Schmidt is a syndicated columnist and Editorial Board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Say you want to reduce polarization in the new year? Might I suggest going to see a movie this holiday season – but not just any movie. Check out “Spirited,” the musical starring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer.
Over Thanksgiving weekend my family went to see “Spirited” in a movie theater (it is also streaming on AppleTV+). “Spirited” is a musical version of the classic Charles Dickens story “A Christmas Carol.” I left the theater feeling energized for the good fight of repairing our democracy in 2023. And don’t worry, there will be no spoilers here.
For over two centuries, Jacob Marley has led the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-To-Come in selecting a miserable soul for redemption. They spend the year preparing for Christmas Eve and then haunt the selected “perp” with hopes of changing them to be a more positive force for humanity. While looking for their next soul, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) runs into a speaker at a hotel, Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds). Briggs is a morally bankrupt media consultant and social media manipulator. One of the spirits who works for Marley describes Briggs’ company this way: “specializes in creating controversy, conflict, and disinformation for the benefits of his clients worldwide.” The Ghost of Christmas Present watches Briggs break into a musical number about weaponizing the war on Christmas for profit while speaking to the National Association of Christmas Tree Growers.
Here are a few of the notable lines from the song "Bringin' Back Christmas”:
“Outrage is a drug.”
“Now it's some slight manipulation but it’s what we’ve gotta do. See, we need some confrontation, or your message won’t get through.”
“But the world is, what? Tribal. So, if you want your sales to soar, it’s not enough for folks to love you, they gotta hate your rivals more. As an expert my advice is feed that hate, ‘cause hate is strong. Folks will gladly pay your prices to prove those Christmas-killers wrong.
“It’s not enough to want it. You gotta get mad. You have to fight.”
While watching the musical number, the Ghost of Christmas Present announces that Briggs is “like the perfect combination of Mussolini and Seacrest.” No surprise that Marley’s team chooses Briggs since the Ghost of Christmas Present tells the others that the guy causes division for his job and is sure that his redemption could have a “ripple” effect and make him a force for positive change in humanity.
This movie does a remarkable job of providing some life lessons, which, beyond helping each one of us personally, can help our society in combating the cycle of polarization that we seem stuck in. It highlights that division sells and we need to think about who is profiting from the ensuing disconnection.
There is a famous saying that the first step in solving a problem is admitting there is one. I would add that you also must identify exactly what that problem is. This movie helped me do that.
In 2020, Scientific American magazine published a study in which they found that it is the influencers in our social media, not the networks themselves, that amplify differences between us. They highlight that partisan bias is exacerbated on social media because online networks are often organized around a few key influencers. This feature of social media is one of the main reasons why misinformation and fake news have become so pervasive. In centralized networks, which our current social media platforms are, biased influencers have a disproportionate impact on their community. These influencers simply amplify rumors and suppositions into widespread misconceptions and false beliefs.
In the movie, Briggs is one of those influencers. We learn that he has no problem monetizing his skills at division. And like this fictional character, we have real-life examples working in our midst.
The magazine goes on to suggest that one way to lessen influencers' effects is to be intentional about the social networks in those echo chambers. The more equity in people’s social networks, the less biased and more informed groups will become. Or you could do what I do and largely stay off social media.
Unlike the movie, there is no amount of singing and dancing or unearthly spirits that are going to help heal what divides our country. That is up to each individual, reaching out to one another, looking for the traps that nonfictional characters are placing in front of us, and working to rebuild our institutions.
You don’t need to celebrate Christmas to enjoy “Spirited,” but you should be open to producing ripples on your own. Or as a different song goes, “Playing our parts. Changing hearts. One by one.”
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.