249 Comments
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Mary Tirpok's avatar

‘the role of the faithful partner in a marriage that had long since stopped honoring the white Christian nationalist terms he had signed up for.’ Mind blowing. I appreciate this analysis that I don’t think many others have bothered to do

ReimiRevolution's avatar

The analysis I was looking for. So interesting…

Julie Tallard Johnson's avatar

We are certainly a complex species with so many hidden rooms in our psyche and in life.

Suzanne Ross's avatar

In the end, after reading your very well written and empathetic article, all I can feel is saddened. No matter how unsympathetic these characters are, it is just sad and depressing that they and their Christian Nationalist counterparts have locked themselves into this lifestyle that stunts the growth of the soul, and promotes suffering for both men and women, not to mention the rest of us. Religious and/or political extremes do not make for good governance or what most would consider good living.

Joe Perea's avatar

I'm not paying enough as a subscriber for the quality of writing in these posts.

Winifred's avatar

Wow! I've never read an analysis quite like this one before. and you're right, he is Melania.

xander marro's avatar

Excellent analysis

Nurete Brenner's avatar

This is well done:

"The bimbo, in this ecosystem, is the new ideal of far-right conservative womanhood: The brutal bimbo. Empathetic women are threatening. A MAGA woman can leave the kitchen for a time, she can even have a career, but that power must be aesthetically contained — wrapped in a cartoonish presentation hat requires some degree of self mutilation, to reassure the men around her she is still fundamentally an object of the male gaze, still operating within the visual economy they control.

Kristi Noem understood this intuitively and performed it masterfully. She was powerful and bimbofied simultaneously. She wielded a government jet and a racialized detention and “deportation” mandate and 260,000 employees and still showed up looking like the archetype her movement told women to be."

Any thoughts, though, on whether or not the bimbo fetish preceded her role in the administration? These things don't usually spring out of just one set of circumstances and usually build over time.

Mike O'Neill's avatar

WOW! Krusti Gnome was a cosplay moron back in the day.

Just Another Jim's avatar

What a freaking Faustian bargain! Thank you Alisa, for making this somewhat understandable and more for keeping them human. I almost feel pity…

Tom Ellicott's avatar

Wow!!!! What an article!

Donna Hays's avatar

I find this sad and tragic and hard to watch unfold. I’m disgusted especially by the sex worker who outed him-it’s a pity there’s not a confidentiality standard for sex workers.

J.'s avatar

Alisa, have you ever seen the French film Betty Blue? (French title “37°2 le matin”)

I was strongly reminded of it as I was reading your excellent analysis.

Also Filth, from 2013 starring James McAvoy, which contains some of the same elements.