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Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
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6 Nov, 29 tweets, 6 min read
I have heard it suggested that Tom Cotton might be the next charismatic Republican leader, and I think y'all have some serious misunderstandings about the aesthetics of fascism. Image
Guys no.
The fascist aesthetic is not "interchangeable scrawny white guy in a suit."

Where's the perversity in your appeal?
Now you're talking.

This is a damn fascist strongman. Image
Yep.
(You may continue submitting would-be fuhrers for my approval.)
Tucker absolutely has the it.
You'd have crowds of angry screaming men wearing bowties. Matt Smith would be the new Pepe. Genuinely nightmarish.
Women have a hard time with the fash aesthetic, which is too misogynistic for them to thrive at the top. Palin came closest because, again, perversity.
Dark horse, but...
Yeah. That's the look. Image
Re: Trump Jr, nah. Can't make lightning strike twice.
Good lord no.
Maaaaybe.
But I doubt it. Too much "it's ok, sometimes puberty is just really late" energy. Image
(As distinct from Carlson, which is "look, puberty doesn't work out for everyone and that's OK." Which works. Fascist masculinity is a subtle beast.)
Do I have to spell out the aesthetic? The fash strongman has to embody masculinity, but not in a way that offers an unobtainable ideal. So: not too pretty/athletic. Maybe once in his prime, but if so, definitely gone to pasture a bit.
Can't quite be a dweeb, which is why Carlson had to put on weight before he could play the part and why Ted Cruz needs to lose that ridiculous Roger Delgado beard. You want manly, but not actually attractive. Slightly unkempt is good for this.
Again, what's important is a *perverse* appeal. Fugly, as the kids used to say. A charisma that stubbornly defies observable reality.
This overcorrects into "too attractive." Men need to idolize but also plausibly aspire to.
You're onto something.
The "completely made up set of medals" thing is 💯💯💯 Image
Johnson, while not actually fash, gets how the aesthetic works.
Clarke has the exact right fragile masculinity for fascism, which is to say one that is *utterly oblivious* to its fragility.

Someone said Matt Walsh, and guys, you cannot simply beard your way out of dweebhood. Image
Ben Sasse... I see where you're going but I don't think you're quite there. Image
Weev demonstrates that there is such a thing as overdoing it. Image
He’s 88, which is arguably a heck of a qualification, but will be 92 by the next election, which is not.

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More from @ElSandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
14 Nov
I've got a bewilderingly good landlord, and every time he texts I have an emotional reaction that's kind of the leftist equivalent of when a sullen goth teenager gets hugged by their parents as the school bus comes.
(He's an engineer focused on sustainable buildings and appears to just buy up properties, do a bunch of ecological improvements, and then rent them out while being super low key and proactive about making sure tenants know he'll be flexible if need be.)
(So we've got eight pets in a four bedroom house where he pays electricity and provides all the light bulbs to make sure we're on community solar and using good bulbs. And we pay nicely under market rate with no pet deposit.)
Read 4 tweets
Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
13 Nov
I get stick sometimes for how often I mock Big Finish, and then they go and announce an Eric Roberts Master crossover with their Vienna series, which is apparently a spinoff about a side character in a random Sylvester McCoy audio and just... why isn’t everyone mocking them?
Oh, and a War Doctor series about the early days of the character with a recast John Hurt.

Like, guys, just... just write fanfic. I promise, whatever fanfic you write about the early days of the War Doctor will be more satisfying than buying that would be.
I just... like, there’s a very small number of people who have devoted more of their adult lives to Doctor Who than I have. I love the show deep in my soul. But just... why do people want these things? I get Funko Pops more readily than I get this.
Read 7 tweets
Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
24 Sep
An eight year quest to track down the entirety of the late 90s Granada Television soap opera Springhill has finally come to an end, as someone has very kindly furnished me their personally acquired copy of Season 2.
This has immediate implications for TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 7, which is going to get an extremely late in the game update very soon.
Working on my last Patreon post for the month today, and then I’m going to sit down, watch it, rewrite the essay ASAP, and get it out to people.
Read 5 tweets
Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
21 Sep
Reinvention is the wrong approach. The key appeal and brilliance of Doctor Who is that it has an infinitely extensible premise. Anything you want to do with Doctor Who you can *already do*.
Like, cast a Doctor, cast a companion, make up a location, make up a problem for that location, and put the TARDIS there.

If you cannot come up with half a dozen genuinely new ideas for how to do that you’re probably not cut out for writing genre fiction in the first place tbh.
It is literally the most extensible and flexible concept in the history of pulp storytelling. Reinventing it is like reinventing a margarita. You have a lot of room to play, but at the end of the day, the point is how wide a space tequila + sweetness + acidity can define.
Read 5 tweets
Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
17 Sep
Just made the best pork roast of my life, so here’s a food thread. One of these days I’ll remember to, like, take pictures of this shit. But until then, here goes. Meal was: pork roast, mashed potatoes, romano beans, and acorn squash.
I’ll start with the pork. For pretty much all of my roasts, I use the reverse sear, as developed by @kenjilopezalt. Basically, you roast the meat at a low temperature, then finish it at a high one. In this case, I used the added twist of doing the slow cook in the smoker.
(My smoker is the Bradley electric smoker, which is delightfully cheap for everything it can do because it’s on the razor/blades model of locking you into their wood chips. If you think owning a smoker is your kinda thing, it’s my recommendation.)
Read 16 tweets
Elizabeth Sandifer Profile picture
16 Sep
I don’t think enough people are adequately contemplating the possibility that the US is 3-4 months away from a civil war.
The Presidential candidate trailing in the polls is talking about refusing to accept the result. His advisors are actively talking about imposing martial law if they lose. He has been actively encouraging militia movements.
The prospect that the US has two competing governments after this election is entirely real.
Read 4 tweets

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