PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/37719007 First, we discuss the protests in the United States, their bipartisan causes, and the ways that Blue Checkmark discourse seeks to delegitimize them. Then we discuss a quintessential Michael & Us movie, bringing together many of the themes and motifs that have defined this podcast: CAN MR. SMITH GET TO WASHINGTON ANYMORE? (2006), about the "insurgent" congressional candidacy of future-convicted-felon Jeff Smith against a machine-backed dynastic candidate in Missouri. Few films have better illustrated the limits of the American political imagination circa 2004 than this. PLUS: personal tales of the purest, most intense kind of politics there is : local politics.