Kari Lake’s career goes bung
Let’s say you want to be vice-president of the United States but you don’t have any meaningful political experience and you’ve never held public office. What do you do?
For most normal people, the answer would be to build your political career gradually. Start small, work your way up, and hope that one day your hard work gets you one of the biggest jobs in the world.
But Kari Lake, a self-described “election-denying deplorable” who has helped boost conspiracy theories about Covid vaccines and once called Anthony Fauci an “evil elf”, is not like most normal people. Her two-pronged strategy for rising to the top of the political world? 1) Say as many bigoted and outlandish things as possible, in a bid to generate headlines. 2) Become Donald Trump’s loudest lapdog.
For a while, that strategy seemed to work. A few months ago, Axios reported that Trump was strongly considering picking a woman to be his running mate for the 2024 election, and Lake was one of his top choices. Lake also won a straw poll for the Republican vice-presidential pick during the Conservative Action Political Conference in March. She got 20% of the vote, beating the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley (10%) and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis (14%). Not bad for someone whose biggest political accomplishment is running for governor of Arizona in 2022, losing, then baselessly claiming that the election was rigged.
What Lake lacks in experience she makes up for in shamelessness. It’s not clear what – if anything – the 53-year-old actually believes but she’s clearly willing to say whatever it takes to get ahead. In 2008, for example, Lake donated to Obama and even reportedly campaigned for him. Now, however, she’s reviving the racist birther conspiracies about him. She was once friends with one of Phoenix’s best-known drag queens; now she’s demonizing drag shows. She’s an ambitious woman but she also has no problem telling young conservatives that women “aren’t equal to men” and “don’t want to be equal to them because we are not the same”.
Lake has also positioned herself as Trump’s biggest cheerleader, proclaiming her devotion to the former president at every opportunity – even threatening armed resistance against anyone who went after her idol. She’s also gone to great lengths to stay as close as possible to the presumed Republican nominee. Last month People reported that Lake essentially moved into Mar-a-Lago and is at Trump’s resort more than Melania Trump. It’s not clear whether she’s having official meetings with Trump or if she’s just sidling up to him every time he hits the DJ decks (something he apparently does after dinner at the club every weekend) and begging for a key role in his 2024 campaign. “She is working the deal,” sources previously told People about Lake’s vice-presidential ambitions. “She wants something bigger, fast, to compensate for her loss in Arizona.”
Alas, it seems that Lake may have flown just a little too close to the sun. Despite her sycophancy (she once told Piers Morgan that Trump is so powerful he wouldn’t even need a vice-president), there are reports that Trump has soured on his protege. His newfound objections? Lake likes the limelight too much, apparently. She’s a “spotlight hound”, one Trump adviser complained to the Daily Beast. When Trump thinks you’re too thirsty for attention, that’s really saying something.
If Trump really has turned on Lake, is this the end of her career? Unfortunately, I doubt it. Her hopes of being Trump’s running mate may have hit a snag, but she’s still got her eyes on a Senate seat. “She’s a shameless, ruthless demagogue who wants power and will do whatever she has to do to get it,” a Trump adviser complained to the Daily Beast. Which is exactly the sort of person who tends to do well in modern politics.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene called Lauren Boebert a ‘little bitch’
It’s heartwarming to see two of the worst politicians in America publicly feuding. Particularly as Greene, a far-right Georgia congresswoman, has now been kicked out of the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus because of how she referred to Boebert.
Climate crisis linked to rising domestic violence in south Asia
A study published in Jama Psychiatry finds that an increase of 1C in average annual temperature is connected to more than a 6% rise in physical and sexual domestic violence. This study builds on previous research connecting extreme heat to violence against women. “Previous research from Madrid found that when a heatwave hit, the risk of intimate partner femicide rose 40%,” the Guardian notes. “[A]nd in Kenya, women who experienced severe weather events – including heatwaves – had 60% higher odds of reporting intimate partner violence.”
Project Sea: a female-led scheme to clean up Red Sea coral reefs
A couple of years ago Beisan AlSharif and Seif Al Madanat started to make a point of collecting rubbish every time they went diving in the Gulf of Aqaba. More people joined in and now a community of 150 volunteers, many of whom are female Palestinian refugees, go on regular clean-up dives to remove trash from the coral reefs. “There’s not one dive with a female participation of less than 50% – which is amazing for a Middle Eastern country like Jordan,” AlSharif told the Guardian.
Italian junior culture minister defends his sexist rant
Vittorio Sgarbi, an art critic and the undersecretary to the Ministry of Culture in Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government, is making headlines after making lewd and sexist remarks during an event at Rome’s Maxxi museum. He reportedly boasted about sleeping with nine women a month and used misogynistic language. “At a certain point, turning 67, the prostate appears and you have to deal with this fucking bitch whore you’ve never met in your life,” Sgarbi said, quoting a conversation he allegedly had with French novelist Michel Houellebecq. “The cock goes away and the prostate comes.” What doesn’t seem to be coming is an apology. Sgarbi told a newspaper that asking for his resignation over “something like this” would be “censorship, true fascism”.
The week in pawtriarchy
Congratulations to Scooter, an unusual-looking pup who is the winner of this year’s World’s Ugliest Dog contest. Scooter, a Chinese Crested, was born with backwards hind legs and sports a wayward mohawk and rat-like tail. “In the cutest way possible, he kind of reminds me of a hairy hippopotamus,” one of the judges proclaimed.
