So we’re left to guess.

This month’s video digs into that missing moment: the scene that might hold the key, the thematic weight wrapped around it, and why Casablanca chooses to leave the most important beat of its story offscreen.

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I played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) for the first time when I was in sixth grade – almost thirty years ago. Since then, I’ve spent countless hours playing, Dungeon Mastering, or just reading (and re-reading) the handbooks, designing characters, and building stories.

Quick explainer for the uninitiated: D&D is a collaborative storytelling game. Each player at the table designs a character – a wizard, a priest, a warrior, whatever – and the group shares in an adventure together. One person, the Dungeon Master (DM), facilitates the players’ narrative(s). The DM describes the setting, controls the villains and allies, and narrates what happens when the players attempt a course of action. Success or failure often comes down to chance – just like real life.

Over the years, I’ve realized D&D isn’t just about slaying monsters or solving puzzles – it’s about practicing who we want to become.

That practice has shaped almost every part of my life. It’s helped me grow into the person I want to be – as a friend, as a student, and as a professional. When I’ve succeeded, it’s often because I’ve drawn on lessons I first learned at the gaming table.

At its best, a D&D game provides something most of us rarely find elsewhere: permission to experiment with identity. To try on boldness. To test vulnerability. To fail, recover, and grow safely, alongside others doing the same.

That kind of space isn’t just valuable. It’s essential.

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At the beginning of 2024, I took a course called Leadership Studio at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. I loved it. It has become one of my favorite courses ever – outshining even the Billy Wilder course I took over 15 years ago. Leadership Studio gave me a language and structure that resonated with how I experience reality.

In Mario Kart terms, it helped me get from 100cc to 150cc.

Leadership Studio challenges conventional wisdom around authenticity – the idea that we all have one “true self” we must remain faithful to at all times. Instead, it offers an expansive model: multiple selves within the whole person, each legitimate and meaningful.

I think most of us recognize the feeling when our internal self clashes with our visible self. Maybe there’s a project we don’t agree with, a performance review we dread delivering, or a termination we must carry out. Still, we become The Good Soldier, put on a stoic exterior, and get it done. Because we feel we must.

We might create distance from that outward version of our “selves” – “I’m a good person, even though I’m firing this person who needs this job.” But to the outside world, the person doing the firing is the real you. Visible and internal – both versions of the self are real.

Inside, we carry many different selves. Walt Whitman said it best in “Song of Myself, 51”:

Do I contract myself?

Very well, I contradict myself.

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

The one who carries out the firing – The Good Soldier – forms just as much of our identity as the one who feels for the person across the table and desperately wishes for another course of action – The Bleeding Heart. Just because The Good Soldier wins sometimes doesn’t mean The Bleeding Heart disappears.

Leadership Studio used a visual metaphor – inspired by former UChicago MBA student Barbara Lanebrown – of a theater stage, where a leader’s many selves are laid out like performing characters. Downstage characters stand nearest the audience (i.e., the rest of the world), and are the identities we (and others) most associate with ourselves. We can think of those as our visible selves.

But downstage is just part of our identity. A person who buries their Bleeding Heart probably still has that identity floating around somewhere. Maybe it’s gone upstage – receding into the background, ready to be called downstage when someone they love needs a tissue, a hero, or a shoulder to cry on. Or maybe it’s left the theater altogether, forgotten even to our higher self.

But The Bleeding Heart still exists.

Lanebrown’s stage metaphor clicked for me. Even before Leadership Studio, I’d spent much of my life crafting internal identities – assigning traits, behaviors, roles – and bringing them “downstage” when the situation called for it.

Most of these identities started as Dungeon & Dragons characters.

When I need to set my priorities aside, step back, and focus on the bigger picture, I think of Wiegraf. When I’m overwhelmed with emotions that desperately want out, I think of Gareth (but, for the love of God, I do the opposite.) When I need to take charge and assert myself, I clear my evening and order delivery – because I’ll need some space after three hours as Amara.

This mirrors ideas from “parts work” therapy, which has gained mainstream attention thanks to Dr. Richard Schwartz’s book No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model:

All of us are born with many sub-minds―or parts. These parts are not imaginary or symbolic. They are individuals who exist as an internal family within us―and the key to health and happiness is to honor, understand, and love every part.

Take Fear, for example. The goal shouldn’t be to suppress Fear or push it away. Instead, say: a part of me feels scared, and it’s trying to help. Rather than bottling Fear up or handing it the reins, engage with it. Bring it downstage. Find out what it needs. Security? Boundaries? Distance? Then internalize that insight and shape a strategy that works with your fear, not against it, and steadies you in moments of anxiety or panic.

This idea – that human beings aren’t monoliths but networks of parts working in concert – goes back centuries. In Zen Buddhism, we find the concept of skandhas. The Buddha used grains of rice to represent the many parts of the human being. He divided them into five distinct piles – each symbolizing a different facet of the self:

• rūpa (material form)

• vedanā (sensations)

• samjñā (perception)

• saṅkhāra (mental formations)

• vijnañā (consciousness)

Personally, I find it more empowering – and more satisfying – to think of myself as five heaps of rice, rather than a single grain. If I’m just one grain, I’m expected to be whole already – a finished product with no variation, no contradiction, no room to evolve. But heaps? Heaps suggest complexity. Heaps contain multitudes.

Let’s return to the theater stage metaphor from Leadership Studio. Say I want to work on being more confident and assertive. I create a character – I call him The Magician, but others might call him The Bold One, The Hero, or anything else they imagine. I assign traits to the character: confidence, boldness, composure. I imagine how The Magician behaves in different situations from my life. How would he handle this disagreement? This board meeting? This presentation?

These questions become my cues for bringing The Magician “downstage.” I mentally pre-load behaviors I associate with confidence, boldness, and composure. When I’m about to go into the meeting or pick up the phone or head to the retreat, I “channel” The Magician to embody my ideal confident self. I might listen to music to hype myself up, or maybe I carry some sort of talisman to remind me who I aim to be.

And honestly? It works.

But here’s the catch: The Magician can’t develop in isolation. Growth requires human interaction, and that means feedback, uncertainty, and friction. What if The Magician comes off as belligerent? What if people resist the change? What if it backfires – costing me friendships or opportunities.

That fear is real. It might. That’s the risk when you dare to grow.

I had the chance to dive into these ideas in Leadership Studio – a class of thirty people, all committed to personal growth and experimentation. Most people don’t get that kind of safe space – a place where it’s okay to try something new and risk looking foolish.

Enter Dungeons & Dragons.

Everyone at a D&D table is doing “parts work.”

Each player creates a character they want to explore – The Bard, The Cleric, The Druid, The Paladin, whoever. That character becomes a version of the player’s self, filtered through a fantasy setting.

And there’s a shared understanding: everyone in the game is trying something new. Everyone’s experimenting. Everyone’s growing. It’s a creative lab – just like being in a class. But a D&D table is better because sometimes there are dragons.

The dice help, too.

Imagine this: your adventuring group tried to convince the suspicious guard captain that you absolutely, under no circumstances, caused the stampede that ruined the festival. You lean in, confident in your persuasive manner, deliver your best argument, roll the dice.

And you beef it.

Yikes.

The DM grins. “The captain’s face twists in fury. Spittle flies from his lips as he shouts ‘I know it was you!’ He points at you and yells to the guards behind him, ‘seize them! Seize the interlopers!’”

You done goofed.

Not because of what you said. Not because of who you are. When success or failure is determined by a roll of the die – by observable chance – it creates emotional distance. A “one” on a twenty-sided die is a learning experience, but it isn’t a character flaw. It’s bad luck.

But if you try to set a boundary with a friend, and it erupts into an apocalyptic fight, you don’t get clarity. Was it me? Did I say the wrong thing? Do the wrong thing?

Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe they were just having a bad day? Or maybe your friend’s an asshole?

It’s a lot easier to take failure personally when real relationships are at stake.

And yes, feelings still get hurt at the D&D table. Boundaries get tested. Emotions run high. That’s the point. D&D lets you find the edges – of yourself, of others, or your roles – in a safer space.

Is Dungeons & Dragons a replacement for therapy? No. But D&D is an excellent tool for personal development – especially with the right DM and the right table of players. At a D&D table, you don’t just read about growth or talk about it. You practice it. In real time. With real people.

I recommend everyone try it at least once – not to escape reality, but to learn to live in it.

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Did something a little different this week — I made a video essay about Jaime Lannister.

In this video, I take a closer look at his ending in Game of Thrones — specifically, why I think it was not only fitting, but quietly brilliant. It’s about loyalty, love, failure, and the painful weight of our choices. Jaime’s story has always been tragic, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t complete.

If you’ve found yourself frustrated by the final season of Game of Thrones — or if you just love a good character study — I hope you’ll give it a watch on my YouTube channel:

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Last week, I officially ended my campaign for U.S. Congress. Today, I want to talk about what led to that decision.

Ending my campaign wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I ran for a reason. I believe I would be an effective member of Congress. I believe in the platform I built: grounded in population health, early childhood education, and fiscal responsibility. I still believe in pragmatic, results-driven politics that puts people over profits, citizens over corporations, and courage over caution.

But I don’t believe – in this district, in this election cycle – that I have a viable path to victory.

Here’s why:

Money. Not enough of it. Need more.

I’ve said it before: since the Citizens United decision in 2010, the cost of running for federal office has exploded. By 2013, sitting members of Congress were spending up to half their time fundraising – not legislating. That was over a decade ago. Since then, federal campaign spending has risen from $4.8 billion to nearly $17 billion per election cycle.

Running for Congress is a sales job. Serving in Congress is a sales job. I’m not built for that. I’m built for the real work of the chamber: coalition building, legislating, and delivering results.

If I’d stayed employed, I could have self-funded more of the early-stage costs – including the staff I needed to build out a full fundraising operation. But, to restate, filing my Statement of Candidacy triggered the end of my employment at the University of Chicago.

I know what some of you are thinking: “if you needed your income to run, why file if it meant losing your job? Wasn’t that reckless/emotional/just plain bad planning?”

Maybe.

But look at this from my perspective: I spent months preparing this campaign — developing a platform, building infrastructure, and making financial plans.

On June 4th, a month before I planned to file my Statement of Candidacy, I notified the University, told them I intended to file with the FEC at the end of the month, and shared all my campaign materials.

On June 25th, I submitted a signed statement acknowledging the organization’s 501(c)(3) status, confirming I had reviewed all relevant policies (none of which prohibited University employees from seeking public office in their personal time), and expressing my good faith intent to find a way forward that allows me to run transparently while continuing to serve in my role at the University. I also updated them that I now planned to file during the week of July 7th.

And then, on the morning of July 7th, the University gave me two choices: take an unpaid leave of absence with no guarantee of reinstatement or be terminated.

I had given them more than a month’s notice, and they waited until the last minute and lowered the hammer.

The University provided two justifications for their decision.

First: the Office of Legal Affairs – not my supervisors – was concerned about my ability to perform my full-time job while campaigning.

That excuse doesn’t hold water.

People run for office while maintaining full-time jobs. It is routine. The University has employed – and continues to employ — people who hold public office.

I had no performance deficiencies. I had just received a glowing FY25 review. I had been promoted every year since joining the institution, from senior manager in 2022 to Chief of Staff of the Faculty Practice in 2023 to Chief of Staff of Clinical Affairs in 2024. I earned these progressive titles while being awarded Dean’s List honors at the University’s Business School – one of the most competitive MBA programs in the country.

That’s not the résumé of someone that drops the ball. All the evidence suggested I knew how to balance my commitments.

If performance had been a legitimate concern, there would have been a conversation about expectations. There wasn’t. If the unpaid leave of absence had been a good-faith offer, there would have been a dialogue. There wasn’t. No discussion about my time commitments. No question of a trial period to test the waters. No guarantee of job reinstatement.

If the baseline assumption is that working people can’t balance running for office with their employment responsibilities, then we don’t actually have representative democracy – we have a political class drawn almost entirely from the privileged and elite.

The second justification for the University’s ruling was that the University feared my views would be mistaken for those of the institution. The organization felt my campaign was incompatible with its best interests.

Let’s pause there.

The University has allowed staff to hold public office and express political views (contrary to my own) on the University’s own website.

My platform was neither frivolous nor incendiary. It focused on population health, early childhood education, and balancing the federal budget. It earned support from Democrats and Republicans.

So I asked the University for clarification:

What about the University staff that had been allowed to hold public office?

No response.

Could I have public opinions about policy if I were not a candidate?

No response.

What exactly about my views or candidacy was at odds with the University’s best interests?

No response.

It makes me wonder: did it have something to do with the fact that I’m transgender, and the current president has a bellicose stance on trans people?

Does Donald Trump’s presidency make me – and people like me – a liability to the University?

Did the University’s plan to cease transgender pediatric healthcare on July 18th factor into its decision about my candidacy and employment?

I don’t know. The representatives of the University never explained what made the institution perceive me as a threat.

So, I’m left to speculate.

Was my termination about my candidacy?

Or was it about my identity?

So there I was, believing I would be a strong congressional representative because I refuse to be ignored. Because I know how to pierce institutional gridlock. Because I believe we won’t fix a broken democracy without personal sacrifice.

And the University of Chicago put me in a position where I had to either give up or prove it.

So I proved it.

I filed my Statement of Candidacy on July 20th.

I chose to be the kind of person I believe this moment demands – someone willing to act on principle, even when it costs them. Especially when it costs them.

And on August 1, the University fired me.

I did my best to run a campaign for a fiercely contested seat – sixteen candidates at last count (including a physician that still appears to be employed by the University of Chicago). I chose to do it without a job. Without economic security. Without the resources needed to compete.

Even though I had to end my campaign, I wouldn’t do a thing differently. Because, yes, the outcome matters, but so does the example. Ordinary people need to stand up and show what it looks like to lead with conviction.

I’m proud I tried.

But now I have no job. I have personal bills to pay. And, while finding employment is painful under the best circumstances, it’s worse when you’re running for office.

I could have taken on debt to finance my campaign. A lot of candidates do. But I don’t think that’s the right move. It’s impossible to legislate effectively from a position of financial vulnerability. That’s the whole problem with politics today.

I’ve seen what happens when people fall so in love with their own potential that they bankrupt their future to prove it. This is how some candidates end up selling their donor lists to data firms – exploiting the people who believed in them, just to climb out of a financial hole.

I won’t do that. So I ended my campaign.

To everyone who supported me – with time, money, or encouragement – thank you. It matters more than I can express, and I’m sorry it didn’t end the way we hoped.

But this isn’t a surrender. It’s a tactical decision – to regroup, rebuild, and return stronger.

The 2026 election cycle showed me what’s broken, firsthand. The next cycle will be about building something better.

I still believe in this fight.

I still believe in what’s possible when regular people step up.

And I’m not going anywhere.

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I’ve previously addressed the rising costs of American political campaigns. But a reader asked me to elaborate on where that money comes from and, once accumulated, what the campaign decision-makers do with it.

To start, here’s a chart I shared in my September 9th article comparing aggregated federal campaign disbursements — across all parties — from 2012 and 2024. Think of this as overall campaign spending:

That’s a $12 billion increase in federal campaign spending over the last twelve years. Just federal. I don’t know how much is being spent at the state and local levels — but it’s a safe bet those numbers are rising, too.

What jumps out to me – beyond the $12 billion dollar increase – is that more than $9 billion of it came from an increase in PAC disbursements.

So let’s talk about PACs.

PACs – Political Action Committees – are independent organizations that can raise and spend money to influence elections. Unlike principal campaign committees, which are official fundraising and spending organizations for individual candidates – PACs (at least outwardly) are not tied to a single politician or issue. PACs still pool money from donors, but they can spend that money to support or oppose multiple candidates, ballot initiatives, or political causes.

PACs have been around for decades, and, like donations to candidates or campaign committees, there are hard caps on how much an individual can donate to a PAC. These limits democratized our electoral process, ensuring that no one individual, no matter how wealthy, could single-handedly buy an election. For example, I can contribute up to $5,000 to a PAC in one election cycle. That same limit applies to a billionaire as well. Everyone was on, roughly, equal footing.

Until Super PACs entered the picture.

Super PACs – or “independent expenditure-only political actions committees” – are the result of the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC. Super PACs cannot directly coordinate with political campaigns, but that doesn’t stop them from funneling massive amounts of money into key areas – ads, messaging, and influence. Unlike traditional PACs, Super PACs can raise an unlimited amount of money from individuals or organizations.

With contribution limits gone, elections stop being contests of ideas and start becoming auctions. The wealthy don’t just influence the outcomes – they shape the playing field.

Just look at the surge in megadonor contributions (those who gave $5 million or more) over the last two election cycles: In 2020, Super PACs backing major presidential candidates took in $406 million from megadonors. In 2024, that number soared to $865 million – nearly a quarter of the $3.4 billion raised by the two major presidential party nominees.

That $12 billion doesn’t just sit in vaults. It gets spent. It powers campaigns. It buys web hosting, computers, and email addresses. It hires staff and political consultants. It buys advertising. It buys contact and ideological information on donors and voters.

Thousands of people make a living off our campaign contributions.

And that’s just what we can see.

Who knows what else it buys? What transpires behind the curtain.

We don’t always get to see how Super PAC money shapes decisions, how it lands in unexpected repositories. Sometimes it pays off in cabinet positions. Or policies. Or government contracts. But, often, it pays off in ways we never witness.

I keep typing out the words “ $12 billion dollars” and acting like it’s a large, but perfectly comprehensible, amount of money.

It’s not. Not to me, anyway.

Even the numerical form — $12,000,000,000 — doesn’t do justice to its magnitude.

There’s a 1967 educational Disney short called Scrooge McDuck and Money that illustrates what a billion dollars looks like.

Disclaimer: Scrooge McDuck and Money (1967) is a copyrighted work owned by the Walt Disney Company. This video, featuring characters Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, is used for educational and commentary purposes only under the fair use doctrine. All rights to the video, characters, and associated trademarks are the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.

One billion stacked in $1 bills? It’s 800 times the height of the Washington Monument. Laid out side by side? It would circle the Earth four times.

Now multiply that by twelve.

That’s like contemplating a tsunami. Or an atomic blast.

It’s overwhelming.

But the tallest tsunami ever recorded was 1,720 feet. About a third of a mile.

The mushroom cloud of Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, was about 195,000 feet tall. About 37 miles.

But $12 billion in $1 bills? That would circle the Earth 48 times — roughly 6,300,000,000 feet. Almost 1.2 million miles.

I’m not built to understand this amount of money.

What it means. What it can buy.

To be honest, the number itself scares me.

It’s massive. Eldritch.

It feels like a predator. And we’re all swimming in its shadow.

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Starting October 1st, I’ll be streaming Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles weekly on Wednesdays at 6PM CDT.

As I mentioned in my August 31st post, this was the game that made me realize games could ask real questions about power, corruption, and resistance. If you’ve been following my writing here, you’ll probably recognize some familiar themes.

You can find the stream here: https://www.youtube.com/@danica_leigh

Hope to see you there!

— Danica

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I carry a lot of fear.

Most of it is self-inflicted.

In August, I was fired from my job because I filed a Statement of Candidacy to run for Congress.

And now, I’m afraid. Afraid because the Washington Post reported that the long-term unemployment rate hit 25%. Afraid I won’t find another job before I run out of money. Afraid I’ll have to ask for help.

And I’ll be honest: my campaign scares me. Writing these articles does, too. The attention. The vulnerability. The scrutiny. My safety. All of it.

But I’m proud of those fears. I chose them. I invited them. I stepped into them with purpose.

And the truth is, if I’d done nothing, I’d still be afraid. Afraid of being the collateral damage of someone else’s financial mismanagement. Afraid of resigning myself to work that no longer seems to matter. Afraid of the direction this country is going. Afraid of the division, the cruelty, the hate.

And these fears? The quiet ones I walked away from and the ones that still peer from the dark? I’m grateful for them.

They’re the fears that have pushed me past fear.

They made me audacious.

They propelled me to action.

Fear is the great limiter of mankind – a low hiss that asks, “What if I can’t? What if it all goes wrong? It’s pretty, but is it Art?” It’s held me back. From taking risks. From chasing dreams. From personal development.

We grow up hearing these (admittedly dope) lines:

Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

And so we learn: Fear is a flaw. Something to suppress.

But fear isn’t the enemy. Fear is a tool.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu speaks of “death ground” or “dying ground” — the terrain where you can’t advance and can’t retreat. You’re surrounded. Cut off. There’s no way out. No choice but to fight.

At first pass, it sounds like a tactical failure. To arrive on death ground, a commander must have overextended or been outflanked.

But Sun Tzu points out: Death ground can be an advantage.

Put them in a spot where they have no place to go, and they will die before fleeing. If they are to die there, what can they not do? Warriors exert their full strength. When warriors are in great danger, then they have no fear. When there is nowhere to go they are firm, when they are deeply involved they stick to it. If they have no choice, they will fight.

Death ground focuses the mind. It demands strength you didn’t know you had. It unites people, elevates leaders, and channels fear into action.

Fear – inescapable fear – turns a ragtag group of peasants into an unstoppable force.

When fear becomes a baseline – when it’s always there, humming in the background – your relationship with the world has shifted.

Your thresholds have been altered.

Your limits have changed.

Explore them.

So ask yourself: Am I afraid?

And then ask: Is it a fear I’m proud of?

If not: What’s something I would be proud to fear? Why am I not pursuing that?

If you’re already afraid, why let fear hold you back? If all roads can lead to ruin, why not take the one with the highest upside? Why not pursue the path that excites you, even if it terrifies?

And if, like me, you fear the direction this country is heading, know this: the people in charge are borrowing their power from the rest of us. They’re borrowing it from you. You can take it back. You have agency.

If you think you can do a better job than the people in power, why not try? If there’s something in your community you can fix, fix it. Change won’t come from hesitation. It won’t come from retreat. It will only come when brave people put aside their fear, do the hard work, and make this a kinder, fairer, more responsible society.

Fear doesn’t have to stop you.

It’s not something to escape.

It doesn’t make you weak.

It makes you strong.

It’s fuel.

Use it.

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On September 5, President Trump authorized the Department of Defense to use the name "Department of War" in ceremonial and official communication — and ordered a plan to rename it outright.

He wasted no time flexing the new name, though his initial target was not enemies abroad.

It was an American city:

I don’t know if it was threat, joke, or performance, but as a Chicagoan, I didn’t appreciate the Commander-in-Chief of the United States’ armed forces turning his attention — and the attention of the most powerful military apparatus in human history — toward my city.

It was the briefest flicker — a knife’s-edge glint — but it was enough to feel the menace the United States can bring to bear.

And yet, despite my outrage at the prospect of American troops in American cities, I agree with Trump on one thing: we should call it the Department of War.

I agree because it opens the door to reasserting legislative power over the military.

The Constitution is vague about the divisions of military responsibility. It outlines clear powers — Congress declares war and funds the military; the president commands the military — but it leaves the specific boundaries of each body’s authority ambiguous.

That ambiguity is by design, and it has led to a continuous push and pull – mostly push – between presidents and Congress over war powers.

Since World War II, presidents have sent millions of soldiers into combat without formal declarations of war. Korea, Vietnam, the secret bombings of Cambodia — military operations have increasingly been conducted without direct or immediate congressional authorization. The exact relationship between Congress and these military actions is complex. In many cases, Congress asserted itself after the fact, through appropriations, legislation, or mounting political pressure. But the balance shifted: presidents led, and Congress followed – often reluctantly, and always without exercising its full war-making authority.

Congress tried to claw back that authority with the 1973 War Powers Resolution, requiring the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of any deployment and necessitating an automatic military withdrawal after 60 days if Congress does not provide authorization. But it had no teeth: the Resolution lacks a clear enforcement mechanism, and Congress has never successfully forced a president to withdraw troops after 60 days. Political realities— party loyalties, fear of backlash, and the complexities of armed conflict — have kept Congress from requiring compliance.

So nothing changed.

The president controls the military.

Congress spectates.

But the name change — to Department of War — could alter that.

Presidential war powers didn’t just expand in the era of the Department of Defense – they thrived under it. The name came into use during the Truman administration – in 1949. A year later, Truman sent troops to Korea without a declaration of war. Then came Vietnam. Then Cambodia. One rebrand — and then an era of undeclared war.

Defense implies something broader and more complex than War, but Trump’s proposed name change is a tacit (and likely accidental) admission: The Pentagon exists for one reason.

To make War.

And War, as written in the Constitution, demands congressional oversight.

We’ve grown used to seeing the Democrats and Republicans in Congress as one another’s enemies. But they’re also united by a shared institutional interest: expanding legislative power in relation to the other branches of government.

There’s precedent for this. We saw it with the aforementioned War Powers Resolution in 1973. A year later, Congress solidified its role in the federal budgeting process (for better or worse) with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. In 1996, Congress expanded its oversight of federal regulations with the Congressional Review Act. All of this legislation had bipartisan support – in some cases, overwhelming bipartisan support.

We need more of that.

Every member of Congress should constantly be looking for opportunities to expand congressional power. It’s their job.

The Constitution was designed to encourage tension between the three branches of government. But Congress and the judiciary have allowed the presidency to grow vastly more powerful. The imbalance of powers in this country is now routine.

Congress is the branch of government closest to the people. It’s the most direct line between American citizens and federal power — or at least it’s supposed to be. Congressional representatives have a responsibility not just to deliver results to their constituents, but to deliver levers of power to them.

Representatives and Senators should want to do this. They ran for office to fight. To shape laws. To wield power. They must believe they’d be good at it – otherwise why run? Why seek the job?

If they believe in their role, they should fight to strengthen it.

It’s what presidents have been doing for decades. They expand their purview.

Congress should do the same.

And, sure, it’s more complicated for Congress to do it. There are hundreds of legislators to align against a single executive. Hundreds of ambitions against one presidential agenda.

But that’s the job.

I’m not naive. I don’t expect Democrats to get Republicans on board with curtailing presidential authority while Trump is in office. The real test will come after. It should be a high priority for congressional Democrats to work with Republicans to claw back authority from the next Democratic president.

It’s easy to check a president you oppose. The real test of principle is whether you’ll check the one on your side.

The Democratic Party is strategically stagnant. Yes, there are bold voices within it, but the broader apparatus promises little more than national decline masquerading as American exceptionalism.

What is the Party actually going to do for us? What results does it — not just its more charismatic members — promise the American people? How does it intend to deliver?

I understand that Republicans control all three branches of the federal government. But when I step back and take a broader view, I don’t see a powerless Democratic Party. I see one that still holds profound strategic levers.

So why isn’t it wielding them?

Porter’s Five Forces is a framework traditionally used to analyze business competitiveness, but its core idea – understanding the pressures on an organization’s strategy — is just as applicable in politics.

When I apply Porter’s framework to the Democratic Party, I don’t see an institution crushed by opposition — I see one that still holds significant leverage.

America’s political system is famously resistant to third-party challenges, and the structural barriers — like gerrymandering, Electoral College mechanics, and ballot access restrictions — are so daunting that no credible third-party has emerged since the Reform Party thirty years ago (which failed to win a single Electoral College vote).

The list of potential threats to the Democrat/Republican duopoly is speculative to the point of delusion.

Maybe The Rock could do it?

By substitutes, I don’t mean third parties again — I mean a “product” outside the American party system that meets the same need for the voter but in a different way (i.e., a pathway for voter agency that bypasses the party system altogether). I see three alternatives:

1. Running for office yourself

2. Volunteering/grassroots organizing

3. Opting out of American society (e.g., leaving the country or picking a direction and walking into the woods).

While these are valid pathways to engagement or escape, they do not undermine the political might of the Democratic Party.

The major political parties are ostensibly accountable to the American people, but in practice, the average voter’s influence on the Democratic Party’s policy is negligible. The structural barriers for third parties (see above: gerrymandering, Electoral College, ballot access) also limit the influence of the American citizen.

And then there’s the refrain we hear every election cycle: We have to vote for the Democrat, because the alternative — Trump — is an existential threat to the economy, healthcare, democracy, etc., etc., etc. We must vote for whomever the Democrats shove down our throats. Lives depend on it!

I mentioned in my article two weeks ago that the amount of money raised by congressional candidates has more than doubled in the last decade — from 1.5 billion in 2014 to 3.3 billion in 2024. Almost a two billion dollar increase!

This time, let’s take a more holistic view — comparing the 2012 election cycle (since 2014 didn’t have a presidential election) to 2024. And let’s look at disbursements (i.e., how much was actually spent) rather than donor contributions. (Note: the FEC statistical summaries do not include breakdown by party, so this is inclusive of both Democrats and Republicans).

That’s more than a $12 billion dollar increase in campaign spending across twelve years.

$12 billion dollars!

Inflation can’t explain that explosion – and it’s not like we’ve added more congressional seats or presidents since 2012.

This is a desperate increase in campaign expenses, and candidates everywhere — including incumbents — are desperate to keep pace.

So they need donors. Both parties depend on donors if they want to afford campaign infrastructure, advertising, and staff.

With this surge in spending, the real electorate isn’t the voter base.

It’s the donor class.

This is perhaps the most intense and high-profile rivalry in American life — more entrenched and visible than Coke vs. Pepsi, DC vs. Marvel, or Drake vs. Kendrick. The Democratic and Republican parties are locked in a perpetual, zero-sum competition for power. This rivalry is national, local, ideological, and personal, and it plays out in 24/7 media cycles, legislative trench warfare, and contributes directly to the explosion in campaign spending.

Despite Republicans currently holding all three branches of the federal government, the Democratic Party remains a powerful and entrenched competitor. Just a year ago, they held the presidency. Today, they remain the second most influential political force in the most powerful country in the world. As an enduring institution with deep influence over state governments, urban centers, and major grassroots organizations, the party’s reach extends well beyond the role of opposition.

And they can still mount an opposition. History shows that even as a minority, political parties can shape national discourse and obstruct majority agendas. Republicans did this to great effect during the Obama years.

The balance of power between the two parties may fluctuate, but the Democrats’ institutional influence — and their role in this rivalry — remains formidable. For now.

Despite the Republican Party’s current dominance and the outsized influence of campaign donors, the analysis above shows a Democratic Party that still holds substantial strategic power.

The Democratic Party’s perceived weakness is not rooted in the competitive landscape. If I applied this framework to the Republican Party instead, we’d see them rate the same across the board.

The real issue for the Democrats is not structural weakness. It’s strategic.

The Party lacks vision.

The Party lacks a coherent plan.

The Party lacks strong, unifying leadership that understands how to wield its advantages and attack its vulnerabilities – and it has lacked all of this at least since the end of the Obama era.

Someone needs to figure out how to steer it. Who’s it going to be?

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This year, on July 15, Rush University System for Health confirmed that it will stop providing gender-affirming care to new pediatric patients. Just three days later, University of Chicago Medicine followed suit – ending this care for all pediatric patients, new and existing.

These are two of the most respected health systems in the country. And they didn’t make these decisions based on new medical consensus — they did it to survive.

I’m not here to convince you one way or another on transgender healthcare. If you support it, I appreciate your perspective. If you oppose it, I understand your concerns.

But what’s happening right now goes beyond the issue of care itself — it’s about what happens when politics hijacks the medical process behind closed doors, with no vote and no accountability.

This should concern you, no matter where you stand.

Hospitals aren’t abandoning gender-affirming care because of new or irrefutable medical evidence. They’re doing it to avoid financial collapse.

In January, the Trump administration issued Executive Order 14187, which directs Health and Human Services (HHS) to end gender-affirming care for minors using a bureaucratic backdoor: the Medicare and Medicaid Conditions of Participation (CoPs).

CoPs are rules that enforce basic safety standards like patient rights, emergency preparedness, and staffing requirements. Healthcare organizations must follow them to receive federal reimbursement for treating Medicare and Medicaid patients.

If HHS enacts this rule, hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care would no longer be eligible for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. In FY24, the federal government spent $865 billion on Medicare and $618 billion on Medicaid. Few (if any) hospitals can risk losing out on such a vast revenue stream.

The CoPs have never before been used to ban a particular type of care. This represents an unprecedented shift in healthcare regulation.

This won’t be like previous restrictions on gender-affirming care or abortion, where states and governors could shield patients and providers. If implemented, this rule ends pediatric gender-affirming care in the United States.

But it does more than that — it opens the door to weaponizing healthcare regulations against any service a given administration disapproves without democratic oversight. Tomorrow, they could target medication abortion. Or fertility treatments. Or HIV prevention.

This is a drastic expansion of executive authority. The decision to adjust the treatment for hundreds of thousands of children deserves, at minimum, a vote.

In many cases, this care will be scaled back immediately — with no transition plan in place. I know parents of trans children that have been left to fend for themselves, scrambling to ensure continuity of care while fearing the worst for their child’s health.

Puberty blockers are often administered via a subcutaneous implant. What doctors will risk removing those implants? What’s the plan? Does a plan even exist?

Those questions are about to be answered: On July 17, National Review reported that HHS will soon begin formal rulemaking to change the Conditions of Participation.

This is not a theoretical threat.

This is the new reality.

And it will be up to frightened, vulnerable kids to plead with the courts.

Next time, it may be up to you.

The medical centers and hospitals that have been delivering gender-affirming care aren’t fringe clinics or rogue providers. These are world-class institutions.

The same institutions where babies take their first breath.

Where patients ring the bell after chemo.

Where families embrace one another and await life-changing news.

These are institutions we trust with our lives. And they’re being forced to choose between honoring medical judgement and keeping their doors open.

Whether or not you support gender-affirming care, this new policy sets a dangerous precedent: medicine by mandate. If you believe healthcare decisions should be made transparently — by doctors, patients, and elected representatives — this matters. Speak up. Because the next target might be care that you or your loved ones rely on.

I will be livestreaming Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles live on Twitch shortly after its September 30th release date.

Final Fantasy Tactics was my favorite game growing up — not just because I had fun playing it (though I absolutely did), but because it taught me something. About power. About corruption. About the price of resistance.

The timing of this re-release feels uncanny. I can’t wait to revisit it with fresh eyes and explore its political themes through a real-world lens.

Here’s what the the game’s creator, Yasumi Matsuno, said about the remaster:

More soon — including stream times.

Hope to see you in the chat!

-Danica

I hate call time. I hate everything about it.

For context, “call time” refers to the practice of candidates and staff cold-calling potential donors to raise money. A whole industry of data firms and list vendors exists to sell donor information – either for a flat fee or a cut of the contributions.

It’s gross.

As a voter and donor, few things annoy me more than unwelcome calls from campaign committees pressuring me to make a contribution.

But campaigns are expensive. Experts have told me they think it’ll take $4-6 million dollars to compete for the seat I’m running for. I can’t get there without call time – and a lot of it.

That makes me uncomfortable. Some of my apprehension comes from the personal discomfort connected with cold-calling strangers. No one enjoys rejection, and you face a lot of that when you spend your days hitting up strangers for money. I’ve spent enough time working call centers or sales desks to know how quickly that kind of work wears you down.

But I feel a deeper discomfort when asking for campaign backing – something hard to shake and even harder to articulate. Political campaigns hinge on warped expectations around costs, funding, and how we expect candidates to spend their time.

An unhoused man spends most days near my apartment building. I try to help him when I can, but lately I haven’t been able to do much — I lost my job at the beginning of August, and I’m doing my best to stay afloat.

When I try to explain to him that I can’t help him the way I did a month ago – that I lost my job and my financial situation is tenuous – he doesn’t care. He’s questioned the quality of my character more than once in the past month.

But I want to help him. More than I ever have before.

Running for office has recontextualized my relationship with my neighbors without housing — not just emotionally, but practically. Because candidates and politicians spend their days the same way he does: asking for help.

I need donations. I need volunteers. I need support.

So does he.

Our tactics and needs may differ, but it’s essentially the same job.

But I’ve been giving him money for over a year now, and it’s never enough. His situation never seems to improve. It feels like a cycle with no end.

And I can’t help but wonder: What would it take to help him more forward? Not just to survive another day? How can my money make the biggest impact for him?

I ask myself similar questions as a donor: Am I throwing good money after bad by contributing to this campaign? Is this really the best way to make an impact in this country?

And now, as a candidate, I can’t turn that voice off. Every time I pick up the phone to ask for support, that same doubt creeps in: Is this how change really happens? Or is it just how the wheel keeps turning?

During election season, as a voter, I get buried under mountains of fundraising emails, texts, and phone calls asking for money to field campaigns. And it’s no wonder: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used to welcome freshman representatives with a PowerPoint presentation instructing them to dedicate four hours a day to calling donors – plus another hour for fundraisers and press. That left just three to four hours reserved for the actual work they were elected to do: legislating, voting, and meeting with constituents.

That schedule may be more than a decade old, but I see no reason to believe their “best practices” have changed. During every cycle, they ask for more and more – Congressional candidates raised $1.5 billion in 2014 compared to a whopping $3.3 billion in 2024.

And where do all those dollars go? With heaps of money at their disposal, why can’t they produce better results? Why should the American people spend their limited resources on a system that gives so little back?

I’ve been told, time and again, by advisors and experts, that political campaigns revolve around call time. And sure, if your goal is to pump $3.3 billion into Congressional elections, that’s the pro move.

But if the goal is to elect leaders who inspire the American people – who make us proud to be represented – then this is the wrong way to go about it.

How do I know? Because I can count on one hand the number of high-profile elected officials I genuinely respect.

There has to be a better way. I want to find it.

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I love finding a tribe.

Love it.

Whether it’s a sports team, a personality test, or a political party, there’s something deeply satisfying about belonging.

It’s human.

But the dark side to belonging is obvious. Because when there’s an us, there’s inevitably a them. And even in an innocent context, division gets in the way.

When Pottermore launched in 2011 with the Official Hogwarts Sorting Quiz, my girlfriend and I were ecstatic. We’d both grown up on the Harry Potter books, carried that fandom into early adulthood, and were ready to learn which house we belonged to.

On the big day, we set up our laptops across the bed like a game of Battleship.

Of course, I got Gryffindor.

She got Hufflepuff.

The results should have been meaningless — it was meant to be a fun online test.

But it felt good to be chosen for Gryffindor.

And I’m not proud of this, but it felt even better because she hadn’t been.

After all, if everyone gets into Gryffindor, it wouldn’t have meant anything.

And then things started to diverge.

She had spent more than a decade stocking up on Gryffindor gear — scarves, mugs, the works. So when the quiz dropped and she got sorted into Hufflepuff, it wasn’t just a label. It was a full wardrobe change.

We laughed about it, but something quietly shifted. As our shelves diverged, so did our relationship with the series.

To her, Gryffindor didn’t shine the same way. The house felt exclusive. Entitled. Its students were rule-breakers who rarely faced consequences — and when they did, it was usually at the hands of an antagonist. Sure, bravery and boldness had their place. But over time, Hufflepuff’s loyalty, kindness, and quiet strength became the virtues she claimed to prize.

Our official Hogwarts houses didn’t hurt our relationship with the books — or with one another — but they did change it.

They shouldn’t have.

But they did.

As silly as a sorting quiz might seem, the same dynamics play out in more serious arenas – like politics, economics, and public policy.

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Democrat and Republican. Capitalist and socialist.

It’s all the same thing. It’s branding. It’s fandom.

And the forces that govern an economy — production, consumption, labor markets, public investment — don’t care about brands.

People trade. That’s naturally occurring behavior. When enough people trade, markets emerge.

Those markets are shaped by real-world forces: scarcity, abundance, climate, conflict, human innovation, human error.

These pressures push markets along various axes: privatization vs. collectivization. Free markets vs. central planning. Equality vs. inequality.

We respond by planting flags: capitalism, socialism, neoliberalism, libertarianism.

These labels can help us develop playbooks — and find communities of like-minded people.

But they also divide us.

When we get too caught up in the rightness of our beliefs or chasing ideological endgames, we lose sight of what actually moves us forward: practical, incremental work that delivers real results.

Take healthcare as an example.

Most Americans – across political lines – agree that our system isn’t working. The United States spends more per capita on healthcare than any other G7 country. What do we get for it? The worst life expectancy. Long wait times. High out-of-pocket costs.

The Socialist says: Expand access. Establish a single-payer solution. Make healthcare a universal right.

The Capitalist says: Reduce regulation, increase competition, and limit public spending.

Each side sees the other’s endgame as a threat — so we get gridlock. And when one side finally forces through a solution, the other spends the next decade trying to tear it down.

Meanwhile, people suffer.

But what happens when we set aside ideology and endgames and focus on the immediate problem: high costs and long wait times?

To me, these pain points suggest that demand for healthcare is simply outpacing supply.

Think about it – when something is expensive and hard to access, it usually means more people want it than the system can provide. We see this with housing, concert tickets, and video game consoles on launch day. Healthcare’s no different.

If patients are waiting weeks to see a doctor and we’re spending more than ever to care for our population, it’s a strong signal that the supply side isn’t keeping up.

The data backs this up: the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts America will be facing a physician shortage of up to 86,000 by 2036.

And supply and demand — that’s a language both fiscal conservatives and market liberals speak.

When demand outpaces supply, that signals a market opportunity, and that means there’s money to be made — which should make the capitalists happy.

And meeting that demand means expanding access to care — which should satisfy the socialists.

So why not start there? We don’t need to burn down what we have.

We need to train more doctors.

Build more clinics.

Invest in a workforce that keeps us healthy.

These aren’t radical ideas. They’re practical. They’ll work.

And it’s not just healthcare. We see the same thing in education, climate policy, and economic mobility. Urgent needs go unmet — not because we can’t solve them, but because we’ve turned ideas into identities.

If we can set the banners down, we might actually get something done.

Belonging isn’t the problem. Tribalism is human. But when the lines between “us” and “them” get too sharp, we lose sight of the fact that we’re all living in the same world — facing the same day-to-day problems.

What if we acted a little less like rivals from opposing houses, and a little more like members of the same one?

We don’t need to agree on everything to agree on something.