Issue 5
Inside the Summer of Secret Service Failures
Molly O'Brien, News
August 31, 2024
In recent months, the Secret Service (USSS), the federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security to protect political leaders of the United States and their families, has faced scrutiny for several public failures and humiliations.
On July 13th, 2024, while speaking at an open-air campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, former president and, at the time, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidential election, Donald Trump, survived an assassination attempt that shocked the nation. Thomas Matthew Crooks fired his AR-15-style rifle eight times into the crowd from a rooftop just outside the USSS’s perimeter. One person died as a result of the shooting, as well as Crooks, who was shot down by the USSS’s sniper squad positioned on a nearby roof. Such a grave oversight in security planning raised many questions amongst the media and everyday Americans.
When protecting political candidates at rallies, the USSS is not the only law enforcement agency involved. In the case of the Butler shooting, local police officers were also on the scene to assist. As is the procedure, the USSS met with local law enforcement days before the rally. However, Butler police officers described this seemingly crucial meeting as “informal and disorganized.” Local law enforcement officials were left to come up with their own plan for guarding the rally. In fact, the USSS did not present their finalized plan until 1:30 pm on the day of the rally—30 minutes after doors had already opened.
The USSS had designated the roof that Crooks fired his gun from as a possible threat but believed that that portion of the rally was under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement. However, Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger disagrees, stating that the building was always “under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service.”
A lack of fluid communication also led to Crook being able to get to the roof. At 4:26 pm, a sniper spotted Crook breaching the barrier. He alerted another officer stationed nearby. The officers relayed that information back to the local command, who alerted the State Police, who then told the USSS. However, testimonies from Acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe revealed that the USSS never received any information about a potential shooter.
Post-shooting, former USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle faced intense questioning from members of Congress. She eventually resigned and was replaced by Rowe on July 23. Rowe told Senators that he was ashamed of the attempted assassination and would investigate the failures that led to Crook being able to fire his gun. Congress is also vowing to thoroughly investigate the incident. Since that time, five officers have been put on leave.
This incident, however, is not the only USSS failure this Summer. On July 27th, Vice President Kamala Harris held her rally in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Businesses in the town were alerted that they would need to shut down for a portion of the day for Vice President Harris to be properly protected. All of the business owners agreed, including Alicia Powers, owner of Four One Three Salon.
When Powers opened the salon later that day, she discovered a picked lock. After reviewing her exterior surveillance tapes, Powers discovered a person dressed like a member of the USSS tapping over the lens of the camera directly outside the building. Footage from inside the salon revealed several people going in and out of the salon for 90 minutes while the alarms went off, using the restroom and computers without permission.
Melissa McKenzie, a USSS spokesperson, said in an emailed statement to USA Today that "The USSS has since communicated with the affected business owner. We hold these relationships in the highest regard and our personnel would not enter, or instruct our partners to enter, a business without the owner’s permission."
As the 2024 Presidential election cycle heats up for its final months, the USSS’s job is more important than ever. The agency, despite its very public failures in recent months, must be on its A-game to protect the two presidential candidates. Acting Director Rowe has vowed to investigate the Agency's wrongdoings over the last month and to refocus on the primary job: protecting the people in charge of our government.
The Electoral College Has to Go
Caroline Blake, Opinion
August 31, 2024
Waking up on November 9th, 2016, I felt a sense of dread as I lugged my feet downstairs to breakfast. After growing increasingly anxious at CNN’s projection for the 45th president of the United States, I had told my mom to wake me if Hillary Clinton made a major comeback, but, unfortunately, that night I slept undisturbed.
As fourth-grade me tried to make sense of it all, various words kept getting thrown around by my parents, teachers, and more politically educated friends, but here were the ones I heard most often: “popular vote” and “Electoral College.” From my rudimentary understanding of American government, I believed that Hillary had simply been outvoted, a misconception my dad later corrected by explaining to me the system known as the Electoral College. My response: “That’s stupid.” While I might phrase it differently now, I maintain my fourth-grade stance, and here’s why.
Evolving since its founding in 1787, the Electoral College now consists of 538 electors. Electors are often state-elected officials, state party leaders, or political affiliates. To be elected President, a candidate must win a majority of 270 electoral votes. Each state is granted the same number of electors as members of its congressional delegation. For almost all of the states, the electoral votes are distributed on a “winner takes all” basis, meaning that whoever wins the state’s popular vote, no matter the margin, takes all of the state’s electoral votes. This winner-takes-all system reveals how a candidate can win the popular vote and still lose the election, a situation that has occurred on five separate occasions: the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. Before we dive into the way the Electoral College fails democracy, let’s start with its history.
Written into the Constitution by the founding fathers, the Electoral College began as a compromise between a presidential election by Congress and a presidential election by nationwide vote. Founders believed that voters would be ill-informed of the candidates running for president and therefore needed the Electoral College to serve as a voice of reason with the “information and discernment,” in Alexander Hamilton’s words, necessary to choose a president. Of course, in that era, a political “safety belt” may have made sense. However, nowadays, the development of political parties and campaigns, not to mention their social media presence and television coverage, teach voters much of what they need to know to make an educated and informed decision.
While the “safety belt” reasoning serves no real purpose anymore, it wasn’t the only motivation behind the institution of the Electoral College, and the other has left much more lasting and detrimental effects.
Before deciding how to choose a president, the founders had already made the three-fifths compromise, designating enslaved people as worth only three-fifths of a person. Thus, southern states were given electoral votes for three-fifths of their slave populations and by extension had a greater influence than northern ones on the electoral process. Consequently, even though the 1790 census lists Virginia and Pennsylvania as home to the same amount of free white male adults, the only eligible voters at that time, Virginia had 21 electoral votes to Pennsylvania’s 15. The only reason for their varying votes: Virginia had 292,627 enslaved residents to Pennsylvania’s 3,737.
In 1868, after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment withdrew the three-fifths clause. However, the 15th Amendment, supposedly meant to protect and legalize African Americans’ right to vote, actually intensified the Electoral College’s prejudice. Southern governments relished the House representation that their larger Black populations granted them but implemented discriminatory practices, like literacy tests and poll taxes, to prevent those very populations from voting.
Today, these decisions, made more than a century ago, harm Black voters, and by extension, our democracy. Many Black voters who live in reliably Republican states and thereby have electors who vote Republican don’t have as powerful an influence as the voters in more impactful states like those all-important “swing states.” While almost every voter who doesn’t live in a swing state possesses less power, according to a constitutional law scholar and professor at Brooklyn Law, Wilfred Codrington III, “[swing states are] not reflective of the country’s demographics” and “white voters are generally overrepresented.” In this way, white voters receive more power to make election-shifting decisions when voting.
This privilege extends beyond plain luck or coincidence of geography, as “One Difficulty…of a Serious Nature”: The Overlooked Racial Dynamics of the Electoral College, a qualitative analysis by William D. Blake, finds that “on average, as a state’s racial composition gets whiter, its electoral power increases.” Even more damning is the finding that “a state that is 10% whiter than the average state tends to have one extra electoral vote per million adult residents than the average state.”
In addition to its questionable history and disenfranchising racial biases, the Electoral College’s systemic process undermines democracy entirely. In the 21st century’s six elections so far, only once has the Republican candidate won the popular vote, yet we’ve had three Republican presidents in office. In other words, only once this century has a Republican president been elected by the majority of the people. In 2016, more Americans voted for Hilary Clinton than any other candidate who has ever lost the presidential election. The 2020 election was considered an extremely tight race, yet Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes and still almost lost. For a country that claims to be a champion of democracy for the rest of the world, the U.S. features an awful lot of minority rule.
The Electoral College creates a voting currency that differs from state to state. Vermont has voted blue in every presidential election for over 30 years, so voting in Vermont carries very little weight since its electoral votes will almost certainly go toward the Democrat. Meanwhile, voting in “swing” states, with more competitive elections, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona, can prove extremely valuable. Such disproportionate levels of power in individual citizens’ votes do not represent a democracy.
The Electoral College’s defenders believe that without the system, candidates would focus only on densely populated areas like the East and West Coast, leaving less populated areas neglected. While I think that’s a legitimate concern, it seems a bit hypocritical since, as things stand, some states already receive far more attention than others based on their contested electoral status. Whether states are populated or not, their populations make up America, and it should be America’s majority that chooses the president—not the few historically entitled states that decide the election for all.
The Electoral College’s impact on the upcoming election has yet to be seen, but it’ll undoubtedly determine our next president, and with it, the direction of the next four years. We must all unite to mobilize the political will to eliminate the deeply flawed Electoral College and defend our democratic integrity.
The Marketing of It Ends With Us
Delaney Single, Entertainment
August 31, 2024
Warning: This article discusses the topic of domestic violence
In the film It Ends with Us, which was released on August 9th of this year, the statement “It Ends With Us” is used to suggest the end of a cycle of domestic abuse with the film's female lead and her newborn daughter. So why do some argue that the marketing of the film has been more closely aligned with that of light-hearted romantic comedy?
The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller, It Ends With Us, has been greatly criticized from a marketing standpoint. It Ends With Us discusses extremely sensitive topics, with domestic abuse being the central theme. Many scenes in the movie depict or elude this domestic abuse. The main character, Lily Bloom, depicted by Blake Lively, is physically and *attempted* sexually abused by her then-husband, Ryle Kinkaid, depicted by Justin Baldoni. Lily lives in a cycle of spousal domestic abuse, growing up in a household where her father abused her mother.
Colleen Hoover, the author of the novel, and Blake Lively appear to share similar views on how the film should be marketed. However, according to BBC, one domestic abuse survivor “Ms. Paige accuses Lively of promoting it like it's ‘the sequel to Barbie’” in a TikTok. This is particularly concerning due to the fact that according to NPR, “The abuse [Lily] Bloom suffers at the hands of [Ryle] Kincaid in the film includes being pushed down a flight of stairs and attempted rape.” Lively has been criticized for shying away from discussing these serious elements of the film, and instead choosing to say “grab your friends and wear your florals” to encourage people to watch the film. Lively and Hoover appear to be in cahoots about the marketing style. Hoover’s website is full of promotions aligned with a light-hearted movie, “including an ad for press-on nails inspired by the film and “limited edition” jewelry tie-ins.”
Hoover and Lively’s marketing of the film, however, is not the only way the film is being discussed by its cast and creative team. Justin Baldoni, who portrays Ryle Kincaid, while doubling as a director, has discussed the domestic violence in the film through interviews, social media, and other press. Baldoni has long been outspoken about domestic abuse and women's rights to safety. According to ABC, “Baldoni said that it was important to partner with No More, a foundation dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence.” On his Instagram Baldoni’s page has content on domestic violence, in relation to the movie, and feminism. Baldoni links a resource for domestic violence help in his bio.
Rumors have circulated about a rift between Lively and Baldoni, likely due to their different views of the film and different marketing styles. While online, some have taken the side of Lively and some of Baldoni, Baldoni seems to have received more support, while Lively receives more criticism.
Brandon Sklenar, who plays Atlas, believes that his co-star Blake Lively has been wrongly portrayed in the media. On social media, Sklenar stated “Colleen and the women of this cast stand for hope, perseverance, and for women choosing a better life for themselves. While many of the film’s viewers speculate, they may never know what truly occurred behind the scenes, still, they're eager to choose sides in this marketing battle.
The False Promise of Private Schools
Eliot Bicknell
August 31, 2024
Private education is fundamentally unfair. Education is the greatest resource we can offer to our youth, and yet it is distributed according to wealth. Private schools exacerbate inequality, segregate children based on race and economic class, and serve as a symbol of liberal hypocrisy. Not only do the tax breaks and vouchers on private schools take funding away from other, less privileged children, but they also hurt the rich kids in private schools, who are stripped away from the diversity and perspective they so desperately need.
The moral issues with private education seem almost too obvious. How could we have missed such clear-cut inequities? The truth is, we haven’t. We’ve just turned a blind eye. On the left, we pride ourselves on an agenda of progression and equality. And yet many of us send our children to private schools, a direct contradiction with our liberal ideals.
Of course, there are some children who really are better served in a private school setting. Children with learning disabilities may need the extra help a private school can provide. But for the majority of children, private school is class-based segregation, widening the gap between the kids who can afford it and kids who can’t. In other words, the rich get richer. And while racist and elitist ideas often play a part in the decision to send children to a private school, can parents really be blamed for wanting the best for their children academically?
In a way, these parents are right; elite private schools can be better for collecting accolades and connections, and a more effective gateway to a well-paying corporate job. But this is an entirely narrow-minded view of what education should be. According to Jack Schneider, author of The Education Wars and historian at UMass Amherst, providing economic opportunity is only a slice of what education should accomplish. When I got the chance to talk to him, he mentioned two other educational goals: communal advancement and gaining perspective. These are areas in which private education is certainly lacking. For the most part, affluent white kids are surrounded by other affluent white kids. While there are some diversity and financial aid efforts made at private schools, especially in the northeast, it is not nearly enough to offset the significant economic and racial gap between public and private schools. While minority enrollment is about 53 percent nationally in public schools, that number drops to 35 percent for private schools, not to mention the wide economic disparity between them.
Public school students are generally surrounded by kids who are different from them, in terms of upbringing, race, and economic class, whereas private school students are generally around those who are similar to them within the previously mentioned criteria. In this way, public school provides a more effective social education for children.
This conversation is an especially important one considering the war many right-leaning figures are currently waging on public education, the war being the rhetoric that “our public school system is failing.” When parents were asked about their satisfaction with the nation’s education system as a whole, they generally said they were dissatisfied. However, when asked about their own child’s school they were usually pretty content. This contradiction clearly illustrates the gap between the perceived failures of public schools at large, generally pushed by conservatives, and the pretty high level of approval most have, personally, with their own children’s schools. According to Dr. Schneider, “The flames of culture war are being fanned by people who are using it as a way of prying people’s sympathies away from public schools, and towards vouchers and a privatized education system.”
Some Republicans want to push education into a free market system, where all children have to attend private schools, whether they can afford it or not, and they are doing so through the spreading of misinformation surrounding the quality of our public schools. This would effectively turn education in America from an unalienable right to a privilege, and the process is already well underway.
With the recent introduction of school vouchers in 14 states, education tax dollars are going toward private schools. If parents decide not to send their children to private school, they can receive 7,000 dollars of taxpayer money for private school tuition. While said to be intended to give poorer children the choice to go to private schools, vouchers are mainly being used by parents who could already afford private schools. They are thus an active subsidization of private schools, taking public education money away from kids who truly need it, and redistributing it to already wealthy families. Not to mention that 7,000 dollars is not nearly enough to help cover private tuition for most families.
While it’s hard to fault parents, with their children’s best interests at heart, for sending their kids to private schools, these parents are often heavily misinformed. Public education is a genuinely great option for most children, and too many families have been swayed by the conservative agenda to end public education. As Americans, we need to rally around our public schools, protecting the millions of children who benefit so greatly from them.
Contributing Illustrator, Sophie Min
Jellycats Are Clawing Their Way to Adult Popularity
Francesca Lesinski
August 31, 2024
The stuffed animal brand Jellycat has been around for 25 years, and so has one of its main demographics. Marketed toward “people of all ages,” Jellycat is experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity among adults.
The owner of Beverly Hills children’s boutique English Rabbit, Kelly Dowdy, has been selling Jellycats since the store first opened in 2017. While English Rabbit primarily sells clothing, Dowdy said adults are stopping in to exclusively shop for Jellycats. Once a quarter, a man in his sixties walks into her store to purchase a Jellycat, Dowdy said.
“We have a regular who collects them,” Dowdy said. “He has bought clothes before, but they were for the Jellycats. And our clothes are high price, so he’s treating his Jellycats the way someone with the highest-level income is treating their children.”
Dowdy said she now sells an equal number of Jellycats to adults as she does to children under six. In the past year, English Rabbit made $30,000 in revenue from Jellycat sales alone, selling 52 in June.
A study released by Glimpse in June 2024 estimates that consumer interest in Jellycat grew by 83% in the last year. Dowdy said she partially accredits this Jellycat “craze” to TikTok influencers.
“Ever since TikTok started, there’s been a huge increase, not necessarily with kids, because that’s maintained about the same, but it’s with the adults coming in to buy them,” Dowdy said. “We now get phone calls and DMs with people looking for specific ones that are hard to find.”
Based in London, Jellycat has expanded to 77 countries and developed global fandoms on social media platforms such as Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and X. One of 22,000 members of the "r/Jellycatplush" subreddit, Elisheva Hernandez, 24, started collecting Jellycats in 2018, before they became viral on social media. Together, she and her husband own 36 Jellycats.
“I would definitely say that social media affected demand, especially TikTok,” Hernandez said. “I think the variety of options they have allows young people to feel like they’re expressing individuality while also participating in a trend.”
Associate Director of Merchandising at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Chay Costello, 49, said that the MoMA Design Store has been carrying Jellycats for over a decade. Their SoHo location recently hosted an event that presented MoMA’s expanded selection of summer Jellycats.
“The appeal is immediately recognizable,” Costello said. “People walk into our stores, see a display of Jellycats and are immediately engaged. People know which of the Jellycats is the one for them.”
The Supervisor of the Children’s Department at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, Maya Ledesma, said that as a young woman, she, too, understands Jellycats' consumer appeal.
“They are very cute, but then there's also a bit of trendiness to them,” Ledesma said. “I think it’s a little signifier of ‘hey, I like cute things,’ and ‘you like cute things, too.’”
Ledesma said many adults inquire about specific Jellycats posted on social media. On Tiktok, #jellycat appears in over 109,000 posts, which she said has normalized adults buying children’s toys. Due to this increased demand, she said Vroman’s Bookstore orders a new shipment of Jellycats every week to maintain its stock.
“Jellycats have been an item that we’ve consistently sold very high sales of, but in the last few months, we’ve had a lot more people coming in,” Ledesma said. “It was so surprising when people first started coming in after seeing them on TikTok, but it’s good for the store.”
Prominent social media influencers such as Spencer Barbosa have posted TikTok videos displaying their Jellycat collections.
With 10.2 million followers on TikTok, Barbosa amassed 99,900 likes on a TikTok with the caption “jellycat pls sponsor me im insane #girls #jellycat #trend.”
“I am one of those grown women who collect Jellycats and every single one of them has a name,” Barbosa said in the video. “It’s literally insane, I’m 21, why do I sleep with 14 stuffed animals?”
Other Tiktok users, including Ro Mitchell, Lauren Victoria and Chloe Vaughan, have posted themselves visiting popular Jellycat pop-ups such as the Fish and Chip Shop in London, the Diner in New York City and the Pâtisserie in Paris, respectively.
American Rag Cie Manager Micheal Sanders, 41, said that despite not being aware of a social media trend popularizing the brand, he has also noticed an increase in consumer interest. “We continue to get restocks and we continue to sell them, so the demand is clearly there,” Sanders said.
Aside from social media, all three carriers said the high demand might be a residual effect of supply chain issues the company encountered during Covid. “Jellycat had issues keeping their products in stock and couldn’t fulfill orders, so we couldn’t get them,” Dowdy said. “People started wanting them more because they couldn’t get them.
The CEO of Jellycat, Arnaud Meysselle, wrote via email, “Only the fans and the products do the talking at Jellycat.”
Female Rage in the Media, Have Women and Girls Had Enough?
Juliana Madriñán
August 31, 2024
In a recent wave of films and music, female characters and artists are unapologetically embracing their anger. From Mia Goth's intense performance in Pearl to Olivia Rodrigo's anthemic songs about heartbreak, these portrayals are resonating with audiences and sparking a conversation about female rage.
The #FemaleRage movement has gained significant momentum online and beyond, with women using social media as a springboard to share their personal experiences, connect with others who feel similarly, and challenge societal expectations that have long dictated how women should express their emotions (as seen in the BBC Culture article, "Female Rage: The Brutal New Icons of Film and TV"). This online community has become a powerful platform for expressing frustration and advocating for change.
Many women find it empowering to see other women expressing their anger on screen. Actress Florence Pugh attracted viewers with her portrayal of Don’t Worry Darling’s Alice Chambers, who discovers that her life is controlled by her husband in a false reality. In her portrayal, Pugh lets go of suppressed emotions and expresses her frustration with true intensity. This trend isn't exclusive to movies, however. Musicians like Paris Paloma are weaving stories of simmering female anger into their songs.
Watching someone's justified rage play out on screen resonates powerfully with women, who have spent years bottling up their frustrations to conform to societal expectations. It's a reminder that anger is a normal emotion that all humans experience and therefore should be allowed to express without judgment.
Unfortunately, while some might cheer on a woman for taking control and showing her power, others—especially some men—might see her anger as out of control or hysterical. There's a double standard here: male anger connotes strength and assertiveness whereas female anger is often misunderstood as dramatic.
It's important to acknowledge that while the portrayal of female anger in popular culture can be empowering, it's essential to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes or promoting unhealthy expressions of anger. While the #FemaleRage movement has been instrumental in challenging societal expectations, it's also crucial to recognize that excessive or uncontrolled anger can have negative consequences.
One potential concern is the romanticization of physical conflict or violence in some portrayals of female anger. While it's important to acknowledge that women may sometimes need to defend themselves, glorifying physical violence can be harmful, particularly for young viewers. Additionally, there is a risk of promoting emotional abuse if rage is portrayed as a healthy way to express frustration in all situations. It's essential to distinguish between expressing anger constructively and using it to manipulate or control others.
Despite these potential risks, the benefits of showcasing female anger in popular culture often outweigh the drawbacks. By validating women's emotions and challenging societal expectations, these portrayals can empower individuals to express their anger in healthy and productive ways. Moreover, they can inspire positive social change by motivating people to stand up for what they believe in and fight for a more just and equitable society.