Avenatti gets sentenced; Adams will be NYC's next mayor; Why I'm worried about Planned Parenthood

Today, Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who became famous for representing Stormy Daniels for those who do not remember, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for attempting to extort Nike. For some time, beginning in 2018, he was all the rage on cable news and social media. There were even pieces written about him being the Democratic nominee for president in 2020 (seriously). In actual polls, he never made it past 1%. Still, that did not stop cable news from fawning over him and giving wall-to-wall coverage for months and many Democratic-aligned groups and organizations inviting him to speak and promoting him.

There were so many reasons why Avenatti 2020 was always a fantasy, not the least of which is that outside of social media and cable news bubbles nobody had heard of him. I think it is fair to say that anyone who promoted him should never be taken seriously again on anything. I don’t know if his Twitter account still exists, but all someone had to do to figure out who he is was to just take one look at it. It was beyond obvious that he was a con man and a terrible person. It would have been a surprise if he did not go to prison.

In his short time in the limelight, he did do some serious harm. Obviously, he did a whole bunch of damage to his clients and is facing separate charges for that, but he also did serious damage during the Brett Kavanaugh saga. For those who do not remember, Kavanaugh had 3 accusers. The first was the most credible, the second not very credible and the third completely non-credible. It was the third who was represented by Avenatti. I never took a position on whether Kavanaugh’s first accuser was right. There was no way to know what really happened and I did not want my partisan leanings to color things. What I did know was that the moment Avenatti showed up Kavanaugh would be confirmed. His obviously non-credible client helped undermine all of the accusations and drove any reluctant Republicans to vote to confirm. It was that third accuser who Kavanaugh was railing against when he went on his infamous rant in front of the Judiciary Committee.

I mention all this because, while Avenatti was never an important figure and was never going to be the Democratic nominee, he was obviously human garbage. That fact did not stop many people on the left and the Democratic side from embracing him. Why embrace someone so obviously terrible? Because he was an enemy of Trump. Yes, there is such a thing as disliking Trump too much. Those Democrats and left-wingers who embraced Avenatti allowed Trump to eat their brains and in doing so threw their lot in with someone who is every bit as devoid of morals as he is. Once again, those who treated the enemy of their enemy as their friend wound up in bed with fleas.

Eric Adams

After two weeks of snafus and incompetence of Olympic proportions from the NYC Board of Elections, we finally know who will be the Democratic nominee and almost certainly the next mayor of NYC. As I wrote before, this outcome is the least palatable for the left. Had I lived in NYC, I would have preferred Kathryn Garcia (Adams probably would have been my 2^nd or 3^rd choice) and she came very close. Still, I hope that Adams will be a good mayor and I certainly want him to succeed.

He assembled what was essentially a local version of the Biden coalition. That is to say he did well with almost every group except well to do, well-educated white liberals. He has a long background in politics and was a cop for 20 years. He essentially personifies what a typical non-white Democratic voter is. Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog knows how I feel about professional activists being treated as representing the groups they claim to speak for. Long story short, typical non-white Democratic voters are middle-of-the-road pragmatists, not woke socialists. They care about concrete issues like healthcare, crime, schools, safety, etc. They do not spend their time reading books on being an anti-racist nor do they obsess over abstract ideas of systemic racism or intersectionality.

Adams’ top issue when campaigning was crime. NYC has seen a surge in homicides, like virtually all cities have in the last year. While the activist left prefers to deny it or excuse it, actual voters are living it and are understandably not happy about it. They want someone who will deal with it AND who will demand police accountability. That is where Adams comes in. He is an advocate for both more policing and accountability. He does not want to defund the police and also does not want mass incarceration nor does he think police are perfect and can do no wrong.

Adams is offering Democrats a way to deal with the issue of crime. It is a serious issue and will continue to be one, especially with the pandemic receding in importance. Democrats cannot avoid the issue nor should they. Mass incarceration is not the answer. Democrats have an opportunity to show that they are serious about crime and that being serious about it and reforming policing are not mutually exclusive, but in fact go together. It is not either/or, but both and it has to be. If Democrats do not address the issue of crime, they risk ceding the issue to Republicans, which will not end well. The good news for Democrats is they have time to take up the issue as their own, especially with Republicans spending their time obsessing over “critical race theory” or whatever the latest cultural flavor of the week is.

Planned Parenthood and the problem of the insular left-wing non-profit world

Last summer, Planned Parenthood put out a statement supporting defunding the police. Yes, Planned Parenthood, a group devoted to reproductive health, supported defunding the police. Leaving aside how awful and toxic an idea defunding the police is, why would an organization whose mission has nothing to do with policing take a stand on such an issue? What I suspect is that Planned Parenthood's leadership, like the leadership of many left-wing non-profit groups, lives in an insular little world cut off from reality. These articles are a good rundown of that phenomenon.

The left-wing non-profit world is dominated by highly educated (mostly white) liberals. It is that group that is the most animated about things like race and gender identity and is most receptive to defunding the police. It is that group that is most likely to use language that normal people have never heard of, i.e., latinx, intersectional allies, antiracist, cisgender. It is also that group that is most receptive to messages about “systemic racism.” I do not know if there is reliable information on this, but I would bet that an overwhelming majority of people who read books like “How to be an Antiracist” are college-educated, white liberals.

I mention Planned Parenthood specifically because it is a vital organization that provides a wide array of critical services to many people who might not be able to get care otherwise. When I see a group like that inject themselves into a debate that has nothing to do with their mission and puts them on the wrong side of it, I worry. I worry that they are risking alienating a whole swath of people for no reason. All this because its insular leadership treated a tiny group of black activists as being representative of black voters.

In taking a toxically unpopular position, I worry that Planned Parenthood is alienating many of the people they help. I suspect many, if not most of the patients they serve are low-income. I highly doubt they want to defund the police and would not be happy to see Planned Parenthood taking that position. It makes no sense to risk alienating them and potentially hurting them if they no longer seek Planned Parenthood’s help. Simply put, there was nothing to gain for Planned Parenthood by taking that stance and plenty to lose. Now that it looks like defund the police is all but dead, it would serve Planned Parenthood (and other left-wing organizations) well to do some self-reflection about why they took a toxically unpopular stance that had nothing to do with their mission.

If you think I am overreacting to one statement, check out this op-ed by the current head of Planned Parenthood. Look at the language it uses. It refers to being a “Karen.” I don’t even know what that is and I’m very in the know about those kinds of things. It talks about privileging “whiteness.” Who talks like that? I really don’t think that op-ed was designed to sound insular, but if it was, I don’t know how it would have been written differently. If your goal is to alienate as many white people as possible and lose critical support, using a word like “whiteness” seems tailor made to do that.

To top it off, the op-ed actually apologizes for prioritizing women’s health. Yes, that’s right. An organization dedicated to promoting women’s health is apologizing for it. Apparently, doing so excludes non-binary people. I wonder how many of the women Planned Parenthood serves would react approvingly to that. How many of them have even heard of non-binary?

I really worry that Planned Parenthood, along with many other left-wing non-profits, is losing sight of who they really are supposed to be helping. Their goal is to improve reproductive health, not to check every woke box. Their beneficiaries are inevitably going to be women and that is fine. If someone wants to set up an organization dedicated to helping those who are non-binary, that is fine, but that is not Planned Parenthood’s mission and they would do well to remember that and who it is they are serving.

I really do not want to see Planned Parenthood’s work harmed. It is bad enough that they face constant threats from politicians, which should be plenty to worry about. That is not something they can entirely control. What they can entirely control is how they reach out to others for support and whether they needlessly alienate people. Being part of the abortion debate guarantees Planned Parenthood will always be controversial among some people. Alienating some is inevitable. What is not inevitable is alienating people for no reason and that is what living in an insular little world will do. If Planned Parenthood ever falls apart, it will not be because of the anti-abortion crowd. It will be because their leadership cocooned itself in the tiniest bubble and forgot about their mission and drove away supporters.