Jay RosenJan 2, 2023

A virtue of this profile of
Elise Stefanik by Nick Confessore is that it doesn't describe an ideological conversion.

Rather, Stefanik had no strong beliefs to begin with. Her rise is a simpler tale of ambition— and an emptiness inside. The profile is of the party's direction, as much as the person who went with it.

"Friends going back to Ms. Stefanik’s Harvard days struggled to identify any of her deeply held political beliefs at all."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/elise-stefanik.html?unlocked_article_code=ZqqumQpFaKiu36YmTlZOOTuDBVhlk4TtK8O2-2FC7sPTbFMlxwhApVFugrIV_l4-LS5oUtAJXr2GSlSqgirZdBOlymyvax8pIe-MyF0kA4ihpJiauxO7leeIb9--ksInVGbabZuloLX_nszTNxLB_P7WXJjF7dgusEVBDql-5t7R7y68tkwimey_870q2ZB0DctKhknmuE49Yybr_J6tjD3G9hiMlZGx1Gonbg2x9w6FvFLqqbGQAn2wWciRHKcBJwj459m4wzMxL0UmXKQX9DJjgcVitIkDLl63iGinQooM4TLmpszR1qzLSo-79DWxE7i0CYWtDpFyY1aN&smid=share-url

#journalism #uspolitics #uspol

The Invention of Elise Stefanik

To rise through the Trump-era G.O.P., a young congresswoman gave up her friends, her mentors and her ideals. Will it be enough?

The New York Times
Show threadKim ScheinbergJan 2, 2023

@jayrosen_nyu
I loved this piece. I mean, I hate the story it tells because it leaves me so pessimistic. But as a piece of journalism, it's one of the best things I read all year.

(And I'm oddly stuck on that detail that even with her Harvard resume and GWB policy council gig, she couldn't get into law school. We might have been better off if she'd been accepted somewhere.)

Show threadJosh BraunJan 2, 2023
@kims Random aside: This reminds me of a guy I once sublet from who used to tell a story about an accident in which he nearly struck baseball commissioner Bud Selig with his car. This was around the time GW Bush was purportedly interested in the commissioner’s job. The punchline was that had the guy run over Selig, the single act might simultaneously have saved baseball — by ending Selig’s reign — and US politics by diverting Bush’s political career.
Show threadWriteOrDieJan 2, 2023
@josh Oh my God. Don't do this to us. We're fragile. That alternative world... It's so beautiful.
Show threadJosh Braun
@11z I admit I think about it more often than I should. 😆
Jan 2, 2023 at 2:09pmWeb