What authenticity means these days.

1. "I am completely comfortable with having voted for Trump. It was my first time because of the apocalypse that was represented by the blue ticket. And so I just don't think there was any rational choice. We had an absolute emergency on our hands and this simple ability to vote for something that was in some way authentic made it the only game in town.... You know... President Biden was not the president in the meaningful sense.... And then at the point that that became implausible, to swap in an empty shirt is such a dire commentary on the state of the Republic" — said Bret Weinstein, in video at X.

2. "The beauty standards themselves are inauthentic — that is, unnatural and impossible to attain without surgical or technological intervention — but the open discussion around how to achieve them has been praised as a form of authenticity by fans, many of whom felt they had previously been gaslit by celebrities claiming their perfect forms were the result of diet and exercise.... Despite an expressed desire to be true to themselves, members of [Generation Z] have said they care less and less about authenticity from influencers — perhaps because the efforts to appear relatable have fallen flat" — from "An Era of Authenticity (or Something Like It)/Celebrities are being praised for openly discussing plastic surgery and Photoshop. Are they raging against a machine they created?" (NYT).

3. "Obviously, we’ve talked about authenticity, and if you watch Mamdani, he’s just electric, which [Kansas Governor Laura] Kelly is not. But they are authentically of their place"/"Her image in Kansas — she’s really leaned into the idea that she’s not a partisan figure. She grew up Republican. She is a moderate Democrat" — said Michelle Cottle, quoted in "There Is Hope for Democrats. Look to Kansas. Two Opinion writers on the Democratic governors who might just save the party" (NYT). 

4. "To say I know how our environment affects people? I have no idea. I really don't. And I don't want to know. I don't want it evaluated. I just want to keep trying to make the environment healthy and good and better — and authentic" — said Pat Murphy, manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, quoted in "MLB-leading Brewers cap best 60-game stretch in club history" (MLB.com).

"Indiana became the first state in the country after the fall of Roe v. Wade to pass sweeping limits on abortion access...."

"The bill, which will go into effect Sept. 15, allows abortion only in cases of rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormality or when the procedure is necessary to prevent severe health risks or death.... Before settling on the exceptions, Republican legislators disagreed on how far the law should go, with some GOP members siding with Democrats in demanding that abortion be legal in cases of rape and incest.... The push by Indiana Republicans to restrict abortion access stands in stark contrast with the overwhelming support for it by voters in Kansas... In Indiana, Democratic legislators described the Kansas vote as a warning to their Republican colleagues to consider the potential fallout from voters...."

WaPo reports.

The Supreme Court, in overruling Roe v. Wade, turned the question of access to abortion over to the people of the states.

And now we are beginning to get what we were deprived of for so long: the voted-for preference of the people.

The NYT reports:

Kansas voters resoundingly decided against removing the right to abortion from the State Constitution... a major victory for the abortion rights movement in one of America’s reliably conservative states... The decisive margin — 59 to 41 percent, with about 95 percent of the votes counted — came as a surprise....

The overruling of Roe v. Wade was such a shock to supporters of abortion rights that many seemed to think — and this is what a lot of anti-abortion people imagined for so long — that to lose the constitutional right to abortion would be to recognize the right to life of the unborn, and that now, instead of the woman's having the right to destroy the unborn, the unborn would have the right to use the body of the woman without her consent.

But that was never true. Overruling of Roe v. Wade simply threw the issue into the political arena. That was experienced by many as an outrageous intrusion on women's autonomy. Abortion rights supporters did not want to have to give up the security of the right and to be forced to fight for that autonomy. You can lose a political fight.

But you can also win. And women's autonomy won — decisively — in Kansas. Perhaps, in the long run, political victory will bring the greatest security to women's autonomy. Roe v. Wade was always under threat. The threat finally arrived, and the political reckoning is upon us. And look what happened!

ADDED: "Here’s how abortion rights supporters won in conservative Kansas" (NYT):

Bruce Springsteen (and Jeep) call us (the Super Bowl watchers) back to the middle, to "the ReUnited States of America."

 

We see Bruce in Kansas, the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states, and he's mourning about how "the middle has been a hard place to get to lately." It's not overtly political, but I get the feeling that we're being told that the person who is President now, is more or less in the middle, and we ought to come together and feel good about that.

This is — Variety tells us — the first ad Bruce Springsteen has ever done. He'd never even allowed his songs to be used in ads.

But Springsteen has been openly political. Here's a message he put out just before the 2020 election:

There’s no art in this White House. There’s no literature, no poetry, no music. There are no pets in this White House. No loyal man’s best friend, no Socks the family cat, no kids’ science fairs. No time when the president takes off his blue suit, red tie uniform and becomes human. Except when he puts on his white shirt and khaki pants uniform, and hides from the American people to play golf. There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation. No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport. No Reagans on horseback. No Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape. Where’d that country go? Where did all the fun, the joy, and the expression of love and happiness go? We used to be the country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity. We used to have a president who calmed and soothed the nation instead of dividing it. And a first lady who planted a garden instead of ripping one out. We are rudderless and joyless. We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great. We have lost our mojo, our fun, our happiness, our cheering on of others, the shared experience of humanity that makes it all worth it. The challenges and the triumphs that we shared and celebrated, the unique can-do spirit that America has always been known for. We are lost. We’ve lost so much in so short a time. On November 3rd, vote them out.

So, Bruce got what he said he wanted, the President who calms and soothes us instead of riling us up. And Bruce is driving a Jeep in Kansas to call us back into a dreamworld of Americana.

"So Trump’s Suburban Lifestyle Dream is basically a walled village that the government built for whites, whose gates were slammed shut when others tried to enter."

"What is Biden proposing to remedy at least some of these injustices? Reasonable, significant, but hardly revolutionary stuff — things like expanding rental vouchers while cracking down on redlining and exclusionary zoning. Trump may claim that such policies would 'destroy suburbia,' but that only makes sense if you believe that the only alternative to bloody anarchy is a community that looks exactly like Levittown in 1955....  [T]he big difference between the parties now is that Biden and Harris are trying to make things better, trying to make us more like the country we’re supposed to be. Trump and Mike Pence, by contrast, are basically trying to make open racism great again."

Writes Paul Krugman in "Trump’s Racist, Statist Suburban Dream/Racial inequality wasn’t an accident. It was an ugly political choice" (NYT).

The second-highest-rated comment is from Phyliss Dalmatian of Wichita, Kansas:

Trump has turned the usual GOP dog whistle in a Tornado Siren. Blaring, omnipresent and undeniable. The Party Of, by and for White Males, with their stepford wives and perfect blue eyed children. That’s the myth, and the aspiration. Join us !

Except Johnny starts fires, bullies younger kids and has started stealing pain pills from relatives homes. And Sally has dreams of a glamorous life as a FOX spokesmodel, the epitome of GOP womanhood, before aging out. At 30. But, she’ll find a rich Husband before that, no problem.

Professor, to the very, very large majority of the GOP, not white people are an afterthought, at best. Takers, Moochers, Lazy, irresponsible, criminal, blah, blah blah.

Dream on, GOP. Your time is nearly done. You won’t be able to WIN, irregardless of vast and inventive Cheating.

Trump is your Epitaph. You own Him.

A wild fever dream from Wichita — replete with random capitalization, "irregardless," and raging contempt for white people. What's up with Kansas? I love the inclusion of the "Tornado Siren." Makes me want to conjure up some "Wizard of Oz" jokes. Maybe something with Toto and a Dalmation....

"A Kansas City area radio station can broadcast Russian state-owned media programming, the type that U.S. intelligence called a 'propaganda machine,' for six hours a day..."

"RM Broadcasting LLC, a Florida-based company that has agreements to broadcast the Russian state media program Radio Sputnik... KCXL’s website, which says that it’s the radio station that will 'tell you the things that the liberal media wont (sic) tell you,' lists Radio Sputnik in its morning programming.... RM Broadcasting in 2019 was ordered by a federal judge to register as a foreign agent under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires political agents in the U.S. acting on a foreign government’s behalf to disclose their relationships, finances and activities.... KCXL’s president is Peter Schartel, who... [says he's] 'basically a liberal, patriotic American...but our government has done some horrible things.'"

The Kansas City Star reports.

"The Brownbacklash Is Finally Here..."

"... Kansas Primary Voters Send Conservatives Packing."

At least 11 separate conservative members of the legislature lost their primaries to more moderate Republicans in the state, with a number of contests still too close to call with confidence...

Greetings from Kansas.

Somewhere in the middle of Kansas, halfway between Austin, Texas and Madison, Wisconsin, your steadfast blogger has holed up for the night. You may now rest easy, knowing that the aggressive drivers of Texas did not kill me, the icy highways of Oklahoma did not waylay me, and the speedy interstate they call 35 did not lure me onward into that drive-'til-dawn madness that gripped me in my younger years.

ADDED: It's really too early to sleep. 7:53. But I'm tired of all the driving, and eager to make the end of today so I can get back out there tomorrow and be home again. What do you do in this situation, alone in the hotel? The car is there, the distance is what it is, but sleep must have its place. Being awake in the hotel is not much different from being in the car holding the steering wheel. And yet, good sense says, you must stay put. No more forward movement until dawn... or near dawn. These useless hours, pre-sleep, alone, somewhere in Kansas.

Speaking of Kansas...

... I need to get to Kansas right now. What's not the matter with Kansas? It's the halfway point on the drive back home from Austin.

Here's a photograph to signal that this post is a café...



... and you can talk about whatever you want.

Greg Orman explains the clown/clown car distinction to Bob Dole.

"I want to assure you that this is not true" — that Orman did not call the 91-year-old Kansan patriarch a clown — "and is not my opinion of you in any way, shape or form. My reference to a 'clown car' was commenting on the near-endless number of political supporters of Senator [Pat] Roberts who have piled out of Washington to support him, none of whom I think are clowns. I certainly wasn't calling you - or any of the others supporting Senator Roberts - a 'clown.'"

For some reason, this makes me want to show you this photo I took back in March 2011:



Originally blogged under the title: "Everybody wants to take a photo of a man wheeling the large pile of shit that has a 'Hello My Name Is Scott Walker' sign stuck in it." I'm thinking of saying something like: There, it's clear that the man means to say, Scott Walker is shit. He's not simply a man riding in on a shit wagon. He is a pile of shit, being wheeled around on a small vehicle that may or may not be specifically purposed as a shit wagon. And even if that were a shit wagon, it wouldn't mean that if any given person were to take a ride on the shit wagon, that would make him shit. When you take a hay ride on a hay wagon, that doesn't make you hay.

But then, who rides in a clown car other than clowns? And what makes a car a clown car aside from its being full of clowns? There's no specifically purposed vehicle known as a clown car. It's just a Volkswagen Beetle or some other such small car.

Now, I do get Orman's point. "Clown car" was a funny way to refer to a seemingly endless supply of surrogates that the GOP sent into Kansas to help Roberts, and there is something ludicrous about a candidate who depends too heavily on surrogates. So there's deniability. But, come on, Orman called Bob Dole a clown.  He handed Roberts a gift there, he knows it, and he had to walk it back. Ludicrously.

IN THE COMMENTS: CWJ said "Althouse, The candidate's name is Greg Orman not Gary." Corrected. Thanks. I must have confused him with Gary Oldman.



AND: Rejham said: "'Greg Orman, not Gary.' Ha! Gary Orman was great on Laugh-in though..." Oh, yeah. Gary Owens...

I was surprised to see that this headline was for an article written by Thomas Frank.

"Righteous rage, impotent fury: Thomas Frank returns to Kansas to hunt the last days of Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts."

That makes Thomas Frank sound insane and menacing, like he's the one with righteous rage and impotent fury. How else can you read that? And then "hunt the last days"? That sounds like the kind of language that people were resolving to avoid after the Tucson massacre. 

It's not that easy for a party nominee to remove his name from the ballot to help the third party candidate against his opponent.

The Democratic Party nominee in the Kansas Senate race is finding out.

Obama in Kansas: "It's great to be back in the state of Texas."

He was there to give his big speech, doubling down on class politics. (Growing — "gaping" — disparity in income "gives lie to the promise at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try.")

EcoKat backlash.

What's the matter with Kansas?  (Via Instapundit.)

Kansas State University recently introduced EcoKat, a special mascot to promote environmental causes -- and the fans are not thrilled. The Kansas City Star reported that, on Twitter, the #ecokat hashtag suggests considerable dislike, and that a #fakeecokat has also emerged on Twitter. Among recent tweets: "#EcoKat makes me want to leave my porch light on 24hours and drive two blocks to the gas station for a pack of gum," "EcoKat: The worst idea since the Power Towel" and from a University of Kansas fan "MY GOD. What is #kstate thinking? And you ask why you get made fun of ... #EcoKat. Please never change."

Oh, how bad can it be? Aaaah!

Sorry, I was totally distracted by the cat head. But that's Willie the Wildcat, which is apparently the school's regular sports mascot, their Bucky Badger, if you will. EcoKat is the lady: "played by a K-State student who auditioned for the role... outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent repurposed materials." They say her outfit is "sustainable." But it is not sustainable! Because people will not stand for it.... or wait. Is this a trick? So bad it's good? So bad it gets people to tweet and blog about how bad it is? Kind of like the Burger King king? But the Burger King king is passé. He's ousted. Dethroned. Get with it Kansas! Creepily bad is not somehow cool. Not anymore.

Bob Dylan on Barack Obama: "He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real."

From an interview with The Times Online's Bill Flanagan:

First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

BF: In what way?

BD: First of all, Barack is born in Hawaii. Most of us think of Hawaii as paradise – so I guess you could say that he was born in paradise....

BF: What in his book would make you think he’d be a good politician?

BD: Well nothing really....

BF: Do you think he’ll make a good president?

BD: I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.

"European man... putting security on red alert... stripping down to tight shorts and dancing in the lobby of Wichita Airport."

What's the matter with Kansas? Don't they get HBO?

What's the matter with Kansas?

Get with the program, people!

"There's an edgy attitude. Not toughness. Not meanness."

It's Betsey Johnson, talking about fashion.



Several points:

1. I used to buy Betsey Johnson clothes when they were at Paraphernalia (which she left in 1969). Does anyone else remember shopping for clothes at Paraphernalia in the Betsey Johnson days? I loved that stuff.

2. I love the version of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" that plays at the end of the video.

3. Betsey has worked out a really nice image for herself as an aging woman. It's almost clownish, but it suits her. I could get my hair cut like that. What stops me?

4. "She lived in the Chelsea Hotel in the late '60s. Edie Sedgwick was her house model. She became a friend-of-Andy. She designed the costumes for 'Ciao, Manhattan.' She made velvet suits for the Velvet Underground. She made Lou Reed's pants too big in the crotch, provoking his anger. She married John Cale, making matters worse. She shocked the fashion establishment. She hung out at Max's Kansas City. She shocked the fashion establishment at Max's Kansas City. She played Yoko Ono to Lou Reed's Paul. She broke up the Velvet Underground."

5. She reminds me a little of Susan Estrich.

The White House belongs in Smith Center, Kansas.

So thought the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

He called for the demolition of all toxic buildings and unhealthy urban environments, even the demolition of historic landmarks if they were not built according to “Vedic architecture in harmony with Natural Law.”

There are so many interesting things you can think up and purvey when you're a self-styled spiritual leader. A guru. There was a time when we Americans didn't use — hadn't heard — the word "guru." That was before the Maharishi, who had to be some kind of genius to have figured out how to use that most sensational vehicle for reaching the minds of everyone in the world: The Beatles:

Maharishi, what have you done?
You made a fool of everyone.
Maharishi, ooh, what have you done?...

Maharishi, how did you know?
The world was waiting just for you...
Maharish, oooh, how did you know?

Maharishi, you'll get yours yet
However big you think you are...
Maharishi, ooh, you'll get yours yet.

And so, Maharishi finally has got his. Dead in Vlodrop, Netherlands, at an age somewhere beyond 90.

When laws meant to help really hurt — and what would it take for the NYT to quote Ronald Reagan on the subject?

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt give some vivid illustrations of the way well-intended laws can backfire: The Americans With Disabilities Act motivates doctors to reject deaf patients, and the Endangered Species Act incentivizes the destruction of anything that might come to be regarded as a habitat for something rare.

[W]ith a government that is regularly begged for relief — these days, from mortgage woes, health-care costs and tax burdens — and with every presidential hopeful making daily promises to address these woes, it might be worth encouraging the winning candidate to think twice (or even 8 or 10 times) before rushing off to do good.

Reading this terrific essay, I thought it should be necessary to acknowledge the famous Ronald Reagan line: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

At first, I thought, well, maybe you can't do that in an issue of The New York Times that features a big Frank Rich essay called "Ronald Reagan Is Still Dead." ("[T]he G.O.P. is running on empty, with no ideas beyond the incessant repetition of Reagan’s name.")

But then I searched the NYT archive. I found the transcript of Reagan's August 13, 1986 news conference that contained the line. [Restricted access link.] Since then, however, the New York Times has never printed the entire Reagan quote and has only used the final 9-word quip on 3 occasions.

1. August 22, 2006:

In the lexicon of American business, “cynicism” means doubt about the benevolence of market forces, and it is a vice of special destructiveness. Those who live or work in Washington, however, know another variant of cynicism, a fruitful one, a munificent one, a cynicism that is, in fact, the health of the conservative state. The object of this form of cynicism is “government,” whose helpful or liberating possibilities are to be derided whenever the opportunity presents.

Remember how President Reagan claimed to find terror in the phrase, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”?

This was from Thomas Frank. Of course, the author of "What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" thinks this cynicism is wrong.

2. October 21, 2001:

Since Sept. 11, Washington's sense of itself has changed utterly. ''Washington solutions'' have gone from inherently suspect to indubitably essential. The federal government is now seen not just as capable but also as uniquely capable of performing a great variety of urgent tasks: fighting our enemies abroad, stimulating our flagging economy, rescuing bankrupt airlines, rebuilding the ruins in New York City, protecting us from bioterror and making the skies feel safe again. Reagan's old joke about the 10 scariest words in the English language -- Hello, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help'' -- isn't a joke anymore. It's the literal attitude of Reagan-revering Republicans who toured the devastation at ground zero.

With this can-do attitude has arrived a renewed feeling of self-esteem....

This is from Slate's Jacob Weisberg, who also, obviously, disagrees with Reagan.

3. August 1, 1993:

Unlike the Reagan and Bush Administrations, which opposed most Federal efforts to assist American industry, the Clinton Administration enthusiastically supports technology policy and has selected the National Institute of Standards and Technology as the civilian agency to help manufacturers.

The institute is one of the few Federal agencies where the statement "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you" would not be greeted with derision among most business people....

This is a profile of Arati Prabhakar, the woman President Bill Clinton named director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Again, the context is that the quote is wrong and the government can help.

So, you see, The New York Times has never once invoked that famous Reagan quote for the proposition that the well-meaning government efforts can prove harmful.