Sexism

Sam Adler-Bell recently published a profile in New York magazine about women who have left, or are quietly leaving, the New Right. Alex Kaschuta, an influential writer and former host of the podcast Subversive, publicly split with the movement after years of genuine intellectual engagement that included interviewing many of its architects, from Curtis Yarvin to Darryl Cooper. Another woman, a mother and former true believer who wrote for right-wing outlets and worked for conservative institutions, requested anonymity because she fears for the physical safety of herself and her children. Both describe a movement that once promised women a place at the table and now openly treats them, in the anonymous source’s words, as “subhuman: subrational, non-agentic, cattle.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been quoted as saying her media coverage would be better if she were a white man. She is absolutely right. She wouldn’t have bad coverage. She wouldn’t have any coverage at all. That’s because she would still be a minor senator from a big state, not the second-highest official in the Executive Branch. She was selected only because she has the identity-politics markers so important to Democrats. It should be obvious by now that Harris is a terrible politician. When friendly reporters toss her softballs, she swings, misses and blames them. When she is given hard policy assignments, she swings and misses those, too. (In her defense, her main assignment, immigration, is President Biden’s failure, not her’s.

Ever wonder why President Biden doesn’t take questions very often? Or more accurately, why his staff doesn’t allow him to take questions? The easy lay-up handed to him about an altercation between an activist organization and Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema offers a perfect example. Biden was asked whether he believes it was appropriate for immigration activists to follow Sinema into a women’s restroom and film her. The President, who could have resoundingly condemned the behavior using the podium of the presidency of the United States, chose not to. In fact, he passively endorsed the activists’ conduct by saying that ‘it happens to everybody’ and that ‘the only people it doesn’t happen to are people who have Secret Service around them.

Being a somewhat old-fashioned person, Cockburn is skeptical of latter-day feminism and the utter sanctity of a woman’s right to choose. So it’s quite odd that he also feels compelled to defend progressive womanhood from Planned Parenthood, which quite unexpectedly has come out in favor of misogyny. ‘I’m the Head of Planned Parenthood. We’re Done Making Excuses for Our Founder,’ says the headline from current Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson. The context is Planned Parenthood’s ongoing cancellation of Margaret Sanger over her support for ideas that are today unpopular, such as sterilization, eugenics, and freedom of speech.