#peachy keenan

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gaby Del Valle at Politico Magazine:

The threat, we are told here this weekend, is existential, biological, epoch-defining. Economies will fail, civilizations will fall, and it will all happen because people aren’t having enough babies.

“The entire global financial system, the value of your money, and every asset you might buy with money is defined by leverage, which means its value depends on growth,” Kevin Dolan, a 37-year-old father of six from Virginia, tells the crowd that has gathered to hear him speak. “Every country in the developed world and most countries in the developing world face long-term population decline at a level that makes growth impossible to maintain,” Dolan says, “which means we are sitting on the bubble of all bubbles.” Despite this grim prognosis, the mood is optimistic. It’s early December, a few weeks before Christmas, and the hundred-odd people who have flocked to Austin for the first Natal Conference are here to come up with solutions. Though relatively small, as conferences go, NatalCon has attracted attendees who are almost intensely dedicated to the cause of raising the U.S. birth rate. The broader natalist movement has been gaining momentum lately in conservative circles — where anxieties over falling birth rates have converged with fears of rising immigration — and counts Elon Musk, who has nearly a dozen children, and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán among its proponents. Natalism is often about more than raising birth rates, though that is certainly one of its aims; for many in the room, the ultimate goal is a total social overhaul, a culture in which child-rearing is paramount.

NatalCon’s emphasis on childbirth notwithstanding, there are very few women in the cavernous conference room of the LINE Hotel. The mostly male audience includes people of all ages, many of whom are childless themselves. Some of the women in attendance, however, have come to Austin with their children in tow — a visual representation of the desired outcome of this weekend. As if to emphasize the reason we’re all gathered here today, a baby babbles in the background while Dolan delivers his opening remarks.

Broadly speaking, the people who have paid as much as $1,000 to attend the conference are members of the New Right, a conglomeration of people in the populist wing of the conservative movement who believe we need seismic changes to the way we live now — and who often see the past as the best model for the future they’d like to build. Their ideology, such as it exists, is far from cohesive, and factions of the New Right are frequently in disagreement. But this weekend, these roughly aligned groups, from the libertarian-adjacent tech types to the Heritage Foundation staffers, along with some who likely have no connection with traditionally conservative or far-right causes at all, have found a unifying cause in natalism. At first glance, this conference might look like something new: A case for having kids that is rooted in a critique of the market-driven forces that shape our lives and the shifts that have made our culture less family-oriented. As Dolan later tells me in an email, declining birth rates are primarily the fault of “default middle-class ‘life path’ offered by our educational system and corporate employers,” which Dolan says is “in obvious competition with starting a family.” These systems, he believes, have created a consumer-driven, hedonistic society that requires its members to be slavishly devoted to their office jobs, often at the expense of starting a family.

But over the course of the conference, the seemingly novel arguments for having children fade and give way to a different set of concerns. Throughout the day, speakers and participants hint at the other aspects of modern life that worried them about future generations in the U.S. and other parts of the West: divorce, gender integration, “wokeness,” declining genetic “quality.” Many of the speakers and attendees see natalism as a way of reversing these changes. As the speakers chart their roadmaps for raising birth rates, it becomes evident that for the most dedicated of them, the mission is to build an army of like-minded people, starting with their own children, who will reject a whole host of changes wrought by liberal democracy and who, perhaps one day, will amount to a population large enough to effect more lasting change. This conference suggests there’s a simple way around the problem of majority rule: breeding a new majority — one that looks and sounds just like them.

In recent years, various factions of the old and the new right have coalesced around the idea that babies might be the cure for everything that’s wrong with society, in the United States and other parts of the developed West. It’s not a new argument. Natalists made similar claims in the early 20th century, when urbanization drove birth rates down and European immigration kept the U.S. population afloat. Then, too, people attributed the drop in fertility rates to endemic selfishness among young people.

Throughout it all, some religious conservative cultures have continued to see raising large broods as a divine mandate. White supremacists, meanwhile, have framed their project as a way of ensuring “a future for white children,” as declared by David Lane, a founding member of the white nationalist group The Order. More recently, natalist thinking has emerged among tech types interested in funding and using experimental reproductive technologies, and conservatives concerned about falling fertility rates and what they might mean for the future labor force of the United States and elsewhere in the developed world. The conservative think tanks the Center for Renewing America and the Heritage Foundation — the latter of which was represented at NatalCon — have proposed policies for a potential second Trump administration that would promote having children and raising them in nuclear families, including limiting access to contraceptives, banning no-fault divorce and ending policies that subsidize “single-motherhood.”

[...]

The speakers who lay out this bleak state of affairs are a motley crew of the extremely online right, many of whom go by their X (the website formerly called Twitter) handles rather than their names. Via Zoom, anonymous Twitter user Raw Egg Nationalist warns us about endocrine disruptors in everything from perfume to bottled water. Ben Braddock, an editor at the conservative magazine IM-1776, claims that antidepressants and birth control pills have permanent, detrimental effects on women’s fertility. Together, the speakers paint a dire picture of a society that has lost its way, abandoning fundamental biological truths and dooming itself to annihilation in the process. The solution, of course, is to have more babies. Peachy Keenan, a pseudonymous writer affiliated with the conservative Claremont Institute, urges attendees to “seize the means of reproduction” — as in, to out-breed liberals, who are already hobbling their movement by choosing to have just a couple children, or none at all. “We can use their visceral hatred of big families to our advantage,” Keenan says. “The other side is not reproducing; the anti-natalists are sterilizing themselves.”

Here lies the project, spelled out in detail: The people who disagree have bloodlines that are slowly going to die out. To speed up that process — to have this particular strain of conservative natalist ideology become dominant quickly in the United States — everyone in this room has to have more kids, and fast. But it’s only when the speakers get to who should have babies and how they should raise them that their deeper concerns, and the larger anxieties behind this conference, become clear. The goal, as put by Indian Bronson, the pseudonymous co-founder of the elite matchmaking service Keeper, is “more, better people.” But the speakers lack consensus on the meaning of the word “better,” as they do on the subject of using technology to encourage the best and brightest among us to breed.

Keenan, who has previously celebrated her sense that it is now acceptable to say “white genocide is real,” says better means conservative. Pat Fagan, the director of the Marriage and Religion Institute at the Catholic University of America, says good children are the product of stable, two-parent Christian households, away from the corrupting influences of public school and sex ed. (Christian couples, he adds, have “the best, most orgasmic sex,” citing no research or surveys to support this.) To protect these households, we must abolish no-fault divorce, declares Brit Benjamin, a lawyer with waist-length curly red hair. (Until relatively recently, Benjamin was married to Patri Friedman — grandson of economist Milton Friedman — the founder of the Seasteading Institute, a Peter Thiel-backed effort to build new libertarian enclaves at sea.) And to ensure that these children grow up to be adults who understand their proper place in both the family and the larger social order, we need to oust women from the workforce and reinstitute male-only spaces “where women are disadvantaged as a result,” shampoo magnate and aspiring warlord Charles Haywood says, prompting cheers from the men in the audience.

The far-right natalist movement's goals are to cause a population explosion of people who think like them.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Meghan Markle Waves Goodbye To Her Rom-Com Dreams

We do? Rom-coms? I mean, yeah, it would be wonderful to have good movies again, of any genre. But with Meghan in charge, imagine the scripts she would commission. “When Harry Met Meghan, the Oppressed and Suicidal Actress.” “How to Lose a Prince in 10 Days.”  “10 Things I Hate About Kate.” “The Meghan Markle Story, Starring Meghan Markle.” 

That last one’s more of a tragicomedy than a rom-com, sorry. But I understand why she wants to make Julia Roberts-style romantic comedies. After all, just a few years ago, she was lurking on Hollywood Boulevard auditioning for her big break when a prince in an Aston Martin cruised by and whisked her away to his palace. She has lived a real-life Cinderella story. Only this one may not have quite the same ending.

Petty Woman: Meghan Markle Waves Goodbye To Her Rom-Com Dreams

BY: PEACHY KEENAN JULY 03, 2023

The latest chapter in the Meghan character arc is about the content she and hapless Harry are trying to pitch to their paymasters in Beverly Hills.

Not all fairy tales have happy endings, and for Princess Meghan the clock just chimed midnight and the spell has been broken. The coach is turning back into a pumpkin as we speak.

As a longtime Royal Family watcher, I admit to feeling shameless glee as I read the recent stories of Meghan and Harry striking out in Hollywood. It’s always fun to watch dire low-stakes predictions come true. Like many of you, I was appalled at the disrespect Meghan showed to her in-laws. Instead of respecting the Queen, Meghan, incredibly, seemed to be trying to compete with the Queen. She thought she was playing a game of “Survivor,” but she was the only one on the island who didn’t know how to make a fire.

A Long Way Down for the Duchess

For those not keeping track, Meghan and her nitwit ginger sidekick have been dropped by Spotify, reportedly losing half of the $50 million promised. She got $25 million for a measly 12 hours of a middling podcast featuring the richest and most famous women in the world complaining about how hard their lives are. Netflix is reportedly about to cut their $100 million deal short. They finished milking them dry of low-hanging tabloid family gossip, and just found out they have no Act 2.

Nothing is working out the way she dreamed it would. Meghan’s imagined billionaire lifestyle is turning into a mirage. Why? Because for some hilarious reason, the creative bigwigs in Hollywood believed Meghan when she promised that her and Harry would be able to provide oodles of monetizable entertainment content.  

I mean, yes, I am quite entertained by the spectacle, but schadenfreude is tough to monetize.

Meghan In Her Flop Era

Meghan’s predicament tells you everything about the people who run Hollywood. Imagine thinking that these two “f*cking grifters,” in the words of the Spotify exec who had to say no to Harry’s harebrained podcast ideas, would be a rich source of high-quality entertainment! 

I can’t help wondering how a D-list golddigger convinced these studio heads that her and the ginger mouth breather would somehow provide $150 million worth of streaming content. It turns out that they’re only good at providing piles of steaming content, if you know what I mean.

I suppose it’s true, as movie producer Jackie Trehorn tells the Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” standards have fallen in entertainment. Since the Sussexes first ditched their careers as legit royalty and started groping for ephemeral Hollywood royalty, my fellow Meghan hobbyists and I have enjoyed a goldmine of unintentional comedy. She’s the Benny Hill of pampered Montecito trophy wives, always running downhill chased by imaginary paparazzi. 

She’s been a source of delight since the early days when she was using a Sharpie to write inspirational messages on bananas to street prostitutes in England. “You are brave.” “You are loved.” Then the cringe-worthy trek through the thousand micro-aggressions she endured at the hands of her sister-in-law Catherine. Did she not realize everyone saw it for what it was: pure jealousy?

But now we come to the era of Meghan Markle, entertainment content creator. The latest chapter in the Meghan character arc is about the content she and hapless Harry are trying to pitch to their paymasters in Beverly Hills. It was clear that her long slide back into C-list obscurity had begun when I read an incredible tidbit in the trades earlier this year. Meghan was talking about her new content ideas she was working on for her “media production company.” See, it’s already funny! 

Meghan gushed to a Variety reporter: “For scripted, we want to think about how we can evolve from that same space and do something fun! It doesn’t always have to be so serious. Like a good rom-com. Don’t we miss them? I miss them so much. I’ve probably watched ‘When Harry Met Sally’ a million times. And all the Julia Roberts rom-coms. We need to see those again.”

We do? Rom-coms? I mean, yeah, it would be wonderful to have good movies again, of any genre. But with Meghan in charge, imagine the scripts she would commission. “When Harry Met Meghan, the Oppressed and Suicidal Actress.” “How to Lose a Prince in 10 Days.”  “10 Things I Hate About Kate.” “The Meghan Markle Story, Starring Meghan Markle.” 

That last one’s more of a tragicomedy than a rom-com, sorry. But I understand why she wants to make Julia Roberts-style romantic comedies. After all, just a few years ago, she was lurking on Hollywood Boulevard auditioning for her big break when a prince in an Aston Martin cruised by and whisked her away to his palace. She has lived a real-life Cinderella story. Only this one may not have quite the same ending.

As Jeremy Zimmer, the CEO of United Talent Agency, one of the largest Hollywood talent agencies dished during Cannes to every reporter within earshot: “It turns out that Meghan Markle wasn’t a great audio talent, or necessarily has some kind of talent. And you know, just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you’re good at something.” 

Ouch. I wonder if Jeremy Zimmer has seen the latest desperate pitch Meghan made to Netflix; a girlboss rom-com called “Bad Manners” starring … Miss Havisham. The show is “a prequel to Charles Dickens’s 1861 novel Great Expectations which will focus on the character Miss Havisham… [the show] aims to shine a feminist light on the spinster, showing her as a ‘strong woman living in a patriarchal society.’”

Who says comedy is dead? Sign me up for this one!

The article ends with the ominous “it is unclear whether the show will get a green light from Netflix.” 

Meghan is learning, finally, the hardest lesson of all: real royalty may be hereditary, but Hollywood royalty has to be earned. Popularity matters. Likeability, in the end, is the only currency that matters if you wear no crown.

Peachy Keenan is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a contributing editor and regular essayist for The American Mind, a publication of The Claremont Institute. She is the author of "Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War" (coming June 6 from Regnery). She also writes at peachykeenan.substack.com, and you can always find her on Twitter.

[justforbooks]

What is Lucky Girl Syndrome?

“I just always expect great things to happen to me, and so, they do.” With those words (and more) describing her impossibly charmed life, a 22-year-old TikTok influencer ushered in the “Lucky Girl Syndrome,” a viral trend wherein people (mainly girls and women it would seem) are encouraged to accept that just believing all good things will come to them can make it so. It’s as much positive psychology as it is toxic positivity, depending on who is being asked. Here’s everything you need to know about Gen Z’s obsession with Lucky Girl Syndrome.

Okay, so what, exactly, is Lucky Girl Syndrome?

It’s basically the belief that “affirmative mantras and a positive mindset in life will bend everyday events in your favour,” according to the Washington Post. Its “founder,” New York-based Laura Galebe, gets the “most insane opportunities” thrown at her from, like, everywhere, she explains in her viral clip. “Nothing doesn’t ever go my way.” Thoughts like, “nothing ever works for me,” never enter her mind-set. Lucky Girl Syndrome started trending soon after New Year’s Day. On TikTok, people are crediting the LGS mantra for helping them score raises, amazing apartments, cheap flights. Videos with the #LuckyGirlSyndrome hashtag, the Washington Post reported, “have been watched a collective 149.6 million times.”

Is it new?

Not really. It’s more a Gen Z spin on old concepts like positive manifestations, Vox reports, meaning “the practice of repeatedly writing or saying declarative statements in the hopes that they will soon become true.” TikTok has an uncanny knack of making “even the most stale, ancient ideas seem suddenly urgent using one simple trick: give it a new name,” Vox’s Rebecca Jennings wrote.

Essentially, manifesting hinges on the belief “that we can change and shape our lives just by the way we think,” according to the Newport Institute, a mental health treatment centre for young adults that has produced an FAQ on Lucky Girl Syndrome. Also known as the law of attraction, manifesting “gives us the sense that we can create order in a world that feels chaotic and unpredictable.”

That sounds peachy. Couldn’t we all use more positivity?

Well, yes, studies have found that positive thinking can be a salve for anxiety. It may help bolster the immune system and lower blood pressure. It can make people feel more confident and more resilient.

“There’s nothing against wishing,” said Gabriele Oettingen, a professor of psychology at New York University and author of, Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation. “Our wishes are an expression of our needs, of what we don’t have,” she said. Her own research has shown that “optimistic expectations” help motivate people to work toward achieving goals, and not just click their heels three times.

Positive manifestation, Alyx Gorman wrote in The Guardian, shares some features of positive cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on enhancing that which helps people flourish. The difference is, cognitive behavioral therapy is anchored in science.

Still, the notion that if you just wish for something hard enough it will “manifest” itself is a seductive one. It alleviates people of actually having to work at achieving goals.

“As much as we might like to tell ourselves otherwise, we can’t transform our lives, luck and circumstances simply by telling ourselves so really, really hard that we can,” writes Roisin Lanigan in Vice.

“There are going to be, unfortunately, some situations in life that we are not able to manifest and think our way out of,” psychologist Carolyne Keenan told the BBC. “I would be concerned about people being in a situation where maybe that’s not going to be an effective strategy.”

What is it that people don’t like about this?

Lucky Girl Syndrome conveniently glosses over barriers like poverty, and systemic racism and inequalities. An argument could also be made that believing in luck “is an entitled luxury for the privileged,” according to Newport’s national advisor of healthy device management, Don Grant.

Indeed, Lucky Girl has been called “icky,” the “smuggest” TikTok trend yet and “the peak of the internet’s delusional era.” A defiant Galebe challenges her followers to, go ahead, “Try being delusional for a month and tell me if your life doesn’t change.”

Thinking positive thoughts and pushing away self-limiting ones is generally a good thing. Humans have an inherent negativity bias. “Thousands of years ago, our brains were constantly scanning the horizon for threats,” Louisa Jewell, author of Wire Your Brain for Confidence, told Forbes.

“Whether conscious or subconscious, (people’s thoughts and beliefs) strongly affect what we want and whether we succeed in getting it,” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck told the magazine.

But ignoring reality isn’t helpful for mental well-being. “Trying to manifest change — and failing — can make people feel worse,” according to the Newport Institute.

“(It) triggers disappointment for some whilst others completely lose their confidence,” Lucy Baker, a U.K.-based confidence coach, told the New York Post. Believing one is the “luckiest person on planet Earth and luckier than any other living being can be dangerous.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[darkmaga-returns]

Poor “Joe Biden” can’t help himself as the sun sets on his ignominious career. He ordered the American flag to fly at half-staff into January 20, inauguration day, to signal grief and distress at Donald Trump’s swearing-in — not realizing, apparently, that Mr. Trump’s first act in office will be to order the flags raised back up, signaling symbolically the end to America’s grief and distress under “Joe Biden.”

You might wonder: what other sort of vicious mischief the Party of Chaos has in store in the final ramp-up to a momentous change of government? Well, no sooner had ol’ “JB” draped the Wegovy-slenderized neck of Hillary Clinton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, than Bill Clinton went on ABC’s The View to declare he was “open to talking with [‘President Biden’]” about a preemptive pardon for Hillary.

Say, whu. . . ? What crimes did Bill have in mind that such a pardon might avail? Skolkovo? Uranium One? The Clinton Foundation’s sketchy activities in Haiti after the earthquake there? Bill preemptively mentioned the old emails bidness as a ruse. Nothing to see there, folks, he protested. (Just don’t look anywhere else!)

You must imagine that the incoming Solicitor General, John Sauer’s, first act in office will be to ask SCOTUS for a ruling on the legitimacy of preemptive pardons — blanket pardons for crimes alive perhaps in guilty consciences but nowhere extant as yet in the legal system. The justices might detect a certain logical incoherence in that proposition. “Joe Biden” should have just draped wreaths of garlic around the necks of Mrs. Clinton, Liz Cheney, and Alex Soros (standing in for ol’ George).

[bllsbailey]

OPINION: SNL Opens With a Subversive Take on Trump's Victory—and I Actually Thought It Was Great

I know plenty of folks won’t agree with me on this one, but I thought Saturday Night Live’s cold-open skit on Trump’s resounding election victory was pretty funny. Although the show has been openly—viciously—anti-Trump in the past, I thought in this bit they poked some fun at themselves and showed they were aware of their and their audience’s political leanings, but they didn’t lean into the histrionics and fear-mongering that they’ve engaged in in prior years.

Remember the absolutely horrid “song” Kate McKinnon delivered in 2016? It was NYC-Tinseltown hysteria at its worst:

They took some potshots at Trump in this latest bit, but they were mostly soft punches without the malevolence they have shown in the past with things like the Alec Baldwin impersonations of the former and future president. Those were just venal, hysterical, and humorless bits that I won’t even bother to link to.

Here, to me, as a media critic, the cast seemed almost good-natured and accepting of what happened Tuesday night. As I said, many on social media completely disagree and think it was yet another example of SNL’s continuing descent into promoting extremism, but compared to the drivel they’ve put on in the past, I thought it had a different tone. 

They throw you at first, acting as if they're going to deliver another somber, polarizing message that we've become all too used to. But at the 43-second mark, things suddenly change. 

You decide:

Compare it to some of the other garbage they’ve put out there.

SNL Alum Dropped Out of Awful Antisemitism Sketch Minutes Before Airtime, Was 'Uncomfortable'

Watching Angry SNL Trans Skit Was About as Fun as Hitting Yourself Over the Head With a Mallet

Saturday Night Live Proves Once Again It Has No Soul, Mocks Trump a Full Two Years Into Biden Administration

WATCH: Kamala's 'SNL' Skit Reveals Just What an Inauthentic Copycat She Is

Most of our readers despise SNL, with good reason, and would presumably rather watch “Gutfeld!” if they’re looking for some good comedy. To me, however, I find it interesting that SNL didn’t go scorched earth or throw out some despicable propaganda like the Kate McKinnon cr*p mentioned above. They will never be on our side, that is obvious, but I thought it was notable that they admitted that fact in tongue-in-cheek fashion and didn’t go nuclear. I actually chuckled at some of the lines, especially when Colin Jost came out in “QAnon Shaman” garb and told Trump to go after his co-host Michael Che, and not him.

Sure, there was some subversive humor in there, but that’s what comedy used to be about. I personally love a little subversion here and there. Internet star Peachy Keenan, who I love, completely disagrees with me, but that’s ok; people used to be able to disagree with each other:

Instead of doing the obvious joke, which is that no one is coming to arrest SNL comics and only self important psychopaths fear this, they instead betray their profound brainwashing. People in a cult cannot be funny, Exhibit one million

SNL will probably never return to its heights of the Chevy Chase-John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd-Eddie-Murphy (and so many others) eras, but if you’re looking for the nasty DNC propaganda junk they’ve thrown out for far too long now, to me, this wasn’t it. I actually chuckled at times.

As an added bonus, check out comedian Bill Burr's opening monologue. It's hysterical, and it's something they simply wouldn't have aired in the past:

[alaturkanews]

How can Americans win the culture war?

Online culture warrior Peachy Keenan reveals her identity on 'Fox News Tonight.' Subscribe to Fox News! https://bit.ly/2vBUvAS Watch more Fox News Video: http://video.foxnews.com Watch Fox News Channel Live: http://www.foxnewsgo.com/ FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable,…

[arcticdementor]

(link)

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2019) - #166: The Belle of New York (1952) - dir. Charles Walters

Fred Astaire reteamed with Easter Parade/The Barkleys of Broadway director Charles Walters and Three Little Words costar Vera-Ellen for the musical The Belle of New York, a pleasant trifle that gets by on a minimum of plot and a maximum of artistic ability. In this story set circa 1900, Astaire is Charlie Hill, a perpetual playboy whose roving eye is stilled when he meets mission house advocate Angela Bonfils (Vera-Ellen). Angela disapproves of Charlie’s lavish, fun-loving way of life, but of course she falls under his spell and everything is peachy... at least until Charlie realizes that she is employed by his aunt, the formidable Mrs. Phineas Hill (Marjorie Main), who staunchly opposes the lovebirds’ relationship. The cast is rounded out by MGM stalwarts Keenan Wynn, Alice Pearce (always a nasally-voiced treat), Clinton Sundberg and Gale Robbins. Although the songs are unfortunately forgettable for the most part, Fred Astaire and Vera-Ellen put their feet to fine use and Astaire has two of his most inspired solos in “Seeing’s Believing” and “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel M. Cohen at Vox:

Abortion was always slated to be a top issue in the 2024 presidential election. But virtually no one predicted that politicians would be openly blasting those ambivalent about having children. “We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too,” J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said in a now-famous statement in 2021. “It’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.” That wasn’t all on the subject from Vance. He also argued in 2021 that parents should get additional votes on their children’s behalf. People without kids “should face the consequences and the reality,” he said. Other conservative voices have joined in. Speaking in Vance’s defense last week, Blake Masters, the former Arizona Senate candidate, said bluntly that people without children shouldn’t lead in politics: “If you aren’t running or can’t run a household of your own, how can you relate to a constituency of families, or govern wisely with respect to future generations?” he asked.

Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO, weighed in to call Harris an “extinctionist” because she noted some young people cite climate anxiety as a reason not to have kids. “The natural extension of her philosophy would be a de facto holocaust for all of humanity!” Musk concluded. One starting place to understand where all this is coming from is pronatalism: a broad ideological movement driven by concern that the world is not producing enough children and that society should work to change that. Not all pronatalists are politically conservative, and not all conservatives are particularly pronatalist. People with different backgrounds and ideologies are concerned about what a shrinking population will mean for future generations, though the movement does include anti-abortion advocates like Vance and Masters who have been more vocal. Still other card-carrying pronatalists staunchly oppose coercing women into having children they don’t want.

Those worried about declining birth rates paint a scary picture of the future. As the number of babies dwindles, the number of workers will shrink, too. There will be fewer people paying taxes to support welfare systems, which will still be supporting large elderly populations. The result, they warn, will be economic stagnation and political strife: higher unemployment, more acute labor shortages, diminished investment, fewer innovations, and greater poverty. There is some reason to be wary of these grim predictions. Past population panics have fueled some of the world’s most horrific chapters. Back when leaders thought the world was producing too many humans, governments around the globe pushed mass sterilization campaigns, forced abortions, and gruesome eugenic regimes.

Others see the increased focus on birth rates as a way to scapegoat individuals — primarily women — for societal issues that politicians could otherwise address, such as improving care for the elderly or taxing the rich more aggressively. That there’s a “proximate economic problem … doesn’t necessarily mean increasing birth rates is the solution,” said Nancy Folbre, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The concerns about fertility aren’t taking place in a political vacuum, in the US or anywhere else. Around the world, far-right leaders have campaigned on platforms to roll back abortion rights, restrict immigration, and boost the number of native-born children. In China, government officials recently scrapped gender equality as a priority and advised women “to establish a correct outlook on marriage and love, childbirth, and family.” In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has promoted a policy of “procreation not immigration.”

Even talking about population decline as an issue can feel risky. Though not all pronatalists are against reproductive rights, a louder conversation that frames falling birth rates as a major problem inevitably boosts the issue’s salience, creating space for potentially more reactionary ideas.

[...]

The darker corners of the pronatalism movement

Not everyone concerned about falling birth rates is interested in gender equity or voluntary solutions. Last December, a relatively fringe group gathered in Austin for the first-ever Natal Conference to discuss boosting babies, with some guest speakers decrying the liberal cultural forces they see as responsible for the world’s decline. Peachy Keenan, a pseudonym for one conservative speaker, argued her fellow pronatalists need to make motherhood and large families a more hotly desired status symbol, but to avoid “market[ing] natalism” to progressive feminists. Other speakers included right-wing blogger Charles Haywood, who lamented that “the actual meaning of masculinity has been destroyed by vampire feminists,” and Malcolm and Simone Collins, who were subjects of a viral Guardian profile earlier this year that revealed they smack their children. This corner of “pronatalism” is composed mostly of tech enthusiasts and hyper-rationalist types, religious fundamentalists and some far-right activists worried about immigration and demographic change. One of the most prominent members of this coalition is billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who claimed the falling fertility rate is “the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.” Musk recently led the push to get Vance nominated as Donald Trump’s vice president.

See Also:

MMFA: Right-wing media falsely claim that Kamala Harris is telling Americans not to have kids because of climate change

[suzannebyrne]

All the Women at Kim Kardashian’s KKW Beauty Launch Party Looked Just Like Her

Everyone looked like Kim Kardashian at the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20 in L.A. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

Kim Kardashian celebrated the launch of her beauty line — KKW Beauty — on Tuesday at a bash held at her Bel Air mansion. The reality star, who just hired a surrogate to carry her third child, wore a skintight Vivienne Westwood dress, a mini version of her Met Gala getup. Kanye West, North West, and Kris Jenner were among the attendees at the party, which featured a rose-covered selfie room. But outside of her inner circle, we noticed a trend with guests. They looked … just like her.

Kardashian was flanked by a changing group of dark-haired beauties.

Kim Kardashian celebrates the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

Long hair — and leg-baring ensembles — were a must. (This one, below, is Kim’s assistant, Stephanie Shepherd.)

Kim Kardashian celebrates the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

The woman on the right here, below, looks like a young, pre-fame Kim K. (You know, like back when she cleaned closets.) The girl knows Kim loves a nude lip — and got in formation. (FYI: Kim’s only lip kit in her beauty line features four nude shades: the Kim, a peachy nude; the Kiki, a pinky nude; Kimmie, a deep nude; and the Kimberly, a true nude. Oy.)

Kim Kardashian celebrates the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

There was the occasional blonde — and some dudes — at the party, held at the house Kim temporarily lived in while renovating her dream house, but mostly just women with that Kim K. look, which of course includes a skintight dress.

Kim Kardashian celebrates the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

We feel like we’ve seen this exact makeup on Kim at one point in time. And maybe this dress — though with a much shorter hem.

Kim Kardashian celebrates the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

And this woman’s hair has that same wet look that Kim likes. Her brows and lips are almost identical, but she needed color contacts to make the full transformation. Next time!

Kim Kardashian celebrates the launch of KKW Beauty on June 20. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Full Picture)

It’s like a whole Kardashian army came out to support her — and expect the rest of her dolls to do the same. KKW Beauty officially launched today and is expected to sell out in minutes, which would net the reality star about $14 million. At that rate, she could hire all the surrogates she needs.

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[arcticdementor]

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[arcticdementor]

When I think about the futuristic dystopian movies of my childhood, I recall giant posters of a Dear Leader with a sinister grin on his face, posted around a gray prison city. Big Brother was watching you, always! We sang along to MTV: “I always feel like somebody’s watching me.”

We were warned.

In our present dystopian moment, a new crop of sinister Big Brothers smirks at us from social media and TV, their soulless eyes narrowed, licking their lips as they contemplate how we will taste as they devour us.

Recently I have been struck by the sexlessness of our Biden-era Overlords. Gender-neutrality is all the rage in the swamp, I suppose. Men, women, and everything in between have converged into a new subspecies of person with certain traits of both men and women. The Deep State Uberwench, as it were. Broad-shouldered, strong jawed, lipsticked with blown-out hair, power suited and pumped up, they are the end-product of the sausage grinder of execrable NGOs, D.C. institutes, bottomless and fetid think tanks, and toxic universities.

Debrided of a soul and a capacity for self-awareness, what is left after this is a human being disconnected from humanity. Neither male nor female, they are The State: they are Big Other.

“A shape with lion body and the head of a man,/A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.”

Big Other is the product of the ideological and physical strip-mining process that turns normal people into powerful tools of the Regime. It’s fascinating how each person who undergoes this process ends up looking, dressing, and even behaving the same way. It is a new breed of American bureaucrat. Neither fully male or fully female, they inhabit a genderless nether region (they no longer have their originals) where, thus stripped of inconvenient signifiers like “sexy” or “beautiful” or “handsome” or “mother,” they are free to wield their enormous powers more fully.

They have been untethered, unmoored from their original ties to family, self, their identity, and instead roped to the behemoth ship of state.

…

In a tweet, Jankowicz posted her official DHS portrait. In the striking photo, she wears something that looks like Hillary Clinton’s pantsuit threw up on Bill’s couch.

The portrait reminds me of a poster that might decorate the set of a dystopian movie from the 1980s, perhaps framed and hanging behind the desk of a glowering gulag matron. Power shoulders, jewel toned jacket snug over a dull plaid dress, that strong jawline, that glossy blowout, her lips pressed into a smirk, she eyes us greedily like a lion on the savanna. I am Nina, hear me roar.

Ms. Jankowicz is now in the final instar in the life cycle of the Bug Person. Congratulations, Nina! 

…

Big Other is listening now, America.

I’d tell you to be afraid of they/them, but it’s hard to fear such people. Perhaps, in the end, the push to fill the highest echelons of the United States Government and everything else with incompetents who fit a diversity checklist will be the petard on which its bloated underbelly is finally hoisted. They will tear it down by virtue of their own unintentionally hilarious goofiness.

Recall Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics: “The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.” In other words, hiring her could easily be the act of someone on our side, inserting a poison pill right at the top of the food chain. Perhaps we should be glad to see such clowns presuming to rule over us. The Regime may not make this mistake again!

Big Other is so comical that they may actually corrode and dismantle the flimsy house of cards from which they spy on us, without any outside interference.

Therefore, have no fear! Untethered from that which makes they/them human, they and the rest of their Global Fellowship will eventually take on water, founder, and sink below the blood-dimmed tide of their own colossal hubris.

[arcticdementor]

Here are Tucker Carlson's 5 favorite conspiracy theories according to today's New York Times puff piece

Congratulations to @nickconfessore for red pilling thousands more of your own readers today! So brave.

It's a FACT, ok? Nina Jankowicz told him so!

Every one of @nickconfessore's claims can be easily refuted, and already has, in other articles that include real examples of democrats laughing about replacing whites, etc., so no need to waste time doing that.

More fun to mock them. Confessore, go to confession!

It's really sick how they describe his mother. What's wrong with you? And why include a detailed description of the exterior of the studio Tucker uses in Maine? Unless you want people to find it.

Remember kids: When you work for the Times, they let you doxx people.

These sickening people have no morals, no boundaries, and pure hate in their hearts. They are bloodthirsty, depraved minions who will be deployed against anyone they perceive as a threat.

Pray for @TuckerCarlson

Nick, there is a way out of the darkness. Return to the church of your childhood. Go to confession, today. Repent, do your penance, and go to mass tomorrow. I will pray for your eternal soul!

[arcticdementor]

Pretty soon the only white boys at our top universities will be the ones on the girl's athletic teams

Peachy Keenan

[arcticdementor]

When the frizzy-haired Marxists at my local library start ranting about seizing the means of production, they’re not talking about factories anymore. They’re talking about you, your womb, and its output.

We have put childless despots like this in positions of authority over our kids. They have cleverly figured out that their great nihilistic cultural project requires your children to see it through to the end. And they are coming for them. You can hear the plains vibrating as the great galloping horde approacheth your elementary school.

After all, their harebrained schemes will only work if they can fool a large majority of people to do what they say. You, dear reader, are too smart to fall for their lies! But three-year-olds? Those idiots will believe anything.

Just look around. From the outside, these creatures look normal: young bookstore clerks heaping tables full of rainbow flags and Margaret Sanger hagiographies, lumpy school board officials quietly slipping descriptions of “extreme bestiality and pornography” into middle-grade curricula, feminist librarians proudly displaying Transgender Toddler board books and other government propaganda on the low racks so little kids can easily see them.

Do not be fooled by a Regime functionary’s harmless outward appearance! They are harpies who have swooped into every burgh and barn. They peer at you through jealous eyes as you push your stroller through the park, rubbing their claws together and snapping their beaks as they hatch their plans to ensnare your kids. When I think of these wretched people, I think of Quentin Blake’s drawings for Roald Dahl books like The Witches and The Twits, the evil giants in The BFG, or Giant Peach James’s horrible spinster aunts.

Dahl knew who the true enemies of children were. He warned us! Yet we still put Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker in charge—of everything.

…

The profusion of bullshittery at the local bookstore looks, as the Daily Wire writer Matt Walsh puts it, like “signs at an Antifa rally.” Board books have ludicrous titles like Woke Baby, Anti-Racist Baby, and A is for Activist.

Browsing these modern titles quickly devolves into a horror show. One book called Mama, Why Do You Have to Go to Work? features a distressing illustration of two crying, terrified toddlers on the cover clinging to their mother. Sounds like a heartwarmer! “Why Do You Have to Go to Work helps children understand why mom’s job is important and how it enriches their time at home together. The book also reminds mothers how remarkable they are at building a career while simultaneously nurturing a family.”

Hear that? Stop crying, kids!

Once they’ve piped down, you can look forward to helping your kids understand where their little sister went with a “medically accurate, non-judgmental, and gender-inclusive resource” called What’s An Abortion Anyway? Spoiler alert: in this family, they don’t all live happily ever after.

…

“Fairy tales are more than true,” wrote G.K. Chesterton—“not because they tell us dragons exist but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”

Let us hope he was right.