The Question
Do George Santos' fibs disqualify him from office?
Talking Points
- Favourites dropped like flies at the Australian Open
- A plane crashed in Nepal, killing all 72 onboard
- India slammed a BBC documentary about Modi
- One million marched in France over retirement changes
- Italian police caught a mafia don after 30 years on the run
- Ukraine's Interior Minister died in a helicopter crash
- A serial rapist was discovered at the top of the Met
- Reed Hastings stepped down as CEO of Netflix
- Flailing crypto firm Genesis filed for bankruptcy
- Alec Baldwin faced manslaughter charges for Rust shooting
Deep Dive
It's time to sit down and talk about Andrew Tate. It may be confusing and embarrassing but it is for your own good.
Who is Andrew Tate?
In late December, Romanian police raided a number of properties in Bucharest to smash a sex-trafficking ring. Two American-English brothers and two Romanian women were taken into custody on charges of human trafficking, rape, and organised crime . Six women have given testimony that they were squirrelled across borders, sexually assaulted, and forced into online sex work. Over the coming months, the Romanian judicial system will apportion culpability. But of the four accused, only one is making international news. At the centre of this storm is Andrew Tate: one of the biggest TikTok personalities, and a proudly self-proclaimed "misogynist influencer". Authorities have seized multiple properties and millions of euros worth of luxury vehicles from Tate: all profits from an alleged criminal enterprise.
How did he get here? Born stateside in a home of contrasts: his father was a chess International Master, his mother a culinary assistant. When the parents divorced, his mother took Andrew and his brother back to her native England. After high school, Tate began training as a kickboxer and worked as a TV producer. He was a skilled fighter in mid-tier European competitions: going 76-9 across his career with 23 knockouts. But it was his day job in the media that set him up for his second chapter. In 2016, this good-but-not-spectacular kickboxer turned up on Big Brother UK. All of a sudden his social media presence was being read by a wider audience: it was full of studied, intense misogyny . News soon followed that he was under investigation by the police for physically abusing a woman. He was kicked off the show within a week.
But in that week he had already established his name and garnered plenty of followers. Tate clothed himself in the reactionary right-wing views that were commonplace online in the late 2010s. He preached a muscular brand of masculinity that was fed by a hatred of women: they were to be controlled, used for sex, and punished. He bore his misogyny proudly, partly to 'trigger the libs' and partly because it fit. It's believed that he was running cam-girls in London for years. When the abuse investigations got too hot, he moved to Romania, stating that the ease of evading rape charges in that country was "about 40% of the reason" for moving.
Limelights, Cam-girls, and action
All the while his fame grew — particularly on TikTok. In all his posts, Tate would pose beside Ferraris or lounge among masses of bikini clad women. He preached the usual bland mixture of male empowerment, sexism, and scammy grindset advice that appears year after year. And the kicker is: people love it. Tate's awful rap videos, sprays of misogyny (including explicit threats of violence), and gaudy new-money toys have found an enormous audience. Without getting too Satanic Panic about it: your kids are consuming Andrew Tate videos on TikTok . His clips have been viewed over 12bn times! It's a sign of just how embedded he is in popular culture that they proliferate at an alarming rate despite him being barred from most social media sites (except Twitter — good one, Elon).
Tate leveraged his enormous following on social media by starting Hustler's University, an online portal where the saddest men in the world pay $50 a month to learn how to regain control of a life that seems to be constantly slipping away. Tate is iconoclastic and contrarian but the real hook is correctly identifying structural problems facing young men today: the loss of social status, changing expectations of masculinity and sexuality, and a deteriorating economic outlook. But instead of teaching empowerment through understanding of structural impediments, or building community, Tate preaches exploitation.
An idiot whose luck ran out
In early January, while safely ensconced in a Bucharest detention centre, Tate took to Twitter with a pair of bangers: "My unmatched perspicacity coupled with sheer indefatigability makes me a feared opponent in any realm of human endeavour". And: "The Matrix has attacked me. But they misunderstand, you cannot kill an idea. Hard to Kill." The reasonably-minded observer may surmise three things about Tate.
- He has access to a thesaurus
- He does not understand The Matrix (1999)
- This man is an idiot
And, without a shadow of a doubt, they would be right. Those who had the distinct misfortune of watching Tate's appearance on Piers Morgan's talkshow on Sky will remember the historic inversion. Even Morgan was left looking like an informed interlocutor when Tate took the scientific endeavour in a new direction by insisting that clinical depression does not exist but PTSD does. It also does not take a diabolical entrepreneurial mind to monetise the bodies of dirt-poor women from Eastern Europe and the Baltics. He's arriving a few decades late to that party. In fact, the only thing exceptional in Tate's pathetic life is that he came to prominence at a time when social media algorithms placed a higher value on interactions with controversial content than anything else.
Worldlywise
The limit of Ardern's ardour
In August 2017, Andrew Little, haunted by atrocious polls, stepped down as the head of New Zealand's Labour Party. This understandable act of self-preservation looked, just six weeks out from a general election, rather like a hospital pass to his deputy. We don't know whether Jacinda Ardern ever dreamed of walking onto Eden Park with the Black Ferns, but she took possession, made the tackle, and won the Prime Minister's office.
Now, it's Ardern's turn. This week, she stunned a crowd of the faithful at the party conference by announcing she would not lead Labour to the October election . It seems the decision was made after a reflective summer: "I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice." The political machinations here are predictable. Ardern will resign by mid-February but retain her seat until April to avoid a by-election. That gives Labour the better part of a year to find a replacement palatable to two-thirds of the caucus. Grant Robertson, Ardern's ally and deputy, has already ruled himself out of contention. Whoever it is will enter the home straight with their nose slightly behind Christopher Luxon and the Nationals.
It's a little early in the piece to be talking about legacy, but there are a few points worth touching on. Ardern's response to the 2019 Christchurch massacre elevated her far above contemporary leaders. Empathy seems to be among the first items of baggage cast off in the pursuit of power: Ardern retained hers. She led Labour to all-out victory in 2020 on the back of a world-class Covid-19 response. And her focus on foreign policy certainly raised New Zealand's status. But for all her victories, this second term has been bruising. A growing number of Kiwis simply cannot afford to live in the country they call home. The economic headwinds are stiff. And good criticisms, of which there are many, have been drowned out by a tide of vile abuse directed at Ardern. Helen Clarke said, "Jacinda Ardern has faced a level of hatred and vitriol which in my experience is unprecedented in our country."
In her resignation speech Ardern sketched a simple plan for the future: school drop-offs, and a wedding to her partner Clarke. We can speculate till the sheep come home about the calculations that drove Ardern to retire. But it's likely a better use of all our time to meditate on the kernel of truth in it: quit while you are ahead and spend time with your family.
What's the point of Davos?
The movers, the shakers, and will.i.am ascended to the highest town in Europe this week for the World Economic Forum. Inheritance billionaires, captains of industry, politicos, and assorted cultural playthings have gathered (invite-only) in Davos since 1971. It's the exclusive Revolve Festival at Coachella for people on first name basis with a Gulfstream rep. So what are they doing up there? It’s tempting to imagine Christine Lagarde, Yoon Suk-yeol and Idris Elba chatting about world peace over some raclette, but Davos is more of a business bonanza. This year's theme — Cooperation in a fragmented world — is as much a nod to trade wars as the land variety.
Is it just a series of spectacularly self-serving keynote speeches about global issues? Well, yes and no. You could cut the groupthink at some plenary sessions with a knife, but we guess there is at least some value in signal boosting various causes. In the meantime, all the real juice is being squeezed in backroom deals: the North American Free Trade Agreement emerged from one such off-Broadway chat.
This year, the UN chief Antonio Guterres teed off on ExxonMobil following last week's bombshell report into the fossil fuel company's internal records. It's now beyond question that some particularly ghoulish executives at Exxon saw accurate climate modelling half a century ago and actively prevented further research into the field. “We learned last week that certain fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their core product was baking our planet. And just like the tobacco industry, they rode roughshod over their own science”, Guterres said. Exxon isn't on the official partner list of the WEF but BP, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, and Shell are.
Another headline-grabbing, hopeful moment came in the form of an open letter, in which 205 millionaires and billionaires called for wealth taxes on the ultra-rich (themselves) to help tackle “extreme inequality” around the world. Oxfam forecast that a tax of “5% on the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7tn a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.” Shame about those pesky international tax havens. Here’s looking at you, Switzerland.
Winners and Losers
📈 Truth, Justice, and the Philippine Way
The crusading journalist Maria Ressa walked out of court Quezon City victorious. The tax court acquitted her of tax evasion — just one of several trumped-up charges she was saddled with in the Duterte era. Ressa and her Rappler outfit were willing to bear the consequences of watchdog journalism while most other news outlets bent the knee. Congratulations, Maria!
📈 Immortal mice
For some reason, scientists have developed a drug that doubles the remaining lifespan of elderly mice. Ageing introduces disorder at a cellular level — Rejuvenate Bio have made a potion that temporarily reprograms cells to act as younger, more orderly versions of themselves.
📉 Nick Cave
This week, one of the renowned singer's fans sent him an unusual tribute: song lyrics generated via artificial intelligence in the style of Nick Cave himself . It's maudlin, indulgent, and thematically predictable ("I am the sinner, I am the saint / I am the darkness, I am the light / I am the hunter, I am the prey / I am the devil, I am the saviour"). We thought it pure melodrama until Cave gave his defence ("writing a good song... is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self"). Okay, no, the robot has got Cave down pat.
📉 Dragon chickens
Good week to be in Vietnam, bad week to be a giant Vietnamese 'dragon chicken'. These absurd, bottom-heavy birds are clomping around on the thickest pair of bird legs you will ever lay eyes on. A waddling delicacy. Your average Dong Tao chicken (weighing in at 4kg) goes for $150, but a fine specimen can fetch up to $2,000 around Tet. The largest Dong Tao chook weighed 10kg.
Highlights
The Image
The 'Surva' ceremony in rural Bulgaria traces back to the Thracian era. Mummers adorned in arresting wood and feather masks scare off evil spirits and welcome in good ones for the New Year. Photo supplied by Reuters .
The Quote
"People say that work kills, for me work kept me alive, I kept working until I was 108."
– Sister André , the world's oldest person, died aged 118 in southern France. Born Lucile Randon in 1904, she spent decades working as a governess before joining the Daughters of Charity at 41. She spent her many, many remaining decades doing good works for the Roman Catholic church in Vichy, and later Toulon. Her death closes the door on a universe of insights and experiences only available to those who were born half-way through the Third Republic. But we can venture a guess about what she thought of Emmanuel Macron trying to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The Numbers
94% of Verra's rainforest carbon credits are worthless
- The overwhelming majority of the rainforest carbon offsets sold by the world's largest provider do not represent genuine carbon reductions. A superb investigation by The Guardian and Die Zeit has shone a harsh light on the massive deception that underpins the carbon credit industry. But if we are brutally honest, the $450m Shell drops on ineffective carbon offsets is not money wasted: it's an acceptable outlay to head off criticism of its apocalypse-hastening business plans.
Two (2) standard drinks per week
- The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction published its new guidelines on alcohol consumption this week . It recommended Canadians limit themselves to a just two of drinks each week. Two little tipples. A coupla.
The Headlines
"Conspiracy-Peddling Mayor Who Fondled Drunk Stepsister Loses Defamation Lawsuit" — Texas Observer . Owned.
"Bringing cake to work is like passive smoking, suggests food regulator"
— The Telegraph . No it's not, go away.
The Special Mention
Our Special Mention in the category of 'Carl Weathers' Cooking Tips' goes to Elvis Francois , 47. This Dominican sailor was stranded at sea for 24 day: he survived by mixing water with ketchup, garlic powder, and Maggi cubes. A meagre array of ingredients shouldn't hold you back, with the right mindset you got a stew going.
The Most-Read Article
'Turkey could be on the brink of dictatorship'
The Best Long Reads
- Businessweek doesn't finish its fake meat dinner
- Financial Times faces 300 incoming nuclear missiles
- Foreign Affairs maps the rising transnational reactionaries
Thomas Wharton
Senior Editor
The Answer...
Absolutely not . The pantheon of political heroes is riddled with compulsive liars, confidence men, and fraudsters. They should've made him Speaker of the House.
