Weirdo Welfare

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I’m fully on board with the trend of calling these far-right extremists “weird,” as the Harris campaign has savvily been doing. This is the marginalization of fascism that should have been happening all along, instead of the normalization we’ve been seeing from so many mainstream institutions. I think that’s why it feels so refreshing. These people ARE fringe, and it’s okay to say so!

As I was reading about how Vance has been lavishly funded by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, the old expression “wingnut welfare” came to mind. Vance was hired by Thiel after meeting him at Yale Law School, set up by Thiel with his own venture capital fund, given $15 million by Thiel to run a Senate campaign in Ohio, and now he’s the Vice Presidential nominee at the tender age of 39. Yet, as this excellent essay by a fellow Ohioan notes, Vance has expressed disdain for the lack of bootstrapping by the poor people he grew up around, and doesn’t support policies now that would actually help them.

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