52 Comments

Walter would have written in Pat Buchannan.

Expand full comment

Walter would've written in Patton if he was alive.

Expand full comment

My heart likes the idea, but after thinking of Walter wrestling with the whole "We may have been fighting the wrong enemy all along." thing, I think Buchannan is a fair stand in.

Expand full comment

"Say what you will about national socialism, Dude, but at least its an ethos."

Expand full comment

"... a worthy fuckin' ethos."

Expand full comment

He's Jewish (now), so nah.

Trump I could *definitely* see.

Expand full comment

In 2024, the Dude definitely has a falling out with Walter over Gaza.

Looking back fondly on his SDS days & in between pads, the Dude hangs out at the UCLA encampment before being rousted by Walter & a mob of Beverly Hills Persian Jews.

Expand full comment

If either of the Coen Bros. are reading the comments, please make this happen.

Expand full comment

Walter Sobchak moves to the OC, fights and defeats a Mexican cartel (with the help of Pilar's nephew, his new sidekick), runs for Congress and wins, is well-known for his hardline against illegal aliens (he is the Californian Joe Arpaio), loses election in the 2000s but becomes famous for smashing up the windows of his opponent's car (which turns out to be Darrell Issa's car), is later chosen to be Trump's border czar, and when JD Vance dies from eating some bad chicken tandoori, is made VP.

TRUMP/SOBCHAK 2024

Expand full comment

The Jesus can’t vote because he’s a convicted felon.

Expand full comment

That's just a nasty rumor, Dude.

Expand full comment

No, he's a sex offender. With a record. He served 6 months in Chino for exposing himself to an eight year old.

Expand full comment

But, this is California in 2024, Walter, not in 1990. We don't disenfranchise felons just for being flashers.

Expand full comment

Eight-year-olds, Dude.

Expand full comment

I heard he has to go door to door telling his neighbors he's a sex offender.

Expand full comment

that one second scene make me laugh out loud just thinking about it

Expand full comment

California allows convicted felons to vote, unless they're actually in prison at the time.

For that matter, most states do, although a few have more specific rules for which felons regain voting rights and when.

Expand full comment

Is Karl Hungus a citizen?

Expand full comment

......

That joke was dry as a bone. Thank you.

Expand full comment

Brandt (Bush/ Harris) & the Mexican Impound Cop (Clinton/ Trump) seem like the clearest realignment voters here.

Expand full comment

I wonder about Brandt. Total repressed masculinity energy, I could see him voting Trump and telling everyone he voted for Harris.

Expand full comment

Since Donnie is dead doesn't that mean he votes Harris by default?

Expand full comment

The Donnie abides...

Expand full comment

I've seen the movie at least five times over the years and I have no opinion

Expand full comment

This is exactly the kind of insightful commentary that I need in these insane times. Just seeing the movie poster of Logjammin' put me in an incredible mood.

Expand full comment

This is the funniest poll I’ve ever seen

Expand full comment

It's the minor characters that make it.

Who else could we vote on?

I never really got the Dude's landlord.

Jon Polito's Fellow Shamus is OK.

Maybe Little Larry Sellers' granddad, the showrunner for Chuck Connors' "Branded" in the iron lung, would be somebody whose vote we need to consider.

Expand full comment

Brother Shamus? An Irish monk?

Expand full comment

Gen-X Professor in my law school used characters and themes from The Big Lebowski in the exam’s hypothetical. As a fellow Gen-X’er attending law school for a career change (read: middle-aged dilettante) I was just about the only student who recognized that and answered accordingly.

“The plaintiffs will likely argue XYZ, but that’s just, like, their opinion, man.”

“When the case proceeds to trial, it’s not ‘Nam. There are rules.”

And so forth. Got a middling grade, as I recall, but I like to think the professor was entertained. Meanwhile all the 20-something gunners were obsessively Encyclopedia-Browning their way through meaningless pop culture allusions. (“What was the issue with the rug? I couldn’t figure out how that was relevant…”) Good times…

Expand full comment

Sorry to say, Professor didn't grade it. It was his grad students, who likely were not up on the references and so might have thought your answers out-of-left field.

Expand full comment

Grad students in law school? What does that mean?

Expand full comment

Sorry, you're right, I meant the professor's 2L and 3L interns. I was mixing up law school with undergrad. Same principle applies tho': professors don't grade their papers, they just get the students who've already completed the course to do it.

Expand full comment

The Dude votes against The Man so may have moved from Clinton/Gore to Trump/Vance. Or maybe he’s just a Stein voter.

Donny is highly swayed by arguments around prudence and propriety so was a Bush/Quayle-Harris/Walz voter, as for Liz Cheney-ish reasons were Lebowski and Brandt. Donny liked the Walz pick for representing guys like him.

I see the two cops as being staunch and unchanging Republicans (Malibu police chief) and Democrats (Ramos) respectively.

The interesting question to me is where the pervert vote (Jesus/Treehorn/Hungus/Knox/Bunny) ended up. Obviously Clinton in 92 but were they swayed by the more sotto voce promises of the Trump/Musk coalition in 2024? Maybe Karl Hungus was one of the sweaty middle-aged men pretending to be a Trump voter in the “weird” Kamala ad?

Expand full comment

Trump all the way. Feminists hate male sexuality, perverted or otherwise.

Expand full comment

"Donny liked the Walz pick for representing guys like him."

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Expand full comment

Typo in poll: "Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in 1992" has "Trump/Quayle" as a choice. (Interesting alt-universe idea...)

Expand full comment

What they did to Quayle on his IQ borders on slander. Especially since he was the last highest-ranking person in office who raised the culture war attack against single mothers/banishing fathers from Hollywood programming. Quayle's complaints about Murphy Brown's depiction of single motherhood as a positive were spot on, and Brown's success opened a floodgate of single mom/divorce movies and TV shows making it seem like the lack of a biological 2-parent household wasn't going to hurt kids.

Expand full comment

Dan Quayle (b.1947) endorsed DJT in 2016 but declined to endorse in 2020 and 2024. Why?

Expand full comment

Likely got taken out back by the party elites and told something.

Expand full comment

So is this a real 'film buff' movie? I remember seeing it a few years ago and not getting the point, but I'm guessing people who really like movies pick up on all kinds of subtle things I was missing?

Expand full comment

Hardcore fans speak of Big Lebowski as having spiritual themes. I think a group of Internet-fans tried to create a theology around it.

The more important reason for its popularity may be that people felt it captured something important of the 1990s. Such people would not see it as only a zany movie with zany characters. Steve Sailer asking how these 1990s-archetypes would have evolved to the 2020s is not a random selection.

Expand full comment

You can check out Dudeism here: https://dudeism.com/.

Expand full comment

I have not looked yet, but the polls are going on X, right?

Expand full comment

What about characters only mentioned, like the Baby Dude matriculating (Hank Stram reference) in Maud's womb? I'm thinking he (and it's definitely a 'he') turns out like Alex Keaton on Family Ties. He obviously can't vote in the Bush/Clinton election but he's now Steve Bannon's lawyer and will be the head of Trump's Office of Legal Counsel tasked with cleansing the DoJ of enemies of the state.

Expand full comment