Have Pen, Will Travel

That Barack Obama is considered a "Left" president by the mainstream body politic is, to me, the prime example of this. For culture war (and let's be real: racist reactionary) reasons, Obama was branded by the Right as a radical leftist communist elitist that was secretly a Muslim. This completely fucking unhinged take is frightfully common among a not-insignificant portion of the electorate. In reality, Obama was none of these things. His liberal administration was pretty solidly centrist, but because of the demon-haunted world view of politics, as OP put it, the ring-wing establishment had to pretend Obama was something he objectively wasn't.

This means that, though Obama did things they might otherwise agree with - increasing ICE raids, expanding the war on terror, drone assassination programs, the killing of Bin Laden, cracking down on whistleblowers - they ideologically cannot acknowledge these things at all. This is how you have Fox News having conniptions about tan suits, or saluting with a coffee mug, or baseless stories about him not being born in the US (which is where Trump starting wading in politics). Much of the Right's criticism of Obama is conspiratorial, grievance-based, and dripping with racial animus (how often do we hear them sneer "Barack Hussein Obama!" even a decade after he left office?).

Thus, the few places where you can get any grounded criticism of the Obama Administration for a long time were in actual leftist politics, a thing I only encountered personally until well after he'd left office. It was like a breath of fresh air. While bias and personal perspective are still present (when is it not?), the criticism is more nuanced and based in a material reality. You can take the good with the bad; a path to learn from the success and failure of the recent political past.

The problem is that it's a reality that is inconvenient for both the Right, who must maintain the illusion of Obama the Secret Muslim Stalinist Elitist who Took Away Your Guns, and for the Democratic Establishment who must constantly pretend that Obama was the furthest the party could possibly go. That even Bernie Sanders, who would be considered Center-Left in European politics, is a bridge too far.

I always love the og zoot suits made by black americans in Harlem, I really like looking at the changes from these clothes from the 30s to some of the more exaggerated renditions from the 40s. It's also so interesting to look at how fast the subculture spread, and especially in the american west integrated with mexican diaspora and pachuco culture to the point that that's what a lot of usamericans associate them with.

⬆️ long wallet chains and pork pie hats were classic accessories for mexican diaspora zoot suiters. Zoot suits/their components were also really popular with women and were a way to symbolize independence and a choice to move away from strict gender roles on top of the existing countercultural message ⬇️

Anyways it's kind of impossible to talk about zoot suits without mentioning the racism and violence that followed them. On top of a zoot suit making someone a target for individual racial violence, the national reaction of white america to zoot suit culture was part of the beginning of clothing and presentation being read explicitly as signals by police and justice systems, and the broad association of youth of color with gang violence through this specific excuse. Gang culture and how it's percieved in the western US and especially California is very influenced by this era. The most famous events from the zoot suit era are the collective zoot suit riots and the media characterization of all mexican american, filipino american, and black american youth as violent anti-american baby gangsters. Which, even if that was broadly true I mean. I'll take the opportunity to be flippant hell yeah??

As a side note, while making more new zoot suits during war rationing was pretty sick, most people weren't buying from the black market tailor shops and just wore what they already owned because the style had been popular for years already. People bought clothes less often to begin with back then. I think that misconception comes from the reasoning white americans gave to go beat up people of color with baseball bats in the street; i.e. it was racial and xenophobic violence to begin with and the nature of the suits themselves has been mushed around a lot to serve different narratives.

More zoot suits! ⬇️

I've been made aware that it is Tired Beast Thursday, so here is Sweet Pea the gnoll, my tired beast. She's just fine, she's sleeping on the floor because the bed is too soft-- and her goblin friend Nettle isn't complaining, because now she gets the whole big person sized bed to herself.