Barbara Wise
 | |
| Era | Tweeter Is Not Real Life (cast) |
|---|---|
| Age | 35-45 |
| Home | New York, NY |
| Demographic | columnist, Jewish-American, anti-woke liberal |
| Lean | Lean Republican |
| Race | white |
A New York columnist and newsletter publisher, Jewish-American, who left mainstream journalism over its politics and now writes for liberals who feel the same. She has drifted from Democrat to Republican-leaning without changing her stated values.
Who they stand for
She stands for the professional-class liberals who broke with their own political institutions between 2017 and 2024. These liberals include readers who left newspapers for paid newsletters after the newsroom revolts of 2020, parents unsettled by school closures and by gender-identity policy in classrooms, and Jewish liberals shaken by the reaction on university campuses to the 7 October 2023 attacks. They voted Democratic in the 2016 and 2020 elections. In 2024 they abstained, split their vote, or crossed over to vote Republican, and they describe the change as the Democratic Party leaving them rather than the reverse. They live in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bay Area and university towns, and although they are few in number, they are over-represented in the places that shape public opinion.
She differs from Ben Shindler because she still calls herself a liberal, and means it on abortion and on gay marriage. She differs from Simon Harrisson because she has stopped waiting for the Democratic Party to change back.
Playing to them
A president wins her support by defending open debate in plain terms. She rewards a president who rejects racial preferences in hiring and admissions, who punishes antisemitism on university campuses, who keeps social media platforms free of government pressure, and who stands with Israel without apologising for it. She values competence and civility, and wants a president who sounds like an adult in public. She does not forgive a president who flirts with conspiracy theories, who attacks the press as an institution, or who courts the racialist right. She also turns against a president who introduces a diversity mandate or a rewrite of Title IX that removes the legal meaning of sex.
Winning her support costs the support of Hasan Radical, Viltch, Natalie Winner and Anna Kasparova, who see her as the respectable face of a political backlash. It also costs the support of Alex James and Bronze Age Deviant, who see her as part of the establishment she left. William Maha and Simon Harrisson tend to support the same things she does on nearly every issue. Ben Shindler tends to support the same things she does on the issue of Israel.