one with faults and limitations like the rest of us. More to the point, in 2008, we truly believed that the simple act of electing him would fix so much that ailed us; by 2014, we knew better. The mom in the film stood in for all of us in 2008: Harried, scared, worn down by the events of the last decade but still truly believing that there was a way to make it through—that there was the path, and Obama might be the one who led it. We watched her in 2014 a little more jaded, a little amused by her (and our) naivete … but still not embarrassed of it. You’ve got to believe. We want to believe. Maybe things won’t be perfect. But they can be better than this.

That’s what the last week has felt like. It has felt like a hopeless situation has been given a real opportunity for redemption. It is remarkable, really, how quickly the shift happened, how defeated, deflated despair was replaced by palpable fervor, 10,000 volts of electricity jolted through everybody’s system. A person, frankly, I don’t think that many people have thought about over the last three years has become, while we weren’t looking, an electric campaigner, a skilled politician and, out of nowhere, that same sort of vessel for our hopes and dreams, and our desire to avoid a terrifying future, that Obama was. We thought Obama’s rise was fast? Kamala Harris has done this in a week.

And I’m on board with it. That’s the strangest thing about it: It does feel real. Intellectually, you want to call it a sugar rush, the blast of endorphins flooding the brain when you realize you might just survive a situation that looked fatal. There is an aspect of wish fulfillment: One of the reasons the last six days have been so heady is because in some ways, Harris vs. Trump is as close a facsimile as you could get to the Obama vs. Trump race we’ve all imagined over the last nine years. (The presumption has always been that Obama would wipe the floor with him.) But this has the added engine of Harris being a woman, and having spoken powerfully, eloquently and with the requisite and wholly justified righteous fury that comes with that in the age of Dobbs. It’s no wonder so many have poured so much into her candidacy, so quickly. We have infused her with power that might not have necessarily been there before, and it should always be front of mind that these sort of heedless sprint come with inherent risks.

But In retrospect, of course it was going to be her. And you don’t have to squint to see how she would pull this off. You look at the choice that the American people are now going to have—how her strengths line up so perfectly with Trump’s weaknesses, how a dead sprint race like this minimizes her own shortcomings, how skilled of a speaker she has become, how uniquely positioned she is to prosecute the case, how obviously scared their campaign suddenly is, how JD Vance looks more Palin-y by the second, and honestly that’s not fair to Palin at least she had some basic charisma and stage presence—and it feels less like a fad and more like a massive shift. It feels like something is happening. Suddenly, you can see not a terrifying, regressive future, but one resembling what we were imagining with Obama so many years ago.

There are down moments coming—surely soon. Politics is an ugly sport, and there are some particularly ugly practitioners of it right now. Kamala Harris will be dinged; she will surely make a mistake, she will do something that is disappointing to the millions of us who have just suddenly started paying close attention to her. There will likely be a moment when we look back at this rush of enthusiasm and feel a little chagrined. How could we be so silly? But then we’ll remember why. And we’ll be glad we did. Because it’s not about what’s perfect. It’s just about what’s better.

That’s why it feels so great in this moment—knowing that harder times are coming makes you appreciate these rushes of optimism rather than belittle them. After all that has happened—so much in the wake of Boyhood’s release 10 years ago, even; do you remember a time when the President could give an interview to People magazine merely to praise a Richard Linklater movie and the writing of Phil Klay? My god, we had no idea how good we had it—that there is still room to have that thrill of discovery, that reinvigoration of the spirit, is a triumph of its own. It is thrilling to know that we’ve still got it in us. I don’t know how this is going to turn out. It could still end up quite badly: It’s going to be a harrowing three months. But learning that people still have that fire in their belly—that, after so many years of hair on fire, they can still stand up and push back, that they haven’t given up yet—has been undeniably stirring. People do not want to go backward. They will fight not to. I had worried people had given up. I had worried part of me had given up. But people haven’t. It’s Ok to have some irrational exuberance. It’s OK to let yourself get carried away. Doesn’t it feel good to be so engaged again? To believe? It’s OK to believe it all, with every bit of your heart and soul. In fact, it might just be necessary.

So: Let’s effing go.

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In lieu of turning this newsletter into a political ad this week—and remind me not to promise not to write about politics in the middle of an election year again, please—allow me to close by spending a couple of paragraphs praising the great, great Boyhood. I believe Boyhood is one of the foundational movies of our time, a film that, as I wrote in my initial review for Deadspin when it came out, “comes as close as capturing actual human existence as any film I've ever seen.” I cannot believe it has been 10 years since it came out. Considering how much has happened since then, it feels like a different century all together.

Of the many things Boyhood does so magnificently, I think what it does best is capture how life just keeps on going on, no matter how much the world might throw at us, no matter how lost we may sometimes seem: How we change, how we don’t change, how big moments come in our life and don’t alter us so much as spin us off in a new direction all together, how much more resilient we are than we might think. It’s a movie that both breaks my heart and fills it every time I see it. I had a two-year-old son and a newborn when it came out; I now have a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old. That has only made the movie more powerful. The movie feels like my life, your life, all of our lives. If you haven’t watched it in a while, I can’t recommend enough that you do so. I think it might be the perfect film.

And my god, when these kids go off to college in a few years, this scene is going to run on a loop in my brain.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. These Are the First Optimistic Olympics in a Long Time, New York. We’ll see how long that lasts.

2. The Jays Should Trade Vladimir Guerrero Jr., MLB.com. It’s surprising they haven’t already.

3. This Week’s Five Fascinations, MLB.com. Special trade deadline edition.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, we discussed “Twisters,” “Longlegs” and “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Seeing Red, Bernie and I enjoyed the Cardinals beating the Braves.

Morning Lineup, I did Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s shows.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“Mike Tyson Takes One Last Swing at Immortality,” Timothy Bella, Esquire. This is a great old-school profile of Mike Tyson as he prepares for his first fight in 20 years, at the age of 59.

Also, I enjoyed Noah Smith on the value of work.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers! (I’m sorry I’m so behind on these. But I am starting to catch up!)

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“1901,” Phoenix. So here’s some late aughts music for you. Got this from the “songs from Boyhood” playlist this morning, which is gonna be on a loop for a while.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Also, now there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

The children in this house go back to school this week. It’s true: They start on August 1 down here. We are … ready. That’s the best word. We’re ready for them to get back to school. And be out of the house. But mostly school. Sure!

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will