Aloha and Namaste everyone and welcome to Impolitic with John Hylman, A. Puck and Odyssey Joint

featuring fresh and topical and candid conversations with the people who roam the quarters of power

and influence in America from Washington to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and beyond,

shaping the warp and wharf of Hollywood, and beyond, shaping the

warp and wharf of our politics and culture, even as Donald Trump ramped up his all-gas,

no-break's appointment spree this week, announcing his selections to fill some of the most

powerful and sensitive posts in his incoming administration, Pete Hegesith as Secretary of Defense,

Tulsi Gabbard, as Director of National

Intelligence. Matt Gates, as Attorney General. And let us not forget, RFK Jr. as Secretary of,

can you believe it? Health and Human Services. It's a coterie of lieutenants, loyalists, and lackeys

described by some as firebrands,

by others as frightening, and by still others as simply farcical.

As all of that was going on, the Democratic Party continued to do what it always does

after having its clock cleaned at the polls. No, not dive headfirst into an oversized white oak

barrel of mictor's rye. That's my jam.

What Democrats do, pretty much without fail, is form a circular firing squad,

replacing Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression,

and acceptance with finger-pointing, second-guessing, blame casting, backstabbing,

and shit-talking. But among a cadre of younger blue team up-and-comers, a more sober,

constructive, and productive process is kicking into gear, in which the question of what went

wrong for the party in 2024 is being chewed over less for the purpose of apportioning blame

than laying the foundation

...