The Bluestocking 331: Pelosi and street politics
throw a punch, for the children
Happy Friday!
I have now set myself up properly on Bluesky and Threads, although if I’m honest, none of it feels like fun chat any more, but boring grind, so I think I might stick to lurking on social media by watching reels of weird food and pull-up programmes on Instagram.
Helen
Nancy Pelosi’s Art of Power (New Yorker)
Without quite admitting to playing a singularly decisive role in the Biden drama—and it would be uncharacteristically vain to do so—Pelosi told me, “Here’s the thing: I’ve known Joe Biden for over forty years, since I was chair of the California Democratic Party, and I love him so much. I think he’s been, really, a fantastic President of the United States. I really wanted him to make a decision for a better campaign, because they were not facing the fact of what was happening. . . . We couldn’t see it go down the drain, because Trump was going to be President and then he was going to take the House. Imagine! Imagine how that would be! Well, we don’t have to imagine. We saw.”
When I pressed Pelosi to talk in greater detail about her language on “Morning Joe,” she looked at me silently, unblinking. Finally, as the silence expanded past the boundary of awkward, I said, “You’re looking at me and waiting for this moment to pass.”
“Yeah, but I’m trying to think of why you’re even asking it, because, you know, I’m not going to answer it the way that you want,” Pelosi said. “I didn’t plan to do that on [‘Morning Joe.’] In fact, if I did, I probably would’ve worn a different suit or something, because I didn’t look too professional.”
“It was like you felt his pain,” I said.
Then Pelosi dropped her calculated reserve. “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation,” she admitted. “They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen.”
*
One big difference between print interviews and broadcast is that proponents of the former can tactically use silence. Vidal Sassoon used to call it the “creative pause”—while out selling door-to-door, you do your spiel for long enough to intrigue the customer, and then leave an awkward silence for them to fill. If they do so, you’ve got your sale.
David Remnick tries something similar to Nancy Pelosi here. It not only elicits this brutal zing on the Biden White House, but her later comment, which will now be my career motto: “You take a punch, but you have to be willing to throw a punch. For the children.” FOR THE CHILDREN. Like any good politician, Pelosi realises that it doesn’t matter if you take hits, or what people say about you, as long as you get what you want. And she did.
How The Gay-Rights Movement Lost Its Way (The Atlantic, gift link)
When Sarah Kate Ellis was named president of GLAAD more than a decade ago, the LGBTQ advocacy organization was in dire financial straits. “I was given a scary mandate,” she told The New York Times in 2019: “Fix it or shut it down.”
She should have done the latter.
[…] Like a censor in the days of the film industry’s Hays Code, GLAAD reviews film and television scripts for what it considers offensive content. At the same time, the group seeks out “strategic partnerships” (nonprofit-speak for corporate sponsorship) with some of the same companies whose content it ostensibly “monitors.” This practice creates an obvious conflict of interest. “We monitored all media and never took a dime from any of them,” [former director William] Waybourn said. “Now it’s almost like blackmail. Either you support GLAAD or we’re going to come after you.”
*
I didn’t realise that GLAAD (and the HRC) had the same business model as Stonewall in the UK, which ranked employers by how much they agreed with its policies and called it an “Equality Index.” As James Kirchick notes, with this model, you can never concede that life is getting any better since the days before the legalization of gay marriage, or indeed the Aids era. Permacrisis means permabusiness.
Quick Links
“It’s not a coincidence that this outburst has taken place in the gap between the end of the Euros and the start of the football season. Something has to fill those empty weekend afternoons. But there is a deeper shift going on that has so far has gone unacknowledged, which is that street politics are having a ‘moment’ in Britain right now, and this is the far right’s turn to flex its muscles.” Dave Rich on the riots (Substack).
“A debate between the Matt Goodwin of 2015 and the Matt Goodwin of 2024 would be well worth watching. Former colleagues and collaborators point to Goodwin’s work over this era, to show that far from being ostracised for extreme views, Goodwin’s views became ever more marginal as his career stalled – suggesting that his new politics are the result of his seeking a new focus for his ambition.” (New European, registration required)
Why does Ozempic cure all diseases, asks Scott Alexander. Semaglutide has shown promising results for diabetes, heart disease and obesity—but also dementia, gambling addictions and alcohol overuse. But no one knows why. (Astral Codex Ten)
My colleague Ross reported from summer in Karachi, which now regularly tops 40c. It’s a sobering insight into how poorer countries will struggle in the next few decades (The Atlantic, gift link)
I laughed out loud in the gym at the latest episode of The Studies Show on the “marshmallow test,” one of those psychology studies that hasn’t stood up well (you’ll know the bit I mean if you listen; it was Tom’s quorn eggs that tipped me into hysteria).
Thanks for reading, and see you next time. If you would like to subscribe, here’s the button:
We administered the marshmallow test to my middle child when he was almost 3. He ate the marshmallow immediately, turned his big baby blues up to us, and begged for another chance.
We considered that maybe the fault wasn't with him but with our parenting.
“Permacrisis means permabusiness.”
This is all nonprofits really. I was an employee of that world for over a decade and that’s one of the things that hit me as I left.