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'I finally got a fascist nutcase out of my bed': author recounts dumping her MyPillow
January 21, 2021
Thursday morning will forever be remembered as the first time in who knows how long that I woke up without neck pain, back pain and creaky joints. Untold millions may have awakened similarly refreshed, the result of a temporary relief that sanity has been restored the White House and the nuclear football is no longer in the hands of an unpredictable madman.
<p>But I credit this atypically sound night of sleep to an additional factor: I finally got a fascist nutcase out of my bed. In this respect I suppose my household may have something in common with Jane Krakowski.</p><p>According to <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9164471/MyPillow-CEO-Mike-Lindell-secret-romance-30-Rock-star-Jane-Krakowski.html" target="_blank">a report in The Daily Mail</a>, Krakowski secretly dated <a href="https://www.salon.com/topic/mike-lindell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mike Lindell</a>, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/22/the-three-amigos-of-scam-artistry-steve-bannon-roy-moore-and-the-my-pillow-guy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Donald Trump's weirdo bestie</a> and inventor of the infamous MyPillow, for nine months. <a href="https://pagesix.com/2021/01/21/jane-krakowski-denies-undercover-romance-with-mypillow-ceo-mike-lindell/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A statement from Krakowski's publicist to Page Six</a> denies the story, stating "Jane has never met Mr. Lindell. She is not and has never been in any relationship with him, romantic or otherwise."</p><p>However if the tale turns out to be true at least she kept her alleged lapse in judgment brief; my husband and I have been resting our troubled heads on four MyPillows for the better part of a decade. Our only excuse is sheer laziness. <em>(This paragraph has been updated.)</em></p><p>They were gifted to us by my mother-in-law, a devoted worshipper at the church of "As Seen TV," who first introduced Lindell's bestselling products to us during a hometown visit. Thanks to her, our lives have been blessed with many direct-to-consumer-marketed devices over the years, including but not limited to: one Snuggie, the Clapper, and countless packages of ShamWows.</p><p>Usually she sneaks them in under elaborate Christmas wrapping. In this instance, she secretly replaced the old pillows on her guest room bed with a pair of MyPillows with all the wily verve of an instant coffee taste tester. If memory serves, she asked how we slept, and we must have responded "fine" because she insistently sent us home with the two sacks of open-cell poly foam fill we slept on, shipping two more as presents later.</p><p>We didn't turn her down because our existing pillows were old and crappy, and here were four that perked right back up after a few cycles through the dryer.</p><p>Admittedly for a long time we didn't think our MyPillows were bad, mostly because we barely thought about any of the pillows we purchased before we got these. They were also free, which is a main reason the devil's fun bags lasted in our home for as long as they did despite the fact that they were yellowing, getting flatter and miserably irregular as time trudged on.</p><p>Still, they're also entirely machine washable.</p><p>But then Lindell tried to hawk overthrowing the government with all the slickness and subtlety of Wile E. Coyote trying to tiptoe away from an amateurish trap only to have it snap on his ankle, triggering an anvil to drop on his head. Following the elections he loudly peddled lies about widespread voting fraud involving Dominion machines; in response Dominion fluffed up a legal letter warning of pending litigation.</p><p>Lindell also funded buses to the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection in Washington D.C. And after it went over about as well as a post-taco Tuesday Dutch oven, he popped up at the White House with notions of convincing former president Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law.</p><p>At long last I looked at the offending nap cushions, turned to my husband and said, "I'm sorry, but we really need to get rid of these."</p><p>"I was thinking the same thing," he grimly muttered.</p><p>Could I have sauntered over to some big box store and picked from the replacement options there? Of course. Instead, for the first time in my life I decided to research my purchase instead of throwing my money at some down-stuffed floozy that would eventually make my life worse. More than this, I wanted some level of assurance that the manufacturer wasn't a complete kook. In other words, I decided to treat my pillow selection with more or less the same level of vetting I'd give the people I vote for, with the difference being I intended to sleep with it.</p><p>At the time we acquired our MyPillows neither my mother-in-law nor my husband nor I or suspect most of America had a clue as to the extent of Lindell's depravity. Back then – "then" probably being around 2013 or 2014 – Lindell was mainly known to insomniacs and convenience enthusiasts.</p><p>We placed him in the same category as Billy Mays, Ron Popeil and Vince Offer – fast-talking late night hucksters pushing products of variable usefulness. This one, promoted as "The Most Comfortable Pillow You'll Ever Own!" led Lindell to call himself a "sleep expert" and tout his American-made pillows as the solution to chronic neck and back pain, sleep apnea and an assortment of other bodily nags, ailments and chronic diseases.</p><p>These claims would eventually make him the subject of many lawsuits.</p><p>Anyway, even after Lindell started popping up next to the game-show host-turned-feckless authoritarian, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/19/anderson-cooper-calls-mypillow-ceo-a-snake-oil-salesman-as-he-peddles-coronavirus-miracle-cure_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">even after he tried to sell poison as a snake oil COVID cure</a>, we nervously assured ourselves that the money that funded our pillows was spent long ago and not by us.</p><p>This time the decision I made would be completely on me, so I decided to use a combination of consulting consumer evaluation lists and poking around a few "about us" sections of the recommended companies' sites. I cannot claim this to be anywhere close to a scientific method or on the same level as an investigative report. The only thing I knew is that I wanted those lumpy crimes out of my home, and I didn't want to trade them for a product supporting a company that might be somehow as bad as Lindell or possibly worse . . . but smarter because they remained quiet about it.</p><p>Here's the sad, honest truth: If Lindell hadn't loudly participated in multiple assaults on America's people and its democracy over the course of 2020, it's highly likely I would still be sleeping with the enemy. I am not proud of this.</p><p>Since I spent most of 2020 trying to ignore that crackbrain, several of his other abhorrent acts escaped my notice, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/11/23/trumps-on-his-way-out-but-leaves-a-lasting-legacy-the-rights-open-embrace-of-terrorism/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">including his assistance in bailing out Kyle Rittenhouse</a>, the 17-year-old charged with gunning down two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin who were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Yes, I know. I should have trashed the pillows then.</p><p>Let he or she who has <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/03/03/coca_cola_reminisces_about_the_good_old_times_of_nazi_germany_in_anniversary_video/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">never quenched their thirst with a Coca-Cola or a Fanta</a>; <a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/11/23/ibm-employee-quits-to-protest-companys-overture-to-donald-trump/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">used IBM products</a>; <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/03/03/coca_cola_reminisces_about_the_good_old_times_of_nazi_germany_in_anniversary_video/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">quoted Coco Chanel </a>or <a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/major-brands-nazi-collaborators/7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">treated their illness with a drug manufactured by Bayer</a> cast the first stone.</p><p>But capitalism follows some version of the comedy equation of tragedy plus time when it comes to persuading the masses to forget details like Nazi collaboration. Lindell's walrus-mustached face is up in our collective business right now, and at long last some companies are de-platforming him in the same way tech companies banished his messiah.</p><p>Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's, H-E-B and Wayfair have all dumped Lindell's products; Krakowski allegedly cut him loose last summer, and following a brief search for new bedding options so have I.</p>
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Germany is moving to rid itself of a cluster of laws introduced by the Nazis, still lingering on its books 75 years after World War II.
There are 29 German legal or regulatory texts that still use wording introduced when Hitler was in power, according to Felix Klein, the government's point man for fighting anti-Semitism.
<p>Some of them have <em>"a very clear anti-Semitic background"</em>, Klein told AFP.</p><p>Now, with the support of several parties in the Bundestag lower house of parliament as well as Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, Klein wants to wipe the slate clean — preferably before the end of the current term in September.</p><p>But the question remains whether to introduce a single law to reform all the texts at once, or to approach them one by one.</p><p>Germany has already reformed several Nazi-era laws over the years, including the infamous Paragraph 175 that criminalised sex between men and was repealed in 1994.</p><p>More recently, a 1933 ban on medical practitioners <em>"advertising"</em> that they carry out pregnancy terminations was partially scrapped in 2019.</p><p>But some pertinent examples remain, including a law on altering names introduced by Nazi interior minister Wilhelm Frick in 1938.</p><p>From January 1939, a change to the law forced Jewish people to add the names <em>"Sara"</em> or <em>"Israel"</em> to their first names if they did not have a name that was considered typically Jewish.</p><p>The law <em>"played a huge role in the exclusion and disenfranchisement of Jews"</em>, said Thorsten Frei, deputy leader of the conservative CDU party's parliamentary group.</p><p>The section on Jewish names was scrapped by the Allies immediately after World War II, but the remaining text from 1938 was incorporated into federal law in 1954.</p><h2>'German Reich'</h2><p>The remaining parts of the law, which deal with issues such as the right to change one's name, are still <em>"written as though the Third Reich still existed"</em>, Klein points out.</p><p>Terms such as <em>"German Reich"</em>, <em>"Reich government"</em> and <em>"Reich interior minister"</em> are used, he said.</p><p><em>"It is absolutely unacceptable that Nazi language should continue to shape our federal law in 2021,"</em> Social Democratic Party politician Helge Lindh told AFP.</p><p><em>"It is high time to send a clear signal with this long overdue form of denazification."</em></p><p>The law should also be cleaned up so it applies to all foreign nationals living in Germany, not just Germans, Lindh urged.</p><p>The law on names may be the most prominent, but there are at least 28 other German legal texts dating from the Nazi era — and possibly as many as 40, he added.</p><p><em>"Other laws and regulations deal with very technical issues, such as the upkeep of the river Elbe in the Hamburg region,"</em> explains Frei.</p><p>Further texts include regulations on alternative medical practitioners, casinos and mutual legal assistance between Germany and Greece.</p><h2>'Race' debate</h2><p>Although it was adopted four years after World War II ended on May 8, 1945, aspects of Germany's Basic Law, which charted a clear course away from Nazi ideology, have also come under fire — particularly from the political left.</p><p>Critics are calling for a revision of Article 3 of the constitution, which contains the term <em>"race"</em>. In June 2020, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared herself open to the idea.</p><p>But any changes to the Basic Law require a two-thirds majority in parliament.</p><p>Germany is also planning to scrap alphabet tables — phonetic aids with phrases like <em>"F for Friedrich"</em> — that have remained largely unchanged since the Nazis removed all names with Jewish associations in 1934.</p><p>Although the tables were revised in 1950, most of the old names were not reinstated.</p><p>A temporary return to pre-Nazi era tables is planned from autumn 2021, with a new version using mainly city names to be rolled out from autumn 2022.</p><p>The tables are not laid down in law, but overseen by the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN).</p>
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After the violent but failed insurrection of Jan. 6, federal and state authorities were understandably terrified about violence on Inauguration Day. The FBI warned of threats of violence not just in Washington D.C. on January 20, but all 50 state capitols, the homes of prominent members of Congress, and other federal buildings across the country. This was hardly an idle concern. The same far right channels that were used to organize the insurrection were alight with excitement about another round, and Inauguration Day was the target. One of the organizers of the "Stop the Steal" rally that kicked off the insurrection spent the days after upping the ante, promising to "bring hell to my enemies" and declaring "I am the tool to stab" Trump's political opponents.
<p>Yet Inauguration Day came and went in relative peace.</p><p><span></span>The calm was maintained not just in D.C., <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/18/fearing-inside-attack-feds-vetting-25000-national-guard-troops-ahead-of-inauguration_partner/" target="_blank">where the presence of 25,000 National Guard troops</a> was an intimidating deterrent to would-be insurrectionists, but the planned pro-Trump protests at state capitols barely materialized — with <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/biden-trump-protests-statehouses-meh.html" target="_blank">mostly a few disparate and sad sign-wavers</a>, rarely numbering more than a dozen at any single location. Outside the perimeter in D.C. set up by the National Guard, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/joe-biden-inauguration-trump-protesters.html" target="_blank">journalists outnumbered the Trump supporters</a> so badly that any redhats who bothered to show up got swarmed by photographers. Only <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/portland-police-arrest-rioters-damage-democratic-party-office/story?id=75398433" target="_blank">Portland, Oregon seemed to have seen any real violence</a>, possibly only because the antifa and fascist groups that have spent the past four years street fighting there seemed interested in one final go-round.</p><p><span></span>There's a number of reasons that Inauguration Day ended up being relatively peaceful. </p><p>For one thing, legal authorities took the threat seriously and took significant preventive action. For another, the mass arrests of the insurrections by federal law enforcement sent a signal that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/14/republicans-threaten-violence-if-trump-faces-repercussions--but-it-was-impunity-that-moved-his-mob/" target="_blank">the impunity that Trump supporters</a> were feeling was misplaced. But most importantly, the main driver of insurrectionist sentiment and the man who instigated the Capitol riot — Donald Trump — wasn't on hand to incite more violence.</p><p>Without their leader directing their energies and giving them targets, the violent right was aimless and confused — and not organized enough for another strike. </p><p>While conservatives are already trying to muddy the waters around Trump's responsibility for the events of January 6, <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/74138/incitement-timeline-year-of-trumps-actions-leading-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol/" target="_blank">the record is quite clear</a>. He repeatedly — <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/30/were-readywhite-supremacist-proud-boys-activated-after-president-trump-tells-them-to-stand-by/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in debates</a>, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/10/16/trumps-encouragement-of-qanon-is-dangerous--it-makes-protecting-kids-from-real-abuse-harder/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in interviews</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">at rallies</a> — made winking references to his far right supporters, encouraging their violent urges. He repeatedly signaled <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-january6-is-a-key-date-for-trumps-election-gripes/2020/12/31/2a3c365a-4b76-11eb-97b6-4eb9f72ff46b_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">that January 6 was the day of action</a>. Even the wifi password at Trump's Georgia rally two days before the riot reinforced this target date to his most fanatical supporters. </p>
<p>And, of course, Trump gave a speech on January 6 with a fairly explicit "go" order in it, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/11/republicans-are-gaslighting-america-about-trumps-coup-onlyimpeachment-can-set-the-record-straight/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">telling his supporters to march on the Capitol and falsely claiming he would join them</a>. </p><p>But while Trump had many ways to communicate with the delusional fanatics that love him so much, it was his Twitter account that was probably the most important. <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/74138/incitement-timeline-year-of-trumps-actions-leading-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump repeatedly pushed the January 6 date on Twitter</a>, promising it "will be wild!" Even during the riot, Trump was directing the crowd, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-tweeted-angrily-mike-pence-044016766.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeting vitriol about then-Vice President</a> Mike Pence in the midst of the violence. Unsurprisingly, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-rioters-capitol-attack/2021/01/15/ab62e434-567c-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the crowd's energies turned towards finding Pence</a>, while chanting, "Hang Mike Pence". </p><p>Twitter temporarily suspended Trump's account after the riot and then, after briefly letting him back on, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/08/twitter-permanently-bans-donald-trump-he-incited-violence-and-now-hes-gone/" target="_blank">permanently banned him when he went straight back to lying about the election</a> and stoking the violent impulses of his followers. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/07/trump-blocked-on-facebook-indefinitely-suspended-by-twitter-as-tech-platforms-finally-take-action/" target="_blank">Facebook and other social media platforms also cut Trump off</a>. There was also a purge of QAnon accounts and others who were spreading lies about Joe Biden "stealing" the election.</p><p><span></span>The positive effects of the Trump social media ban were felt immediately. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinformation-trump-twitter/" target="_blank">The analytics firm Zignal Labs showed that Twitter experienced 73% drop in misinformation </a>about election fraud in the week after Trump and some of his most avid fans were banned from the platform. It underscores how dependent right-wing extremists are on their ringleaders, including Trump, and how many of them are uncertain what to do or what lies to spread without guidance. Frankly, it's unsurprising. These folks are authoritarians. Following their preferred authority figures is the whole point of it.</p><p><span></span>That Trump was going to start losing his hold over his fanatical supporters was likely inevitable. They weren't ever really in it because of some great love for him, so much as they saw Trump as the most effective tool they could use to stick it to the liberals. Without political power, Trump's usefulness to his followers has disappeared, and their enthusiasm appears to be dissipating at a rapid rate. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/technology/proud-boys-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank">The New York Times reports that the Proud Boys</a> are rapidly shifting from calling Trump "Emperor" to whining that he's a "total failure". <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/im-about-to-puke-qanon-in-chaos-as-biden-takes-office" target="_blank">QAnon chatboards were reeling in disbelief</a>, as it became clear that Biden's inauguration was really happening and the promised mass arrests of Democrats were not materializing. One of the most popular Trump fan boards, The Donald, <a href="https://twitter.com/MelissaRyan/status/1352272717211426816" target="_blank">has rebranded under the even stupider name Patriots win</a>.</p><p>Still, there remains a danger that Trump could build up a myth of himself as a rightful-king-in-exile with these people. Without Twitter, however, it's going to be much, much harder — if not impossible. Trump loved Twitter because it allowed him to spread misinformation with less effort than it takes to make a phone call. Trump is both lazy and dumb, and clearly is struggling to imagine how to rally support without tweeting his every errant thought during his "executive time". His efforts at communicating with his base in the two weeks since his Twitter ban have been lackluster at best, and mostly non-existent.</p><p>And we're all so much better for it. Without Trump giving both direction and permission to the violent urges of his followers, they are adrift, and seemingly starting to absorb the idea that there may actually be consequences for their actions.</p><p>To be certain, the authoritiarian movement Trump breathed so much life into isn't going away. Republican voters have been radicalized — <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/1/11/22225531/joe-biden-trump-capitol-inauguration" target="_blank">nearly three-quarters are continuing to assert misinformation about the 2020 election</a> — and it's unlikely they are going to start feeling warm towards the democratic system again, just because Trump isn't riling them up every day. There's also still plenty of outlets for right-wing misinformation, including Fox News. The threat of domestic terrorism is still incredibly high, especially as so many domestic terrorists are self-directed instead of attached to organized conspiracies. </p><p>Still, without a strong central figure to rally around, the seditionist crowd will likely fracture into hundreds of small communities, and get weighed down by in-fighting, as often happens with the deeply unpleasant and aggressive personalities that are drawn to authoritarian politics. A lot of them may even drift away, looking for some other fringe community to give their lives meaning. </p><p>So while it's hardly some cure-all for the problem of growing authoritarianism or right-wing domestic terrorism, keeping Trump off social media is still crucial to protecting lives and protecting American democracy. And, while I doubt they'll listen, social media networks should also snuff the accounts of any would-be Trumps, who are getting attention and likes for spreading lies online. And if they don't, Congress should step in and regulate these companies so that they have no other choice. </p>
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