It may be one of the most surefire findings in all of social psychology, repeatedly replicated over almost five decades of study: American conservatives say they are much happier than American liberals. They also report greater meaning and purpose in their lives, and higher overall life satisfaction. These links are so solidly evidenced that, for the most part, modern social scientists simply try to explain them. They’ve put forth numerous possible explanations.
There are a couple clear contributors to point out first. Marriage tends to make people happier, and conservatives are more likely to be married. Religious belief is also linked to happiness, and conservatives tend to be more religious. But these explanations don’t account for the entire gap, which equates to about a half-point on a four-point scale, a sizable happiness divide.But these explanations don’t account for the entire gap, which equates to about a half-point on a four-point scale, a sizable happiness divide.
Social psychologist Jaime Napier, Program Head of Psychology at NYU-Abu Dhabi has conducted research suggesting that views about inequality play a role.
“One of the biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy, which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it,” she told PBS. “That was the biggest predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs than liberals were.”
To paraphrase, conservatives are less concerned with equality of outcomes and more with equality of opportunity. While American liberals are depressed by inequalities in society, conservatives are okay with them provided that everyone has roughly the same opportunities to succeed. The latter is a more rosy and empowering view than the deterministic former.
Twoother studies explored a more surprising contributor: neuroticism, typically defined as “a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.” Surveyed conservatives consistently score lower in neuroticism than surveyed liberals.
In 2011, psychologists at the University of Florida and the University of Toronto conducted four studies, aiming to find whether conservatives are more “positively adjusted” than liberals.
They found that conservatives “expressed greater personal agency, more positive outlook, more transcendent moral beliefs, and a generalized belief in fairness” compared to liberals.
“The portrait of conservatives that emerges is different from the view that conservatives are generally fearful, low in self-esteem, and rationalize away social inequality. Conservatives are more satisfied with their lives, in general… report better mental health and fewer mental and emotional problems (all after controlling for age, sex, income, and education), and view social justice in ways that are consistent with binding moral foundations, such as by emphasizing personal agency and equity. Liberals have become less happy over the last several decades, but this decline is associated with increasingly secular attitudes and actions.”
There have been a few studies that attempted to rain on conservatives’ happiness parade. In one, scientists proposed that conservatives might simply be more inclined to provide socially desirable answers to surveys than liberals. Society expects you to be happy, and so conservatives say that they are. In another, researchers found that while conservatives certainly report being more happy than liberals, liberals tend to display more signs of happiness, as evidenced by uploading more smiling photographs on Linkedin and posting more positive tweets on Twitter. So maybe conservatives just think they’re happier, or judge happiness differently? Regardless, the gap remains. So if you need some cheering up, maybe turn to a conservative friend rather than a liberal one.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, pictured May 17 during a Senate subcommittee hearing, became a hated figure on the right in part because of what he represented—the arrogant, corrupt, and often incompetent bureaucratic managerial class that believes it has a right to make decisions for our society. (Photo: Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Of all the institutions that have become radicalized in the last couple of years, the realm of medicine is perhaps the most disturbing.
What will our society look like when you can’t trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or even your doctor?
Dr. Anthony Fauci announced Monday that he will step down in December from his position at the National Institutes of Health, ending a tenure in public health policy that stretches back to the late 1960s.
It’s a notable moment. Fauci’s long-term obscurity—followed by short-lived, media-driven stardom and then intense polarization—is illustrative of larger trends in American society.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board noted that other public health experts used Fauci, 81, to “lobby for broad economic lockdowns that we now know were far more destructive than they needed to be” and that Fauci advocated “mask and vaccine mandates that were far less protective than his assertions to the public.”
The Journal rightly highlighted the fact that Fauci’s name being widely recognized is a negative mark, not a positive one, of his tenure. It’s like being the long snapper in football: If people generally know who you are, it’s almost certainly because you messed up.
In the case of Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, he became a notable and polarizing figure because he seemed to make often dubious or at least wide-reaching political decisions while hiding behind his credentials.
Again, as The Wall Street Journal explained, Fauci’s public and private comments suggest his ethos was that the public “is supposed to let a few powerful men and women define science and then impose their preferred policies and mandates on the country.”
It’s a philosophy that runs counter to the ideas of 1776 and the American founding, but many of Fauci’s bureaucratic and ideological ilk seem to have little problem with that.
The important matter to recognize here is how institutions and bureaucrats—like Fauci—seemingly have dropped the pretense of objectivity in favor of ideology and, in many cases, duplicity.
To believe in science is also to believe in our new state ideology.
If the facts don’t line up with preferred outcomes, then fudge the facts and silence those who have doubts.
Perhaps paradoxically, the two-sided nature of Western institutions in the past few years—that claim to be guided by objectivity while becoming more nakedly ideological and partisan—is destroying the authority of institutions in the minds of the public. That’s certainly the case in the United States, where we are particularly prone to rebel against an unqualified pseudo-elite claiming a right to rule.
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were told by Fauci and other public officials that we had to lock down and suspend the most important parts of our lives—including going to church, weddings, and funerals—to stop the spread of the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
However, when the Black Lives Matter-inspired protests erupted in the summer of 2020, many of those same officials and organizations suddenly said it was OK to gather in massive groups because stopping racism as they defined it was too important.
It only added salt to the wound that these “mostly peaceful” protests soon turned violent and caused enormous damage and loss of life in communities around the country.
Fauci became a hated figure on the right in part because of what he represented—the arrogant, corrupt, and often incompetent bureaucratic managerial class that believes it has a right to rule and make decisions for our society.
Any figure or policy that strikes at the power of the managerial class—whether it be Donald Trump or civil service reform or school choice—is met with unhinged hostility. Resistance by the wrong types is a threat to “democracy.”
The fall of so many institutions at once puts conservatives in an unusual position. The instinct of a conservative is to preserve and perpetuate culture and institutions. We look to what has succeeded in the past and try to make it work for ourselves and posterity. That’s why the Constitution of the United States, though revolutionary in design as a written framework of government, is fundamentally conservative in the best sense.
What happens when institutions and the culture they seek to perpetuate are inherently revolutionary? That is the reality of where Americans, and many of us in the West, find ourselves. Our institutions no longer perpetuate the general welfare and ideas that our societies were built on. These institutions increasingly are committed to radical societal transformation, and they think they can do it whether you like it or not, as a smarmy California politician once said.
And our institutions do this while obnoxiously holding to the façade of expertise and objectivity. We are supposed to believe, for instance, that the American Academy of Pediatrics is promoting “gender-affirming” care for children because of its commitment to good medicine and science.
However, it’s all too obvious that the academy’s “science” is working backward from ideology, that it would promote gender “transition” no matter what the facts said. Studies or physicians that say otherwise are ignored or, through the power of the academy’s allies in Big Tech, censored and banned.
Worse, every major health institution, professional organization, and government institution is following in lockstep. When a series of disturbing videos from Boston Children’s Hospital surfaced in which medical doctors advocated “gender-affirming hysterectomies” among other “treatments,” many were horrified.
This wasn’t a disturbing outlier, however. It’s the tip of the iceberg. These ideas are simply what’s being pushed in America’s top medical schools, where the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion now holds absolute sway with negligible dissent. It’s a double-edged sword, though.
As members of the institutions both tout and hide behind their credentialism, their obviously ideological positions shred the public’s faith in their credentials.
The rise and fall of Anthony Fauci is illustrative of this trend. Sure, Fauci will retain his acolytes and super fans. But his actions and attitude have only drawn public attention to the rot and illegitimacy of American institutions, institutions that have squandered their reputations in the name of revolution. This is the real death of expertise. Death by suicide
President Joe Biden criticizes state legislatures for passing election reforms in a speech July 13, 2021, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
This is my follow up to Phoenix’s article on voter fraud.
The Biden administration’s Justice Department successfully prosecuted election fraud cases last month in Pennsylvania and Louisiana, even as the president has spent much of his term so far asserting that voter fraud is a myth.
Federal prosecutors in individual U.S. attorney’s offices also have brought separate cases in Arizona, North Carolina, and New York during President Joe Biden’s administration.
At the same time, though, Biden ratcheted up rhetoric against state reforms aimed at preventing voter fraud.
Late last year, the White House issued a press release touting plans to “restore and strengthen American democracy” and improve “voting rights.” Part of that effort by the Biden administration included “combating misinformation and disinformation” that could “sow mistrust” in elections.
White House:Fraud‘Extremely Rare’
In January, Biden spoke in Atlanta to promote congressional Democrats’ legislation to federalize elections and blasted a Georgia measure aimed at preventing voter fraud.
The president, referring to the contested 2020 election in which he defeated incumbent Donald Trump, criticized those who were “sowing doubt [and] inventing charges of fraud.”
During his State of the Union address in March, Biden again ripped Republicans’ state legislation to prevent voter fraud, saying: “In state after state, new laws have been passed, not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert entire elections. We cannot let this happen.”
In July 2021, during a speech in Philadelphia, Biden said the “denial of full and free and fair elections is the most un-American thing that any of us can imagine.”
In August 2021, senior Biden White House officials issued a report criticizing state proposals for election reforms and argued: “An often-cited reason for these bills and laws is voter fraud, yet voter fraud is extremely rare.”
Louisiana Vote-Buying Case
Last month, two former officials in Amite, Louisiana, pleaded guilty as federal prosecutors pursued their roles in a conspiracy to pay or offer to pay voters for casting ballots in a federal election.
Court documents said former Amite Police Chief Jerry Trabona, 72, and former Amite City Council member Kristian Hart, 49, paid voters in Tangipahoa Parish to vote in open primary and general elections in 2016 in which they were candidates, according to a Justice Department announcement.
Trabona and Hart admitted that they agreed to pay voters during the contests, prosecutors said. Because federal candidates appeared on the same ballot, the matter gained the stature of a federal case.
The former police chief and former council member are scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 1. They face up to five years in prison on each of the three counts.
“We must have fair elections, free from the taint of corruption, to ensure a fully functional government,” U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans, who oversees the Eastern District of Louisiana, said in a formal statement.
Former Congressman Pleads Guilty in Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, former Rep. Michael “Ozzie” Myers, 79, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstructing justice, falsifying voting records, and conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election.
“Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. If even one vote has been illegally cast or if the integrity of just one election official is compromised, it diminishes faith in [the] process,” U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced.
“Votes are not things to be purchased and democracy is not for sale,” Williams said. “If you are a political consultant, election official, or work with the polling places in any way, I urge you to do your job honestly and faithfully.”
Myers, a Democrat, represented Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District for two terms in the late 1970s, but resigned in disgrace in 1980 as part of the broad “Abscam” bribery scandal.
Myers was convicted and sentenced to federal prison. After his release in 1985, he became a political consultant.
The former congressman admitted to coordinating plots to fraudulently stuff ballot boxes for specific Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania elections in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Myers’ guilty plea came after several others in the conspiracy pleaded guilty last year. The investigation began in 2020 under the Trump administration’s Justice Department and continued during the Biden administration.
Myers admitted in court to bribing Domenick J. DeMuro, a judge of elections for the 39th Ward, 36th Division, in South Philadelphia. Judge of elections is a title held by some election workers in the city.
DeMuro pleaded guilty in May 2020. Myers admitted to bribing DeMuro to add votes illegally for certain Democrat candidates in primary elections.
Some of these candidates were running for judicial office and their campaigns had hired Myers. Others were his favored candidates for federal, state, or local offices.
Myers solicited “consulting fees” from his clients, then used portions of these funds to pay DeMuro and others to tamper with election results, prosecutors said.
The payments from Meyers ranged from $300 to $5,000 per election. According to the Justice Department, DeMuro added fraudulent votes on a voting machine, also known as “ringing up” votes, for Myers’ clients and preferred candidates,
Myers also admitted to conspiring to commit election fraud with Marie Beren, a former judge of elections for the 39th Ward, 2nd Division, in South Philadelphia.
Beren pleaded guilty in October 2021. Myers admitted to giving Beren directions to add votes to his preferred candidates. Myers said that, on almost every Election Day, he drove Beren to a polling station to open up. During the drive, he advised Beren which candidates he was supporting, so that she knew which ones should get fraudulent votes.
Beren also would advise in-person voters to support and cast fraudulent votes for Myers’ preferred candidates on behalf of voters whom she knew would not or did not show up to vote.
On a given Election Day, federal prosecutors said, Myers would talk to Beren by cell phone while she was at the polling station about the number of votes cast for his preferred candidates. She would report to Myers.
If voter turnout were high, Beren would add fewer fraudulent votes in support of Myers’ preferred candidates.
Prosecutors said that Beren and her accomplices from the Philadelphia Board of Elections would falsify polling books as well as the List of Voters and Party Enrollment for the 39th Ward, 2nd Division, by recording the names, party affiliation, and order of appearance for voters who actually had not showed up at the polling station to cast a ballot.
Arizona Surprises
In March, a federal judge sentenced Joseph John Marak, of Surprise, Arizona, to 30 months of supervised probation and fined him $2,400 for making a false voter registration application, a felony offense.
Already a convicted felon, Marak, 62, wasn’t eligible to vote in Arizona, but voted in six federal elections there, federal prosecutors said.
In January, Marak pleaded guilty to submitting a voter registration application and falsely certified the statement, “I am not a convicted felon.”
In August 2011, Marak was convicted of 18 felony counts in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of North Carolina for crimes unrelated to voter fraud charges in Arizona. He was sentenced to 72 months in prison for the North Carolina felonies.
Based on the fraudulent registration, prosecutors said, Marak voted in elections from 2015 through 2020.
State laws differ on allowing convicted felons to vote.
“If you wish to vote in Arizona following a felony conviction, please speak first with your local County Recorder to fully understand the process for restoring your voting rights,” U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino, of the District of Arizona, said in a written statement.
Restaino noted that his office has prosecuted multiple voter fraud cases.
“This is the second voter fraud case we’ve charged in the last year, and the first arising out of the 2020 election cycle,” Restaino said.
In February, a federal judge sentenced Marcia Johnson, 70, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, to one year of supervised probation and fined her $1,000. Johnson pleaded guilty to one count of voting more than once, a felony.
Iranian Election Meddling
In November, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment charging two Iranian nationals with involvement in a cyber-enabled campaign to intimidate American voters.
Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, obtained confidential voter information from at least one New York state election office website, according to the Justice Department.
Federal prosecutors said the two Iranian nationals also sent threatening email messages to intimidate and interfere with voters; created and disseminated a video containing disinformation about purported vulnerabilities in election infrastructure; and attempted to access, without authorization, the voting-related websites of several states.
Prosecutors also alleged that Kazemi and Kashian successfully gained unauthorized access to a U.S. media company’s computer network. If not for successful FBI and company efforts to mitigate the threat, prosecutors said, the pair would have used the media outlet to promote false claims after the election.
“As alleged, Kazemi and Kashian were part of a coordinated conspiracy in which Iranian hackers sought to undermine faith and confidence in the U.S. presidential election,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, of the Southern District of New York, said in a formal statement, adding:
Working with others, Kazemi and Kashian accessed voter information from at least one state’s voter database, threatened U.S. voters via email, and even disseminated a fictitious video that purported to depict actors fabricating overseas ballots.
In September and October 2020, the Justice Department said, the two indicted Iranian nationals and other conspirators attempted to compromise 11 state election websites, including those providing voter registration and information services. The Iranians downloaded information on about 100,000 separate voters.
Claiming to be members of the right-wing militant group known as the Proud Boys, prosecutors said, members of the conspiracy sent false Facebook messages and emails to congressional Republicans and others associated with Trump’s 2020 campaign, as well as to journalists.
The two Iranians told Republicans that Democrats planned to “edit mail-in ballots or even register non-existent voters,” prosecutors said.
Noncitizen in North Carolina
In November, a federal grand jury in Raleigh charged a North Carolina man with passport fraud, voting as a noncitizen, and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote.
Federal prosecutors said that Garbant Piquant, 53, a resident of Garner, North Carolina, used a false Virginia birth certificate as proof that he was a native-born citizen.
Federal investigators checked records and determined that the Virginia birth certificate didn’t exist. Instead, they found Piquant’s birth certificate in the Bahamas.
Prosecutors said he voted in Wake County, North Carolina, primary and general elections from 2018 through 2020.
Trouble in Troy
In June, a city council member in Troy, New York, pleaded guilty to casting absentee ballots in two other people’s names. She resigned from the council as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Kimberly Ashe-McPherson successfully ran for reelection to the Troy City Council in 2021, first in the primary and then in the general election.
In her guilty plea, Ashe-McPherson, 61, admitted that in the primary election, she voted by absentee ballot in the name of another person.
In the general election, she admitted, she voted by absentee ballot in the names of two others.
The first subheadline of this report was corrected shorty after publication to reflect the words used in a White House publication.
The California Senate rejected new amendments made by Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) to Assembly Bill 2167 on Monday, rejecting that human trafficking should be considered a serious and violent felony.
AB 2167, authored by Assemblyman Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) and Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), would require courts to consider alternatives to incarceration, including collaborative justice court programs, diversion, restorative justice, and probation. The bill also notes that criminal cases should use the least restrictive means possible.
“So the state saves some money each year by doing that,” victim survivor’s advocate Kenji Taylor, who lost her sister to a murder committed by a criminal out on probation, told the Globe on Monday. “What would they say is the price of a human life? Is saving that money really worth people dying for? They never have an answer for that and always think of the criminal more than the people wronged.”
While it moved to the Senate, many Senators, both Republican and Democrat, have continued to oppose AB 2167. However, with opposition possibly not being enough to stop the bill from being passed by the end of the session, many have tried to change it through amendments. This included Senator Grove introducing an amendment that would have human trafficking be put down as a serious and violent crime so that probation and other “restorative justice” measures could not be applied to those crimes.
“In California, human trafficking is defined as a non-serious felony and a non-violent crime,” said the Senator during comments on Monday. “How can raping and selling of a child over and over and over again be considered a non-violent crime? I ask that we amend language into this bill and send a message to all Californians that this heinous act will not be tolerated. I’m asking you to give many victims of human trafficking justice and law enforcement to arrest these perpetrators and put them in prison for a very long time. ”
However, on Monday, Senate Democrats rejected adding in the new amendments, voting 31-8 to table to new amendment and not add it in.
“California must prosecute these horrendous acts as the serious and violent crimes that they are,” Senator Grove said after the vote. “The fact that Democrats refuse to do so should concern all Californians.”
In addition, the vote surprised many justice advocates, who thought that it would have been added to the bill as an amendment.
“Look at who voted yes on that amendment question,” continued Taylor. “31 people just don’t care about victims. They can say otherwise all they want, but that single vote just put a hell of a lot of people in danger. I’m just upset and baffled. Why would they choose to protect criminals more than victims?”
AB 2167 is expected to go to a full Senate vote in the next 9 days.
It would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school
By Pierre Kory – – Tuesday, August 23, 2022
OPINION:
While the attention was focused on Mar-a-Lago, Denmark made major news by banning the COVID-19 vaccine for children under age 18. You read that correctly: The Scandinavian nation, often heralded by pro-vaccine liberal politicians as a health model for the United States, issued a policy declaring it “no longer be possible” for young people to get vaccinated, citing the low risk posed by the virus.
Meanwhile, back home, the Biden administration, whose inner circle includes secret consultants for Pfizer, is for the most part letting states move forward with a similar laissez-faire attitude toward vaccination requirements with one notable exception: Washington, D.C., which is requiring all students over the age of 12 receive a vaccine.
The discrepancy between the treatment of children in our nation’s capital and the rest of the country reflects a deeper disconnect ripping our nation apart. It also undermines President Biden’s commitment to racial equity. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden, who owes his 2020 victory to Black voters in South Carolina, turned heads by declaring, “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump then you ain’t Black.” On Inauguration Day, he signed an executive order outlining his “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”
Yet when Team Biden moved back to Washington, they found a region moving away from its “Chocolate City” roots. In 1977 when Mr. Biden was a first-term senator, D.C. was 77% Black. Today, that number has been cut nearly in half to just 41%.
The city’s gentrification has deepened inequality. Every latte shop or yoga studio in the Navy Yard or Logan Circle pushes lower-income Washingtonians east of the Anacostia River, where Wards 7 and 8 remain nearly 80% Black and with average income less than half its counterparts across the river.
If enforced, Washington’s vaccine mandate would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school, creating another obstacle for a population government should be empowering. The elite ruling class is happy to plaster “Black Lives Matters” stickers on their Teslas while supporting policies that hold back the next generation mere miles away.
Over socially distanced glasses of chardonnay, well-to-do Beltway residents cling to their COVID-19 narrative where vaccines funded by the big pharmaceutical companies offer the only hope. In their world, no one — not even children — is safe without a vaccine. Anyone who dares deviate from the company line is dismissed as a backwater Trump-supporting conspiracist, even lifelong Democrats like me.
They ignore data that challenges their point of view, including data finding 70% of U.S. public schools reported an increase in students seeking mental health services since the start of the pandemic, or a Harvard University study showing “remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps.”
These districts are not in places where parents can earn their six-figure salaries from Zoom, ordering Uber Eats and enjoying a steady diet of Netflix.
As a medical doctor who has helped more than 700 patients recover from COVID-19 and its complications, I have treated numerous adults and children injured by the vaccine and can assure you that there is a significant cause for concern. I’ve outlined the large and growing body of data on the injury risks of COVID-19 vaccinations — particularly among healthy children — which you can read in a vaccine exemption letter that I provided to concerned parents who wanted to send their children to summer camp without exposing them to these risks.
Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64
The true scope of harm is difficult to grasp because our public health agencies refuse to engage in the debate for fear of undermining their preferred narrative. But there are plenty of signals. Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64 beginning in early to mid-2021, when the vaccination campaign began. A similar trend is evident in German health insurance claims data — and the CEO of one of the country’s largest health insurance companies was fired for releasing data suggesting the government was concealing the extent of vaccine injuries.
Two years ago, candidate Joe Biden pledged to “shut down the virus.” Now, with more deaths on his watch than his predecessor’s, he and his allies still refuse to change course. Instead, they are clinging to a failed political agenda, sacrificing the next generation at its altar. Washington’s vaccine mandates will hurt Black children the most, undermining Mr. Biden’s equity agenda. In November, let’s hope a reckoning is brewing for those who have suffered the most from a failed public health response. Our children, especially the most underserved, depend on it.
Dr. Pierre Kory is president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.
Anthony Fauci is ending his long and celebrated government career by being widely lauded for getting so much so very wrong on Covid-19.
Now 81 years old, Dr. Fauci has spent 38 years as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. He has been rightly honored for his many contributions over the decades, most notably during the fight against AIDS, for which he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. But to Covid-19 he brought a monomaniacal focus on vanquishing a single virus, whatever the cost—neglecting the damage that can follow when public health loses sight of the public’s health.
As the lead medical authority to two administrations on Covid-19, Dr. Fauci was unwavering in his advocacy for draconian policies. What were the impact of those policies on millions of Americans? And what would the country look like now had our public health experts taken a different approach? As Dr. Fauci is preparing to leave his post, those are a few of the questions worth asking as we consider his various Covid-19 legacies.
Dr. Fauci attends the National AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco on Oct. 12, 1989. (Deanne Fitzmaurice via Getty Images)
On Children:
Very early on in this pandemic, we knew that there was an extremely stratified risk from Covid. The elderly and those with co-morbidities were especially vulnerable, while children were extremely unlikely to get dangerously ill.
Instead of acting on the good news for children—or drawing on the ample experience in Scandinavian and European countries where schools were open and students were without masks—American kids were seen as vectors of disease. Young children were forced to wear masks inside school and out, affecting the language and social development of many. The effects of school closures will play out for decades, but we already know that children suffered major learning loss, and many left school never to return. Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Fauci supported the most oppressive restrictions for children, including school closures and mandatory cloth masking.
Yesterday on Fox Neil Cavuto asked Dr. Fauci whether Covid restrictions “went too far” and if they “forever damaged” the children “who couldn’t go to school except remotely.” Dr. Fauci replied: “I don’t think it’s forever irreparably damaged anyone.”
Parents know otherwise.
A generation is coping with learning loss, and the impact has been the worst in poor and minority communities. According to the Brookings Institute, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20 percent in math and 15 percent in reading over the pandemic. Meantime, anxiety and depression have hit record highs among young Americans, and the surgeon general has described a youth mental health crisis. Of all of Dr. Fauci’s legacies, this might be the gravest.
On Research:
Dr. Fauci let basic research questions about the nature of the Covid-19 virus go unanswered. Somehow, despite the NIH’s more than $45 billion budget, only 2 percent of grants went to basic Covid research while billions of federal money was invested in developing vaccines, according to a study conducted by my colleagues at Johns Hopkins and I.
The federal government failed to conduct timely studies on the following: masks; the susceptibility of people in nursing homes; natural immunity; wastewater data; vaccine-induced heart injury in young people; and the optimal interval between the first two vaccine doses.
In short, Dr. Fauci didn’t deliver the basic research we needed so that public policy would be shaped by the best science. Because policymakers lacked good evidence to support their dictates, political opinions filled the void. So Covid-19 became a highly politicized health emergency—to all of our detriment.
On Natural Immunity:
One of the most inexplicable decisions by Dr. Fauci and his team was to ignore natural immunity—that is, the immune response generated by contracting Covid-19. As the evidence mounted that having had the virus was as good as—perhaps even better than—a vaccine, Dr. Fauci and his circle ignored it.
When Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked Dr. Fauci in the Fall of 2021 on CNN: “As we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time, people say I already had Covid, I’m protected, and now the study says even more protected than the vaccine alone. How do you make the case to them?” Dr. Fauci answered: “I don’t have a really firm answer for you on that.”
Hundreds of studies have now shown that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and that the level of protection vaccines have against severe disease is at the same level of natural immunity alone.
But Dr. Fauci didn’t talk about it.
Americans had circulating antibodies against the virus, but they were antibodies that Dr. Fauci seemed to ignore. The upshot was that thousands of Americans lost their jobs for their choice not to get vaccinated. Some of those Americans were nurses, pilots, truck drivers, and dock workers central to the American supply chain of food, medication, and other essential products. This summer, more than 60,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers who refused the Covid-19 vaccine were not allowed to participate in their military duties and lost pay and benefits. All of these people should have their jobs reinstated.
On Dissent:
Any physician who has met Dr. Fauci will agree that he is one of the kindest, most charming human beings you will ever meet. That’s why it was so jarring to witness the way that he and Dr. Francis Collins, his close friend and former director of the NIH, denigrated dissent on Covid-19.
Just ask the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration—the open letter published in October 2020 that called for focused protection of the most vulnerable instead of blanket shutdowns of schools and businesses. It was authored by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then of Harvard, and it was signed by tens of thousands of doctors and scientists.
Drs. Fauci and Collins never talked to these prominent authors to discuss their differing points of view. Instead, they criticized them.
Four days after the Great Barrington Declaration was published, Dr. Collins sent an email to Dr. Fauci in which he called the authors “fringe epidemiologists.” “There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” Dr. Collins wrote. “I don’t see anything like that on line yet—is it underway?” Dr. Fauci replied: “Francis: I am pasting in below a piece from Wired that debunks this theory.” Soon after, big tech platforms like Facebook and Google followed suit, suppressing their ideas and falsely deeming them “misinformation.”
The ultimate irony is that federal officials are now endorsing many of the policies the Great Barrington Declaration authors suggested, insisting schools stay open and quietly ending isolation and quarantine requirements. In the end, Sweden, which adopted many principles in the Great Barrington Declaration, had roughly half the Covid deaths as Michigan, despite having the same population, percent of elderly, and climate.
If dissent had been welcomed from the start—which is what science demands—a lot of suffering could have been avoided.
On Science:
Here’s what Dr. Fauci and other public health authorities could have been saying from the start: We strive to provide you with the best information and recommendations, but in the face of an emergency we will surely make mistakes. We will sometimes change our minds. We may even reverse our guidance. But we will always own up to our mistakes, explain our policy changes and strive to do better. Instead, Dr. Fauci admitted to telling noble lies.
Covid brought us the concept of “The Science.” Dr. Fauci famously said last year: “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” But no person embodies science. To suggest as much betrays a cast of mind that is entirely at odds with science itself.
On Leadership:
George Washington was onto something when he decided to limit his presidency to two terms. New leaders don’t just avoid the risk of too much power concentrated in the hands of one person or group, they also bring new ideas. New perspectives are especially important to accelerating scientific inquiry by challenging deeply held assumptions. In his long tenure, Dr. Fauci made tremendous contributions, but during this crisis we needed someone at the top who took a broad view of how to fight a novel virus, and made recommendations based on weighing the direct and indirect consequences to society.
How to Regain Trust:
We now face the threat of a future pandemic in a country in which a large number of people no longer trust public health authorities. What happens when we have a novel, highly contagious, airborne virus with a much higher fatality rate than that of Covid-19?
We desperately need to rebuild public trust now. That begins by having public health officials apologize for being dogmatic in their pronouncements, when the correct answer should have been: “We don’t know.” One lesson we should all learn from Covid-19 is that we should not put our entire faith and trust in one physician.
Dr. Marty Makary is a public health expert, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the author of the bestselling book The Price We Pay.
His last piece for Common Sense was about top doctors and scientists at the NIH, FDA and CDC who are alarmed at the direction of those institutions. Read it here.
A bizarre string of events is unfolding at the American Historical Association (AHA). Last week, AHA president James H. Sweet published a column in the organization’s magazine on the problem of “presentism” in academic historical writing. According to Sweet, an unsettling number of academic historians have allowed their political views in the present to shape and distort their interpretations of the past.
Sweet offered a gentle criticism of the New York Times’s 1619 Project as evidence of this pattern. Many historians embraced the 1619 Project for its political messages despite substantive flaws of fact and interpretation in its content. Sweet thus asked: “As journalism, the project is powerful and effective, but is it history?”
Within moments of his column appearing online, all hell broke loose on Twitter.
Incensed at even the mildest suggestion that politicization is undermining the integrity of historical scholarship, the activist wing of the history profession showed up on the AHA’s thread and began demanding Sweet’s cancellation. Cate Denial, a professor of history at Knox College, led the charge with a widely-retweeted thread calling on colleagues to bombard the AHA’s Executive Board with emails protesting Sweet’s column. “We cannot let this fizzle,” she declared before posting a list of about 20 email addresses.
Other activist historians joined in, flooding the thread with profanity-laced attacks on Sweet’s race and gender as well as calls for his resignation over a disliked opinion column. The responses were almost universally devoid of any substance. None challenged Sweet’s argument in any meaningful way. It was sufficient enough for him to have harbored the “wrong” thoughts – to have questioned the scholarly rigor of activism-infused historical writing, and to have criticized the 1619 Project in even the mildest terms.
New York Times columnist and 1619 Project contributor Jamie Bouie jumped in, casually dismissing Sweet’s concerns over the politicization of scholarship with contemporary “social justice” issues. 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones retweeted the attacks on Sweet, even though she has previously invoked the “journalistic” and editorial nature of her project to shield it from scholarly criticism by historians.
Other activist historians such as the New School’s Claire Potter retorted that the 1619 Project was indeed scholarly history, insisting that “big chunks of it are written by professional, award-winning historians.” Sweet was therefore in the wrong to call it journalism, or to question its scholarly accuracy. Potter’s claims are deeply misleading. Only two of the 1619 Project’s twelve feature essays were written by historians, and neither of them are specialists in the crucial period between 1776-1865, when slavery was at its peak. The controversial parts of the 1619 Project were all written by opinion journalists such as Hannah-Jones, or non-experts writing well outside of their own competencies such as Matthew Desmond.
The frenzy further exposed the very same problems in the profession that Sweet’s essay cautioned against. David Austin Walsh, a historian at the University of Virginia, took issue with historians offering any public criticism of the 1619 Project’s flaws – no matter their validity – because those criticisms are “going to be weaponized by the right.” In Walsh’s hyperpoliticized worldview, historical accuracy is wholly subordinate to the political objectives of the project. Sweet’s sin in telling the truth about the 1619 Project’s defects was being “willfully blind to the predictable political consequences of [his] public interventions.” Any argument that does not advance a narrow band of far-left political activism is not only unfit for sharing – it must be suppressed.
Within hours of the AHA’s original tweet of Sweet’s article, the cancellation campaign was in full swing. Predictably, the AHA caved to the cancellers.
One day after the offending article went live, the AHA tweeted out a “public apology” from Sweet. It reads like a forced confession statement, acknowledging the “harm” and “damage” allegedly caused by simply raising questions about the politicization of scholarship toward overtly ideological activist ends. It did not matter that Sweet’s criticisms were mild and couched in plenty of nuance, or that they even came from a center-left perspective that also criticized conservative historians for politicizing the debate around gun rights. Sweet was guilty of pointing out that partisan political activism undermines scholarly rigor when the lines between the two blur, because the overwhelming majority of that activism inside the history profession currently comes from the political left. And for that, the very same activists extracted an obsequious apology letter. Its text, reproduced below, reads like a “struggle session” for academic wrongthink.
Sweet’s apology excited the activist wing of the profession, though it did little to placate their ire. The resignationdemands continued, because Sweet’s apology was “insincere” and because his argument would be used by the “wrong” people – i.e. anyone who dissents from a particular brand of progressive activist orthodoxy. Simply criticizing the 1619 Project would play into the tactics of “Right-wingers, Nazis, and other bad-faith actors” who could use Sweet’s commentary “in the service of white supremacism and misogyny” announced Kevin Gannon, a historian who’s primarily known for scolding other scholars on twitter when they deviate from the profession’s far-left orthodoxies.
In this branch of academia, it does not matter whether the 1619 Project was truthful or factually accurate. The only concerns are whether its narrative can be weaponized for a political cause or used to deflect scrutiny of the same. As is often the case in the pseudo-moralizing political crusades of academia, the loudest demands against Sweet also came from the least-productive academics – historians with thin CVs and little in the way of original scholarly research to their names, although they do maintain 24/7 Twitter feeds of progressive political commentary.
Lora Burnett, one of the more vocal cancellation crusaders after the initial article posted, scoffed at Sweet, announcing “this apology was basically, ‘sorry I made you sad but I’m still right.’” She continued: “lamenting ‘inartful expression’ is apparently easier than admitting to flawed argument, unsupported claims, and factually incorrect assertions.” Note that Burnett and the other detractors never bothered to explain how Sweet’s argument was flawed or unsupported. Nor did they attempt to pen a rebuttal, which could have produced a constructive dialogue about the role of political activism in shaping historical scholarship. It was sufficient to denounce him as guilty for holding the wrong opinions. No matter the apology that Sweet made, the campaign to eject him from the history profession’s markedly impolite company would continue.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world began to take notice of the bizarre spectacle playing out at the main professional organization for a major academic discipline. As criticisms mounted on the AHA’s twitter feed, the organization moved to shut down debate entirely. They locked their twitter account, and posted a message to members denouncing the public blowback as the product of “trolls” and “bad faith actors.”
Keep in mind that only 24 hours earlier, the AHA had no problem with hundreds of activist historians flooding their threads with actual harassing behavior by bad faith actors. It tolerated cancellation threats directed against its president, calls to flood the personal email accounts of its board with harassing messages and denunciations of Sweet, and dozens of profane, sexist, and personally degrading attacks on Sweet himself. There were no AHA denunciations of those “trolls” or their “appalling” behavior, and no statements calling for “civil discourse” while the activist Twitterstorian mobs flooded the original thread with obscenity-laced vitriol and ad hominem attacks on Sweet.
Sadly, this type of unprofessional belligerence is now the norm on History Twitter. It would never be tolerated from any other perspective than the far-left, but it is valorized in the profession as long as it serves that particular set of ideological objectives.
The final irony is that the AHA only shuttered its twitter feed from the public when it could no longer restrict the conversation to the activist mob calling for Sweet’s cancellation. It’s the same brand of intellectual closure that Sweet’s offending column warned against in its final passage: “When we foreshorten or shape history to justify rather than inform contemporary political positions, we not only undermine the discipline but threaten its very integrity.”
Phillip W. Magness is Senior Research Faculty and Research and Education Director at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD and MPP from George Mason University’s School of Public Policy, and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (Houston).
Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Magness spent over a decade teaching public policy, economics, and international trade at institutions including American University, George Mason University, and Berry College.
Magness’s work encompasses the economic history of the United States and Atlantic world, with specializations in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought. In addition to his scholarship, Magness’s popular writings have appeared in numerous venues including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, Reason, National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Guédelon Castle is being built using the old 13th-century methods.
By Kim Willsher
At Guédelon Castle the year is 1253 and the minor nobleman, Gilbert Courtenay, has ridden off to fight in the Crusades, leaving his wife in charge of workers building the family’s new home: a modest chateau that befits his social position as a humble knight in the service of King Louis IX.
Here, in a forest clearing in northern Burgundy, history is being remade to the sound of chisel against stone and axe against wood, as 21st-century artisans re-learn and perfect long-forgotten medieval skills.
The Guédelon project was dreamed up as an exercise in “experimental archaeology” 25 years ago. Instead of digging down it has been built upward, using only the tools and methods available in the Middle Ages and, wherever possible, locally sourced materials. Now, in an unforeseen twist of fate, Guédelon is playing a vital role in restoring the structure and soul of Notre Dame cathedral.
Notre Dame’s complex roof — know as La Forêt because of the large number of trees used in its construction was destroyed in the 2019 fire.
Paris’s imposing 13th-century cathedral, a world heritage site, was consumed by fire in April 2019, destroying its complex roof structure, known as La Forêt because of the large number of trees used in its construction. The widespread view was that it would be impossible to rebuild it as it was.
“The roof frame was extremely sophisticated, using techniques that were advanced for the 12th and 13th centuries,” Frédéric Épaud, a medieval wood specialist, tells the Observer.
They said it was impossible.
“After the fire, there were a lot of people saying it would take thousands of trees, and we didn’t have enough of the right ones, and the wood would have to be dried for years, and nobody even knew anything about how to produce beams like they did in the Middle Ages. They said it was impossible.
“But we knew it could be done because Guédelon has been doing it for years.”
The beams of La Forêt lasted for 800 years, The builders must have done something right.
A number of the companies bidding for the Notre Dame work have already engaged carpenters trained at Guédelon, and more are expected to beat a path to the Burgundy clearing 200km down the autoroute du Soleil from Paris.
It might be quicker and cheaper to turn wooden beams out of a sawmill – especially with French president Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to reopen the ravaged cathedral in 2024 – but you will not find anyone at Guédelon who believes it should be done that way.
Stéphane Boudy is one of a small team of carpenters at the medieval site, where he has worked since 1999. Boudy, 51, trained as a baker, then an electrician, until discovering his vocation at Guédelon. He explains how hand-hewing each beam – a single piece from a single tree – respects the “heart” of the green wood that gives it its strength and resistance.
“We have 25 years’ experience of cutting, squaring and hewing wood by hand,” he says. “It’s what we [have done] every day for 25 years. There are people outside of here who can do it now, but I tell you they all came here to learn how. If this place didn’t exist, perhaps the experts would have said: no it’s not possible to reproduce the roof of Notre Dame. We [have shown that] it is.
“This isn’t just nostalgia. If Notre Dame’s roof lasted 800 years, it is because of this. There’s no heart in sawmill wood,” he says.
Maryline Martin is co-founder of the Guédelon project that attracts around 300,000 paying visitors every year and was featured in a 2014 BBC documentary series, Secrets of the Castle. She says the chateau’s blacksmith has been commissioned to make the axes that will cut the wood for Notre Dame, and its carpenters are expected to train others to work on the cathedral.
“…a private enterprise lost in our forest that receives no public money.”
Guédelon’s woodworking experts will be invaluable in restoring Notre Dame’s roof. Photograph: Guédelon
“It’s prestigious for us that Notre Dame will be restored by many who learned their trade at Guédelon. We are a private enterprise lost in our forest that receives no public money. We work with many state research bodies, but some people wrote us off as a theme park,” she says.
“Now, after 25 years, we are the only ones who can understand and are able to do what has to be done, and they discover we have not sold our soul to the devil. Our people will be working on Notre Dame one way or another, but why would we want to go to Paris? We will continue our 13th-century work here.”
Florian Renucci, the Guédelon site manager and a philosopher turned master mason, has already been asked to oversee training of artisans expected to work on Notre Dame.
“All we heard over and again after Notre Dame burned was that it was not possible to reconstruct the roof as before. There was no wood, no savoir faire – it was an argument used by those who wanted to modernise. We showed that it can be done and we know how to do it,” he says.
“All those who didn’t think it was possible didn’t know about Guédelon.”
Épaud is on the scientific committee at Guédelon and the committee overseeing the reconstruction of Notre Dame, as well as a member of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France’s national research body. He says that going back to build the future is not just nostalgia.
“I have studied the 13th-century technique for many years and, if we respect the internal form of the tree, the beams will last for 800 years. Guédelon is the only place in France, and I believe in Europe, where they build this kind of roof structure in wood. All those who didn’t think it was possible didn’t know about Guédelon.”
He adds: “But it shouldn’t be rushed. Macron’s insistence that the cathedral be open by 2024 is idiotic. We are talking about a cathedral, we’re not in a hurry and we have the money to do it the right way. If we rush it, there’s a risk it [will] be done badly and something is missed. Sadly, I fear Macron doesn’t understand that.”
I made a video compilation for the occasion, and my initial intent was to showcase the events of the past year from my point of view.
But in the process, I came to a realization. When you reflect on where we were then and where we are now, you can’t help but think, “Wow. I am so thankful for the progress we’ve made.” Because the unvaccinated were on the verge of being “othered” to the point of being sent straight to the gulags…
Let’s take a trip back to September 9, 2021, when Joe Biden announced sweeping vaccine mandates.
“Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot. We’ve been patient, and our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.”
This was the moment that sent a deep chill down my spine and raised all alarm bells that “We are on a very dangerous path,” and I decided there and then, “I can no longer be a spectator.”
The President of the United States was directly threatening his own citizens and blaming a subset of people for the ongoing COVID crisis. I was thinking, “Haven’t we learned from mistakes of the past that you don’t single out one group of people and blame them for the woes of the country?” But this took a global scale…
We were between stages 6 and 7. The government was deliberately propagandizing the vaccinated to turn on the unvaccinated. And they waited until they reached the majority of the populace before doing so…
And then came the two-tiered society… (October 2021)
Reporter: “So you’ve basically said this is gonna be like … two different classes of people if you’re vaccinated or unvaccinated. You have all these rights if you are vaccinated.”
Jacinda Ardern: *With a grin* “That is what it is. So, yep. Yep.”
So those God-given rights you were born with? “We’re taking those away unless you comply with our demands.”
These policies were overt human rights violations, and it saddens me how so many people were okay with them. But it goes to show the power of propaganda, mind control, and group think.
And as if things weren’t getting absurd enough.
If you dared to speak out against the mandates, even if you are vaccinated, you’re just as much “anti-vax” as the unvaccinated.
Not my words. Former NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s. (November 2021)
“If you are anti-mandate, you are absolutely anti-vax. I don’t care what your personal vaccination status is. If you support, champion, give a green light, give comfort to, support anybody who argues against the vaccine, you are an anti-vaxxer. Absolutely! Your personal vaccination status is utterly irrelevant.”
In other words, “If you dare to question the authority of the state, we will also place you into the ‘other’ category.”
And then came discriminatory lockdowns of the unvaccinated. Most notably in Austria. (November and December of 2021)
The unvaccinated were barred from leaving their homes for all “non-essential” purposes. You couldn’t even take your family for a humble meal at McDonald’s without the threat of police barging in to check your papers.
Keep in mind that it was well known that the COVID jab did not stop transmission. But governments worldwide continued to punish the unvaccinated, stripping away their jobs, their ability to travel, ability to feed their families…
And Austria even intended to criminalize being unvaccinated… (December 2021)
“An Austrian newspaper published the rules the government wants to introduce on first of [February] already here in Austria. Those rules say that if you’re not vaccinated, you can get fined up to 2000 euros each time you’re caught unvaccinated. This can mean, and this is explicitly being said so that you can also get fined more than once a day, or three times, four times, five times if you’re unvaccinated. If you refuse to pay this, the government wants to put us into a separate prison which has to be created for unvaccinated people up to one year.”
On a global scale, the unvaccinated were treated like animals, “others.” So were the people who didn’t want to wear a mask…
An Australian police officer manhandled and appeared to choke a young woman for mask noncompliance outdoors.
“He’s f*cking choking me! You’re choking me! What the F*ck!”
Quarantine camps popped up in Australia.
With fines of up to 5,000 Australian dollars for breaking the rules on their grounds…
But in the face of coercive measures and medical tyranny, a ‘small fringe minority’ took a stand. (January 2021)
The Canadian truckers were the tip of the spear.
Students started walking out of schools with mask mandates.
And protests to end the mandates became larger, more frequent, and more fierce across the globe.
In Wellington, New Zealand, the Māori people demonstrated outside of parliament with the famous “Haka,” a ceremonial dance with a history of intimidating its opponents before times of battle.
Thanks to these demonstrations and dissenting voices speaking out, ‘The Science’ was exposed, public opinion shifted, and vaccine mandates went down one by one.
Dr. Ryan Cole speaking at the ‘Defeat The Mandates’ rally in Washington, D.C.
What appeared to be a certain just a year ago, vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, except for a few outliers, are NOT HAPPENINGin the United States.
Thanks to the unvaccinated, their resolve, their courage to say NO in the face of tyranny, there is still a control group for the greatest experiment ever conducted on humanity.
“It was not compliance that ended domination by big pharma companies, Bill Gates and his many organizations, and the World Economic Forum; it was the thanks to the people we tried to embarrass, ridicule, mock, and tear down.
We should all try and find some inner gratitude for the unvaccinated as we took the bait by hating them because their perseverance and courage bought us the time to see we were wrong.
So if mandates ever return for COVID, or any other disease or virus, hopefully, more of us will be awake and see the rising authoritarianism that has no concern for our well-being and is more about power and control.
The war on the unvaccinated was lost, and we should all be very thankful for that.”
Thank you for making it all the way to the end. If you had the courage to resist vaccination or speak out against the mandates, I want to offer you my deepest gratitude. Thanks to your bravery and the millions alike, we’ve been spared from the gulags and have the powers that be on the ropes.
There’s much more progress to be made, and we will get there in time, but when you look back at where we were then and where we are now, there is no doubt that WE ARE WINNING!
Most of the people responding are women with just a few men. Just like anybody can learn to be a wonderful, kind, and caring person, everybody has the potential to be an awful, cruel, and malicious individual. Being a horrible human being who spreads negativity and misery isn’t restricted by gender, age, race, or culture.
However, the internet usually tends to hyper-focus on toxic masculinity, suggesting that it’s mainly only guys who have the potential to be terrible human beings. That’s not the case. This time, we’re shining a light on some honest examples of what toxic femininity looks like, as shared by internet users in this candid and blunt r/AskReddit thread.
redditor u/imogen2797 who was kind enough to answer our questions and share her insights about toxic femininity. “I think a lot of toxic femininity is caused by jealousy, the need for a hierarchy and similarly, in a way, to feel empowered by bringing down other women,” she said.
British psychotherapist Silva Neves shared his thoughts about toxic behaviors. He stressed that it’s very important to highlight that “people are not toxic as and of themselves.” In other words, it’s the ideas and belief systems that are at fault, not necessarily the people themselves. Read on for his insights as well.
Illegals in DC
#1
I hate the whole “oh if you hold a baby you’ll want one” or “baby smell is the best” or my least favorite “you’re so good with kids, you’ll be a great mom!” comments. NOT EVERY WOMAN WANTS TO BE A MOM, NOT EVERY WOMAN EVEN LIKES KIDS! The fact that I’m a decent human being to my friends kids doesn’t mean I’ll be a good mom. You know what I love? My current lifestyle. I didn’t work today and you know what I did? I sat in bed, ate chocolate, watched Ice Cold Killers, and now I’m gonna take a nice long nap at 3 in the afternoon! How in gods name would a child enhance my life in any way? I’m 26 and the constant barrage of “you’re not getting any younger” comments are starting to get under my skin.
Redditor u/imogen2797, who created the thread on r/AskReddit in the first place, told Bored Panda that she personally believes that jealousy and bullying lie at the core of toxic femininity, not manipulation and passive aggression.
“Unfortunately, both toxic femininity and toxic masculinity seem to have their roots deep in our society at this current stage. For someone who is in the firing line of this, I would suggest seeking support from like-minded women, as well as calling out toxic behaviors as they happen,” she shared her thoughts on what someone should do if they find themselves a victim of toxic femininity. It’s vital to have firm boundaries, as well as the courage to cut toxic people out of your life.
“People can (mostly) choose the people they surround themselves with, and if something isn’t serving you in a positive way, cut it out.”
#2
Assuming men are never the victim of physical abuse or intimidation.
Meanwhile, for someone who recently figured out that they are a toxic individual, this sense of recognition is a good start. “I think 99% of women will at some point hold toxic views about other women in some way or another, but it is so important to value body autonomy and the rights that women have to choose what they want to do with their bodies and lives. In a world that is ruled by men, we need to lift up other women instead of tearing them down,” the redditor said.
The author of the thread also opened up about the inspiration for the question. “I first heard the term ‘toxic femininity’ when I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post that read, ‘When are we gonna start talking about toxic femininity for a change?’ To be honest, at first, I thought it was a cop-out written by men to deflect an issue that faces that community so heavily, back onto women. I posted to Reddit to get opinions on both sides and I realized that toxic femininity is actually a really prevalent issue that women face,” she shared with us.
“On the one hand, I’m glad that the post got so much attention because it brings light to an issue that isn’t talked about very much. On the other hand, I did notice a lot of the comments were from men using the term ‘toxic femininity’ as a mask to hate on women and be sexist in general, e.g ‘acting as if men are put on earth to serve women,’ ‘most feminists,’ and ‘forever victimhood,’ ‘wanting the same wages as men but less work,’” the redditor stressed that some people have a very subjective understanding of toxicity and use it to further their own goals.
Meanwhile, for someone who recently figured out that they are a toxic individual, this sense of recognition is a good start. “I think 99% of women will at some point hold toxic views about other women in some way or another, but it is so important to value body autonomy and the rights that women have to choose what they want to do with their bodies and lives. In a world that is ruled by men, we need to lift up other women instead of tearing them down,” the redditor said.
The author of the thread also opened up about the inspiration for the question. “I first heard the term ‘toxic femininity’ when I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post that read, ‘When are we gonna start talking about toxic femininity for a change?’ To be honest, at first, I thought it was a cop-out written by men to deflect an issue that faces that community so heavily, back onto women. I posted to Reddit to get opinions on both sides and I realized that toxic femininity is actually a really prevalent issue that women face,” she shared with us.
“On the one hand, I’m glad that the post got so much attention because it brings light to an issue that isn’t talked about very much. On the other hand, I did notice a lot of the comments were from men using the term ‘toxic femininity’ as a mask to hate on women and be sexist in general, e.g ‘acting as if men are put on earth to serve women,’ ‘most feminists,’ and ‘forever victimhood,’ ‘wanting the same wages as men but less work,’” the redditor stressed that some people have a very subjective understanding of toxicity and use it to further their own goals.
#3 (See also #21)
Don’t you dare hit me back! I’m a lady!
Girls who hit guys because they know the guy won’t hit them back
“I think it is very important to highlight that people are not toxic as and of themselves. When we describe toxic masculinity, we do not mean that some men are toxic, we mean that the ideas and belief systems that promote strict and unrealistic ideals of masculinity are toxic—the beliefs are, not the men themselves,” psychotherapist Silva said.
“These beliefs may encourage unpleasant behaviors—behaviors can be challenged and changed too, but we don’t need to change who they are, just what they believe and how they act upon those beliefs. The same goes for toxic femininity. Being kinder, more tolerant, and more caring involves talking and connecting to a diversity of people, rather than staying in the echo chamber of only interacting with the people sharing the same beliefs.”
The expert pointed out that everyone is flawed, whether they have toxic beliefs or not. “If you are aware that you have some flaws that get in the way of living a good life, you can see a therapist to make sense of it, learn to live with it, be kinder to yourself and also learn to challenge and change some of your thought and behavioral patterns to learn to live with your own integrity and values and not against them,” Silva said that reaching out to a professional for help can be a very important step in growing as a person.
#4
Putting women down for choosing not to have children. As if the only reason we were put on earth was to be baby makers
#5
“Real women have meat on their bones.” No. No no. Real women exist regardless of size.
#6
I see a lot of body positive women that shit on my girlfriend for working out and keeping her body hairless. They always say she should be more loving of her body and embrace her body hair.
It’s annoying. She does it cause SHE likes it. She goes to the gym and does deadlifts cause it empowers her and makes her feel AMAZING. Like, we all have different ideals and visions for our life. And after moisturizing herself and shaving she likes to rub her legs together like a cricket, and nobody should be taking that little slice of heaven from her.
“Heterosexual men do not need to fight for their rights because traditionally they are the ones making the rules—which is the very roots of encouraging toxic masculinity. The only time when toxic femininity might be noticed is on social media on forums when women promote the idea that all men are bad, and to its extreme promoting the movement of ‘kill all men’. This is what we call misandry, the hate of men,” Silva said
#7
Woman arrested for making false accusations of rape
Fake domestic violence or rape accusations.
This is why I feel like the phrase “every woman should be believed” should be changed to “every woman should be taken seriously.”
Not every woman is truthful, so we can’t go in with the mindset of “oh, she’s definitely innocent.” At the same time, we can’t let cases of false accusations prevent us from taking a case seriously because “she may be another liar.”
Sadly, people are bound to make decisions on who’s innocent and who’s not without even watching the trial.
#8
Amber Heard
Caro Caro Amber TURD. She not only hurt Johnny but hurt the women struggling for safety, equal rights and justice.
#9
The quote “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
Basically expecting a partner to put up with your drama as proof of them actually being into you/making them jump through hoops to prove they’re into you.
Toxic women are often called ‘nice girls’ or even ‘Karens.’ They’re often egocentric, arrogant, put others down, and are entitled to the point of looking like Sunday cartoon villains. They firmly believe that the world owes them, and they will manipulate, lie, and cheat their way to whatever goal they have in mind. Everyone else be damned. So, in other words, not all that different from walking paragons of toxic masculinity (aka ‘nice guys’ and ‘Kyles’).
Redditor u/CTFOE_is_Fee, one of the moderators running the r/Nicegirls subreddit about toxic women, explained to Bored Panda during an interview why someone is a ‘nice girl.’
“Some of them are too immature to realize what they’re doing. Others are that manipulative on purpose. Lastly, some do not even realize what they’re doing,” they told us.
#10
Telling mothers that they should “suck it up” and deal with postpartum depression without help because women from previous generations were able to raise children without any complaints.
No, Carol. I’m fucking miserable, and there’s nothing shameful about getting the treatment I need to cope with my depression.
#11
Expecting all the affection and love in the world from their boyfriends and never showing a glimpse of it towards them. Men DO have feelings you know?
#12
Saying that mothers who adopt aren’t real moms. I’m adopted and I got all the love and support I needed from my mom. She continues to put her all into her kids and grandkids. I’ll be damned if anyone says she isn’t a real mom because she didn’t give birth to me and my siblings.
Commander OwO Someone once said a quote, “Mom is a verb, not a noun” meaning one can nourish and care like a mom but not be one in actuality. I think it’s a nice quote.
They shared their opinion on where the line lies between actual, genuine niceness and fake, manipulative ‘niceness’ meant to exploit someone.
“Personally, for me, the line is drawn when you can tell that someone is being passive-aggressive; when you can sense the subdued maliciousness in their words and actions. If your gut is telling you that something is not genuine about the person then they probably are not genuine. I think we’ve all experienced a few relationships like that in our lives. I do not see there being a large grey area between the two. You know when someone is being kind or not,” moderator u/CTFOE_is_Fee said.
According to Forbes, toxic femininity in the workplace revolves around backstabbing others, failing to support other women in their success, as well as being a “tool of the patriarchy to undermine femininity.”
Toxic femininity is often expressed through passive aggression. “It’s when we allow relationships and productivity to suffer because we’re not being honest about our own objectives, or when we are assuming we know best with a ‘caring’ face. It’s being a ‘Karen’ and it’s not a step forward from patriarchal systems of control. It might not involve yelling, but it’s still manipulating other people,” Forbes writes, adding that the antidote to this and to toxic masculinity are good leadership skills.
#13
When we are blind supporters of other women. Like, a woman uninvited slapping another woman’s ass isn’t as bad because it’s a woman. Cardi B drugging and robbing dudes isn’t bad because men have done that to women for ever. We don’t get passes because we’ve been victims.
Also, women who refuse to accept that men can also be victims of the patriarchy. Sure, it fucks us all in different ways to different extents, but still.
#14
The whole “mamma bear” knows better than a medical professional about anything to with their children.
#15
The idea that women should be meek and pretty 24/7, and if you are a loud, tomboyish woman, you’re not a real woman.
As a lifelong tomboy, I’ve been put down a lot for not wearing makeup and doing “manly jobs”. I’ve actually got some internalized misogyny as a result. I have a much harder time trusting other women than I have trusting men, because in my experience, it’s mostly other women who accuse me of not being a woman.
#16
Placing your entire self-worth on being desirable to men, or assuming any woman who dislikes you must be jealous of your desirability. Not knowing who you are without male attention.
#17
Thinking that being in a romantic relationship/marriage or being able to have children makes you inherently better than women who aren’t.
#18 (See also #27)
Defaulting to the female parental figure in all things child-related.
I worked an hour’s drive away, my husband worked 15 minutes away. We clearly listed him as the primary emergency contact on all school forms and even noted that he was closest. We told the kid to specifically request they call Dad.
Every time there was an emergency, guess who got called? I would then instruct them to call my husband because my leaving work to take the kid home means they have to deal with an extra hour or so of projectile vomit (or whatever).
We ended up just listing his number as mine.
Stupid!
#19
Using “feminism” as a shield to justify every shitty thing they do.
Voodoops_13 ANYONE who tries to hijack the term Feminist/Feminism by equating it with being a bitch/ugly/angry/single/childless can fuck all the way off. Male or female, doesn’t matter.
#20
Shitting on stay at home moms or Sex Workers because you don’t understand their choices. Feminism means we all get to choose our own path . Not everyone wants a high powered career and that’s Ok.
#21 (See also #3)
“No man is ever allowed to hit a woman, in any circumstances.”
Uh, hell no. I’m a woman, but I fully expect that if I started punching a guy or trying to kill him, that he would be well within his rights to give me a slap. Being female doesn’t mean you get to start physical fights and face no repercussions.
#22
“If you gave birth through c-section, you’re not a real mom.”
What. The. Fuck? Suddenly 9 months of pregnancy, a terrifying procedure and caring for a newborn doesn’t count because MacDuff from his mother’s womb was untimely ripped? Whose baby is this then, since apparently no mothers are present?
#23
“all other girls are bitches”
If you’re a girl and think that, that’s a you problem
#24
Karens are a prime example (of Toxic Femininity). They show peak entitlement found more often in women then men. Everything must be done for them. They are a mother or they’re a “struggling” woman who should be given everything she wants.
There’s also abusive women. Abusive men will hit you, abusive women will give you several mental and emotional disorders and claim you made it all up while you suffer alone in silence. I know this from personal experience having an abusive biological father and step mother.
If a woman does hit you, you aren’t allowed to hit back. If you defend yourself you’re the aggressor because… men big?
#25
Last week: 3 women admiring my fiancé’s new engagement ring (which is a bit flashy) My fiancé tells them it’s lab-made, which is what she wanted One of them responded with “Oh, that doesn’t count then”
#26
I had an ex who laughed and took advantage of me after I cried in front of her. She told me she didn’t see me as a man and that crying is for girls.
#27 (See also #18)
The expectation of doing emotional labor. If you fall short of being the default caretaker/nurturer in any way, you are a bad woman. If you don’t put your family’s needs before your own all the time, you might be called a bad mom, a bad wife, or a bad daughter or sister, etc. Meanwhile women who sacrifice themselves completely to take care of others are good mothers, good wives, etc
Similarly, the overly glorified societal idea that a woman’s love is supposed to fix her partner. I read a lot of romance novels and wow is hetero romance content overwhelmingly saturated with the idea that even the most broken person (usually a man in the examples I have personally read) can be healed by the true love of the other person (usually a woman in the examples I have read). There’s no therapy, no focus on healthy ways to deal with trauma, just the idea that some woman can walk into some broken man’s life and completely heal him instantly with “true love”.
#28
Using your period as an excuse to be physically or emotionally abusive. Turns out my mom was just a bitch, not PMS’ing.
#29
Being unable to critize another woman for shit she did since “women support each other“. Has the exact same energy as frat guys saying “bro code”.
#30
Mothers who tell their sons that they are less than equal, based on gender alone. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” “The future is female, not male.” That type of stuff.
We’re all in this world together and equally capable of greatness and kindness. Please don’t tell your kids otherwise. If you teach someone they’re “less than,” you’re giving them a lifelong hall pass to be a selfish jerk because you don’t need them anyway.
#31
Being all “Claire!! Hiiiii it’s soo good to seee youuuuu oh my goooodddd!!!!” in that obnoxious tone of voice, to every single woman in the group, then turning around and talking the most nasty gossip you can behind their backs or purposely being snaky to the group. This is so toxic, if you don’t like the people you spend time with then drop the mask and stop shoving “positive vibes” down their throats.
#32 (Related to #3 and #21)
Girls who start an argument or fight with a stranger and expect their bf/husband/partner to be the one to handle the fall out.
#33
Just generally assuming men are made of emotional rubber and can bounce back from anything,then accusing a man of “male fragility” if they don’t.
When a guy has an really good platonic male friend who he enjoys spending time with , and a woman thinks it’s odd and says “ you two should get it over with and make out/have sex” as if men only become close if sex is involved.
#34
Believing that its a man’s job to impress her when she’s dating. If you like someone ACT AS THOUGH YOU LIKE THEM. Dating is an equal exchange of time and emotional labour, if she feels like she needs further financial compensation beyond that (paying for the food/show/whatever it is) then maybe she don’t like him enough.
El Dee This one is deeply ingrained. It’s like an internalised form of self sabotage. Now things are beginning to change but I think it will be my grandchildren who benefit.
#35
The “I get along with guys better.”
I cringe because I used to be like this. Don’t discount a whole gender. There’s a lot of awesome women out there, find them and befriend them! Not all guys are awesome so why assume all women aren’t?
Amber Heard 
