I mean, people, there is an *entire* Disney musical about this. https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1317514065477074945

Say what you will about Disney’s personal politics, the company made a ‘60s musical in which the Harrison/Cleveland electoral/popular Dakota split election is the majority of the plot. I mean, there’s also a love story but it’s boring.

This is the moment, @disneyplus. There are still Richard Deacon fans out here.

(It’s also the set on which Kurt & Goldie met, because for some reason I know that. She was older - still is, I believe - so nothing clicked until much lated, but still.)

Regardless, it’s available on one of those terrific cut-rate 4-disc sets with The Happiest Millionaire, The Gnome-mobile, and Darby O’Gill & the Little People for next to nothing. Recommended.

Alright, people. We’re doing this. The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band. #TOAOGOFB

One number in we’ve already established a family joined by music and divided by partisan politics. Brennan a post-Confederacy Cleveland Democrat with a grandchild in love with a Republican journalist. Scandal! #TOAOGOFB

Lesley Ann’s I Wish song. The terror of meeting someone from a dating app, 1888-style. #TOAOGOFB

Alice, don’t do it. Even if Mr. White there offers to introduce you to the cast of The Invaders. #TOAOGOFB

Walter is excited about this, you can tell. He’s got his teeth in. #TOAOGOFB

And a solid slam at undecided voters during a contested race. #TOAOGOFB

38 states. Not just trivia - this will be a plot point, y’all. #TOAOGOFB

The earworm of “Let’s Put It Over With Grover” is undeniable. Those Sherman boys. The golden era of Actual Campaign Songs predates me, though I can sing the shit out of “The Millard Fillmore Wagon” - eh, @seandaniels? #TOAOGOFB

Here we go - hand it over to Ebsen & Janet Blair, people. Twenty minutes in and we’re starting the fourth number. No sign of slowing. #TOAOGOFB

(Louis himself did this one.) #TOAOGOFB

For those of you not watching (because it’s not on anywhere but this house), Davidson is a Republican journalist and the Dakota territory electoral split is about to become a Thing for the Bower family. #TOAOGOFB

“Shyters” and “usury-type moneylenders?” Careful, kiddo. I don’t care if we ARE on Walt’s dime. #TOAOGOFB

Yes, we are watching a ‘60s Disney movie with a long scene where John Davidson does a musical TED talk to convince Republicans to move to Dakota to help stack the Senate. (Next time your favorite RWNJ wants to bring up DC or PR...) #TOAOGOFB

But perhaps the way to frame this is really that in the mid-‘60s*, Disney made a movie about a family that won’t allow contentious politics to destroy their relationships. #TOAOGOFB

*released in ‘68 if you can imagine, but conceived well before Walt’s death in ‘66. Say what you will, but he saw the writing on the wall. #TOAOGOFB

In which an adult son is willing to put himself in hock to go sing at a political convention he opposes because his father has his heart set on it. #TOAOGOFB

They’re tryin’ to dee-vide Dakoter into two states. Grandpa is correct. Fortunately, Grover has a trick up his sleeve... #TOAOGOFB

It looks like they filmed on unfinished Frontierland in Orlando. #TOAOGOFB

They offered the Walter Brennan role to Bing, but he wanted a cut of the receipts. #TOAOGOFB

And angry Republican mob is surrounding the singing children. #TOAOGOFB

THERE’S Wally Cox. You knew he’d be here eventually. #TOAOGOFB

And as in Oklahoma’s statehood movie, the native Dakotan population is conspicuously without a song. Or a role. #TOAOGOFB

She’s about to lose her teaching job because the Republicans on the school board don’t share her grandfather’s political beliefs, for those of you keeping track. But first, a jaunty duet. #BoutTime #TOAOGOFB

On the Addressing the Political Divide musical spectrum, The One & Only Genuine Original Family Band falls directly between Oklahoma and Shenandoah. #TOAOGOFB

Butch Patrick here is fulfilling the Danny Goldman “why, the worm, sir” role in this. #TOAOGOFB

This scene is all over the place. Brennan is a) trying to make the schoolkids call it “the War Between the States” yet b) making valid Parkland-level political points about the engagement of youth in political decisions about their own future. #TOAOGOFB

“But when you go around accusing people of treason...” To this movie’s credit, everyone’s political behavior is accurately portrayed as rigid and asinine. #TOAOGOFB

(No one wants this thread and that only makes me 1000% committed to this thread.) #Evergreen #TOAOGOFB