Lipstick on a Cig → Too Dumb To Fail

Hey Neighbor. This week, as other things happened, TGI Fridays quietly ordered a Chapter 11, neat. The fast casual first mover had become a symbol of sub-suburban mediocrity, but it wasn’t always so: The chain more or less invented modern drinking. In the 1970s, TGI Fridays’ well-paid bartenders were required to memorize hundreds of recipes and tested frequently. Herbs for muddling were grown on-site alongside the ferns that used to signal when an American bar had a singles scene (also, cocaine). The dream of a place for professionals run by professionals lives on....

If you’d rather not receive this newsletter, click here.

If we were at a cocktail party, you might hear me say the following....

❝The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.❞
....or....
❝If there’s going to be blood in the street, call a real estate agent.❞

A few drinks later, I might add that “The Predator State” by James Galbraith, which argues that conservative “free-market” rhetoric has always been a fig leaf for private capture of public institutions and that liberals are a bunch of rubes for pretending otherwise feels... relevant right now.

I might also try to talk about...

Arousing her during sex just became way more exciting with the external vulva vibrator, Legato. This is the first vibrating ring for women that adjusts to her vulva shape for distributed stimulation against the clitoris, labia, and every part in between with 4 powerful motors, magnifying sensations everywhere she could possibly want them.

Use it during sex to keep the good vibes rolling for both of you. Especially ideal for postpartum and menopausal women [1]. Multi-award-winning + 16 intensity levels + Bluetooth capability. Even better? Take 30% off.

→ The mystery French trader known as “Théo” who baked $50M making Trump bets on Polymarket did so by understanding American status dynamics better than pollsters. Théo, who claims not to be a Trump supporter or Putin plant, told the WSJ he relied on a handful of neighbor polls rather than direct response polls. Neighbor polls are performed by asking potential voters who their neighbors’ support on the theory that this will allow them to reveal their own preference. The fact that neighbor polls were more accurate indicates not only that most American polls suck, but also that Trump voting is seen as a low-status behavior and concealed by a portion of his supporters. (READ MORE)

→ Cigarettes are continuing to make a comeback among celebrities. Culture journalists are suggesting this represents a return to the hedonism of the nineties. That’s a fun argument, but there’s a much more obvious factor at play: Ozempic. One of the weight loss drug’s many side effects is that it curbs addictions, making it a lot easier to smoke without becoming a smoker. Which, yeah, is kinda cool. (READ MORE)

→ New research by Columbia Law School political scientist Reilly Steel shows that the average corporate leader in America is far more liberal now than a decade ago, but also that companies themselves are becoming more politically polarized. The number of companies with politically homogenous management teams has increased and that polarization is particularly evident at tech companies. Going forward, a critical part of climbing the ladder may be choosing the ladder. (READ MORE)

If one meme – among the myriad – sums up the MAGA social, cultural, and political projects, it’s the midwit meme, specifically the version posted by Elon Musk. Ostensibly, the meme is a hyper-partisan, but not wholly unfounded critique of complexity bias among the educated (or overeducated), status-conscious tryhards that have captured American institutions. But, on second glance, it’s something else: a celebration of the sort of factionalism the founding fathers feared [2].

The argument contained in the image – a few Wojacks (sketchy strawman sub-memes) arrayed against an IQ bell curve – is that morons and geniuses gravitate toward simplicity while “midwits,” particularly status conscious midwits, fetishize complexity and thereby create big, dumb unwieldy systems. And, yep, there’s truth there. People attempting to make informed decisions often mistake complexity for function. Anyone who has ever bought cream that “contains peptides” is guilty of this. And that marketing trap works particularly well in the context of liberal politics: In 2016, a University of Montana study found that, when faced with a paragraph describing a policy, liberals were more likely than other groups to overestimate the complexity of the policy describes – specifically if they thought the author shared their politics.

And if complexity holds a particularly strong appeal to status-conscious strivers, it’s fair to say that simplicity holds a particularly strong appeal for genius heterodox thinkers. As sportswriter Andy Benoit put it when describing NFL strategists: “Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.” (Granted, most geniuses find simplicity by parsing complexity, not derping along with knuckle draggers.[3])

This is all to say that there’s the germ of truth – perhaps a profound truth – baked into the meme.

But there’s also a hazard.

Consider the meme above. Now, reconsider it with a very simple idea in mind: Everyone (the guy on the right is Bryan Kaplan, an economist affiliated with The Federalist Society) is correct.

• School isn’t particularly helpful for morons.

• School is very important for midwits.

• School isn’t particularly helpful for geniuses.

None of the perspectives in the meme are unreasonable, but one is being singled out for mockery on the basis of overcomplication. And the straining midwit Wojak in question represents the bulk of the population (between 68% and 96% depending on how you squint at it). It’s logical his pursuit of self-interest would require more grappling.

This is why the meme – and the bias it represents – gets a bit scarier when applied to policy.

White it’s not clear what the MAGA ascendency augurs for America as a whole, it is clear that a voting bloc which sees itself as the cure to the malignant midwittery of the professional classes doesn’t represent a movement so much as an alliance between members of factions who happen to be wearing the same hat.

→ After Trump’s win, Google search for “Moving to ______” spiked as progressives entertained the idea of getting the hell out of dodge. The relative interest in Spain, which has a digital nomad visa program, got the most interest. Italy got 36% less than Spain. England got 8% less than Italy. France got 10% less than England. American Anglophilia remains out of hand.

→ Send this classic The Whitest Kids You Know sketch to the MSNBC mom in your life today. (VIEW IT)

→ Anyone who likes European luxury goods, has some cash, and thinks Trump is gonna pull the trigger on tariffs should go grab some Gucci tout suite. Velvet slippers aren’t getting cheaper.

 → There’s a lot of talk about the media being consumed by Gen Z men, particularly comedian-led podcasts, and how it’s making them more conservative. This misunderstands what’s going on. The Joe Rogan Extended Universe is not conservative, it’s reactionary. And liberals can be reactionary too. Bill Burr is hosting SNL this weekend. Listen to him talk about the Left. There’s a lane there, there just aren’t many Cybertrucks driving in it.

Who We’re Talking About: Public sector and academic lifers with one-degree too many, a coworker they care more about than their spouse, family money, and a tendency to stack books around the house like sandbags before a flood. Fluent in at least one romance language they refuse to speak when abroad. Deep, soulful relationships with other peoples’ dogs.[4]

The Stuff:
→Chemex Pour-Over Coffee Maker: Likes putting a kettle on in the morning.
→Ralph Lauren Flag Crewneck: It was a present. Sits in the back of the closet at the parents’ house.
→Reiss Camel Overcoat: Looks like a Burberry from across the room.
→Eiffel Tower Keychain: Just a cheap thing picked up while studying abroad.
→Camilla Seretti Beaded Cherry Earrings: Thought they were unique.
→Jaunt Ceramic One-Hitter: Only carries it on the weekends.
→Hand-Me-Down Moroccan Leather Bag: Mom got run through in the ‘70s.
→U.S. Open Hat: Dad spent the whole time talking about estate planning. Guess it was his way of saying everything would be alright.
→The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro: Fantastic book. Overrated.
→GAP T-Shirt Bundle: Still wrapped.
→Feu de Bois Candle: It’s good to splurge just a little.

→ Now might be the right time to move and get a mortgage. The Fed cut rates today as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued massive bull runs on the back of Trump’s win. The GOP has long planned to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been under government control since the Great Recession. Democrats were reluctant to end that conservatorship because doing so could cause a 40+ basis point spike in mortgage rates due to the lenders’ capital requirements. The two firms guarantee roughly $6T in home loans. (READ MORE)

→ BlackRock had a party for social media influencers to celebrate the launch of its latest ETF, which is just To-20 stocks. This is gonna be a (very annoying) thing now. (READ MORE)

→ Crypto popped on Trump’s reelection, but did it drive his reelection. Maybe a little bit. An August poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University found Trump leading by 12 points among crypto investors, a lead that could not be explained away by the demographics of that group, which represents about 15 percent of the electorate. The correlation between crypto ownership and Trump support, helped tie to Trump campaign to media companies like Barstool Sports, which was recently found to have improperly advertised on behalf of crypto ETFs. (READ MORE)

NOTES & FOOTNOTES

[1] It’s odd more vibrators aren’t engineered for post-partum and menopausal women. It makes sense to experiment more during periods of physical and emotional change. That’s why MysteryVibe makes products for couples willing to try something new.

[2] What could better represent elite midwittery than a Federalist Papers reference applied to a meme. Still, it’s salient. In Federalist #10, Madison was clear that the point of democratic governance was to mitigated the threat of factions. What Madison did not imagine was that a group of factions could be aligned to form a political majority. Like it or not, it’s a hell of an accomplishment. It’s also a prime example of near enemy/far enemy thinking.

[3] An important wrinkle here is that genius tends to be specific. A disproportionate number of the members of the Institute for Creation Research hold advanced degrees in engineering. These are very smart people who love complex systems and have more self-confidence than biology education.

[4] If you really want to go all out with the Tesla Autopilot concept, kill 51 Americans. That’s the current 2024 total.