The Bluestocking, vol 262
the kind of leader we need today
Happy Friday!
I’m writing this from a moonlit poolside in Miami, which is the literal opposite of Lewisham in January.
I will fight anyone who is rude about Florida, because this motel is opposite a spa that does yoni steaming and a vintage sunscreen advert showing a child with her bum out which has become a tourist attraction. All human life is here.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything which is wrong in so many different ways. Welcome to Florida!
Helen
The Invention of Elise Stefanik (New York Times)
In New York, Ms. Stefanik has allied herself firmly with the Republican Party’s clamorous Trump wing. Two weeks after a young white man killed 10 people at a supermarket this past May in a largely Black neighborhood in Buffalo, accusing his victims of seeking to “ethnically replace my own people,” Ms. Stefanik endorsed Carl Paladino, a developer and Trump friend running for Congress, who had suggested online that the massacre might have been a false-flag operation meant to help Democrats “revoke the 2nd amendment.” (Within days of Ms. Stefanik’s endorsement, audio surfaced of Mr. Paladino praising Adolf Hitler as “the kind of leader we need today.” The congresswoman told HuffPost that his comment had been taken out of context.)
A brilliant companion piece to Elaina Plott Calabro’s recent article on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s radicalisation, this NYT article tells the story of Stefanik, a 38-year-old moderate Republican who carefully and consciously remade herself as a lobotomised Trumpian culture warrior. “There was no radicalization,” a former college friend tells the Times. “She knows exactly what she’s signed up for.”
What’s particularly interesting about this is that Stefanik might have chosen exactly the wrong moment to sell her soul—as I’m writing this, the rest of the GOP is getting irate with a group of conservative hardliners who are blocking the speakership of Kevin McCarthy, even though he was endorsed by Donald Trump; meanwhile, Trump’s chosen candidates did poorly in the midterms (in a Truth Social post, he shifted the blame for the lack of Red Wave from his own choice of kooks on to ultra-pro-lifers in the party refusing to countenance even exceptions for rape and incest.)
Is the Trump era finally on the wane? In the press area at Ron DeSantis’s inauguration this week, I was talking to a reporter for a rightwing outlet which turned down the offer of a Trump interview recently because he’s done so many.
The Good Law Project is not looking like a true survivor (Policy Wonk)
No longer able to sprinkle the magic words ‘Hancock’, ‘Cummings’ or ‘Johnson’ in new crowdfunders and begging emails, and unable to bring judicial reviews aimed at key government bad guys, the GLP’s current, largely performative activism simply lacks the kind of appeal needed to sustain a bloated payroll (with an annual salary bill in the region of £1.5 million). The 18 Covid-related crowdfunders launched between April 2020 and January 2022 raked in a total of £2.437 million – an average of £135K each. Eight of them pulled in more than £100K, and two (including the above-mentioned Public First case) amassed more than £400K.
But the eight crowdfunders launched in 2022/23 have so far drummed up just £317,308 in total – an average of £39,664.
Now, I think this blog is a bit harsh on the motivations behind the Good Law Project—both of its staff and donors—but it does raise good questions about the fashion for “crowdfunded justice.” Essentially the repeated problem the GLP has encountered is whether or not it has “standing” to bring cases—does it have a special interest in Covid procurement, or the charity regulator’s decision-making, which justifies it being heard in court? If not, that’s a huge blow to the idea of “law fare” on which it depends.
More broadly, I feel like the crowdfunding space is badly due a rethink. Yes, it’s people’s own money to do with what they want, but it would be better if there was more accountability about where the money goes, and a better way of establishing whether the proposed goal is even possible. Only last month, there was a crowdfunder to prosecute Jeremy Clarkson for his failed attempt at Juvenalesque hyperbolic criticism of Meghan Markle. It was a dumb and awful piece, but clearly did not rise to the level of a crime. Nonetheless the crowd funder’s creator raised £13,000 to get legal advice I could have given her for free based on reading McNae’s in 2004.
The Case For Wearing Masks For Ever (New Yorker)
“The group takes issue with the way that the C.D.C. emphasizes individual choices over collective action; as the current C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, has put it, “Your health is in your hands.” Zoey Thill, a family physician in Brooklyn, who was Zooming in from a room full of potted plants, got heated just thinking about it. “When we say, ‘Do your individual risk assessment and plan accordingly,’ that says to certain people, ‘Stay inside forever—for fucking ever!’ ” she said. “For me, it’s about countering that. It’s about saying, ‘No, that’s not O.K.’ ” The other People’s C.D.C. members threw up emojis in approval: red hearts, clapping hands.”
The US version of Independent Sage is the “People’s CDC”—who want pandemic mitigation methods to be strengthened, argue that one in every five Covid cases leads to Long Covid, and think that the US’s current policy is “eugenicist.”
It’s quintessentially American that the People’s CDC exists at exactly the same time as Ron DeSantis has convened another alternative CDC from the opposite perspective—he thinks the official CDC is too stringent. Love the smell of polarisation in the morning!
This article was briefly Twitter-notorious because Ian Miles Cheong (one of those people who only exists on twitter) tweeted the headline, suggesting that the New Yorker should be burned to the ground, because he hadn’t read the piece and assumed it endorsed the idea of permamasking. Elon Musk, who also clearly had not read the piece, replied to lol at the silly liberals.
That was all very annoying, because Emma Green—the article’s author, and a badass former colleague of mine at the Atlantic—does not endorse the People’s CDC, with good reason.
Why not? Because politics is the art of the possible. Here in Florida, many on the right feel that the vaccines were oversold—if asked, they will reference the idea that the vaccines were supposed to stop transmission, and no amount of explaining the evolution from Delta to Omicron, and immune escape, makes a difference. If the vaccines only really protect you (from severe disease or death) then, to many on the political right, that’s an argument for making it an individual choice about whether to get one.
“Zero Covid” is also a busted flush; just look at China, which used the full weight of its authoritarian state to stop infections, sealing people in their homes or in quarantine facilities which were basically prisons, and has nonetheless recently seen a huge exit wave of Covid as it finally had to scrap these policies because of creeping dissent. If you can’t achieve Zero Covid in China, you certainly can’t achieve it in America.
There is simply no way that any US government, now, since the abatement of the acute apocalyptic phase of the pandemic, could institute anything close to a full lockdown/mask mandate/vaccine mandate. The former (actual) CDC head Tom Frieden puts it very well, when he advocates for widespread vaccination and better treatments like Paxlovid: “If you’re giving recommendations that no one’s going to follow, that’s not only nonproductive. It’s counterproductive, because that undermines your credibility.”
Quick Links
Fell down a Voguehole of fashion bloggers wearing see-through wedding dresses. Camille Charriere must have been chilly. Tish Weinstock had extra-long hair extensions so people couldn’t see her nipples (they still could). The GOAT of this trend remains Lady Mary Charteris, however.
“Since at least 2017, Kay LeClaire has claimed Métis, Oneida, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Cuban and Jewish heritage. Additionally, they identify as “two-spirit,” a term many Indigenous people use to describe a non-binary gender identity. In addition to becoming a member and co-owner of giige, LeClaire earned several artists’ stipends, a paid residency at the University of Wisconsin, a place on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force and many speaking gigs and art exhibitions, not to mention a platform and trust of a community—all based on an ethnic identity that appears to have been fully fabricated.” Another pretendian (Madison 365).
“Almost everything with the truffle label that is available in stores or served in restaurants is a lie and a fraud. . . what is sold as truffle flavor is 2,4-dithiapentane, an organosulfur compound that is naturally found in truffles, and though it is practically impossible to extract it from truffles, it can be extracted from oil.” THE TRUFFLE OIL IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS. (Taste Atlas)
Honestly nothing but respect for the romance novelist who faked her own death, moderated her fan page under a pseudonym to observe the mourning, and then after two years … got bored of being dead? (Jezebel)
Also a big fan of Florida? Voluntarily exiled Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, lately photographed eating KFC in Orlando, where he is staying with a mixed-martial arts fighter to avoid corruption charges from the new regime.
Jordan Peterson has an Elon Musk tie. I actually had a dream about this after seeing it late at night, so viewer discretion is advised.
Yes I plan to read Prince Harry’s memoir. Yes I am upset by the frostbite story just as much as you are.
Tweet of the week: this is an interesting thesis and I would like to read more on it.
See you next time!
Loved hearing you with Katie and Jesse, happy new year Helen!
Yes I saw the piece on pubs and had similar thoughts myself. The fast disappearing traditional pub had a simple remit, somewhere to meet and chat combined with leisurely drinking and proper tables and chairs, hopefully friendly bar person who listened to your troubles and knew your friends and could ban you if you overstepped the mark. Speaking of which they’re repeating Early Doors on BBC 4 tonight. But “young people “ have apparently stopped drinking so maybe it’s Jordon Peterson who’s messing with their minds after all.