Authenticity as a Service

[bryant]

Geek joke.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is doing some awesome things with live-streaming. Beto O’Rourke is embarrassing himself by live-streaming his dental appointment (except he didn’t). Justin Amash is pretty blunt on Twitter.

2020 is going to be a good exercise in decoupling authenticity from our political preferences. Beto’s rambling blog posts are political; I don’t see how he couldn’t be aware of the pressure to run, the magnitude of the decision, and the pros and cons of his choices. He’s auditioning. So is AOC. So is Amash.

I think getting into the habit of being open is a good thing for all of them. The recent Washington Post interview with Beto was amazing and if you’re not applauding his decision to be frank, you’re nuts. His responses made me less likely to vote for him in the primaries, and he has to know many people would react like that, but he was still willing to admit his uncertainties.

Separating my warm feelings about authenticity from my feelings about what that transparency reveals is a 2020 goal for me.

Mirrored from Population: One.

Comments

[gentlyepigrams]

The thing that makes me like AOC even when I don't agree with her policy prescriptions (and I do agree with a lot of them) is that her response to being called nasty names is "so what?". So many of our politicians act like the other side is acting in good faith. I'm sure there are some members who do but the name calling bullshit and pearl clutching and handwringing and concern trolling about her is absolutely fake and she is NOT HERE for it. That kind of authenticity of "yeah, I'm liberal, I'm young, and I'm cute, DEAL WITH IT" is very appealing to me as an old who is SO TIRED of seeing conservative misogyny just accepted and even catered to.