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Wasn't sure where to put this, but we need a thread for the wing nuts. Lauren Boebert.
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Never heard of the product before or the right's love of nicotine
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After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a federal probe into "Zyn" nicotine pouches last week, the GOP backlash was swift. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a "Zynsurrection." Other GOP lawmakers, outing themselves as Zyn users, urged Schumer to "come and take it." Among them was Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who told Business Insider that he took up the product "four or five years ago" as a safer alternative to the cancer-causing spitless tobacco he once used.
A talking point quickly materialized. "Unfortunately Chuck Schumer is more focused on Zyn Pouches than he is about Fentanyl pouring over our border," wrote Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
But beneath the standard partisan messaging, or earnest harm-reduction advocacy of former tobacco users, is something decidedly less mainstream: a subculture on the right that doesn't just tolerate nicotine use, but venerates it.
"It's been a massive life-enhancer," former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said of nicotine on an episode of the "Full Send" podcast last year. "It increases mental acuity, raises your testosterone level, it may be a prophylactic against Alzheimer's and Parkinson's."
Peter Thiel, the right-wing tech billionaire who wields an outsize financial influence on the emerging "New Right," told The Atlantic last year that he was considering getting into nicotine patches, a therapy typically used to ween people off of smoking, because the drug may be a "really good nootropic drug that raises your IQ 10 points."
That's not to say the outrage is all coming from this particular subset, especially when it comes to members of Congress. Burchett, for example, told BI he "had to Google it to find out what it is." Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the youngest GOP member of the chamber and one who acknowledges being "plugged into a lot of weird right-wing subcultures," also indicated little knowledge of the right-wing hankering for nicotine.
"My Senate office probably has the highest ratio of smokers of anybody in the US Senate," Vance offered. "So there's probably something to be said there."
Rather, the Zyn craze is most visible among younger, more online, and predominantly male conservatives, including those who staff GOP congressional offices and campaigns.
A variety of factors drive the proliferation of nicotine among the younger right-wing crowd. Demographically speaking, many young professional Republicans come from fraternity houses, sports teams, or other contexts where nicotine use is common. It's also the case that Capitol Hill and campaigns tend to be high-pressure environments where consumption of caffeine and alcohol is known to be rampant...............
A darker layer in all of this is a Carlson-inspired critique of the left's approach to drug regulation writ large, including the fentanyl crisis in the US and the ongoing push to legalize marijuana.
"They hate nicotine. They love THC," Carlson said in a now-infamous monologue on his Fox News show last year, referring to the main psychoactive component in marijuana. "They are promoting weed to your children but they're not letting you use tobacco or even non-tobacco nicotine delivery devices which don't cause cancer. Why do they hate nicotine? Because nicotine frees your mind, and THC makes you compliant and passive. That's why."
Others take a similar, though less conspiratorial approach to the matter.
"Nicotine, when disaggregated from cigarettes, is a pro-society drug," said Enjeti. "There's currently a major institutional-left push to legalize drugs I would call anti-society."
Enjeti also made something of a traditionalist argument, noting that high nicotine use correlated with a time that many consider to be a golden age in American innovation and growth.
"Some of the people that we respect most, including great thinkers, builders, and others who advanced society and really made us a great country, were all prolific nicotine users," said Enjeti. "And then we all decided to shut that off."...............
Inside the weird, nicotine-obsessed subculture that's lurking within the Republican party
Beneath the GOP outrage over a potential Zyn crackdown lies an online subculture that doesn't just tolerate, but venerates nicotine use.www.businessinsider.com
I think it’s actually stupidity AND malice
I think it’s actually stupidity AND malice
Pales in comparison to having PCP coursing through your veins. Wimpy betas.As Greg Price, the communications director at the State Freedom Caucus Network, told Semafor this year: “A man with nicotine, protein, caffeine, and creatine coursing through his veins is an unstoppable force.”…..
in other words a real person. they want a helpmeet.
Starbuck is a piece of schlitz.Robby Starbuck, a former Hollywood music video director turned conservative activist, has caught fire campaigning online against some major American brands’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI), support for gay Pride marches and LGBTQ events, strategies to slow climate change and other social policies.
Starbuck is both riding a wave of right-wing hostility to DEI programs and corporate advocacy on issues like climate change and LGBTQ rights and advancing the opposition himself. He has channeled energy on the right to target specific brands popular with politically conservative customers — Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere — and relentlessly drawn attention online to their past publicly-stated policies. Starbuck has also claimed credit for Brown-Forman and Lowe’s internal announcements in recent weeks to scale back some of their diversity and inclusion programs.
Starbuck has selected brands whose programs on some of these issues were only implemented in recent years and may be less likely to resist pressure. The full impact of his activism is not entirely clear, but companies are rethinking their programs amid a changing political environment and online pressure.
Starbuck told CNN in a phone interview last month that he is “exposing” companies. But more than anything, Starbuck is showing how “haphazard” many companies’ support for diversity, inclusion and climate programs were to start, said Shaun Harper, a professor of education and business at the University of Southern California and founder and executive director of its Race and Equity Center.
“The larger takeaway is about the fragility of corporate DEI initiatives. If one person can take to Twitter and ultimately inflame a campaign to dismantle DEI in large companies, it means those things were not strong to begin with,” Harper said. “Most companies and the people who lead them were not committed to this in the first place.”
Starbuck, 35, whose real name is Robert Starbuck Newsom, lives outside of Nashville with his wife, Landon, and their three school-age kids. Landon Starbuck has been a leading advocate in Tennessee for right-wing causes like banning both transgender-affirming medical care for minors and drag shows with children present.
Starbuck’s X account has more than a half-million followers. His posts and videos on the companies have been amplified by both customers and prominent right-wing leaders like Elon Musk.
Starbuck told CNN that corporate DEI programs — generally a mix of employee training, resource networks and recruiting practices to encourage representation among people of different races, genders, classes and other identities— are “evil” and a “Trojan horse for pushing leftism.”
Corporate policies to slow down the effects of human-caused climate change do “nothing positive for society,” he said. The climate has “always changed,” Starbuck said, and human beings have “very little control” over it. (This is false. It is the overwhelming consensus of scientists that human-generated fossil fuel pollution – what comes from burning coal, gas and oil – is the primary cause of global warming.)
And gay pride parades and LBGTQ events, which are held to celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, who until 2020 were legally allowed to be fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation, promote sex to children, Starbuck said, so companies should stop sponsoring them. (Eric Bloem, the vice president of programs and corporate advocacy at the Human Rights Campaign, said that “Pride has always been about celebrating, affirming, and uplifting LGBTQ+ people” and rejecting “intimidation and fear from those who try to silence us.”)
Starbuck said he has two employees who help him research companies’ policies and executives’ backgrounds. He said he is not receiving outside funding and is self-funding his efforts. He also relies on $5 monthly payments from subscribers on X, although he declined to share how many people subscribed. Starbuck also promotes miscellaneous products such as t-shirts, books, supplements and other products on his Linktree website.
He told CNN that he wants corporate America to stay out of social issues and is only interested in pushing a “neutral” stance. “It’s corporate accountability for companies that depend on conservative consumers,” he said.
But Starbuck, who was endorsed by Republican Sen. Rand Paul and right-wing activists like Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens when he ran unsuccessfully as a write-in candidate in a 2022 Republican congressional primary, is not promoting a neutral agenda, said Brayden King, a professor of management and organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
“The phrase ‘neutrality’ is often used by activists who are pushing a non-neutral agenda. It’s a clever frame used by activists to get them to do what activists want,” King said............
The right-wing activist riding a wave of opposition to DEI in corporate America | CNN Business
Robby Starbuck, a former Hollywood music video director and turned conservative activist, has caught fire campaigning online against some major American brands’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI), support for gay Pride marches and LGBTQ events, strategies to slow climate change and...www.cnn.com
So Dale, what you're saying is that all Christian men are weak, insecure cowards who can't handle a woman who insists on being treated like a full human being with value, skills and opinions of her own.
And my dingy arse sitting here saying, "Wait. @MT15's real name is Dale?"So Dale, what you're saying is that all Christian men are weak, insecure cowards who can't handle a woman who insists on being treated like a full human being with value, skills and opinions of her own.
How sad.
You even know better, don’t you?