Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:00 PM | August 23, 2026
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I can't say I have much of an opinion about Mark Cuban, beyond the basic impressions you get from lots of stories about a guy famous for being famous. 

Most people know of Cuban through sports — he is a minority owner in the Dallas Mavericks — his role on the TV show Shark Tank, or his involvement in politics. 

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I'm not an NBA guy, nor have I watched Shark Tank, but I sure know what a screw-up he is in politics. He was a big fan of Joe Biden in 2020 and 2024, loved Hillary in 2016, and assured us that Kamala Harris was da bomb. 

He used to be a big fan of Ro Khanna, too, but Cuban is at least smart enough to know that a billionaire tax would kill California's startup economy. 

So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that he is now shilling for James Talarico in Texas. 

Cuban is at least smart enough to recognize that Democrats are destroying California, but he can't seem to make the connection between voting for Democrats and that destruction. 

Cuban clearly has a skill set that has served him well in business, and I don't get the sense that his involvement in politics is driven by anything but good motives and the natural desire of all high-performers to be in the thick of things. I don't want to trash the guy or call him stupid. 

But man, talk about a blind spot. Within the space of 10 minutes, he goes from "the politicians are killing California, and everybody is moving to Texas because it is better" to "it's time to oust the Republicans from Texas and turn the state blue, just like California."

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Cuban may not be stupid, but his assumptions about politics most certainly are. 

No doubt you have experienced similar discontinuities in the thinking of people you know, who can't, apparently, connect two dots that are millimeters apart to your own eyes. Unfortunately, it's very common. It explains a lot of human behavior that is otherwise inexplicable, if "explain" is the right word. People not seeing what appears blindingly obvious. 

There are probably a lot of reasons why this happens, but I think the most common ones are: 1) we often operate on autopilot, so it takes a crash before we disbelieve that the path we are on makes no sense; and 2) we tend to share assumptions with the people around us, so if reality conflicts with the consensus, we are likely to follow the consensus. 

And the consensus Mark Cuban seems to be part of is that Democrats are good people and Republicans are bad people. 

Most of us don't think much about our assumptions, with good reason. We are pattern recognizers, and if we treat everything and every event as unique instead of part of a pattern, we become paralyzed. 

On the other hand, some of us are much more sensitive to contradictions that undermine our assumptions than others, and people differ wildly in their comfort level with breaking with the consensus of our peers. 

As with so much, our experience during COVID is illustrative. 

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Cuban was outspoken during COVID about "following the science," which was just another term for "comply with the establishment," since it was pretty clear by April or May of 2020 that "scientists" were spewing bull excrement. Cuban stuck with his peers' consensus and the Democrat Party long after even less skeptical people understood things were off the rails. He used his "star" power to pressure others into being Fauci fanatics. 

In other words, when the test came to choose between his tribe and his reason, he chose his tribe. 

Cuban is very much a leader in that tribe, and he clearly enjoys that position. In this, he is the anti-Musk, who loves poking everybody in the eye, including the president he helped get elected. Perhaps it's because Musk is an autist, or perhaps we think he is an autist because of this trait, but he marches to the beat of his own drummer. 

Cuban clearly likes to beat his drum louder than most, but in time with the crowd. 

















































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