Rajiv Satyal
2 min readMay 28, 2023

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*KB is quoting. And never mind the extraneous “but,” similar to Biggie Smalls’ “But you don’t hear me though.” To paraphrase Sir Mix-a-Lot, “I like big ‘buts’ and I cannot lie.”

Also, some random observations:

- Sometimes, to see how much conviction I have in my viewpoint, I’ll ask myself if the opposite is a little true. If I’m looking at a beautiful person, I’ll stop and go, “Is this person actually really ugly?” So, despite the fact that the writing and acting on Succession are widely regarded as amazing, when Roman asked, “Is he in there?” I admit I did cringe a little. I know he crumpled back into his days of being a child, but that felt off… until he then followed up with, “Can we get him out?” Damn. That hit me. Even when the show hits a false note, it follows up with an even truer one.

- Caroline sits Logan’s four women in the front row like Donald Trump did to Bill Clinton.

- Apparently, Mencken’s supporters firebomb a voting facility in Milwaukee, throwing Wisconsin to Mencken. You might or might not believe me, but I think I have text messages that illustrate that, in the runup to the 2020 election, I lived in fear thinking that there’d be a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Detroit, which would dampen turnout in those liberal cities, thereby giving those three swing states to Donald Trump. Btw, I’m envious of the way the public protests in the penultimate Succession episode. Not that I want to see death, but I often feel like the Joker: “What does it take to make you people wanna join in?” At least these fictional people are DOING something. The Women’s March of 2017 wasn’t nothing, but I’d say the intensity on the Left was at least matched by the intensity on the Right in the form of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.

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