The wife vote

Oppression at the ballot box: “What does it say about gender relations in this country that so many leaders are telling women not to fear retribution from their husbands because their ballots can remain secret” asks Washington Post journalist Catherine Rampell, referring to the wave of ads (watch here and here) that claim Donald Trump voters are being somehow bullying or pressuring their wives and friends to cast a vote for the man.

The answer to Rampell’s question is that Democratic strategists seem to think this is how normies’ marriages work, or that this ginned-up oppression will appeal to fence-sitters. It’s the line Democrats appear to be taking in the lead-up to the election, but it strikes me as manufactured at best, insulting at worst.

“I certainly have many Republicans who will say to me, I can’t be public. They do worry about a whole range of things including violence, but they’ll do the right thing,” said former Rep. Liz Cheney (R–Wyo.) recently.

“You are a woman who lives in a household of men who don’t listen to you or value your opinion. Just remember: Your vote is a private matter. Regardless of the political views of your partner, you get to choose!” said Michelle Obama last week.

Of course, some people, like Fox News’ Jesse Waters, likened his wife voting for Harris to her having an affair, seemingly as a joke, but emphasized that it would be the duplicitousness—claiming to be a Trump supporter while secretly being a Harris fan—that would bother him.

Someone’s not telling the truth: Official White House stenographers and the White House press team are sparring over whether President Joe Biden called Trump supporters “garbage.”

Over the weekend, during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, the insult comic Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Biden responded on a Tuesday night call with Latino activist groups: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters…his…his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

The White House press office’s transcript rendered the quote with an apostrophe: “supporter’s” rather than “supporters,” making it look like Biden was merely criticizing Hinchcliffe, not the whole half of the country that’s supporting Trump.

Hilariously, “the president’s remarks clashed with Vice President Kamala Harris’ near-simultaneous speech outside the White House in which she called for treating Americans of differing ideologies with respect,” reports the Associated Press.

It’s all a little insane that Biden wants to be seen as some morally decent leader when his presidency has been punctuated by scandals, and when he had to be forced off the campaign trail after hordes of loyal lackeys (including current nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris) repeatedly lied about his mental competence. This sure looks like his “deplorables” moment, but the kind of amazing thing about the Trump era is that none of the insults really matter—things got acrimonious so long ago that nothing mean holds any shock value anymore. The real problem is the degree to which White House officials are willing to corruptly cover for their guy.

Trump x RFK Jr.: If he wins, Donald Trump apparently plans to appoint bear-hunter/falconry king/vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as the National Institutes of Health.

“I’m going to let him go wild on health,” Trump said at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. “I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”

RFK Jr. seems pretty jazzed, saying: “FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”

Look, I hate the FDA as much as the next gal, but I do not think they’re aggressively suppressing sunshine or exercise. Taking RFK Jr. seriously, though, I do wonder what exactly he would do (Trump favors right-to-try legislation, for example, but Kennedy would ostensibly oppose it), other than the admittedly positive acts of getting the government out of the way of letting people consume shrooms and raw milk to their hearts’ content.

Scenes from New York: Took the kiddos (my son and his BFF) trick-or-treating last night and…well, there’s a reason I don’t live in Brooklyn anymore.

Also, I assume the Diddy reference is merely a coincidence (though he is a Brooklynite now).

QUICK HITS

• New Just Asking Questions just dropped, with portions of it filmed from Miami, where Zach Weissmueller and I just spent a week carousing with Thielworld folks:

• Speaking of Miami, I spoke on two panels—about tradwives and about spanking (corporal punishment and parenting culture more broadly)—and haven’t even been canceled for it (yet). Thanks to the good people at Founders Fund for hosting! More pics here.

• There’s a new documentary out about Martha Stewart’s life, and she’s a hater. “The trial and the actual incarceration was less than two years out of an 83-year life,” she told The New York Times, referring to her 2004 fraud conviction in an insider trading case. (Vintage Reason cover story here.) “I considered it a vacation, to tell you the truth. The trial itself was extremely boring. Even the judge fell asleep.”
• “Have you seen all these studies that basically connect testosterone levels in young men with conservative politics?” Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) asked Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience. “Maybe that’s why the Democrats want us all to be, you know, poor health and overweight is because it means we’re going to be more liberal, right? If you make people less healthy, they apparently become more politically liberal.”
• Inside the issues with processing migrants’ asylum claims, courtesy of Bloomberg.