I may be old, but I still remember high school. Do you? The cliques, the drama, the petty squabbles, the abusive Mean Girls and jocks? It’s all coming back.
The Republican party supported Herschel Walker because he was a football player, never mind that he was as dumb as a post, and Oz, because he was rich.
They’re handing committee memberships to George Santos, despite the fact that he’s a constitutive liar who cheated his way into office.
It’s clear that the Republicans are the Superficials, the in-group of people who strive to look glossy and fashionable, no matter how dull their minds are. What clinched my recognition that we’re back in high school is that Boebert and Greene are bickering.
The crest of the battle was played out on Jan. 7 in the speaker’s lobby ladies’ room, The Daily Beast reports, when a source says, “Greene questioned Boebert’s loyalty to McCarthy.”
Another source reportedly said that Greene asked Boebert, “You were okay taking millions of dollars from McCarthy, but you refuse to vote for him for Speaker, Lauren?”
Unaware Boebert was in the bathroom when she emerged from the stall, the first source told The Daily Beast that Lauren said to Greene, “Don’t be ugly,” and then “ran out like a little schoolgirl.”
Fighting in the girls’ room. Oh, grow up.
What’s particularly appalling is that Jacinda Ardern is resigning from her position as prime minister of New Zealand. What a contrast.
Ardern won praise for her calm stewardship of the Pacific nation through a number of major events, including the coronavirus pandemic, a volcanic eruption and the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack. She spearheaded legislation to ban military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles just six days after the attack, in which more than 50 people were killed.
Can you imagine a Boebert or a Greene in a similar position? Oh hell no.
I want a transfer to that other high school on the far side of the Pacific Ocean.
I want a transfer to that other high school on the far side of the Pacific Ocean.
God, yes. In a heartbeat.
Or it’s politics at high-school level maturity.
Many display high-school level politics by complexity and not age.
Ardern deserves another helping of my respect for want wanting to become a political barnacle who clings ruthlessly to power for her whole life.
As far as we know, Jacinda Ardern really is resigning to spend more time with her family! May be a political first.
Like Australia’s former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, I gather Jacinda Adern has faced considerable media attack and harrassment although her wikpage :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinda_Ardern
doesn’t go into this.
FWIW Ardern is agnostic having left her Mormon upbringing behind, has shown compassion for refugees and declared a Climate Emergency among so much more. Wish she’d been our PM here too. Remarkable leader and good Human being, she’s going to missed.
I try not to. Well, there were some good parts to it and memories but, yeah, NOT the greatest time in my life and I was never sociable and often bullied so.. yeah. Spent most of my time hiding in the library really.
We saw what they’d be like – more or less – with how Trump responded or didn’t to Charlottesville’s nazi march and the Black Lives Matter protests, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting massacre and more didn’t we?
Ugh! Don’t remind me of the politics of my teenage years. I was a primordial Ben Shapiro back then, callous, clueless, and insufferable.
I think that if someone doesn’t go beyond a particular identifiable behavior tied to a developmental stage that is a fair place for disparagement. Mirroring and repetition behavior shows up before speech so if someone is just mirroring or repeating they can fairly be sait to only be displaying early childhood level politics.
Some other things are missing in other areas. The overreliance on gossip can be attacked here.
Jacinda Adern was one of the most enlightened leaders in this dying world. I am terribly saddened and angered that such a decent leader could not prosper in this violent, aggressive, raging rtwingnut besieged world.
Oh, that’s how ultimately simple “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is. A mirrored ableist slogan. A cultural level inability to do more than steal and reflect an already broken weapon.
shermanj–
She did prosper. She has been in Parliament since 2008 and Prime Minister since 2017. This is by any measure a very successful run, especially given the difficult circumstances she had to deal with (natural disasters, a major domestic terror attack, COVID-19 — all incidents that tend to favour conservative windbags rather than young progressives).
Not that this undermines your observations about the current state of the world, and I would agree that one of the worst aspects of modern politics is that empathetic caring leaders get burnt out by fighting for every little improvement, while egotists and political saboteurs and corrupt powermongers glide along happily with the media doing most of their fighting for them.
Jacinda Ardern is mother of young girl, has been PM for five years during several traumatic events and is facing a very tough election this year.
It’s entirely reasonable that’s she’s decided she doesn’t have the drive to continue, and should step aside for someone else.
There is an entirely understandable, unstated, position that she’d rather go out on top than wait until she’s forced to leave – no matter what one may like about her, no one in her position got there without considerable desire to be a winner.
A thing no one seems to be talking about is what’s likely to be the pivotable issue of our election this year, which is going to cause considerable contention; the idea of col-governance behind the Three Waters legislation which is founded on extremely questionable philosophical grounds, creating stark real world choices the populace is not going to enjoy debating.
That in particular raises spectres of very, extremely, bitter campaigning and arguing a person already tired may very well shy from.
And her Labour party is quite likely to lose it’s position for promoting it.
In 2000 Labour won an absolute majority to govern – which has never happened before in our (albeit shortish) history of Proportional Representation – they cannot avoid losing a lot of control this year, which will be proclaimed widely by opposition let alone their likely defeat. They won overwhelming support on the back of decisive action over the pandemic, that’s no longer an issue for election.
The idea that Ardern has been treated badly by the press is not true – there’s a good argument to say our media have been fawning over her. Some twats have been clearly misogynistic and revolting, but that’s the modern world – every little turd has a voice now, and they all shout loudly. Just because you can pick out one vile opinion out of millions doesn’t make amplifying it a good argument.
The best things she did were articulating civilized responses to terrorism and disaster that made NZ proud, while her party has debatable results as governors the facts are NZ is in relatively good shape by the numbers – with some very divisive legislation in the works.
Twas ever thus.
Jacinda Ardern stayed until she had nothing left to give.
Right-wing politicians stay until they have nothing left to take.
While Jacinda Ardern is citing burnout and wanting to spend more time with her family (both valid reasons), the common assumption here is that the misogynists have won. Some links here:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300788875/do-you-want-the-heartwarming-version-of-jacinda-arderns-story-or-the-chilling-one
No PM in our history had needed protection once they left office. It looks like that is about to change.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131034202/jacinda-ardern-will-need-more-ongoing-protection-than-any-pm-in-nzs-history–expert
@ ^ auntbenjy :
See,well, hear really also : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-23/new-zealands-new-pm-vow-to-protect-his-family-from/101881782
Also not that more sources reallyneeded but : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-21/jacinda-arderns-battle-with-death-threats-and-online-trolls/101873990
PS. Not that we Aussies can talk really when we look at what happened to Julia Gillard.. :-(
On Julia Gillard see :
https://theconversation.com/theres-a-big-problem-with-the-murdoch-media-no-one-is-talking-about-how-it-treats-women-leaders-149986
& : https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/the-unseemly-splatter/
Plus :
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/107606/3/The%20double%20delegitimisation%20of%20Julia%20Gillard.pdf
Of course, there’s also what happened to Hillary Clinton to contemplate here too..