KIRO NEWSRADIO OPINION

Curley: Democrats are hurting for cash, so here comes another sequel — this time it’s anti-ICE

Jan 27, 2026, 6:22 PM

I was thinking, Hollywood loves sequels, the Avengers. I’ve never seen one, but apparently, it’s been four of these movies. There are two more coming out. They’re so easy to write, there’s a big threat. The heroes clash, the villains escalate, and then the heroes come back together again. They make some sort of sacrifice, and then there’s an epic battle. And then, of course, they defeat the villain. But then rinse and repeat, do it all over again. It’s about 150 minutes total amount of time. And the total amount for Avengers was $7.7 billion at the box office in 1.8 seconds for the character to say, ‘I can do this all day.’ You know how much money Hollywood makes in that 1.8 seconds? They make $300,000 in 8.8 seconds.

Living in a sequel news world

We live in a sequel news world, the script is exactly the same every single time. Six years ago, George Floyd America is a bunch of racists. Billions and billions of dollars, good activists. In fact, more than $200 billion has been donated by corporations anti abortion. Well, we all heard that one, right? Close to $3 billion plus has been raised on that. Trans rights, the numbers are a little harder to isolate, because there are always so many letters in there. So it’s about a billion dollars. And when it comes to pro-Palestinian stuff, there have been concerts and fundraisers, it’s easily over millions of dollars. Anti-ICE is at $100 million right now, and it’s growing every single day.

What happens from all this sort of stuff? Well, the number of young Black men, or just Black men in general, the population, the number has actually increased since 2019, so all the money hasn’t done anything when it comes to abortions, the number of abortions are up in the United States, not down, even though we were told by everybody — and the millions and millions and millions of dollars spent — that women would die and abortions not be done, and we had back alleys and all the scary stuff they told you about. The only good news is the number of kids that say they’re trans has actually decreased by 50%. I don’t know if the funding was supposed to do that or not, but you get the point.

Democrats are hurting for money

Just like Hollywood, the scripts are written, and there’s a big threat. The heroes unite, then there’s a great, big, epic battle, but we never end it. It’s happened again with ICE and deporting. The media reports 93% of the stories, all to be negative. But unlike Hollywood, the profits are a little harder to follow. They can’t measure them in dollars, necessarily. So you measure them in political power and elections. The media and the Democrats, they’re both the same, they need to win the House. They need money because right now they’re hurting.

The Democratic National Committee is about $15 million, the Republican National Committee is about $80 million — the Democrats have to get the sequel going. They need the money, and they need to make sure that they win the house. They need to be able to impeach Donald Trump. They need to be able to weaken the Senate as best they possibly can. They need to pick up a number of seats in different states. They need to win, possibly, when it comes to other lawmakers, maybe governors. They need cash. They need a lot of cash because it takes a lot of money to win, and you’re not going to make it up selling popcorn. Enjoy the show, everybody, because we’re sitting through it again another time.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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Curley: Democrats are hurting for cash, so here comes another sequel — this time it’s anti-ICE