Volume 2, Issue 75: I Love My Label

I had an old classmate and colleague in college who refused to ever go to Wendy's. (College is the only time in one's life when "loudly making self-righteous political stances every time you walk in a room" and "eating at Wendy's on a semi-regular basis" could possibly overlap.) Her argument -- which she would happily recite to all of us every time a Wendy's commercial came on television, we walked past a Wendy's or she simply met someone with red hair or pigtails -- was that Dave Thomas, the kindly old founder of Wendy's, was a Fascist. That's the actual word she used: Fascist. I miss when "Fascist" was a word only college students and high school social studies teachers used. I'm pretty sure I saw it 11 times before lunch today.

Dave Thomas, she lectured with precision, was pro-life and, in fact, actively tried to shut down Planned Parenthood clinics across the country. His whole enterprise was based on this ideology, she said: He wanted to end legal abortion, and every hamburger you ate there contributed to pro-life causes. If you ate a Frosty at Wendy's, you might as well be screaming at a woman outside an abortion clinic yourself. So she wouldn't go in. She wouldn't support that. And you shouldn't either.

Twenty-plus years later, I am not entirely certain this is true. Thomas was a registered Republican, which means, demographically speaking (white, male, old, rich, Republican), he was probably pro-life. But I can't find a single public statement he ever made about abortion. (I just spent way too much time out of my Friday afternoon looking for it too.) He was a passionate pro-adoption advocate, starting the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, which many (including many pro-life advocates eager to use Thomas' positive public image for their own purposes) have taken as the equivalent of being passionately pro-life, but it strikes me as more likely Thomas was motivated by his own story than any sort of specific ideology. Thomas was adopted from foster care at six weeks old and lost his own adopted mother at the age of five, instilling in him a lifelong empathy for orphans and those in foster care. The purpose of his foundation -- regardless of what purposes other politically driven people have attempted to paint it as -- is to find homes for the tens of thousands of children currently in foster care. That's it. All Thomas wanted to do was get kids like him into homes, not to use adoption as a cudgel against those in support of legal abortion. You can even argue that Thomas was progressive for his time; as early as 1993, he was in support of LGBT couples being able to adopt, saying, "Every child deserves a home and love. Period." If Dave Thomas was out there talking about bombing abortion clinics, the national pitchman and one of the most recognizable people in American capitalism did it so quietly that no one thought to point it out.

I didn't know any of this back in college, though, and the internet connection at the Daily Illini was way too slow for me to do much research on it. I just went to Steak & Shake instead of Wendy's. Who needs that kind of headache? I just want a cheeseburger.

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One of the great jokes of The Good Place, which returns for its final season later this month, is that the idea of a point system for the afterlife, a tally where, if the number of good things you do is outnumbered by the number of bad things, you get to go go heaven and if it doesn't you do to "the bad place," is inherently unfair -- that the way the world is currently structured, it's impossible to end up on the positive side of the ledger. The third season was all about this realization: Good deeds have unforeseen bad consequences, small seemingly insignificant decisions can both come from others' past suffering and result in new suffering, no moral position can ever be separated from the context that surrounds it. Ted Danson's Michael discovers, once he learns that no one has made it to The Good Place in more than 500 years, that the world is too complicated for anything as simple as "good" and "bad," and that everything you do carries with it an inherent bit of blame, intentional or not. By playing the game, you're already guilty.

I think about this a lot, and not just because of The Good Place, which is a fun, inventive show I greatly enjoy but which also ran out of steam a little last year and somehow still hasn't sold me on the Chidi-Eleanor relationship. By the simple nature of walking around the world freely and happily, I'm implicit in many of the crimes of the past that have allowed me to do so. (Particularly as a 43-year-old straight white dude.) Does that mean that I should be walking around apologizing to everyone all the time? No. But it also means I can't pretend that every positive thing that has happened to me is entirely because of my own wits, smarts and good cheer. (This was the subtext to my big New York cover story last year.) This strikes me as basic good human citizenship: Understanding the perspectives of those different than you, being open to understanding and recontextualizing your history and the history of those who came before you, not acting as if that you've already learned everything you need to learn and knee-jerk rejecting any new information that might be somewhat inconvenient to your existing worldview. I am not always perfect about this, or even close. But I am trying.

What I am hesitant to embrace, however, is the exact sort of broad-based, one-size-fits-all, performative "activism" that my old college friend was practicing with her Wendy's ban, the sort of check-mark straight-ballot, I'm-doing-something! empty gestures that have become the modus operandi of many in this current age. This usually takes the form of some sort of social media campaign, a little sliver of outrage, Delta did what, how in the world could Taco Bell support that, well that's it I'll never support Bryson's Sweeper Shop ever again. Even if has some justification, more justification than hating Dave Thomas anyway, it strikes me as one of the laziest forms of activism. It is passive in the purest sense, a way to show that you would be willing to take a stand for something as long as it doesn't require you to, you know, actually have to do anything. This can be harmless, like the person who clucks his tongue at you when you stop by Chick-fil-A because you only have 15 minutes between soccer practice and tennis practice and you are not getting your kids a damn Happy Meal have some freaking self respect, or it can be weaponized, most famously by Gamergate types to bend spineless, clueless corporations to their will. But it seems the emptiest sort of activism there is. So you have canceled your Equinox membership -- or, more probable, just froze it -- because the company's CEO hosts Trump fundraisers. I am glad you did this! That guy sucks! But that one's activism consists solely of shifting one's expendable self-help income from one luxury item to another does not exactly persuade me of one's dedication to a life of public service.

Look: I get it. I understand the idea. It's absolutely terrifying out there these days, and you want to be able to do something. Life's really hard. You only have time to do so much. But the performative aspect of this, I'd argue, can cancel out any good work you might produce out of it; it can make it look like you're in this just to make yourself feel better than actual trying to do something to better the world. It can be just shallow scolding. I am sure there are people out there silently boycotting certain businesses whose politics they disagree with but not loudly telling everyone about it; just one of those little decisions one makes for one's own personal reasons. But they are vastly outnumbered by people who are eager to tell you how much better than you they are.

It can feel like blind dogma rather than finding little ways to make this increasingly horrifying world better. Pete Buttigieg made headlines earlier this year for using the loaded term "virtue signaling" when referring to people not eating at Chick-fil-A, but what got lost was the larger context of his statement.

“If you’re turned off, as I am, by the political behavior of Chick-fil-A or their executives — if that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, so to speak, and you decide not to shop there, I’d certainly get it and I’d support that. But the reality is, we, I think, sometimes slip into a sort of virtue signaling in some cases where we’re not really being consistent. I mean, what about all the other places we get our chicken from?

That seems exactly right. Saying "I won't go to Chick-fil-A" is not a political statement; it's a consumerist one. There is nothing wrong with not going to Chick-fil-A because you do not like what its owner's personal beliefs are. I just hope that's not all you're doing. And I hope you are not judging the decisions that other people make while they're just trying to trudge their way through their lives, going through their own personal calculus on this and all other matters. Or, to put it another way: If I only eat at the restaurants and food providers owned by CEOs with whom I agree on everything politically, I am going to freaking starve.

There's no right answer to this. Everyone has to figure out their own way through all this. This is a harrowing time. The ongoing fiasco of American government over the past three years, and the racism and misogyny and narcissism and incompetence and downright cruelty that comes from the very top, has inspired me to become politically vocal and active and engaged in ways I never imagined myself ever doing so in the past. We all have to do something. But there is "doing something" and there is "making an incredibly minor non-sacrifice that doesn't affect your life or the life of anyone who needs help in any tangible way while making sure everyone knows how proud you are of yourself for it." It can feel like the latter is winning. It can feel like the latter is all there is.

Also, Frosty's have always driven me crazy. Are you ice cream? Are you a milkshake? WHICH IS IT. Mother. Father. Forever you wrestle inside me.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality. You may disagree. It is your wont.

1. Review: "It, Chapter Two," Paste Magazine. I hadn't written a movie review in more than a month. So I was happy to do this one, even if the movie is nearly three hours long.

2. Data Decade: Best Pennant Chases of the Decade, MLB.com. The pennant chases are getting worse, not better.

3. What Is Fandom Now, Exactly? New York. This has some good ideas, but I'm not sure I whittled them down to a coherent whole.

4. Imagining 2020 Superteams, MLB.com. I like the idea of all the former World Series MVPs who are free agents -- there are six! -- coming together like Voltron.

5. Stephen King Movies, Ranked and Updated, Vulture. There have been a lot of Stephen King movies.

6. Debate Club: Best "The Shining" Theories, MLB.com. Go watch Room 237 again if you get the chance.

7. The Thirty: Top Pending Free Agent on Every Team, MLB.com. Time to start thinking about that already.

8. If the Season Ended Today ... MLB.com. A cheap extra piece each week!

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, Grierson's still in Toronto, but I introduced our Grierson and Leitch Conversations series with a discussion with Jessica Pressler, my NYmag colleague and author of the story that inspired Hustlers.

Seeing Red, Bernie and I are still talking about a first-place team.

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, we reviewed the Vanderbilt game, and previewed the Murray State game.

THE WILL LEITCH SHOW

Season Three has been slightly delayed, but only slightly. Catch up on all the ones you've missed on Amazon or on SI TV.

GET THIS LUNATIC OUT OF HERE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL POWER RANKINGS

It occurs to me that I am the only person who is still counting Miramar, Florida mayor Wayne Messam in these rankings. I'm going to stop doing that. He's not even responding to invitations to speak in New Hampshire, and he doesn't seem to have done a single event in weeks. If the debates can winnow, so can I. Plus, wow, check out the Buzzfeed story on his "campaign." You're out, Messam!

By the way, that debate is next week. I am this close to making a change atop these rankings -- my first one since we started -- but I'm waiting for the debate before making the plunge.

1. Kamala Harris
2. Elizabeth Warren
3. Beto O'Rourke
4. Cory Booker
5. Amy Klobuchar
6. Steve Bullock
7. Pete Buttigieg
8. Joe Biden
9. Bernie Sanders
10. Julian Castro
11. Michael Bennet
12. Tulsi Gabbard
13. Tim Ryan
14. William Weld
15. Marianne Williamson
16. Tom Steyer
17. Bill de Blasio
18. Andrew Yang
19. John Delaney
20. Joe Walsh

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

Write me!

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

"Sunday Driver," The Raconteurs. I enjoy this new album, but it's really wild how Classic Rock the Raconteurs became between albums. This sort of feels like the Traveling Wilburys now? Jack White is actually as old as George Harrison was when the Traveling Wilburys formed. (So am I, actually.)

Always dance like no one's watching.

Have a great weekend, all.



Best,
Will