Tag: Brandon Graham

In 1964, I was a) only 5 years old and b) living in the New York suburbs, so while I’ve been hearing all my life about the notorious collapse of the Phillies that September, I didn’t get to experience that feeling of existential dread in real time. But I was almost there last week, as the 2026 Phillies nearly became the first team to blow a four-game playoff lead with five games to play. Almost. Sunday’s 7-3 win over Tampa Bay sent my beloved/cursed midlife baseball team back to the playoffs for the fifth straight year. The chill of the offseason has been delayed for at least two more sure-to-be-heart-attack-inducing games in Atlanta. ‘Woke 1.0′

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The only thing wrong with ‘Woke 1.0’ was that it wasn’t implemented

It’s a war almost nobody wanted, and yet it never, ever seems to end. Just this weekend there was yet another spontaneous incident that caused the conflict to flare back up again, as an entire platoon of keyboard commandos mobilized for action.

Yes, the utterly ridiculous “war on woke” is back on again. The equally senseless fighting in Iran is almost certain to end sooner than this boondoggle.

The flashpoint was something appropriately trivial enough for this war of distraction: a decision by the Boston Globe to report on the, yes, somewhat silly fight consuming a western Massachusetts lesbian tavern called the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue. The hangout continues to require all patrons to wear COVID-era KN95 masks, as a gesture that everyone is welcome at all times, including the immunocompromised.

The fracas that broke out when the owners of the Last Ditch sought to make just one night a week “mask-optional” in a bid to boost business didn’t just make for a widely read Globe scoop (supposedly it brought in several thousand new subscribers). It also spread great joy among the nattering nabobs who continue to see COVID-19 overreaction as the avatar of a far-left conspiracy to make America ungreat.

Suzy Weiss, writing for the Free Press founded by her sister and now CBS News honcho, Bari Weiss, emailed with glee that “what happened at Last Ditch shows that Woke 1.0 never ended in some parts of America. It just got crazier.” The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle — who can thank her colleague Kathleen “Donald Trump Will Be a Normal President” Parker for not having the worst columnist batting average of all time — declared that, groan, “The Great Awokening Is Over.”

This nonsense rekindled a fire that’s been smoldering since the summer among a certain crowd — six-figure-salaried pundits who call Trump “uncouth” and pat themselves on the back for their brave liberalism before picking up their kids at the Dalton School and catching the last train for the Hamptons — who insist America’s downfall didn’t peak with the 2016 election of a demagogue with dictatorial ambition.

No, the real crisis hit in 2020 when, in their telling, our great Fortune 500 companies were blackmailed into tweeting “Black Lives Matter,” when someone at the far edge of a protest march carried a sign that read “Defund the Police,” and when some tripping-on-idealism sophomore at Oberlin complained that serving bahn mi in the cafeteria was “cultural appropriation.”

Trump might be uncouth, they argue, but America will never be whole without a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a public apology for the crimes against humanity of the “woke era.”

The accelerant, if not the trigger, for this insanity was possibly the most unlikely of sources: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, heir apparent to the progressive movement, whom many would like to see run for president in 2028. Like her allies on the left, AOC has been undergoing a kind of Spanish Inquisition from journalists demanding an explanation for why — at a time when millions were marching against U.S. cops killing more citizens than anywhere else in the developed world — some folks on the far-left wanted to abolish not just the police but maybe Thanksgiving.

Ocasio-Cortez laughed off the question by quoting another New York progressive that “Woke 1 was crazy” and arguing that the madness of monthslong COVID lockdowns caused some people to voice extreme ideas they shouldn’t be judged upon six years later.

To say AOC’s comments were a mistake would be an understatement. She gave the critics an inch, and they’ve taken about 87 miles and counting. It gave a boost to a bevy of “both sides” columnists who’ve been dying to say the left and the right are equally to blame for everything that’s wrong with America.

“Restitution, if only in the form of honest contrition and perhaps even a public apology, is in order,” demanded conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who may have been referring to a few other journalists or professors who today blame “Woke 1.0” for their career setbacks, although he also may have been thinking about his own epic fight with the college professor who called him “a bedbug.”

Look, we all can laugh at the worst foibles of the far-left; that’s why Portlandia was such a popular show, even among liberals. We should cringe when some professor calls people “folx,” and get mad at more serious illiberal crimes against free speech, like stealing student newspapers or shutting down campus speakers over their politics.

But it’s a massive false equivalence to compare these offenses by low-wattage college students and a few professors to the high crimes and misdemeanors of an American fascist movement that includes the president, big chunks of Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court. What’s more, the people making these comparisons want to make you forget what the upheavals that peaked in 2020 were actually about, which was upending the status quo of which they are card-carrying members.

They want you to remember that “Defund the Police” placard so you’ll forget that millions marched in the streets in 2020 because George Floyd was just one of more than 1,000 Americans killed by the police that year — or that at least 1,000 people have died the same way in every year since then.

They want you to get mad about the “bahn mi kids” at Oberlin, so you won’t get angry at the gross unfairness of an educational system that’s tilted toward the kids of those writers and politicians demanding apologies for “wokeness” — the privilege that gives their pampered offspring SAT prep and legacy admissions while the rabble attends lousy public schools.

They have ridiculed, mocked, and called for the police suppression of every social movement from Occupy Wall Street to No Kings — maybe because they don’t want a higher marginal tax rate, but definitely because they are terrified that a more equal society for everyone means less status for them. Heck, some plebe might call them a “bedbug” and get away with it this time.

AOC got it totally wrong. “Woke 1″ wasn’t crazy. Its biggest problem was that the heart and soul of the movement — no more militarized police, better wages and health insurance, billionaires paying their fair share of taxes, and colleges that are accessible and affordable — was never implemented. The bad guys won, and the good guys gave up too easily.

No one needs to apologize for saying that maybe we should improve society somewhat. But meanwhile, hey, look over there — it’s a crazy lesbian bar!

Yo, do this!

• Over the years, as I’ve called on my love of American history to try and explain what went right and then went terribly wrong in the 80-plus years since World War II, there is one place that keeps popping up again and again: the University of California, especially its flagship Berkeley campus. In a time of free tuition and rising postwar optimism, the UC system was the crown jewel of U.S. public higher education, only to become ground zero for 1960s protests and the rise of Ronald Reagan, followed by fights over affirmative action, rising college costs, and much more. My good friend and former Newsday mentor Miriam Pawel has just published a much-needed chronicle of all this — California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California — that just now was enthusiastically downloaded by me.
• The crisis of press freedom in the United States has recently become a front-page story, with Donald Trump’s stunning and typically ham-handed efforts to ban news organizations he personally doesn’t like — CNN, MS NOW, and Politico — from the White House. At the same time, I chronicled the growing threats and harassment as well as actual violence against U.S. journalists that is endangering the First Amendment. I am asking you today to make a contribution to The Philadelphia Inquirer High-Impact Journalism Fund. Your gift ensures we have the resources to not only execute deep, investigative reporting that holds the powerful accountable, but to do so while keeping our journalists safe from the escalating legal and physical threats that have become a daily reality in this business.

Ask me anything

Question: How can Article I [of the U.S. Constitution] reassert itself when Article III seems intent on creating a unitary executive with vast, uncheckable powers? — Jackie Gardina (@jackiegardina.bsky.social) via Bluesky

Answer: Jackie, that’s a good question — what you’re basically asking is how can Congress (the subject of Article I) undo the power-grabbing role of the judiciary, and specifically the U.S. Supreme Court, that was created in Article III? No doubt, Donald Trump’s dictatorial ambitions have been fueled by a series of high court rulings that have placed the president above the law and expanded White House powers. But America’s founders clearly gave Congress the tools to reassert control, if only they would use them. Lawmakers have the authority to expand the Supreme Court, impose term limits on justices, mandate a code of ethics, and take other measures to bring this star chamber back to reality. And I believe a majority of voters are more than ready to sign off on such radical changes.

What you’re saying about …

There was pretty much unanimity among responders to last week’s question about Donald Trump banning reporters from his least favorite news outlets from the White House — an action that was quickly (and predictably) overturned by a (Trump-appointed) federal judge. Readers thought the entire press corps should walk out in solidarity, with no need to hurry back and record the president’s every utterance. “Not only should the White House press corps walk out in solidarity, but they should also start standing up for their colleagues when the president insults them,” wrote emailer David (full names, please!). “A few white guys saying, ‘Mr. President, that is not acceptable’ might actually register with Trump and his advisors.” Added Stephen R. Rourke, “Moreover, it would deprive Trump of the only thing he cares about: visibility.”

📮 This week’s question: Major League Baseball has scored TV ratings wins with games in unlikely settings, such as the Iowa cornfield that hosts the Field of Dreams game. Now MLB has approached the good people of the Trump regime with a new idea: a baseball field in a national park, possibly Wyoming’s Grand Teton. Brilliant marketing, or another crime against Mother Nature? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “National Park baseball” in the subject line.

Backstory on the Christian wealth scam with ties to the Eagles

It was already a bad look in May 2025 when some of the brightest lights of the then-Super Bowl-titlist Philadelphia Eagles — including head coach Nick Sirianni and star running back Saquon Barkley — pocketed large appearance fees to talk about football and God at an event at the now-named Xfinity Mobile Arena called Champions of Faith. The rally, as reported at the time by The Inquirer and other news outlets, existed to promote a Christian wealth scheme called Life Surge whose founder had left behind a trail of deception and fraud allegations. My colleagues Olivia Reiner and Ryan W. Briggs reported growing allegations that Life Surge “exploits the Christian faith and the allure of the famous speakers as a cover for ‘bait and switch’ sales tactics pitching a series of weekend investing seminars.”

The Eagles-laden event — which also featured speeches and a chance to meet stalwarts such as Brandon Graham, Cooper DeJean, and retired Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins — went ahead despite the negative coverage, but you could already sense the Life Surge saga was not going to end well. Last week, a scathing exposé led by podcaster Pablo Torre, who was just awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting that led to a massive fine against the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, turned Life Surge’s dodgy practices and the deep involvement of Heisman Trophy-winning retired quarterback Tim Tebow into a national scandal.

The joint project by Torre and Mother Jones investigative reporter Kiera Butler reported that “hundreds of attendees swap stories of high-pressure sales tactics infused with Christian messaging” on a large Facebook group of unhappy Life Surge customers, Reddit threads, and elsewhere. Some said they withdrew retirement funds or went deep into credit card debt to pay for “SurgeU” classes in wealth management that can cost as much as $40,000.

The story, boosted by Torre’s podcasting clout and the focus on Tebow’s role as a frequent featured speaker who’s earned an estimated $2 million to $4 million from his involvement, garnered immediate results. Tebow has already announced he is pausing any future involvement with Life Surge, noting “the allegations are extremely serious.” It’s doubtful any of the Eagles will face any consequences for their one-day fling with Life Surge, and yet maybe this scandal will finally convince Philly athletes to stop saying anything for another fistful of dollars.

It was stunning to see that the newest and arguably brightest star in the city’s sports firmament, the new 76er LeBron James, signed a $15 million deal — far more than the reduced salary he accepted to help the Sixers finally win another title — with the online prediction market Polymarket. This despite the fact that New York state (where James is apparently living, by the way) and others have accused Polymarket of running an unlicensed gambling operation, in an era when betting addictions are wrecking far too many lives.

James’ new ads for Polymarket dropped just weeks after The Inquirer reported that the Phillies’ highest-paid slugger, Bryce Harper, who has a 13-year, $330 million contract, was paid to film a personalized Cameo video that the sports-betting company FanDuel then sent to a gambler who was racking up $1.5 million in debt.

Harper said FanDuel slapped its logo on the video with neither his knowledge nor permission. Meanwhile, Eagles legend Dawkins, one of last year’s Life Surge speakers, found himself embroiled in controversy this week when Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security lifted a hype video of the footballer to promote its mass deportation efforts. The use of the video without Dawkins’ permission was an outrage, but then it’s easy to fool the public when our sporting heroes won’t stop running their mouths to inflate their already bloated bank balance.

What I wrote on this date in 2020

Thursday will mark the 56th anniversary of the night that forever defined Philly “attytood”: The Phillies’ final home game at iconic Connie Mack Stadium in 1970, which prompted fans of the team that still has the most losses in major-league history to rip everything — even the toilets — out of the rusted ballpark before rioting on the field. I wrote on the 50th anniversary six years ago that the chaos was “a pivot point in how the nation would see Philadelphia — no longer either the place of history-class field trips or boring Quaker blue laws but now the U.S. capital of blue-collar attytood, with sports fans who were in your face, with a wooden slat if someone was dumb enough to hand them one.”

Read the rest: “In 1970, the world was coming apart, and Philly took it out on Connie Mack Stadium.”

Recommended Inquirer reading

• Only one column this week, as I also toiled on my latest investigative reporting project on what’s really happening with immigration arrests in Pennsylvania. In that column, I looked at Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic and outlandish public statements and argued that — instead of news coverage that soberly looks at every bat-guano crazy outburst or rambling speech — it’s time for the media to start seriously questioning the president’s mental health. The moment for real talk about Trump’s disordered mind — and whatever remedy is possible — is now, before the crisis implodes.
• Speaking of Donald Trump, one defining feature of his second presidency has been the fearfulness of newspaper editorial boards — including many that had called for Richard Nixon or even Bill Clinton to resign back in the day — to aggressively challenge the current POTUS even as he flagrantly violates both laws and common decency. I’m proud to work with the exception: the award-winning editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Spearheaded by my friend and colleague Paul Davies, The Inquirer this week has been publishing the latest in a six-part series of major indictments of Trump’s massive wrongdoing called “The Art of the Steal.” The recent broadsides included “It’s all about him,” which digs into Trump’s obsession with wasteful Washington, D.C., vanity projects, and “The family that grifts together,” which aims to chronicle the endless parade of crypto scams, defense contracts, and other financial schemes that have made billions of dollars for the president’s kin. These outstanding works of opinion journalism are just the latest example of how a newsroom funded not by billionaires but by a nonprofit foundation created in the public interest can’t be bought off or cowed by a corrupt government. You can support this important work — and enjoy reading it — when you subscribe to The Inquirer.

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