The key to understanding the upcoming elections, and especially the confounding race for Pennsylvania governor, may be Chris Pratt and his hit streaming series, "The Terminal List." Here's how critic Rebecca Onion, writing for Slate, describes Amazon Prime's top show: "The Terminal List is a classic American fantasy about the goodness of the SEALs, the corruption of high-level government officials and corporate shills, and the purifying quality of righteous violence."
Does that sound like a binge-worthy thriller that speaks to the popular anxieties of the moment, or a piece of simplistic and frightening myth-making that nurtures violent delusions? Your answer probably expresses how you think about politics in the year 2022.
Onion, you won't be surprised, thinks it's the latter. She's one of the 60% of critics who, according to Rotten Tomatoes, panned the show as "an unhinged right-wing revenge fantasy."
Everyday folks, however, have had a very different response. Fully 95% of people who logged on to Rotten Tomatoes gave "The Terminal List" their seal of approval.
This is America's cultural and political divide in miniature. If a show about an American warrior avenging the deaths of his comrades and family at the hands of a shadowy global government-corporate conspiracy gets your blood pumping, you're probably skeptical of the powers that be in the real world, too, and looking for someone — anyone — to clean house. If it fills you with dread, you probably see angry political insurgents as a grave threat to democracy and the country itself.
The success of "The Terminal List," then, is a fair barometer of the stormy mood of the country — and of the divide between the left-liberal cultural establishment and the people who ultimately decide elections. And that's why Josh Shapiro should be nervous, and perhaps second-guessing his campaign's cheeky attempt to boost Doug Mastriano during the primaries.
By any conventional political logic, Pennsylvania's gubernatorial election should already be settled. Shapiro has done everything a successful candidate is supposed to do: He has had a highly visible term-and-a-half as state attorney general; he has curated a progressive-but-pragmatic collection of policy positions; and he cleared the primary field, allowing him to build an intimidating war chest for the general election.
Mastriano, by contrast, hasn't. He would be considered fringe even in deep red states. He has dabbled in conspiracy theories, from the typical 2020 election business all the way to the QAnon rabbit hole. He displays a deeply political Christian faith that's conventionally seen as disquieting, and maybe disqualifying. He spurns every establishment, including his own party's, which is why his campaign reported only $400,000 on hand in its most recent disclosure. His opponent has over $13 million.
And yet early polling has indicated the race is tight — much closer than the Senate contest between progressive front-runner John Fetterman and the politically and geographically undefinable Mehmet Oz. What's going on?
The reason: Doug Mastriano is Chris Pratt.
In a manner of speaking.
The most potent feeling in "The Terminal List" is betrayal. In becoming a Navy SEAL, Pratt's character placed his trust in not just the American government, but the global order it supports. And now they seem to have taken everything from him.
This is, for many voters, a fable of 21st century America. They placed their trust in corporations that laid them off after decades of loyal service; in a medical establishment that got their uncles and cousins and children addicted to opioids, and whose spiraling costs may be bankrupting them; in an education system that defaulted on its promise of financial stability in return for college tuition; in a national and global economy that's rewarding each successive generation's labor with less security, lower quality goods and now inflation; and in a government that is more invested in partisan grandstanding than in protecting Americans from any of these betrayals.
So, yeah, "The Terminal List" is a revenge fantasy. That's precisely the appeal. Whether every choice our hero makes is strictly moral is beside the point. The important thing is that he's been betrayed and now he's fighting back.
That's why caterwauling about Doug Mastriano's whereabouts on Jan. 6, 2021, or his conspiracy-mongering, or his fringe theology will only go so far — and not just among right-wingers, but anyone who feels betrayed by American institutions. These are peccadillos compared to what the establishment has done. With his naked contempt for every nicety of establishment politics, he seems to many people to be fighting back for them.
And there's another connection between the character and the candidate: They both represent the military. Every year, Gallup polls Americans on their trust in various institutions. Public confidence has been declining across the board in recent years, with the presidency plummeting to 23%, the criminal justice system to 14% and Congress to 7%. In this year's survey only two institutions remained above 50%: small business (68%) and the military (64%).
Mastriano had by all accounts an impressive career in the U.S. Army, from which he retired in 2017 as a colonel and instructor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle. That carries more weight with many voters, across party lines, than even exemplary service in the executive or legislative branches of a government they increasingly despise.
Many disaffected voters still won't buy it. For millions of Pennsylvanians, though, Doug Mastriano is running for office as an avenging angel, and a battle-tested champion. He is the inevitable reaction to systematic betrayal, a man who promises, like Chris Pratt, to satisfy the widespread lust for vengeance.
Except this fantasy is real.
