By Taylor Lewis

President Trump was, improbably, yet invariably, right. At the still fawn-fresh age of seven, it is indeed “marginal.” Maybe a mind so preoccupied with gilded luster, even if the veneer is spackled coating from Michaels, never lost touch with youthen whimsy. Or maybe Fred Trump was just a tightfisted hardass with a smart leather belt.

Whatever the no-doubt-traumatic case, Donald Trump has an intuitive feel for when children outgrow the St. Nick myth. Seven is a fulcrum age, where innocent belief totters on a teeterboard, threatened with a dark plunge into cold, unsparing adulthood. It’s a climactic calendar year that, at any given point, when developing grey matter blooms enough, bright joy is sucked out through Eden’s gate into a disenchanted plain.

I know personally—but not from my own hunch the big man in red was really my mom’s Boscov’s charge card. My oldest child turned the big zero-7 two months ago. As parents know, once a kid is over the hump of the noughts years, his mental capacities expand exponentially. So quickly do juvies catch on to their surroundings: the muttered expletives, frustrated curses, perfunctory one-syllable responses, rising anger, incanted imprecations at New York Times columnists, and exhilatered whoops, such as when Christian Elliss turned Jaxson Dart into a ragdoll. How soon ‘til my clever princess utters the devastating three-word inquiry: Is Santa real?

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, stuffed into a chestnut, boxed in a koan, then bazooka-ed into a clouded cipher. Shied at my feet behind batting eyelashes. How even to respond? Crush her babe-in-the-woods naivety with the truth? Or worse: fib knowing full well I’ll have to fess up? So much of parenting is on-the-spot blurtings that you spend months, even years, justifying to prove your wise authority. Best to right it the first time, rather than gibber in circles in a futile attempt to close a loop you can’t remember opening.

Following the path of least resistance is an option: shove a smartphone in her face, ensuring YouTube tyke-controls are intact, before letting the tech gods numb her with flash ads for fruit-colored minigames. At least she wouldn’t wind up in jail! Sure, the bug-eyed programmers at Mountain View would bleed sentience from her fidgety form. My cherubic bouncer would be reduced to a doomscrolling zombie. But I’ll never have to admit my precious progeny is locked in a pokey. Saving face at high-school reunions—the real currency of middle-aged dads!

Or I could try an altogether different maneuver, one devoid of outright falsehood, but refracted enough to not undermine my parental prepotency. By George, I think I’ve got it! A heady mix of bardish yarn-weaving meshed with a dry-as-dust lecture on economics that will leave her bored, desperate for another distraction.

What’s that, honey? What was your question, gumdrop? Is Father Christmas a phony? Is Santa the real article? Does he really globetrot in a twelve-hour jag, weltering cross-continent, hurtled forth by cervine coursers, pickabacking a depthless tow sack filled with immaculately wrapped presents?

To quote the good-believing folks at The Sun, yes, my sweet Virginia maidel, there is a Santa Claus. But, up to a point, dear daughter.

Are there thousands, perhaps millions, of underpaid toilers, rendered diminutive from crouching over work stations, strapped in hi-vis uniforms, assembling American Girl dolls, Matchbox cards, Marvel figures, Lego sets, building blocks, and Nintendo Switch consoles, in preparation for the bountiful yuletide morn? In full confidence, I assure you, my dulce niña, yes. Though they might be headquartered in Seattle, rather than the North Pole. Actually, toy cobbling might happen somewhere in Vietnam, or Sri Lanka, or the paddy fields of Guangdong. As for Santa’s antlered drivers, they radio back to one of the big man’s various hubs throughout our country to ensure every gift makes it to our doorstep… er… tree in time! You see, sometimes, Kris Kringle likes to get an early start, so Christmas Eve isn’t so deadliningly hectic. He recruits an especially adept elf named Jeff Bezos for logistical support.

But who is real? Santa himself? Well, who the hell’s (don’t tell your mom I said that!) lap do you think you sat on at the mall? Some smelly mendicant? And why is the plate of Chips Ahoy! you leave out on Xmas Eve licked clean come morrow? Huh… what’s that? You saw choco-chip smears on my mouth? I don’t recollect that… Regardless, Santa is as pokeable as that soiled stuffy you refuse to loosen your grip on. As for his “magic,” it’s best to think of his candy cane thaumaturgy this wise: the intricate, impossible-to-describe linkage that is material production, which starts with the lots of men in New York City financing capital investment such as plants, planers, press and die machines, industrial coaters, 3D printers, and endless assembly lines in dingy, rotting factories halfway across our blue orb, filled with raw materials dug from the earth, busily being etched, stretched, sected, and confected into five-inch Han Solos, Spider-Men, My Little Ponies, and whatever KPop Demon Hunters are.

The wizardry and wonder of the season is the infinitely complex daisy chain of oil drilled from the Gulf of Mexico, refined in Texas, conveyed eastwards to Indonesia, molded, assembled, and painted by some scarhanded sweatshopstress, then ponged back west to our local Walmart in the form of Aspen ski holiday Barbie, complete with hot pink runners, tiny googles, and a mini Stanley thermos. All for the mild price of $14.99.

Oh, you’re losing interest? You don’t want any further explanation? But I have this multivolume tract from an old economist named Böhm-Bawerk about the glories of roundabout production and… No? How about a short essay about a pencil then? Ditto no? Very well then. Remember, be a good girly and a pile of globally composed plastic, blasting, battery-booming thingamajigs awaits you on the big morning. And don’t even think about fibbing to notch yourself in the Good Kid column. Santa’s got a Ring camera in every home. He, and we, your parents, know when you’re sleeping, when you’re awake, and if you’ve been naughty or nice. Behold the panoptic joy of Christmas!

Free the People publishes opinion-based articles from contributing writers. The opinions and ideas expressed do not always reflect the opinions and ideas that Free the People endorses. We believe in free speech, and in providing a platform for open dialogue. Feel free to leave a comment.

By Lucy Wyndham

If you’re a fan of pop star and Wicked: For Good actor Ariana Grande, then you may have read a recent Instagram entry in which she addresses some of the unwanted attention she has received with the film’s release—attention centered not on the musical itself, but rather, on her body. An overwhelming percentage of comments on anything Wicked-related are heavily focused on her body. In particular, they commented that the star was “too thin,” that she was clearly demonstrating “signs of abuse,” or that she should “get help” for her “eating issues.” The comments are clear evidence of the fact that the vast majority of keyboard warriors see themselves as doctors, clinical dietitians, and psychologists. We are all free, it seems, to comment on others’ health and bodies, regardless of the impact to their actual health and well-being. Grande herself felt compelled to publish the following message: “There’s a [sic] comfortability that people have commenting on that, that I think is really dangerous. I think that I’m really lucky to have the support system that I have… But I do know what the pressure of that noise feels like. It’s been a resident in my life since I was 17, and I just don’t invite it in anymore. It’s not welcome.”

Where Freedom of Speech and Shame Intersect

The topic of body-shaming—particularly “fat shaming”—has been a hot media topic for the past couple of decades. Starting in the 1990s, the Body Positivity and Healthy at Every Size movements gained traction, promoting the acceptance of all body types. However, as Free the People creative director Sam Martin notes, the movement may be shooting itself in the foot in its attempts to equate fat phobia with many serious prejudices based on immutable characteristics such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. This is because many individuals in this movement seek to classify diet and nutrition as social justice rather than scientific issues. As such, it steers us away from what is arguably the most helpful approach—that of studying the psychological and physiological problems that make obesity such a difficult obstacle to overcome for so many. It stops those in need from understanding how losing fat rather than just weight can seriously reduce their risk of heart disease, diabetes, and many other chronic illnesses. In Martin’s view, fat activism “places the blame on society for not accepting and celebrating health at every size.” As such, it encourages people to reject the fact that obesity is a serious health problem.

Shaming Thinness

Grande’s situation demonstrates how a culture that is shaped by body-positivity rhetoric can end up reinforcing the very policing it deems so dangerous. If weight is a social or political issue, then bodies become symbols of ideological beliefs, and people assume that a person’s size says something about their values. In this case, for many, Grande has become a symbol of diet culture, of an individual who willingly rejects the idea of body positivity. And that means that it’s “okay” to judge her body. Ironically, the body positivity movement purports to stop us from judging others’ bodies. Yet because the movement focuses so strongly on body shape and exclusively celebrates specific body shapes, judging others’ bodies (including those deemed “too thin”) has become commonplace on social media and in our everyday interactions.

Finding a Sense of Balance

How, then, do we reconcile a wish to further human health, without embracing what Grande refers to as a “comfortability” with diagnosing or blatantly shaming others online? One could argue that the answer lies in reminding ourselves that we are dealing with real people with real lives. Our bodies are not free fodder for others to use in making political or moral statements. In the end, we must turn to science and think about the repercussions of our statements before making them. In the case of Grande, for instance, her apparent weight loss could be attributable to a host of factors we are unaware of. To assume either illness or an eating disorder, then police her based on our assumptions, is undoubtedly a dangerous pursuit. At the very least, thinking about the potential repercussions of our words is vital, since the very things we defend or criticize could end up worsening both public health outcomes related to obesity and eating disorders.

The body-activism movement has shown that, in many ways, it can cause more harm than good to the health of those who are overweight or obese. It is a wake-up call to the importance of viewing obesity from a scientific rather than a sociological or political perspective. It also reminds us that criticizing those who do not conform to one’s ideal shape can further the very conditions we so recklessly diagnose (if they actually exist, that is), including potentially life-threatening eating disorders.

Free the People publishes opinion-based articles from contributing writers. The opinions and ideas expressed do not always reflect the opinions and ideas that Free the People endorses. We believe in free speech, and in providing a platform for open dialogue. Feel free to leave a comment.

By Taylor Lewis 

Forgive me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, for filching your line: I felt a great disturbance in the Blueksy realm, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced with a maw-swallow of SSRIs.

A brinded image, dependent on your disposition. The left inkblot: The dashing coiffed collectivist with a heart capacious enough to gut Jeff Bezos in the street and shower the homeless shelter with redistributed Amazon.com profits versus the amber-glowing fascist who revels in stomping brown babies to death. The right Rorschach: the greatest, most conservingest conservative president in God’s United States putting a pipsqueak champagne socialist who’s never washed a dish or dug a ditch in his humiliating place.

The impression of the dozen “independents” who wander the lush America’s wilderness like unicorns: two unctuous hand-shakers who talk good game, but are powerless before the entropic machinations of liberal-democratic government.

Gotham mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met President Donald Trump in the Oval Office after months of exchanging more barbs than the Gallagher sibs after bombing Coachella. The confrontation was hyped to Tyson-Holyfield proportions. Would Mamdani sling his righteous shot at Goliath Trump? Could the President gnaw his new, blue bogey’s ear off? Or maybe… MAYBE… Melania Trump and Caroline Levy would bust through the Oval’s doors, clad in busty WWE lycra, and proceed to double-drop-kick the smarmy commisar out the window into the cemented Rose Garden? All while Dan Scavino TikToks the busomy team-up, soundtracking “YMCA” to the throwdown?

We weren’t treated to such instaviral hijinks. (Sad!) Our spectacle-addled senses received something stranger still: a congenial rapprochement, like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson sitting down to dinner after the Revolution of 1800.

Trump was conciliatory towards the man he was just calling Stalin’s keyster-kisser a week afore; Mamdani didn’t morph into a shrieking, purple-haired, septum-pierced scold, but stood still, flashing his snow-coated dentures. Contact theory affirmed. All naggish mothers shooing their layabout sons outside and off the PlayStation can take a victory lap around the kitchen. As George Orwell said, “when you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas.” Sh*t talk is easy on Twitter. But face to face, mano a mano, it’s easier to grin pleasantries.

The new broship elonged beyond pro forma photo ops. When Mamdani was quizzed about his previous reviling the President as a “fascist,” and if he still believed Trump was a grotesque chimera of Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet, a stammering, equivocal quasi-denial seemed imminent. Until a magnanimous Trump intervened to pull the stinger out: “That’s ok, you can just say yes. It’s easier than explaining.” Bullet dodged, powder keg defused, boiling pot cooled, starving alley mutts separated, awkward contretemps avoided! The President wasn’t even needled about his once assailing Mamdani as a “communist lunatic,” an epithet not entirely off the eye, but beyond polite company.

So was that it? We Americans, who aggressively cheer on grown men crashing into one another over a piece of stitched leather on Sundays, spoiled for a saber-clash, commie v. nationalistie. Instead of we were served The McLaughlin Group without the 8th grade crosstalk. The colloquy was a horseshoe of bland hopes to “succeed.” Even the Founders, those avatars of consensus, didn’t settle for such sunny conviviality.

The reason we were stripped of our national birthright of boxing pols has to do with the nature of Trump and Mamdani, who are two sides of the same canaille coin. Both are a cast of class traitor populares: of wealthy pedigree promising to cast clams upon the snapping demos. Soppy crowd pleasers know how to turn the dial on their attendant supporters. They also know when to holster arms and put on a smile show. So if the occasion demands a chummy handshake, then, by gum, those mitts will meet before the camera lens.

Donald Trump playing hospital host isn’t suprising: his personal style is all butterball and softsoap, even toward avowed enemies. (Hands aren’t the only needed to erect skyscrapers; lotsa lips-to-tush time is required.) Mamdani, in turn, is supposed to be a coldly moralistic ideologue, an Ernest Defrague willing to slit any billionaire’s jugular in hopes the carotid artery will splay gold upon the hoi polloi. Yet he can’t detach from the oleaginous sludge that is politicking.

Already, the reality of governance in our stare decicis system is styming Zohranomics. NYC tankies are shaking sickles at their red champion nominating real estate developers and financiers to his transition team. Police abolitionists are crying foul that Mamdani is keeping on Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. Tisch is a holdover from the blue-friendly Adams Administration—the opposite spectrum from Mamdani’s erstwhile “defund the police” for queer liberation stance. Even progressive-poli fans are being shin-split over the incoming mayor’s refusal to endorse against drip House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Democratic Socialists of America are receiving a harsh education in what the Tea Party of old once internalized: the trappings of authority defang the bitingest opposition. How long before restless leftists, fed up with the institutional obstacles to create a DMV greengrocer, start raising furious fist for a realsocialist mayor of America’s biggest city?

My money’s on next March.

Free the People publishes opinion-based articles from contributing writers. The opinions and ideas expressed do not always reflect the opinions and ideas that Free the People endorses. We believe in free speech, and in providing a platform for open dialogue. Feel free to leave a comment.