The Most Expensive Midterms Ever

The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) does the calculations:

Almost $4 billion will be spent for this year’s midterm election, the [CRP] is projecting. That figure makes this year’s election by far the most expensive midterm ever. The candidates and parties alone will combine to spend about $2.7 billion, while outside groups will likely spend close to $900 million on their own — a figure that veers close to the $1.3 billion spent by outside groups in 2012, when the hyper-expensive presidential race was fueling the fire. …

The 2010 midterm cost $3.6 billion; this one will run an estimated $333 million more than that. The congressional portion of the 2012 race cost about $3.6 billion as well.

Evan Osnos asks, “Will anything stop those sums from growing again in two years, and two years after that? “:

I live in Washington, so I am supposed to say no. A heat map of conversations in our nation’s capital this week would show that campaign-finance reform is generating about as much urgent attention as the disappearance of the honeybee. If the reflexive talking point in San Francisco is to bet on disruption, the conventional line in Washington is that the forces arrayed against change are the stronger ones.

And, yet, it’s hard not to sense that a combination of forces is making change, of some kind, unavoidable. At a moment when Americans are divided along party lines, they are united in their abject loathing of the United States Congress, which is on track this year to pass fewer laws than any Congress in history. In a Gallup poll, seven per cent of Americans reported having confidence in Congress, the lowest level that Gallup has ever recorded for any institution.

Michael Tomasky focuses on the dark money being pumped into the campaigns:

Here’s the situation. Outside spending—that is, the spending not by candidates’ own committees—may possibly surpass total candidate spending, at least in the competitive races, for the first time. And of that outside spending, an increasing amount is the category they call “dark” money, which is money whose sources and donors don’t have to be disclosed. I mean, don’t have to be disclosed. At all. That’s because these aren’t SuperPACs, which at least do have to disclose their donor lists, but are 501c4 “social welfare” (!) groups that don’t have to file anything with the Federal Elections Commission.

Cillizza isn’t holding his breath for change:

Money and politics always seem to find their way to one another — no matter what blockades are thrown in their paths.  It’s hard to imagine elections getting any less expensive any time soon. Or any broad swath of the public really caring.

A No-Drama Ebola Policy, Ctd

On top of the modest travel restrictions from the DHS, the CDC announced yesterday that anyone traveling from the epicenters of the epidemic will be monitored for 21 days after they enter the US:

Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said that anyone arriving from the three countries – Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – will be actively monitored on a daily basis and will also face new rules about where they can travel within the United States. He added that about 70 percent of all travelers stay in six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia. People will receive a kit when they arrive at the airport that explains what the symptoms are, a guide to telephone numbers, and a thermometer, Frieden said. State and local officials will maintain daily contact with travelers for the entire 21 days.

Morrissey is skeptical these new measures will be effective:

The problem with this approach is that it’s still voluntary.

One assumes the CDC will follow the cases to ensure that the monitoring takes place, but they don’t appear to want to order anyone into quarantine — and how many subjects will they have to audit? If it’s just a few dozen it might work, but the more travelers who come in from these countries, the more stretched those resources will get. And who’s to say that even regular calls to those being monitored will result in truthful reporting anyway? Until they get sick, there doesn’t appear to be much incentive for honesty about abiding by the testing regime here, or for self-imposed isolation either.

David Francis also has doubts:

So far, none of the 562 who have been monitored under the CDC program has tested positive for Ebola. Details on how they would be monitored over the next three weeks were scant. According to Bryan Lewis, an infectious-disease expert at Virginia Tech University, the monitoring lacks true medical value. “It’s going to be very hard to implement and would have minimal yield in terms of finding other patients,” Lewis said. “It seems like an extra thing to assure the population that we’re doing every extra step that we can.”

But a couple of public health experts tell Jonathan Cohn that they approve of the new precautions:

“It is carefully layered, thoughtfully designed and will likely be effective,” said Howard Markel, a physician and historian of epidemics at the University of Michigan. “Remember, when employing socially disruptive measure or for that matter specific therapies, you don’t use a bazooka when a BB gun will do. These measures are in no way a BB gun, but they carry the advantage of not inciting restrictive travel bans against U.S. citizens or having a situation where the African nation in question won’t allow American, etc., health workers let alone military advisers into their country.”

“I think this really seals the leaks with regard to people entering the U.S. from those countries,” said Melinda Moore, a physician and CDC veteran who’s now at the Rand Corporation. “The numbers are relatively small. It will be interesting to see if this is really enforceable. It had better be.”

The Senate Map Turns Redder

Senate Map

That latest from Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

Our present ratings leave Republicans with 49 seats and Democrats with 47 seats, with four Toss-ups: Georgia and Louisiana, which both might be heading to overtime, and Colorado and Kansas, where incumbents Udall and Roberts are in deep trouble — especially Udall — but retain a path to victory. To claim a majority, Republicans need to win half of the Toss-up states. Democrats need to win three of them to achieve a Biden Majority (a 50-50 draw with Vice President Joe Biden’s tie-breaking vote giving Democrats the edge). Given the playing field, this arithmetic certainly advantages the GOP, but there is at least some chance that Democrats might pull off the unexpected.

So the Senate remains too close to call, but it’s clear that Republicans are well positioned to win a majority and that Democrats’ backs are up against the wall as Election Day approaches

Nate Cohn determines that, more or less, “Democratic chances depend on winning Kansas or Georgia, or another red state, South Dakota, which was largely taken for granted over the summer but where a Democratic and an independent candidate have a shot at an upset”:

Winning a red state will be a big challenge for Democrats. Michelle Nunn of Georgia is faring well in the polls, but she needs 50 percent of the vote to avoid a January runoff, when turnout and her prospects would be more uncertain. The independent candidate in Kansas, Greg Orman, has seen his lead dwindle in recent weeks.

The problem for Democrats is that, barring other upsets, winning one red state — Kansas, Georgia or South Dakota — won’t be enough. If the Democrats win just one of these states, the G.O.P.’s odds of retaking the Senate remain at 70 percent.

Should the Democrats exceed expectations, Chait will credit the “backlash against Republican governors, many of whom enacted policy agendas reflecting the national-level Republican vision and find themselves in danger of losing reelection”:

[T]he general pro-Republican thrust of the election is running up against a localized backlash against Republican policies. If Obama were the only incumbent, Republicans would have locked up the Senate majority by now and might be poised to enjoy a genuine wave. Unfortunately for them, they have had the chance to govern.

Whatever happens, Kilgore expects little to change in DC:

Yes, if Democrats hang onto the Senate, they (and the president) can argue a sort of implicit permission to keep on keeping on with an agenda on which they cannot act legislatively, but they are more likely to treat it as a negative repudiation of Republican obstruction and extremism. If Republicans win the Senate and make significant House gains, they will almost certainly claim voters want them to “restrain” the president, particularly in terms of dramatic executive action on immigration, the environment (EPA rules) and energy (the Keystone XL pipeline, which for all we know Obama may have already decided to approve). But abject surrender may be the only alternative to executive action, and it’s unlikely Obama will decide to spend the last two years of his presidency like he spent a big part of his first four: begging Republicans for cooperation they’ve already decided not to provide.

Along the same lines, Annie Lowrey asks, “What could Republicans and Democrats come together on?”

There is a short list. Trade promotion authority — easing the way for the White House to pass two gigantic new pacts under negotiation — seems like a strong possibility, as does the passage of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Corporate tax reform is less likely, but potentially doable. Republicans also might pass a pared-down version of immigration reform, expanding visas for skilled immigrants and beefing up border security without touching the thorny question of what to do with the 12 million undocumented individuals already here. Democrats might not like it, but they might find such legislation hard to filibuster or to veto.

Many other Republican priorities Democrats seem set on blocking: a 20-week abortion ban, dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, repealing the Affordable Care Act, block-granting Medicaid, slashing food stamps, trimming Pell Grants, and on and on. Were the Senate to try to pass stand-alone bills to accomplish any of those priorities, Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats would simply filibuster.

Face Of The Day

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A reader submits the above screenshot:

For your FOTD, might I suggest Kevin Vickers, Sergeant at Arms in the Parliament of Canada, walking the halls and making sure everything’s ok after having calmly left his office to shoot and kill a terrorist.

More on the hero here. Watch him get a standing ovation entering the House of Commons here.

Marijuana Doesn’t Make You Stupid

Ingraham draws attention to a new study on teen pot use and IQ:

Even heavy marijuana use wasn’t associated with IQ.

“In particular alcohol use was found to be strongly associated with IQ decline,” the authors write. “No other factors were found to be predictive of IQ change.”

The UK study does find evidence, however, of slightly impaired educational abilities among the very heaviest marijuana users. This group of students scored roughly 3% lower on school exams taken at age 16, even after adjusting for confounding factors.

In a press release accompanying the study, lead author Claire Mokrysz noted that “this is a potentially important public health message- the belief that cannabis is particularly harmful may detract focus from and awareness of other potentially harmful behaviours.” Reviewer Guy Goodwin of Oxford University agreed: “the current focus on the alleged harms of cannabis may be obscuring the fact that its use is often correlated with that of other even more freely available drugs and possibly lifestyle factors. These may be as or more important than cannabis itself.”

“Being A Nerd Is Not Supposed To Be A Good Thing” Ctd

An “actual nerd” joins this reader in stating his case for true nerdom:

Female nerds take a stand against the reader:

He is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with this particular sordid corner of NerdCulture. As a woman, I earned my nerd status in exactly the same way as every other picked-on kid in school ever did: by being labeled that by my peers. I was bullied, I was mocked for reading too much SFF, for playing Dungeons and Dragons, and for not being very good at sports. Now this guy and folks like him want to tell me I didn’t earn that nerd card? That I don’t belong with the only group where I have ever belonged? I have some choice four letter words for him, as well as advice on where he can stick them.

The wonder of it all is that he clearly can’t even see his hypocrisy – that he is doing exactly the same thing to women that has been done to him. And while I may sympathize with his situation, I 1979474_354805564678076_7909139515221880476_ndon’t need his permission to lay claim to territory that has been mine since the first time I read The Hobbit at age five or discovered Batman comics at fourteen. Nerd territory is the domain of the outcast and the iconoclast, and it has never been about needing anyone’s approval. Watching these men try to say that they suddenly have some kind of say in who gets to wear the label would be hilarious if it wasn’t so infuriating.

Another is a tad more direct:

Speaking as a female nerd, your reader can definitely go fuck himself over that thought train.  I’ve spent my entire life dealing with assholes like him and how I’m a “fake nerd” simply because I have breasts and a vagina.  News flash dude: my adolescence was probably half as fun as yours.

I was also introverted, awkward with people and interested in stuff no one else cared about, but the community I should have been able to band together with, the people who you found and clearly bonded with, rejected me out right.  And yeah, if I wasn’t slightly obsessive (and a stubborn little cuss, as my mother use to say), I probably would have dropped all of it years ago and followed something else more appropriately “female”. But I love what I love and I make no bones about it to anyone, even if they do think I’m a little outside the lines.

Another also reflects on her adolescence:

It’s fucking miserable being a smart, nerdy 12-year-old girl. No one likes it that you’d rather play Civ or fine tune your Magic deck. Boys are angry that you are in their thing, or worse, better than them at it. Girls don’t care about your thing and soon care less for you when you talk about your thing.

Luckily I had my mother, a scientist, devoted Star Trek fan (sorry, enthusiast) and careful curator of my voracious reading habits. She made sure I had plenty of female role models, almost all of the fictional ones ostracized underdogs fighting for justice. Some people have religion. I had Alanna and Aerin.

And another:

I sincerely hope you are getting a significant amount of pushback on this “apologia of sorts” because, as a woman who is sick and tired of demands that I verify my nerd credentials to countless men throughout my life, this genuinely disturbed me.

Like your reader, I too immersed myself in video games, comics, science fiction and all things nerdom as young person and continue to embrace them well into adulthood. But unlike this guy, I do not have an “imbalance of personality” or any other such “personality defect”. I did it because I liked it, and I still do. I’m 36 years old, I have 6 game consoles, and thousands of comic books I collected throughout the ’80s and ’90s, among other artifacts like props and costumes.

But where I diverge the most from your other reader is the impact of our shared pursuits becoming more mainstream. The things I used to think made me a loser are now things that I think make me pretty cool. It’s really done wonders for my self esteem; I was the nerdy bookworm and now I’m the cool smart chick. It’s too bad that he can’t embrace the fact the changes in the industry mean we’re no longer outcasts even if we are still weird.

One last related comment. Any female gamer who has ever tried to enter the hyper-masculine confines of the XBox live community and any male gamer who has encountered a female gamer there, should be unsurprised by the GamerGate fiasco. Make no mistake, this is an exclusive club and his allusion to this exclusivity (“Frankly, I do question the claim of many women who say they are nerds”) is extremely mild compared to what I’ve experienced. He saying we don’t belong or rather we must prove to me that we belong before being accepted, most say much worse.

Well, thanks again for getting me all fired up on Thursday morning! What would I do without The Dish? (Probably work more, but work isn’t everything, you know.)

Follow the whole thread on gaming culture here.

(Photo of two actual nerds at Comic Con via Leah Zander)

Vote Early, Vote Often?

John Fund argues against early voting:

Consider that for all of the hullabaloo about early voting, studies have shown it hasn’t increased overall voter turnout. Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, notes turnout is down even in states that have made it easier to vote through Election Day registration or early voting.

Gans and other observers are also concerned that early voters won’t have the same information as those who vote on Election Day. They may miss out on candidate debates or be unable to factor in other late-developing election events. “Those who vote a month in advance are saying they don’t care about weighing all the facts,” says Adams, the former Justice Department official. One secretary of state I interviewed compared early voting that takes place before debates are finished with jurors in a trial who stand up in the middle of testimony and say they’ve heard enough and are ready to render a verdict.

In response, Chait proposes “a perfect solution that would address Fund’s professions of deep social commitment to a single national voting day while also addressing concerns about the inconvenience”:

You’d simply have to make Election Day a national holiday.

Sadly, Fund — who does not mention this idea in his most recent article — has previously dismissed it on the grounds that creating a holiday on a Tuesday would lead to people skipping work on the preceding Monday. (It “might do little more than create a de facto Saturday to Tuesday four-day weekend,” he wrote, in 2005.) So that’s out, too.

Furthermore, Ian Millhiser notes that efforts to cut back on early voting often have discriminatory effects, and sometimes even discriminatory intentions:

[A]s Judge Peter Economus explained in a decision suspending the Ohio cuts to its early voting days that were later reinstated by the Supreme Court, “a greater proportion of blacks not only cast [early] ballots than whites but do so on early voting days that” were eliminated by the new voting schedule. Additionally, some states have made early voting cuts that seem designed to diminish minority voting. After Florida’s early voting cuts helped produce six hour voting lines in 2012, one GOP consultant admitted that voting was eliminated on the Sunday prior to Election Day because “that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves.” (Additionally, low-income voters are particularly likely to use early voting. As a federal court noted in 2012, “early voters have disproportionately lower incomes and less education than election day voters.” Thus they are likely to have less flexibility to show up to the polls on a particular day.)

Phyllis Schlafly, meanwhile, wants to end it simply because it benefits Dems. Nicole Hemmer attributes the Republican preoccupation with voter ID laws and other means of restricting voting to “a broader conservative discomfort with mass democracy”:

Take the recent push to repeal the 17th Amendment. Ratified in 1913, the 17th Amendment established the direct election of senators, who had previously been appointed by state legislatures. Since 2010, a number of big-name conservatives have arrayed themselves behind the repeal, including Justice Antonin Scalia, Sen. Ted Cruz and radio talk-show host Mark Levin. Proponents of repeal placed states’ rights ahead of democratic processes. In justifying his call for repeal, one conservative writer explained, “The Constitution did not create a direct democracy; it established a constitutional republic. Its goal was to preserve liberty, not to maximize popular sovereignty.” …

Yet this skepticism about democracy and universal suffrage never receives top billing when conservatives call for voter ID laws. In part, that’s because open opposition to voting doesn’t go over well with the general public, as conservative writer Matthew Vadum discovered in 2011 after his piece “Registering the Poor to Vote Is Un-American” generated intense backlash. And in part it’s because conservatism’s anti-democratic strain coexists uneasily with its anti-establishment populism, a contradiction that the movement has never reconciled.

Lastly, Yglesias contends that it’s time we amended the Constitution to establish an affirmative right to vote:

A constitutional right to vote would instantly flip the script on anti-fraud efforts. States would retain a strong interest in developing rules and procedures that make it hard for ineligible voters to vote, but those efforts would be bounded by an ironclad constitutional guarantee that legitimate citizens’ votes must be counted. A state that wanted to require possession of a certain ID card to vote, for example, would have to take affirmative steps to ensure that everyone has that ID card, or that there’s a process for an ID-less citizen to cast a ballot and have it counted later upon verification of citizenship. …

But beyond the politics, it’s a good idea on the merits. It would enshrine in our Constitution a principle that we already believe: that the right to vote is an inherent attribute of citizenship and a cornerstone of civic equality.

What The Hell Just Happened In Ottawa? Ctd

The Globe and Mail reports on Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the suspected shooter. He had been named a “high risk traveller” and blocked from leaving the country because of fears that he might become a jihadi:

“He wanted to go back to Libya and study,” [friend Dave] Bathurst said. He urged his friend to make sure study was on his mind and “not something else.” Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau insisted he was only going abroad with the intent of learning about Islam and to study Arabic. Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was blocked from fulfilling those plans. Sources say he intended to travel abroad, but he had not been able to secure a valid travel document from federal officials, who have been taking measures to prevent Canadians from joining extremists overseas.

Reid Standish notes that the “attack comes as Canada has ramped up its role in the fight against the Islamic State militant group, though it remains unclear whether the attack has any connection with these recent decision”:

Canada has sent 26 special forces troops to Iraq to serve in an advisory role, and on Oct. 7 Parliament voted in favor of joining U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq. In late September, a video released by the Islamic State’s spokesperson, Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani urged the group’s supporters to kill Canadians and commit domestic attacks on Canadian territory.

Joe Friesen has more context:

For a country that lived through more than a decade of Western anti-terror wars largely without domestic bloodshed, Wednesday’s attack was a potential turning point.

It was the second targeted killing of a Canadian Forces soldier on home soil in a matter of days, raising further questions about the country’s security and intelligence regime, the rise of domestic radicalism and the impact of Canada’s military deployment to the Middle East to combat the Islamic State.

Keating takes a look at gun ownership in Canada:

Canada’s gun laws are still strict compared with America’s—gun owners must get a license from the federal government which requires a gun safety course, and there are more stringent restrictions for more powerful weapons—but by international standards the country is relatively gun-friendly.

Canada has the 13th-largest civilian firearms arsenal in the world according to the 2007 Small Arms Survey, with 30.8 firearms per 100 people. (The U.S. is first with 88.8 per 100.) It suffers about 0.51 firearm homicides per 100,000 people compared to 2.97 in the United States. While safe by the standards of the U.S. or Latin America, Canada does have significantly more gun violence than countries like Germany, France, and Australia.

He suspects that yesterday’s incident, “involving a shooter armed with a double-barreled shotgun, may prompt another round of soul searching”:

Ironically, what the Conservative government calls a “common sense” package of gun control reforms that would “ease restrictions on transporting firearms, make firearms-safety courses mandatory for first-time gun owners and prevent people convicted of spousal assault from legally owning guns,” was on the docket to be debated in the House of Commons [yesterday], before the shooting started.

Arthur Bright provides his own rundown on Canadian gun laws:

Unlike the US, where Washington sets some gun laws and others are set by the individual states, Canada’s gun laws are predominantly the domain of the federal government in Ottawa.

Under Canadian law, there are three categories of firearms: prohibited, restricted, and non-restricted. Prohibited firearms include short-barreled handguns, sawed-off shotguns and rifles, and automatic weapons. Restricted firearms include all handguns that do not fall under the “prohibited” class, as well as semi-automatic weapons with barrels shorter than 47 cm (18.5 inches). In addition, specific guns can be designated by regulation as prohibited or restricted. Large-capacity magazines are generally prohibited, regardless of the class of firearm they are used in.

Note that despite the use of the term “prohibited,” prohibited firearms are not illegal. Rather they are governed under a stricter set of regulations. Non-restricted firearms are any rifles and shotguns that do not fall under either of the other categories.

A Canadian reader joins the thread:

I work at a government building downtown, and it was definitely a sad, surreal day. Most of downtown was in lockdown mode until mid-late afternoon, with some sections just opening up in the evening. A few thoughts, outside the real tragedy of the soldier who was killed and the shock running through people in the city:

Twitter can be great, but it can also be terrible. Throughout the day, we were monitoring the news and numerous media outlets were reporting just tons of unconfirmed shit that was really unnerving that turned out to be false or at best unsubstantiated. A shooter on a roof somewhere, a shooting inside and/or near a shopping mall downtown, a shooter or two at large, a high-speed motorcycle chase on a highway, etc. etc. I get it, and it’s so customary now … everyone wants to report in real time, but there was so much noise that just served to stress people out even more.

It’s hard to understand how this guy got inside the Parliament building with a gun, especially at this time. I trust more will be written about this in the days to come, but one reporter tweeted that the British Columbia Legislature along with other Legislatures had received information “from Ottawa” earlier in the week that they should be more safety aware. In our building, we experienced noticeably more stringent ID checks starting on Monday this week, which may have been a coincidence, but something I am going to check with colleagues in other government departments. You have to believe relevant security forces were aware of the latest reporting on that unbelievable White House breach. In the press conference this afternoon, the police were a bit vague on the threat level, only saying Parliament Hill was at the same level it has been for a long time now. It just makes me feel like governments can institute all the measures in the world but it comes down to people doing their jobs at the optimal level (and there was a really positive example of that today as well).

I really hope there’s not an over-reaction to this. Politicians are going to try and exploit this for various purposes, which is inevitable. The Prime Minister made a point of saying that an attack on soldiers and our institutions (in this case, attempted attack on politicians) is an attack on ALL Canadians, and I understand why he’s saying that, but the public mood is necessarily going to be less fearful than it would have been had the attack(s) targeted civilians (for example at a mall). He also said Canada will not be intimidated, which is great, but I’m pretty sure he’s at least partly foreshadowing an attack on any opposing politician who criticizes Canada’s proposed engagement in Iraq, ongoing engagement in Afghanistan, etc. That stuff is going to happen, but I at least hope that Ottawa won’t go into some hyper security mode that makes it a less open and accessible city.

Basically, it was a sad, shitty and confusing day. But it could have been a lot worse, and I just hope the people who live here and in the rest of the country won’t give into the fear that so much of the media and politicians thrive on.

“Empowertising”

Ann Friedman raises an eyebrow at empowerment conferences:

These conferences all follow a similar formula. Take a vintage feminist icon (Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda), a Clinton, a media maven (Arianna Huffington or Tina Brown, but probably not both), and three or four celebrities with a conscience (Oprah, Angelina, Geena, Meryl). Throw in Sandberg — who is absolutely mandatory — along with a half-dozen women who run Fortune 500 companies. With only 24 CEOs to choose from, organizers can’t be too picky. Book a five-star hotel (Ritz-Carlton or similar) in Southern California or, if you’re keeping it simple, Manhattan. Choose a hashtag. Pay a few entry-level bloggers to flood the internet with 30-second video clips of the world-changing conversations taking place in front of a logo-spattered backdrop. And watch the sponsorship money roll in. …

For as long as there’s been a mainstream feminist movement, there have been corporations eager to capitalize on women’s desire for empowerment.

And simply saying men and women should be treated equally isn’t the slightest bit risky in an era when the economy demands that nearly all women work outside the home and the biggest pop stars in America embrace the term feminist.  But empowerment conferences are less a product of this friendly brand of modern feminism than they are the result of changing media business models and the rise of superficial corporate do-gooderism. Consumers are so wary of traditional advertising that one of the only ways for brands to make an end-run around skepticism is to claim, “Hey, we’re doing some good here.” As Unilever has learned with all the free press its “body-positive” Dove ads have gotten, women’s empowerment is a great theme for conscientious advertising — Bitch Magazine co-founder Andi Zeisler calls it “empowertising.”

From Zeisler’s piece:

[I]t’s reasonable to give a healthy bit of side-eye to these new ads, coming as they do after decades of frozen-pizza pandering and push-up bra “empowerment.” The contradictions at the heart of ads like Dove’s and Pantene’s sloganeering have certainly not gone unnoticed, with both feminist critics and ad-world chroniclers noting that, for instance, it’s difficult to take Dove’s championing of “real beauty” seriously when one considers that parent company Unilever is one of the largest purveyors of skin-whitening cosmetics in South Asia. And I wasn’t the only one to cringe at Dove’s recent attempt to “make armpits into underarms” with its Advanced Care deodorant; the obvious creation of a problem that the brand had just the product to fix doesn’t exactly speak the language of body acceptance.

Furthermore, the images and messages don’t go beyond the safe, upwardly-mobile striving of mainstream feminism. Verizon and GoldieBlox’s focus on how girls are discouraged from STEM studies is about as specific as the messaging gets; elsewhere, the lens is feel-good but safely generic. Most likely, we won’t be seeing ads from multinational brands that urge girls to help close the wage gap, battle colorism in media, or advocate for better labor conditions for the workers who make many of the products they’re being sold.