this is a really interesting thought from NYMag's fetterman article.
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“My name is” — a millisecond pause created the tiniest frisson of tension (was he going to have trouble with his own name?) before he unfurled that pink T-shirt and said — “John Fetterwoman!”
An enormous cheer of amusement, relief, and a desperate yearning for his speech to go well came up from the crowd.
I thought it went well; he did fine and appeared noticeably more hale than he had in clips that were circulating derisively around Labor Day just a week earlier. But afterward, my brother told me how scared and uncomfortable he felt bracing for a possible tangle of words or any pause that stretched an extra beat, worried that it would wind up as right-wing fodder. ***I wondered if my job, which has involved sitting exactly that way through every public appearance of the women in politics I’ve covered — understanding that any single slip or weird facial expression would be used to make them look weak or radical or dishonest or unhinged or stupid — had inured me to that feeling of raw and relentless exposure. My brother, perhaps like Fetterman, isn’t used to it.***
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