"He announced his pronouns..."

I genuinely don’t understand how Jeremy Corbyn could have lost.

He announced his pronouns and everything. pic.twitter.com/sPu4NNF487

— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) December 13, 2019

"American Leftists Believed Corbyn’s Inevitable Victory Would Be Their Model."

A column by Jonathan Chait (at NY Magazine):

Both [Corbyn and Bernie Sanders] built youth-oriented movements led by cadres of radical activists who openly set out to destroy and remake their parties. Both lost in somewhat close fashion, Sanders in 2016 and Corbyn the next year. And fervent supporters of both men treated their narrow defeats as quasi-victories, proof of victory just around the corner....

There are many examples of this enthusiastic linkage of Corbyn and Sanders. Chait goes on:

Proceeding from the erroneous Marxist view that capitalism is growing more oppressive, and a working-class backlash is therefore inevitable, they glommed onto bits of data and ignored and large and growing array of evidence to the contrary....

Corbyn’s victory became a matter of faith, and its adherents continued to tout wisps of evidence for it even in the face of dismal polling....

Whether a more moderate Labour leader would have defeated Johnson – who is highly unpopular, yet still far less unpopular than Corbyn – is unknowable....

Funny when a "highly unpopular" person wins big.

The British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn answers the question what's his favorite "biscuit"?

He was doing an interview with Mumsnet — a website for British mothers — and the what's-your-favorite-cookie question is routine. Past answers include:

David Cameron was ("Oatcakes with butter and cheese"). Gordon Brown was ("Anything with a bit of chocolate"). As were Ed Miliband ("Jaffa Cake"), Nicola Sturgeon ("Tunnock's Caramel Wafer") and Nick Clegg ("Rich Tea if dunked. Hob Nobs if not").

You see the gentle, mum-friendly style other politicians have used. Corbyn said:.

"I'm totally anti-sugar on health grounds, so eat very few biscuits... But if forced to accept one, it's always a pleasure to have a shortbread."

The mums were displeased:

"That's the most miserable response to the biscuit question I've ever read," sighed one. "Forced to eat a biscuit you're politically opposed to."

ADDED: We have cookie politics in the U.S. too. Read: "The blatantly sexist cookie bake-off that has haunted Hillary Clinton for two decades is back":

Now it’s time (again) for the Family Circle Magazine Presidential Cookie Poll, a head-to-head cookie-baking challenge that has become a fixture of US presidential campaigns, even as some rail against it, characterizing it as a calcified indicator of lingering sexism in American politics.

The competition—in which the contender for Republican first lady pits her cookie recipe against one submitted to the magazine by the potential Democratic first lady, for readers to bake, taste, and vote upon—began as a response to an off-the-cuff remark Clinton made in 1992....

"I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life."

"Fulfill my profession" is such a funny way to put it. When someone speaks uses an expression that unnatural, you should ask what's the normal thing to say there, and that may show you why the unnatural expression happened. Here, "fulfill my profession" takes the place of "fulfill my ambition" or "fulfill myself."

AND: It's the spouse that offers the cookie recipe, so it should be Melania Trump versus Bill Clinton. But the Clinton campaign just submitted the same one that beat Barbara Bush's recipe in 1992 and they're not calling it Bill's recipe but "Clinton Family's Chocolate Chip Cookies." The Trump campaign submitted "Melania Trump's Star Cookies." Whether Melania bakes cookies, I don't know.

Should there be any discussion of whether Ahmed Mohamed actually "invented" his clock and what his true motives might have been?

I've avoided that discussion because I think the authorities, by egregiously overreacting to what was at worst a minor disciplinary problem, have drawn the exclusive focus on themselves.

At some point, I'm willing to criticize other adults for using a child to further their own political agendas, even as they celebrate the boy. The moral lodestar here is the welfare of the child.

I'm posting to explain my position because I'm seeing the famous know-it-all Richard Dawkins losing his bearings:

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”...

Dawkins eventually retreated.... “Sorry if I go a bit over the top in my passion for truth. Not just over a boy’s alleged ‘invention’ but also media lies about J[eremy] Corbyn.”

Dawkins seems awfully emotional in his posturing over his love for truth, so let me proclaim a greater love for truth. Here are 2 truths for which Dawkins showed insufficient passion:

1.  The question whether the clock was an "invention" should be recognized as a debate about the meaning of a word. It's ridiculous to badger a 14-year-old about a linguistic point.

2. The annoyance at calling the clock an "invention" should be recognized as a dispute with the adults who overplayed their enthusiasm over the child's brilliance and technological prowess. A child whose self-esteem is not perfectly aligned with the level of his accomplishments might have a problem, but, if so, it's nothing for strangers to be sticking their nose into.

"But some of the criticisms that have been levelled at [Jeremy] Corbyn in the past couple of days are unfair."

"He is neither a Communist nor a 'threat to national security.' He is a self-described socialist. In his republicanism, his anti-colonialism, his borderline pacifism, and his suspicion of big business, he represents an old and honorable, if occasionally misguided, strand of British radicalism, which extends back to Bertrand Russell, Keir Hardie, and beyond. Whether he can translate his radical beliefs into effective (or coherent) leadership is a fair question to pose. I doubt he can, myself. But on some big issues, Corbyn has raised valid points. Here are five of them...."

From "5 Things Jeremy Corbyn Has Right" by John Cassidy in The New Yorker.