A few nights ago, after (perhaps possibly a few too many) cocktails, I got into an argument with a friend.
Well, OK, not an argument argument. It was one of those conversations that begins on a light and silly note and then gradually darkens into an actual disagreement in which both parties are a little surprised at how much they care about winning.
And it was, of course, about politics. I mean, you knew that, right? What else do we talk about these days? We’re entering the period in the American political cycle when everything — and I mean everything: Gaza, baseball, cake vs. pie, summer weather, the ideal inseam length for men’s shorts, artificial intelligence, the definition of a sandwich, Pope Francis, you name it — becomes the spark that lights the short fuse of the How can you vote for that clown? fireworks that are always close by, ready to ignite and blow off a few fingers.
It started this way: My friend suggested that the character of Phoebe from the TV series Friends would probably be voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in November. In his analysis, she was kind of nutty and probably a little mentally unstable — and let’s be honest here, that’s sort of Kennedy’s base, right? — and she would have meandered through the thickets of QAnon conspiracies, could have appeared on the Capitol steps on Jan. 6, and would finally land up squarely in the Kennedy camp.
So far, so good. I added to this scenario, suggesting that while milling through the angry and energized crowd on Jan. 6, she might have made the acquaintance of Cliff Clavin, the mailman from Cheers, a show I wrote for and produced for part of its run, and the two of them may have even felt a romantic spark.
It went on from there. Alex P. Keaton, the brash conservative son from Family Ties played by Michael J. Fox, would probably be one of those deeply uncomfortable Republicans right now. He’d be like one of those smart young Republican former congressmen, like former Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, who quit politics because it’s gotten too weird and nasty and chaotic.
Each one of the characters on The Golden Girls would almost certainly have been part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) spectacular gubernatorial landslide in 2022, but it’s safe to say that in November, it’ll be Rose and Blanche wearing the MAGA hats and Dorothy firmly for President Joe Biden. Sophia, the canny and sharp-witted eldest Golden Girl, will tell everyone she’s voting for Biden just to keep peace with her daughter but will mark the spot for former President Donald Trump in the privacy of the voting booth — that is, if she doesn’t choose to vote by mail.
Again, we’re laughing and having fun and enjoying the conversation.
Rajesh “Raj” Ramayan Koothrappali, the socially awkward South Asian graduate student in the long-running smash hit The Big Bang Theory, would be a Trumper. Also: You’d expect Niles from Frasier to be a Biden voter, but after a few years living in the disarray and lawlessness of the Pacific Northwest, who knows? Some of the Cosby children may have tired of identity politics by now and gone full radical, reading books by the great Thomas Sowell perhaps and listening to Glenn Loury’s excellent podcast, so maybe that would be a spirited family dinner table.
Where we disagreed — and we were both a little surprised by how passionately we suddenly felt — was when it came to Don Draper, the complicated and secret-filled main character of the drama Mad Men. My theory is that by now, he’d be living in Florida, in The Villages, with a boat festooned with Trump flags. My friend insisted that after spending time at an ashram in 1970s California (where we left him in the final episode of that terrific series), he’d stay true to those principles and be one of those groovy and progressive old men — a classic Bernie Bro. I told him that was stupid. Don Draper was in advertising, I said. He didn’t have any principles.
“I’m in advertising, Rob,” my friend replied. “Are you saying I don’t have any principles?”
And that’s when the conversation got a little ugly. And it didn’t cool off until we both agreed that by now, one of the children in Everybody Loves Raymond would probably be trans.
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Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.
