Staunchly, vol. 123: Ok Bloomer, Have a Stop and Frisky Valentine's

2/14/20

I’m not an economist (I can show you my AP Econ scores if you don’t believe me), but I gather there is one meaningful way to think about the genesis of the 2008 economic crisis: 

The 2008 economic crisis was caused by untethered corporate power and greed emboldened by decades of deregulation and Wall Street corruption. 

Mike Bloomberg, in classic Aquarian fashion, has an alt-take. According to Bloomberg, the crisis that saw the collapse of our housing and financial institutions was actually sparked by the legal and cultural (and moral) shift from redlining, the housing practice that codified racial segregation by limiting access to credit for residents of “hazardous,” “redlined” neighborhoods—principally low-income communities of color. 

In short: Bloomberg thinks the economy collapsed because banks stopped discriminating against minorities. 

That’s a very bad take, but it’s nothing a good meme can’t fix, right? Yes, we definitely shouldn’t be worried that folks associated with the “media” “company” that brought us Fyre Fest are trying to bring us Bloom Bash. 

I must say, as a much-beloved zepto-influencer, I am hurt and offended that the Bloomberg campaign did not reach out to me to create fabulous, shareable, OK Bloomers content on my platform. Apparently no one at Mike HQ understands what a big fucking deal I am at—not one, but—two Color Me Mines on Ventura Boulevard. 

That’s fine. I know New Yorkers don’t really *get* LA power. So I went ahead and created some content for the Bloomberg team for free. Consider this my application to Bloomburger’s Palace of Influencers. It’s kind of like a Soho House pop-up at an RNC convention, as I understand it. Feel free to share on the socials. And let me know how I did :) ?

Deep end, watch as I dive in: 

A few nights ago I had a dream that my friend Emma—who went into politics at the same time I did and is now running shit in DC (there was never any question she’d outlast me)—chastised me for giving up on Warren too soon. Clearly my subconscious was summoning something I’ve been agonizing over, trying to correct this sense of surrender I’ve been feeling. This was before New Hampshire. I don’t know what to say now except this one hurts. A fourth place finish hurts. I’m trying not to lose all hope, or fall prey to the media’s Warren erasure. I’m really trying to access the defiant part of my personality (some would say it’s my whole personality), the part that says, This country’s sexism is debilitating, and yet doesn’t cower. I don’t know. This whole paragraph is sad and not very stylish. There’s something really achy about the home team breaking your heart. It feels too early for that. 

The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President: “What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.”

A reminder that the rise of nationalism remains a global and terrifying phenomenon: militant nationalists in India are increasingly glorifying Nathuram Godse, the extreme nationalist who killed Gandhi (a man they see as having been over conciliatory to Muslims). 

How public health panics breed xenophobia and expose racist ideology about who is “clean” and who is “dirty.” 

Pete Buttigieg owes a lot to sexism. I suppose you can say that about all the male candidates. But there’s something particularly dark about Buttigieg’s meteoric rise right as Warren’s stalls. Electability apparently only dings women, not twerps. 

I haven’t seen 1917, but this op-ed makes a compelling case that director Sam Mendes presented a sanitized version of the war, failing to sufficiently depict the grotesque horrors of World War I: the relentless futility, unimaginable emotional toll, and total disregard for human life exhibited by the top military brass—generals in charge of shipping thousands and thousands of men to their deaths while themselves remaining comfortably isolated from the brutality. I think now especially, as it feels like we’re always on the cusp of some massive international conflict, we have to be extra conscious of the way movies (even thoughtful ones) propagandize war (even unintentionally), and hold them to a standard of truth that sees modern warfare for its reality: mostly mundane, occasionally explosive, habitually inconclusive slaughter.

Another note on this year’s unofficial Oscars theme, “Complicated or Valiant or Valiantly Complicated Men of History,” from Aisha Harris: “...the past had people of color and women, too.” And that’s the that on that. 

In the shallow: 

Florence Pugh looks like the leader of a vigilante girl gang compromised of animatronic Madame Alexander dolls from a limited release Opening Ceremony for Madame Alexander Doll Company, LLC collection and I mean that as the greatest compliment I have ever given to anyone. I am obsessed with her style.  

Julia Butters had already won the award circuit with her sick, avant-garde style. Then she brought a turkey sandwich in her pink sparkly clutch to the Oscars and my heart grew three sizes. Rhinestones and lean protein: that’s what we stand for here at Staunchly. 

Leo DiCaprio’s girlfriend Camila Morrone, who was six months old when Titanic premiered, wore an actual wedding dress to the Oscars. Look, I gotta give it to a girl who goes for it. Only ring you’re getting from him angelbabe is a NuvaRing. 

From this point forward, I am commencing all correspondence (even/especially the positive missives) as such: “I’m not writing this out of bitterness, I am writing out of disgust.” Rose McGowan is pretty hateful but she sure writes a wack takedown!