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Was James Carville right? In 2025, he argued that the best Democratic strategy was to just "play possum" and let the Republicans self-destruct. This week, Jim and JB take stock of the GOP’s unforced electoral errors, the 'property portfolio' future of Hollywood giants, and a New York Magazine profile that has Jim’s head spinning.

Headquakes for episode 5:

NYMag WaPo coverage (with pay walls)

Hollywood Reporter on the acquisition: David Zaslav Gets the Last Laugh

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
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Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

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Mad Men is Back!

Twenty years after studio executives rejected it, Mad Men is finally on HBO. Much to its chagrin, the cable network passed on the groundbreaking series, which debuted on the second-tier network AMC on 2007 and went on to win 16 Emmys, including 4 for Outstanding Drama.

Now a whole new generation is finding it along with its original audience, who are taking another look. Advertising never looked so sexy, clever, or cut-throat. But does the series have anything to say about toxic masculinity in the 1960s, about the culture clash between the Rat Pack and the Woodstock generation? Were privileged white New Yorkers really that oblivious to the civil rights, gay rights and “women’s lib” movements? Did people really smoke that much?

Join us for a three-martini lunch as Jim and JB discuss the return of a modern classic!

This week's Headquakes and vital links:

Is Mad Men just for white folk? An essay in the NYT by Maya Phillips sheds much-needed light.

Read Food & Wine’s excellent coverage of the SCOTUS tariff decision, reported by Ray Isle.

Explore anticipatory-crisis strategy with Michele Wucker.

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

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March 1, 2026

Good riddance to the Washington Post?

The Washington Post has been a DC institution for 149 years, but is it time to say goodbye? Since Jeff Bezos took over, WaPo has suspended presidential endorsements, intruded on its opinion pages, and jettisoned sports, metro, daily podcast, book coverage, and 350 reporters.

Whoops! Correction:

Jim mistakenly confused Citrini Research (the firm behind the viral 7,000-word "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" report) and Robert Citron (the treasurer who bankrupted Orange County in 1994). Both rocked Wall Street, but in different decades. It’s a case of confusing oranges with oranges. Here's the doomy, gloomy report: https://www.google.com/search?q=citriniresearch.substack.com

FInally, an intro to Percival Everett from WaPo’s now defunct book world

Everett was born in Georgia in 1956 and raised in Columbia, S.C. His background is as multifaceted as his writing, though the relationship between his biography and his fiction is slant at best. He’s a former philosophy graduate student, a fly fisher, a woodworker and a painter. He can play and repair guitars, he can castrate bulls, and he spent 12 years training horses in Moreno Valley, Calif. In fact, he connects his experience with horses to his ability to write under any circumstances: “You can’t make a 1,200-pound animal calm by being excited.”

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

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In the 1960s, there was a clear counterculture to the political upheavals of the time, led largely by music, but also by key novels such as “Catch-22” and “Slaughterhouse-5,” despite being written by representatives from an older generation who had fought in, and were writing about, World War Two. There was a clearer generational divide, stemming largely from the fact that the older generation was ordering the younger one to fight and die in a war few believed in or even understood. But where is the counterculture now? Are there just too many fires to put out at once? What art is addressing our dire moment? Where is our Woodstock, our Gimme Shelter? Are the Boomers the last generation to really commit to protest? We’re seeing younger generations everywhere else in the world protesting, but not in the US.

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: Coming soon!

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

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What is a “national treasure”?

In the UK there’s wide consensus about who are the nation’s living “treasures” — people like David Attenborough, Judi Dench, Paul McCartney and Elton John. One benchmark is to be a senior citizen with a large body of work behind you. But another is to be largely above politics. In the US where everything has become politicized under Trump, can there be any “national treasures?”

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: Coming soon!

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.