The Andor Dilemma: Pop Culture’s Place in Leftist Strategy
When Andor first dropped in 2022, I wrote a short essay relating it to debates on the left about political strategy. It was one of the first things I ever wrote for the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter, before it was even hosted on Substack. I’m sharing that piece below, both in honor of Season 2’s release and to commemorate the Andor mini-series that we’ve launched on The Bang-Bang Podcast (the first two episodes of which are out now!):
This is about the role of pop culture on the left, not how good Andor is. I mean, Andor is the best thing in the Star Wars universe. And it’s the most radical thing I’ve seen on TV maybe ever. But that’s a low bar and others have covered that beat.
If you don’t spend your time monitoring and making sense of the left intelligentsia, you might have missed a recent debate about cultural products like Andor.