Elon Musk wants 'historically accurate' 'Odyssey' movie — and may put his money where his mouth is



Tech billionaire Elon Musk has vowed to help create a "historically accurate" movie version of "The Odyssey" after issuing strong condemnations against the casting in Christopher Nolan's depiction of the epic Greek poem.

Musk previously called Nolan an "anti-white racist" for casting a Mexican-Kenyan actress for the role of Helen of Troy. He then pushed a popular online theory that Nolan "desecrated" the Homeric epic in order to fulfill Academy Award rules on diversity.

'Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.'

"Chris Nolan is pissing on Homer's grave. Disgraceful," he added.

Musk's own artificial intelligence engine found the diversity accusation to be without merit, stating, "No major studio film needs a diverse cast for Best Picture consideration."

After the film came out to critical acclaim and box office success, Musk appeared to signal his continued displeasure with the movie in a response Tuesday.

Musk replied with two words when a user suggested that he put up $100 million to have Mel Gibson direct a version of "The Odyssey" with "painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting" and strict adherence to the dialogue of the poem.

"I'm down," the trillionaire said.

He went on to say that his artificial intelligence engine would produce a historically accurate version as well.

"Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer," he wrote on the X platform, which he also owns.

He added a user-generated short movie of scenes from the ancient epic developed through the AI engine.

Others have criticized the casting decisions in the Nolan version, which included a character not in the original epic portrayed by transgender-identifying actress Elliot Paige.

However, predictions that audiences would reject the very expensive film appear to have missed the mark, as many theaters report sold-out screenings. The movie has already earned $264 million in its opening weekend, making it the highest-grossing opening for a Nolan movie worldwide.

RELATED: ‘OD’ SQUAD: Whining, wacko stars can’t keep ‘Odyssey’ from box office glory

Others like philosophy professor Owen Anderson, who sometimes writes opinions for Blaze News, argue that Nolan's epic is a "profoundly conservative" film based on the overarching themes about society and human nature.

"Rather than modernize Homer or turn the poem into another sermon about race, gender, or contemporary politics, Nolan has made a movie about the collapse of civilization itself," Anderson explains. "The central question is not simply whether Odysseus will make it home. It is whether a civilization built on pagan foundations possesses the moral resources to repair the evil it has unleashed."

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You can’t handle the movies anymore



Americans are breathing a sigh of relief at the apparent end of woke lectures masquerading as movies. The last few that slipped through have been sent to the box office graveyard.

But another problem remains.

What gives a human life ultimate meaning? That is a question woke ideology cannot answer. It is also the question every civilization, and every soul, must face.

As John Wick taught us, bad choices lead to consequences. And after 15-plus years of woke education and pop culture, one consequence may be that American audiences can no longer handle a movie that wrestles seriously with the deepest questions of human life.

Permit me to explain why this trouble looms on the horizon like Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”

The woke agenda, with its oppression-studies degrees and DEI catechisms, has trained generations of students and audiences to think superficially. They are told suffering comes from “whiteness” and “heteronormativity,” and that if they elect enough democratic socialists, these problems will vanish and free stuff will rain down from heaven.

Spend enough time on a modern university campus, and you will see how often life’s deepest questions are flattened into identity categories.

Why do people suffer? Systems of oppression.

Why does life feel empty? Unjust structures prevent economic flourishing.

The standard DEI professor solves the problems of evil and meaning by reassuring one group of students that their hardships are caused by another group of students, and that each group can be identified by skin color and sexual preference.

The solution is always the same: Become an activist. Advocate for the marginalized. Restructure society. Stop whiteness.

Think of the Ralph Wiggum meme: “I’m helping.”

Movie after movie has thrown these inane answers at American audiences. Marvel has done more than most. It had a chance to get serious when Ultron sought a solution to the problem of evil. Instead, it simply got violent.

What was the franchise’s answer to evil? Some saccharine claim about the innate goodness of human beings when they are “free” under a nanny state of superheroes.

But those supposedly good humans are the same people who committed all the evil Ultron saw when he studied world history.

The Avengers are an existential nightmare, making one wonder whether each member of the team was meant to be a hero of the absurd after all.

RELATED: Give He-Man credit for mocking the unmockable

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These reflections made me wonder whether today’s audiences, ruined by DEI, could watch a movie like “Cool Hand Luke.”

The film would almost certainly never be made today. But even if it were, would anyone make it to the end? Better yet, would anyone understand what the movie asks us to confront?

Luke, played by Paul Newman, returns home from World War II to a life with no obvious purpose. In a drunken act of vandalism, he cuts the heads off parking meters and is sentenced to a southern prison camp.

The crime is almost beside the point. The movie is not really about criminal justice. It is asking an older question: What does a man do when he cannot find meaning?

Luke’s struggle is existential. He first fights the toughest prisoner, and his refusal to stay down becomes a declaration that he will not surrender his humanity. Later, when Luke wins at poker, the men call him “Cool Hand Luke.”

His coolness is defiance against a universe that appears silent. If nothing matters, why get upset?

The prison itself becomes a metaphor for human existence. The laws appear arbitrary. Luke tells another prisoner, “All I see is a lot of guys laying down a lot of rules and regulations.”

Then, Luke’s mother visits one last time as she is dying.

Their final conversation is painfully cold. He calls her “Arletta” rather than “Mother.” Neither expresses love. As she leaves, he simply says, “So long, Arletta. Take care.”

Harry Dean Stanton sings “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” as Luke walks back into the prison. The inability of sentimentalized religion to give Luke meaning becomes the movie’s second theme, after the helplessness of law.

Soon afterward, Luke receives word of his mother’s death. He sings a mocking song about the empty superstition of popular religion:

Get yourself a sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones, sitting on
A pedestal of abalone shell.
Going 90, it ain’t scary,
’Cause I got the Virgin Mary
Assurin’ me that I won’t go to hell.

Popular religion pours opium over the suffering of this life with empty sentimentality and promises of a better afterlife.

Neither law nor sentimental religion can quiet Luke’s soul. So he runs.

Captured once, he hears the famous line from the captain: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

After another escape attempt, the guards force him into a grotesque cycle of digging and filling the same hole.

“Luke, what’s your dirt doing in the boss’ hole?”

After Luke digs a grave-sized hole, another boss asks, “Luke, what’s your dirt doing on my yard? Put it back in that hole.”

This continues until his spirit finally breaks. He begs them to stop. He promises never to escape or back-sass again.

Yet he escapes once more.

RELATED: The left’s icons keep face-planting in public

Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

His final refuge is an empty church. There, Luke finally speaks honestly. He addresses God simply as, “Hey, Old Man.” He admits that he began strong but has grown tired. He wants answers. He wants someone to respond.

Silence.

“I guess you’re a pretty hard case too,” Luke concludes.

A fellow prisoner is sent in to persuade him to come out peacefully. Luke yells out the window, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” but he is shot and killed before he can finish.

The movie refuses every easy answer. The audience is meant to leave and wrestle with the problem of meaning.

Luke cannot be right about final emptiness. But where can we find meaning if neither law nor superficial popular religion can provide it?

That is precisely the sort of question our culture increasingly avoids.

The last 15 years have been a parade of DEI sermons and ideological mush. The worry is that Americans raised in this, educated in woke K-12 schools, and graduated into oppression-studies assumptions would not know how to contemplate existential meaning in a movie like “Cool Hand Luke.”

They would reduce the story to demographic categories. White prisoner. White guards. Southern prison. Oppression explained. Luke deserves what he got.

As a philosophy professor, I hope Americans have not lost the ability to appreciate stories that force us to confront the deepest questions. I hope they are not merely rejecting the stupidity of DEI but also rejecting superficial answers and longing for something deeper.

What gives a human life ultimate meaning? That is a question woke ideology cannot answer.

It is also the question every civilization, and every soul, must face.

Disney Exec Phone Call Details Revealed & the Next Threat to Conservatives | Ron DeSantis
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Disney Exec Phone Call Details Revealed & the Next Threat to Conservatives | Ron DeSantis

From Prada to politics: Meryl Streep tacks on SAVE America Act scare tactics to end of Colbert interview



The SAVE America Act — which would simply require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections — remains stalled in the Senate after three weeks of contentious debate, a failed cloture vote blocked by the Democratic filibuster, and the ongoing partial DHS shutdown.

Opponents continue to lean on the argument that the bill disenfranchises millions of married women. Because roughly 80% of them change their last name upon marriage, their current legal name no longer matches the name on their birth certificate (the main document accepted as proof of citizenship). This could force them to obtain additional paperwork like marriage certificates or updated records that many may lack or find burdensome.

Meryl Streep is now apparently joining the fight to block the SAVE America Act. On a recent episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the 76-year-old actress randomly brought up the bill and perpetuated the same argument.

Pat Gray played the clip on a recent episode of “Pat Gray Unleashed” and addressed Streep’s comments.

Near the end of the episode, after spending the majority of the time talking about Streep’s latest film, “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” Colbert asked if there was anything else on her mind she wanted to talk about, and Streep used that opening to pivot and deliver her warning about the SAVE America Act and married women.

“The Save America Act, if that passes, all the married women that have changed their names are going to have to go to the registrar and prove that they are who they are,” Streep said.

“When you get to the voting booth in November, you might be disqualified because your name on your birth certificate doesn’t match your name on the voting rolls, ... and this is such a pain in the neck because you have to go, but do it because otherwise you’ll be turned away, and I think that women need to be heard, especially in this moment,” she added.

Pat is nauseated with Hollywood’s left-wing agenda.

“Just the lies that continue to spill out of these stupid people,” he sighs.

“I doubt she knows that’s a lie. She probably really believes it because she only follows left-wing morons,” he adds.

Pat explains that the SAVE America Act’s co-author, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), has repeatedly debunked the claim that the bill disenfranchises married women. Numerous times he has clarified that the SAVE America Act includes special accommodations for name discrepancies: Women can provide additional linking documents (like a marriage certificate) or simply swear an affidavit attesting to their citizenship, after which states can verify the details later.

“There’s nobody going to be left behind when it comes to being accepted into the voter pool,” co-host Keith Malinak says.

“But the only way to convince the American people that the SAVE Act is something negative is to lie about it,” Pat says, “and so that’s what they do. They just sit there and lie through their communist teeth.”

To hear more, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

"This is TRASH!" - Why the Oscars Ratings COLLAPSE is a Massive Win for America
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"This is TRASH!" - Why the Oscars Ratings COLLAPSE is a Massive Win for America

Netflix didn’t lose to Trump. It lost to math.



After months of public back-and-forth, Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery is dead. Paramount won. The company on February 26 said it had completed its purchase, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said regulators would approve it “pretty quickly.”

Some observers blamed Netflix’s loss on the Trump administration. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) labeled the Paramount deal a “disaster,” and allies implied that administration officials leaned on Netflix to stand down.

Netflix profits when audiences stay home. Theaters, restaurants, and the broader ecosystem built around going out don’t.

That’s revisionist history. Netflix lost for two reasons: Paramount offered more money, and Republicans have grown far less willing to wave through consolidation by mega-firms that already squeeze consumers and tilt the culture war leftward.

Paramount outbid Netflix

Start with the obvious. Netflix offered a little over $27 per share. Paramount offered $31 per share — roughly $111 billion in total value.

Netflix couldn’t match that price. Paramount could. Netflix walked.

That’s math, not corporate intrigue.

Why Washington had concerns

Money explains why Netflix lost. Politics explains why so few people in Washington felt inclined to rescue it.

Carr said Netflix’s bid raised “a lot of concerns.” President Donald Trump signaled skepticism. So did many congressional Republicans. They saw a company that already dominates streaming trying to turn itself into the dominant media conglomerate — and they saw the costs landing on consumers, creators, and competitors.

Consumers would have taken the hit first. As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) noted during merger hearings, Netflix’s expansion has marched alongside higher prices. Subscribers pay more, then sit through more ads. The company pushes customers toward “cheaper” tiers that still interrupt programming people already bought access to watch.

Filmmakers would have taken the hit next. Director James Cameron warned that the sale would be “disastrous for the theatrical motion picture business.” Netflix profits when audiences stay home. Theaters, restaurants, and the broader ecosystem built around going out don’t.

RELATED: CNN’s biggest nightmare is one step closer to finally coming true

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Then comes culture. Paramount’s programming spans the spectrum. Nobody confuses it with a conservative company, but nobody defaults to treating it as a progressive messaging machine either. Its catalog ranges from right-coded “Yellowstone” to newer, openly left-wing “Star Trek” entries, with plenty of mainstream fare between.

Netflix plays a different game. Its board includes former Obama administration official Susan Rice. Critics on the right point to its content tilt, including an Oversight Project analysis that found left-leaning programming outnumbered right-leaning programming by a wide margin. Even Netflix’s CEO recently tried to walk back a 2020-era post supporting Black Lives Matter, a retreat that looked less like conviction than belated damage control.

Monopoly defeated

For years, conservatives answered complaints about corporate media with a libertarian shrug: Let the market decide. That posture collapsed once the market stopped functioning like a market. A handful of firms now gatekeep distribution, advertising, and cultural prestige. Consumer choice matters less when one company controls the pipes.

Netflix seemed to miss that shift. It still spoke like the scrappy upstart that crushed Blockbuster, not like the biggest player trying to swallow a legacy studio and reshape the entire ecosystem on its terms.

Netflix will survive. It will keep producing content, and it will keep pushing its worldview in much of that content. It just won’t do it with control over Warner Bros. Discovery — or over the broader media landscape.

Why Trump must block Netflix’s Warner Bros. takeover



If Netflix absorbs Warner Bros., the far left will secure a cultural monopoly unmatched in American history. This would place iconic franchises, mass distribution platforms, and elite political influence under a single ideological command structure.

Most coverage treats Netflix as a hybrid of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. That framing misses the decisive fact: The company already operates well inside the Democrat political ecosystem. Susan Rice’s role on Netflix’s board makes that unmistakable.

Susan Rice, Reed Hastings, Barack Obama, and their allies stand within reach of the most powerful political messaging system in American history.

Rice joined Netflix’s board in 2018 after serving in senior positions in the Obama administration. She returned in 2023 after leading Biden’s Domestic Policy Council. Her career spans national security, intelligence, and domestic governance, placing her at the intersection of political power and narrative control.

Rice represents a specific governing class. She served as Obama’s national security adviser and later ran domestic policy for Biden, exercising authority over both foreign and internal priorities. She has shown a willingness to use state power for partisan ends, including her role in the unmasking of Trump transition officials. She has also promoted the most aggressive progressive social policies, including medical interventions for minors under gender ideology.

Rice understands that political power does not rest solely on legislation or elections. It rests on shaping public perception. Institutions that control culture define what ideas appear reasonable, what questions seem illegitimate, and which outcomes feel inevitable.

That instinct was clear in her 2019 New York Times op-ed, “When the President is a Bigot, the Poison Spreads,” in which she accused President Trump of “overt racism” and “almost daily attacks on black and brown people.” The piece functioned less as analysis and more as moral instruction issued from elite authority.

Since returning to Netflix’s board, Rice has intensified her attacks on the Trump administration. She accused Vice President JD Vance of showing “fealty to Vladimir Putin” and derided Trump as a “surrender monkey” for resisting constant military escalation. These are not isolated remarks. They reflect an entrenched worldview that treats deviation from the foreign policy consensus as disqualifying.

RELATED: Can conservatives reclaim pop culture?

Photo by Ernesto S. Ruscio/Getty Images

Rice’s presence alone should concern anyone who values media pluralism. A Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros. would raise the stakes dramatically. Such a merger would consolidate production, distribution, and political alignment inside a single corporate structure.

Warner Bros. controls some of the most influential properties in American entertainment, including DC Comics, "The Lord of the Rings," Harry Potter, and a deep film and television catalog. These assets shape cultural imagination at scale. No serious observer believes they would remain politically neutral under unified ideological control.

Netflix’s existing output already shows how entertainment becomes a delivery system for political messaging. Iconic characters are refashioned to signal progressive virtue. Narratives favor mass migration, abortion, and sexual politics without engaging dissent. Ideology enters through repetition rather than argument.

The most consequential impact would involve foreign policy and the national security state. Entertainment does not debate policy; it conditions instinct. Audiences absorb stories that normalize permanent crisis, global intervention, and moralized obedience to authority long before they encounter those ideas in political form.

Rice is not operating alone, obviously. Netflix founder and chairman Reed Hastings is a major Democrat donor who tried to blacklist Peter Thiel in 2016 for supporting Trump. That same year, Netflix signed Michelle and Barack Obama to a reported $50 million production deal, renewed in 2024 for an undisclosed amount.

RELATED: Trump is right: Netflix’s merger would create a woke media monster

Photo by Vincent Feuray/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images

These relationships form a coherent network. Political power feeds cultural production. Cultural production shapes public opinion. Distribution ensures saturation. The loop closes without voters ever being asked.

My organization, the Oversight Project, will soon release an interim report examining Netflix’s role in social engineering under the guise of entertainment. The report documents how elite political priorities migrate into mass culture through corporate platforms that present ideology as entertainment.

A constitutional republic depends on a citizenry capable of self-government. America’s founders emphasized this repeatedly, and the First Amendment reflects their concern. Self-rule requires access to information and culture that are not filtered through ideological monopolies.

When dominant media platforms operate as unified political actors, that condition erodes. Citizens no longer encounter competing interpretations of reality. They receive moral direction from institutions that treat politics as settled doctrine.

A Netflix-Warner Bros. merger would accelerate this consolidation. It would fuse cultural memory, creative output, and political alignment into a single apparatus. The result would not be persuasion but control through saturation.

Susan Rice, Reed Hastings, Barack Obama, and their allies understand what is at stake. They stand within reach of the most powerful political messaging system in American history. President Trump must not allow it.

Trump is right: Netflix’s merger would create a woke media monster



Popular entertainment has always shaped the public mind in ways politicians can only envy.

Percy Bysshe Shelley once called poets the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” The idea surfaces memorably in the 1984 Best Picture winner “Amadeus,” where Emperor Joseph II appears more invested in micromanaging Vienna’s opera scene than governing his empire.

Modern technology has magnified that cultural power. Today, many young Americans absorb more of their moral instruction from Netflix than from teachers, pastors, or even parents.

Now Netflix wants to expand that influence dramatically by acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, a media conglomerate that includes HBO, DC Studios, and franchises such as “Harry Potter” and “Game of Thrones.” The combined entity would control roughly a third of the streaming market and wield unprecedented cultural power.

Democrats understand that politics flows downstream from culture. Allowing Netflix to absorb Warner Bros. would give that worldview control over even more cultural territory.

The scale of the proposed merger raised concerns even for President Donald Trump, who warned last month that it “could be a problem” and confirmed his administration would take an active role in reviewing the deal.

Given the stakes, the question is not abstract. How does Netflix use the power it already holds?

Consider the company’s recent headline-grabbing film, “Queen of Coal,” described as the story of “a trans woman who dreams of working the coal mines” and must battle a town defined by “superstition and patriarchy.”

Inspiring stuff.

Or recall Netflix’s 2020 release of “Cuties,” a French film centered on 11-year-old girls twerking. The filmmakers claimed the movie criticized the sexualization of children. Perhaps that was their intent. Netflix’s marketing department missed the point entirely, replacing the original poster with one featuring preteen actresses in sexualized poses. Public outrage followed, and Netflix eventually apologized.

After George Floyd’s death in 2020, Netflix declared on social media, “To be silent is to be complicit. Black lives matter,” and then set about race-swapping characters across its catalog.

Zoom out further. A report by Concerned Women for America found that nearly half of Netflix’s children’s programming pushes LGBT themes.

Taken together, the pattern is unmistakable. Netflix uses its platform to advance a radical progressive agenda, and scrutiny only confirms it.

The company’s internal culture reinforces the point. Even by Big Tech standards, Netflix skews sharply left. In 2020, 98% of its political donations went to Democrats, compared with 84% at Apple and 77% at Facebook.

CEO Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder and longtime chief executive, donated $7 million in 2024 to a pro-Kamala Harris super PAC and $2 million to California’s redistricting effort last year. In 2017, Hastings told fellow billionaire Peter Thiel that his support for Trump reflected such “catastrophically bad judgment” that it called into question Thiel’s fitness to remain on Facebook’s board.

Hastings has made clear that conservative ideas do not merely deserve debate. In his view, they disqualify those who hold them from serious consideration.

Then comes the revolving door between Netflix and Democratic power.

RELATED: Netflix wants a monopoly on your mind

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

In 2018, Netflix signed a deal with former President Barack Obama reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars. The results included a slate of progressive documentaries and an apocalypse thriller featuring the line, “Trust should not be doled out easily, especially to white people” — a sentiment both racist and badly written.

Susan Rice offers another example. After serving as Obama’s U.N. ambassador and national security adviser, she joined Netflix’s board during Trump’s first term, left to lead Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, and has now returned to the company.

Democrats understand that politics flows downstream from culture. Allowing Netflix to absorb Warner Bros. would give that worldview control over even more cultural territory.

President Trump has signaled that he understands what is at stake. He has warned that the $82.7 billion deal must undergo rigorous antitrust scrutiny.

As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) noted, the merged company would exceed the 30% market-share threshold traditionally viewed as “presumptively problematic” under antitrust law.

But Trump’s concern goes deeper. As an entertainer himself, he grasps the importance of the arts. That understanding explains his hands-on approach to reforming the previously ultra-woke Kennedy Center. It explains his plan to commission 250 classical sculptures for a National Garden of American Heroes. It explains his appointment of Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone as special ambassadors to Hollywood.

And it explains why he should not allow Netflix to build a woke media monopoly capable of doing more long-term damage to the country than any single election cycle.

Charlie Sheen changed his politics by changing the channel



About six years ago, I started a simple experiment. Each evening, instead of relying on a single news source, I watched both sides of the political spectrum — MSNBC and CNN on the left, Fox on the right. The goal was not balance for its own sake. It was triangulation: getting closer to the truth than any one outlet seemed capable of providing.

The pattern emerged quickly. The full story almost never lives on a single channel. It lives in the gaps — in what one side omits, what the other exaggerates, and what only becomes visible when competing narratives collide. Stepping outside a single media ecosystem sharpened my understanding of events and exposed how much emotional steering hides behind what passes for “objective” news.

If a Hollywood actor immersed for decades in elite cultural assumptions can break free simply by pressing 'channel up,' that should give the rest of us pause.

I was reminded of this after reading Megyn Kelly’s interview with actor Charlie Sheen.

Pick up the remote

For years, Sheen embodied Hollywood’s loud, theatrical hostility toward Donald Trump. He embodied Trump derangement syndrome. Then he startled people by admitting that he had begun to change his views. Not because of a grand ideological awakening, but because of something mundane.

"I'm going to change the channel," he told Kelly. "I'm gonna do my own research, like I've done with everything my entire life. I'm gonna listen to other voices. I'm gonna explore just hearing both sides of the g**d**n story."

Sheen described realizing that he had been “hypnotized” — his word — by the media he trusted. What once felt authoritative and neutral began to look curated, repetitive, and manipulative.

“What I was so hypnotized by,” he said, “in some ways can be described as state-run media. ... Legacy media is very much like that.”

How narrative replaces reporting

That charge matters, because it is not rooted in party loyalty. It is rooted in recognition. More Americans sense that the information they consume does not simply inform them — it conditions them. It trains emotional responses, assigns villains, and narrows acceptable conclusions.

As Sheen flipped channels, he discovered how incomplete his worldview had been. Then came his most striking admission: “I felt really stupid. I don't have a fancier way to describe it. ... Some of the stuff I’d bought into … some of the people I was hating because I was told I was supposed to hate them.”

That kind of honesty is rare. In today’s culture, changing one’s mind is treated as treason rather than growth. Sheen’s shift is not primarily about moving from left to right. It is about reclaiming agency — refusing to let a single narrative dictate who deserves trust or contempt.

For years, Americans have been sorted into hardened political tribes by outlets that no longer report so much as reinforce. Each network offers a prepackaged worldview with designated heroes, enemies, and emotional cues. The longer someone consumes only one of them, the more certain — and less informed — he becomes.

This is how democracies fracture. Not because citizens lack reason, but because they are denied the full range of facts required to reason well.

Regret isn’t the point

Sheen even expressed regret over his 2024 vote for Kamala Harris, a decision he now believes was made inside an echo chamber he did not recognize at the time. The regret itself is not the point. The awakening is.

RELATED: Netflix wants a monopoly on your mind

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

If a Hollywood actor immersed for decades in elite cultural assumptions can break free simply by pressing “channel up,” that should give the rest of us pause.

It suggests intellectual independence remains possible. It suggests curiosity can overpower conditioning. And it suggests Americans are far more capable of balanced judgment than our media landscape assumes.

The most patriotic habit left

The lesson is not complicated. If you want to understand what is really happening in this country, do not limit yourself to the channel you already agree with. Change it. Listen to the other side. Sit with the discomfort.

The clarity that follows may surprise you. It may challenge your assumptions. It may even change your mind.

In today’s America, that may be one of the most constructive — and patriotic — acts left to us.

Netflix wants a monopoly on your mind



Netflix has announced an $80-plus billion plan to buy Warner Bros. Discovery — a move that would give the streaming giant control of some of the biggest entertainment franchises in America. Executives celebrated the deal, promising consumers “more of what they love.” In reality, the merger would create a monopolistic monster. For millions of Americans already frustrated with Netflix’s ideology and influence, this feels like a bridge too far.

This isn’t some routine corporate merger. It is an attempt to build an unstoppable cultural behemoth. Netflix is already the largest streaming platform in the country. Absorbing Warner Bros. — one of Hollywood’s oldest and most important studios — would allow the company to tower over its competitors and control a massive share of American storytelling.

The Netflix-Warner Bros. merger would confer unprecedented cultural and economic authority on a company already mired in national controversy.

Antitrust concerns are obvious and bipartisan. Lawmakers in both parties have called the deal an antitrust “nightmare.” Consumers have already filed a class-action lawsuit arguing that the merger would gut competition. But there is another reason conservatives in particular are sounding the alarm: the cultural power Netflix has accumulated — and how it intends to use it.

The culture-war dimension

In recent years, Netflix has dominated the streaming world and, by extension, much of the debate over ideological influence in entertainment. The company has been at the center of national fights over gender, sexuality, race, and the politicization of children’s programming.

Elon Musk triggered a viral backlash when he urged millions of followers to cancel Netflix, accusing the platform of pushing a “woke agenda” into entertainment and slipping social messaging into children’s content. Musk tapped into a widespread, simmering frustration: the belief that major corporations no longer reflect the values of ordinary American families.

Netflix’s programming choices have not eased those concerns. The company has showcased transgender and nonbinary themes in children’s shows, celebrated DEI ideology internally, and proudly curated LGBTQ+ collections “for families.” Sometimes this yields unintentional comedy — like a new show about a transgender coal miner — but other times, the messaging feels more deliberate and invasive.

Now imagine giving the company control of Warner Bros. The concern isn’t only economic. It’s cultural. A combined Netflix-Warner empire would shape what stories get made, which values get promoted, and what kind of entertainment future generations will inherit.

What happens to theaters, communities, and creators?

Warner Bros. has long been a pillar of American cinema. Local theaters depend on major studios to draw families out of their homes and into shared cultural experiences — some of the last common spaces in American life. Netflix, by contrast, has built its kingdom on isolation: individual screens, algorithmic curation, the slow erosion of communal entertainment.

If Netflix takes control of Warner Bros., expect shorter theatrical windows, more straight-to-streaming releases, and a slow decline in the local theaters that hold American communities together. The result: fewer choices, weaker alternatives, and consumers trapped paying whatever the merged company demands.

Netflix insists this won’t happen. History suggests otherwise.

Creators and workers see what’s coming

Hollywood’s creative class understands the danger. Director James Cameron has warned that the merger would flatten artistic diversity and silence competing voices. Industry unions fear that a single corporation controlling both production and distribution will decide which projects get funded, which careers move forward, and which ideas make it to the screen.

A company with that much power can shape the entire pipeline of culture.

RELATED:Can conservatives reclaim pop culture?

Photo by Danny Martindale/FilmMagic

The government must stop this

Regulators have noticed. President Trump has expressed concern that the combined company would wield too much market power. The Department of Justice and consumer advocates are preparing for an aggressive antitrust review. Critics across the political spectrum warn that prices will rise, competition will collapse, and consumers will lose.

Americans want competition — not cultural empires run by a handful of executives who impose ideological agendas while claiming neutrality. They want storytellers who reflect a diversity of values and views, not corporate gatekeepers who see entertainment primarily as a delivery system for political messaging.

The Netflix-Warner Bros. merger threatens all of this. It would confer unprecedented cultural and economic authority on a company already mired in national controversy.

The Trump administration should block the merger.

Americans are tired of corporations that profit from their attention while ignoring their concerns. Allowing one company to dominate such a massive share of American entertainment would weaken the industry and harm the country.

The government must stop this power grab before the damage becomes irreversible.