Meow. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Republicans at the highest levels of government are pushing a bizarre message: that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating pets. ??? pic.twitter.com/96vvZhvuSv— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 9, 2024 Protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio! pic.twitter.com/YnTZStPnsg— House Judiciary GOP ?????? (@JudiciaryGOP) September 9, 2024 One of the most high-profile spreaders of this strange claim is JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. On Monday morning, Vance posted on X the false claim that “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” In the same tweet, he claimed that “Haitian illegal immigrants” are “causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.” For the record, there is no evidence that any Haitian immigrant ate a cat in Springfield, Ohio, or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter. But the lack of factual evidence hasn’t stopped the GOP from pushing the nativist narrative, which seems designed to play off bigotry and suspicion against the mostly Black population of Haitian immigrants.  More than 300,000 previously unauthorized migrants from Haiti received temporary protected status in June, which means these Haitian immigrants are now — despite Vance’s suggestion otherwise — legally present in the United States. Still, Vance and other Republicans’ attacks on these immigrants come at a moment when more Americans have grown skeptical of immigration.  Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the United States experienced a surge of migrants at its southern border — much of it fueled by unrest in several Caribbean and Latin American nations following the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans used this wave of migration to attack Biden’s border policies, and to claim there was a crisis at the border. Meanwhile, bussing efforts by Republican leaders in border states sent large groups of migrants to cities and towns across the country, putting many Americans face to face with migrants for the first time. All of this comes amid a competitive 2024 presidential race, where both candidates have rushed to frame themselves as tough on immigration. Former President Donald Trump has long campaigned on restricting immigration, while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted a strict border security bill that she supports — and which Trump pushed his fellow Republicans to kill. These factors — perhaps most of all the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment — probably explain why a sitting senator felt it was wise to share a meme claiming that if Americans don’t vote for former President Donald Trump, immigrants will eat your cats. Where the hell did the false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets come from? The idea that Haitians are roaming the streets kidnapping pets seems to have emerged from Vance’s state of Ohio.  Springfield’s Police Division said on Monday that there have been no reports of any pets being stolen or eaten in that city. However, there apparently was an incident in Canton, Ohio — a nearly three-hour drive from Springfield — where a woman was charged with cruelty to animals for allegedly killing and eating a cat. But there’s no evidence that this woman is of Haitian descent. Despite that lack of evidence, the woman appears to have been identified as Haitian descent in far right tweets. In recent days, the completely unsubstantiated slur against Haitian immigrants began to spread outside of far right spaces after several prominent right-wing figures credulously tweeted it out. On Sunday, provocateur Charlie Kirk tweeted the claim, including a screenshot from a pseudonymous Facebook post suggesting that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are butchering and eating dogs. Shortly thereafter, billionaire Elon Musk chimed in to claim that “people’s pet cats are being eaten.” By Monday morning, the claim had spread to Vance — before being picked up by other prominent elected Republicans and official Republican Party accounts. Republicans want nativist sentiment to be front and center in this election Vance has long sought to stoke anti-Haitian sentiment in Springfield, a small Ohio city that recently attracted as many as 20,000 Haitians seeking jobs in newly opened factories and warehouses. Tensions grew between the new immigrants and some of the city’s more longtime residents after a Haitian immigrant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a fatal bus crash in 2023. Vance has claimed that the city is “overwhelmed” by the new residents. Meanwhile, skepticism of immigration spiked nationally in recent years as the amount of migration at the southern border grew.  So it’s not surprising that many prominent members of the Republican Party, a party that frequently flags isolated crimes committed by immigrants to fuel nativist sentiment, latched onto an unfounded internet rumor about Haitians and cats as “proof” that immigrants present a problem (that Republicans can fix). Still, none of this context changes the fact that Republicans at the pinnacle of the party, including sitting US senators and even one of the party’s two nationwide candidates, see no downside to spreading racist, completely unfounded rumors based on random social media posts spread by far right trolls.

Gisèle Pelicot re-enters the courthouse during the trial of her ex-husband. | Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images A horrifying sexual assault case playing out in France is adding to a larger French reckoning over abuse toward women.  The case centers on 71-year-old Dominique Pelicot, who is accused of drugging and raping his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, and inviting dozens of other men to sexually assault her while she was unconscious. Dominique Pelicot – who has confessed to raping his wife repeatedly over the course of a decade — is now on trial, along with 50 other defendants, who are also accused of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. Some of these defendants have admitted guilt, while others have denied it.  Although she had the option of a private trial, Gisèle Pelicot decided to make the proceedings public in order to support and raise awareness for other victims of similar crimes. “I speak for all women who are drugged and don’t know about it, I do it on behalf of all women who will perhaps never know,” Gisèle Pelicot said of her case. In total, police have used roughly 20,000 images her husband took of the assaults to determine that 72 men had been involved in raping her from 2011 to 2020.  The Pelicot case is roiling France and comes as the country continues to grapple with accountability regarding sexual misconduct toward women. As the New York Times reported this spring, the #MeToo movement had previously stalled in France’s film industry, and has found new momentum this year after prominent actor and director Judith Godrèche spoke out. French writers and actors have also previously noted that the country’s attitudes toward sexual freedom have distinguished it from the US in how condemning sexual misconduct is treated.  “French attitudes toward morality and sex have historically always been different to the US,” journalist Agnès Poirier previously told the BBC. “But it’s been brewing for years and it feels that 2024 is different.” What the case is Dominique Pelicot’s assaults on his wife were first discovered by police in November 2020, after he was initially investigated for taking photos up women’s skirts at a supermarket in southeastern France, where the couple lived.  After he was caught taking the photos, police searched Pelicot’s computer and found a folder titled “Abuses” on a related USB drive. In it, they discovered thousands of photos and videos of Pelicot and other men raping his wife while she was unconscious. “My world fell apart,” Gisèle Pelicot said after police informed her of their discovery.  The officers’ findings followed years of Gisèle Pelicot experiencing memory lapses, hair loss, and weight loss, so much so she feared that she might be developing Alzheimer’s or another serious illness. During that time, her husband had been drugging her regularly with a combination of medications, including the anti-anxiety drug Temesta, which can act like a sedative.  While Gisèle Pelicot was unconscious, Dominique Pelicot invited a number of men to their home so that they could rape her. Gisèle Pelicot has emphasized that she did not have any knowledge of these attacks, and did not feign unconsciousness as some of the defendants have suggested. Dominique Pelicot found the men via a messaging board called “Without their knowledge” on the now-shuttered website Coco, which was known for postings that involved illegal activities.  On the site, Dominique Pelicot solicited men to assault his wife, giving them specific instructions, including not wearing perfume or smoking, to avoid detection. The identities of these defendants haven’t been revealed, though authorities note that they range from the ages of 26 to 74, that many have partners, and that they come from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, including firefighters, journalists, and soldiers.  In their search of his computer, police also found naked photos of Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian.  What’s happened so far Gisèle Pelicot and Darian both took the stand last week, and offered harrowing testimony about the assaults. “Frankly, these are scenes of horror for me,” Gisèle Pelicot said of the videos and photos her husband took to document the rapes. “They treat me like a rag doll.” Prior to learning of the attacks, Gisèle Pelicot had said that she had believed that she and her husband of roughly 50 years had been a close couple. Dominique Pelicot has admitted the abuse and also told a psychologist that he did it because Gisèle Pelicot had rejected swinging, or sleeping with other people outside their marriage.  Gisèle Pelicot says the decision to release her identity and to speak publicly about the case was intended to show that survivors shouldn’t be ashamed of the abuse they’ve suffered. Handling the case anonymously is “what her attackers would have wanted,” her lawyers said.  Darian also described the horror she felt upon learning what her father had done, calling him “the worst sexual predator of the last 20 years.” Both emphasized fears that they wouldn’t be able to regain any sense of stability or safety in relationships. “I no longer have an identity. … I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself,” Gisèle Pelicot said.  The defendants have been charged with aggravated rape or attempted rape, with many facing 20 years in prison if convicted. The trial is set to continue until December as the defendants make their testimony in groups.  How the case factors into larger movements in France The Pelicot case is just the latest to raise awareness of sexual abuses in France this year, after multiple cases of sexual misconduct by prominent actors and directors came to light.  Since February, several high-profile French actresses, including Godrèche, have spoken about being sexually assaulted in their teens by film directors. Notably, Godrèche was invited to make remarks about this problem at the Cesar Awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars, and was received with a standing ovation.  “After years in which the American #MeToo movement gained traction while in France it languished,” Rokhaya Diallo, a French journalist, wrote of Godrèche for The Washington Post, “this reception signaled that perhaps the larger culture here is finally ready to push back.” Such shifts come as France has been more resistant to confronting sexual abuses in the same way the US has, with some French commentators dubbing the #MeToo movement the latest extension of puritanical American culture.  But Godrèche’s speech and the Pelicot case, as well multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against famous French actor Gérard Depardieu, have put a new spotlight on the subject. Women’s rights advocates have also urged lawmakers to add the term “consent” into the legal definition of rape, a move that French President Emmanuel Macron has said he supports. Currently, French law defines rape as “an act of sexual penetration… committed on a person, with violence, coercion, threat, or surprise.” “While there is still perhaps more skepticism in France than in the US about the legitimacy of sexual assault and sexual harassment, these attitudes are changing fast, especially as a younger generation of women and French feminists and their male allies … are willing to confront these issues head-on,” Laura Frader, a professor of history emerita at Northeastern University who studies gender attitudes in Europe, told Vox. “The Pelicot case is certain to contribute to this trend.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson at a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, in July. | Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images It’s that time again. The last act of Congress funding the federal government expires on September 30. So, unless Congress passes new funding legislation by then, much of the government will shut down. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), egged on by the House Freedom Caucus and by former President Donald Trump, reportedly wants to use this deadline to force through legislation that would make it harder to register to vote in all 50 states.  Johnson plans to pair a bill funding the government for six months with a Republican bill called the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” or “SAVE Act,” that would require new voters to submit “documentary proof of United States citizenship,” such as a passport or a birth certificate, in order to register to vote. There is no evidence that noncitizens vote in US federal elections in any meaningful numbers, and states typically have safeguards in place to prevent them from doing so. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, for example, claims to have identified 1,634 “potential noncitizens” who attempted to register during a 15-year period. But these possible noncitizens were caught by election officials and were never registered. In 2020, nearly 5 million Georgians voted in the presidential election.  More broadly, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “illegal registration and voting attempts by noncitizens are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate state authorities, and there is no evidence that attempts at voting by noncitizens have been significant enough to impact any election’s outcome.” While noncitizen voting — which is, of course, illegal — has never been proven to have affected an election, there is evidence that the SAVE Act could have an impact on elections. That much is clear from Arizona, which already has a SAVE Act-like regime. Data from Arizona suggests the state’s law has made it slightly harder for people of color, a group that skews Democratic, to vote. And at least one analysis of Arizona voter data suggests that the SAVE Act could suppress voter registration among another group that tends to vote for Democrats: college students. So the bill could make it slightly more difficult for Democrats to win elections. That said, the SAVE Act law does have a vague provision allowing voters who “cannot provide” the required documentation to submit other evidence that they are a citizen, and it provides that state or local officials “shall make a determination as to whether the applicant has sufficiently established United States citizenship.”  It’s unclear what, exactly, that means. Notably, the SAVE Act would take effect immediately if enacted by Congress, and it imposes significant new administrative burdens on state and local election offices. So, if the law did take effect in the two months before a presidential election, it could potentially throw that election into chaos. Realistically, that outcome is unlikely. Axios reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is opposed to making continued funding for the US government contingent on passing the SAVE Act. Most Democrats and President Joe Biden also oppose the bill. Still, the battle over the SAVE Act could put the US in danger of a government shutdown. And though it is unlikely to become law in the next two months, it is likely to be on the short list of bills that Republicans will be eager to turn into law should they prevail in this November’s election. How would the SAVE Act actually impact US elections? If the SAVE Act became law, it would likely only have a marginal impact on election results — although even a modest shift in who is allowed to vote could potentially flip very close elections, particularly in swing states. On its face, the bill addresses a non-problem — again, there are no legitimate concerns about noncitizen voting in the United States. And most voters do have some documentation they could use to register under the SAVE Act. Still, Arizona offers a useful window into what voting might be like under the SAVE Act. In 2004, the state enacted a SAVE Act-like law requiring new voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship to register. This law, however, conflicts with a federal law which requires states to register voters who submit a standardized federal form. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona could not prevent voters who register using this form from voting in federal elections. Arizona, however, responded to this decision by creating a second-class tier of voters. Arizona voters who submit the federal form without documentary proof of citizenship are allowed to vote in federal elections (for Congress and the president), but not in state elections. Data from Arizona suggests that non-white voters (who tend to prefer Democrats to Republicans) are more likely to be registered as federal-only voters than white voters. But college students appear to be hardest hit by Arizona’s two-tiered regime. A report by Votebeat, a news outlet that reports on election administration, found that most Arizona voting precincts have fewer than a dozen total federal-only voters. But, “of the dozen outliers with more than 300 federal-only voters,” Votebeat reports that “all but one are located at least partly on a college campus.” The one exception was a Phoenix precinct that includes a homeless shelter. This conclusion is intuitive. College students who leave home to earn their degree often do not bring their passport or birth certificate to school with them, so they are unable to submit it when they register to vote. (People without permanent housing are also likely not to have immediate access to these documents because they do not have a home to store them in.) In a close election, a law disenfranchising many college students could be dispositive.  In the razor-thin 2000 election, for example, official tallies showed that President George W. Bush won the crucial state of Florida by 537 votes. Meanwhile, the University of Florida alone enrolls nearly 35,000 undergraduates. So, while the SAVE Act wouldn’t do much to address the fake problem of noncitizen voting, it would have at least some impact on US elections. 

Despite having the biggest new country album of the year, Beyoncé received a complete shut-out from the 2024 Country Music Awards. Her Cowboy Carter topped the country chart — a historic first for a Black woman singing country — and spent 22 weeks on the Billboard top 200 album ranking. Yet despite the CMAs giving nominations to other pop crossover artists, including Post Malone and Shaboozey, the voting body denied Cowboy Carter nominations in any category. The rejection marks the second time the CMAs and its audience have clashed with Beyoncé. But while the 2016 backlash over her CMA performance with the Chicks arguably stemmed from tension over the artists’ political identities, it’s hard to chalk this snub up to anything but misogynoir at its most blatant — especially in a year that saw both Malone (in a chart-topping collab with Morgan Wallen) and Shaboozey nominated for Single of the Year.   There are several complicating factors that may have contributed to the CMA’s diss of Cowboy Carter. But it’s also clear that sometimes the simplest explanation may be the truest. Cowboy Carter may have suffered from a lack of promotion The lead single off Cowboy Carter, “Texas Hold ’Em,” had just about the biggest release boost ever — a drop during the Super Bowl on February 11, 2024. That date is important, because while the song immediately lit up the charts and saw significant radio play, it took two days, per Billboard, before country radio stations actually received copies of the song from Beyoncé’s label, Parkwood, via Sony Nashville. As detailed in the industry blog Saving Country Music, the media narrative that swiftly coalesced of country radio refusing to play the song wasn’t actually accurate. Rather, due to the way the song was positioned initially — it was first cataloged as a pop song rather than a country song, and serviced first to pop stations — it took a week before most country stations added the song to their playlists. When that finally happened, on February 20, the song received radio play on 79 country music stations across the country, and debuted atop Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts. Beyoncé’s label even took out an industry ad to thank them: As Billboard noted, “Country radio has traditionally been reluctant to play songs that aren’t serviced to them or then actively promoted by the label.” Billboard further pointed out that Beyoncé didn’t heavily promote her 2016 crossover single “Daddy Lessons” either, which may have contributed to its lackluster performance on the country charts at the time. That lack of promotional energy may have hurt Cowboy Carter in the long run. Although the album was a hit, it slid rapidly down the Billboard ranks and faced tough competition from artists like Wallen and Taylor Swift — particularly in a male-dominated year that saw men sweeping charts and receiving tons of radio play despite a bumper crop of new releases from female artists.  Beyoncé’s label seemed disinclined to promote the album or its songs beyond the initial drops: “Texas Hold ’Em” received no follow-up music video, and Beyoncé did no regional promotion or in-person radio drop-ins to boost the song’s recognition to radio listeners. Much of this is understandable as falling within Beyoncé’s brand; her superstardom is powered as much by mystique and glamor as her artistry itself. That mystique lends itself to abrupt album drops with little promotion, but not to over-exposure through traditional industry channels like radio.  However, there also seemed to be a deliberate choice on Beyoncé’s part to actively disengage from promoting Cowboy Carter as a country album — quite literally, in that she initially announced it by saying, “This ain’t a country album, it’s a Beyoncé album.” If she intended for her fans to make the argument that, in fact, it was a country album, that tactic worked; fans swiftly got Apple Music to change its initial designation of the songs from “pop” to “country,” and pushed a petition to get the album more radio play to over 27,000 signatures. If industry insiders didn’t feel sufficiently catered to, though, that sense of being overlooked could easily have translated to a lackluster response when the CMA voting rolled around. There’s another explanation for all of this, though — and it’s the one you’re thinking of. (Straight) male crossover artists, including Black artists, tend to be welcomed at the CMAs It’s no secret that the country music industry has a longstanding problem with excluding artists of color. The CMAs specifically famously snubbed first Beyoncé for “Daddy Lessons” (which was itself a musical lesson in the erasure of Black artists from country history) in 2016 and then Lil Nas X in 2019. The CMAs rejected Lil Nas from every musical category while giving him a nod for his collaboration on the song with Billy Ray Cyrus — effectively suggesting that he owed the song’s massive success to a white man and not his own merit.  That this happened several months after Lil Nas came out as gay might also have factored into the equation, given that other straight Black male artists like Darius Rucker have found success and a warm country welcome in Nashville. Artists like Charley Pride and Ray Charles have also broken boundaries in the genre, though the fact they were already huge stars prior to turning their talents to country might have been a factor as well.  The Lil Nas snub also puts this year’s CMAs — in which Beyoncé’s own Black male collaborator, Shaboozey, got multiple top award noms — into sharp perspective. Shaboozey, a Nigerian American multi-genre artist, got a huge boost into the mainstream from collaborating with Beyoncé on two songs on Cowboy Carter, and then saw his single “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” go viral; it was hailed as one of the (many) songs of the 2024 summer and received a record-breaking amount of radio play across country radio.  By first boosting and promoting, and then nominating, Shaboozey’s work on the back of his collaboration with Beyoncé, the industry seems to be sending a message, however inadvertent it might be, that the artistry of Black women lags behind that of their straight male counterparts. That’s quite a statement to make about Cowboy Carter, an album that features country legends like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson.  That goes without saying. Thank you @Beyonce for opening a door for us, starting a conversation, and giving us one of the most innovative country albums of all time!— Shaboozey (@ShaboozeysJeans) September 9, 2024 But it’s also undeniable that the industry is more hospitable to male pop crossover artists. Post Malone has come under fire for collaborations that appropriate styles from Black artists, a problem that stands uncomfortably next to his collaboration with Wallen, whose incredible career boost following his n-word scandal is arguably an interlinked issue. Yet country fans had little trouble embracing Malone and Wallen’s “I Had Some Help,” and the CMAs rewarded the song with four total nominations. Meanwhile, while Beyoncé has undoubtedly opened doors for artists including Shaboozey, the progress of Black women in country remains fraught. While the industry has upheld Black artists like Valerie June, Mickey Guyton, and Yasmin Williams, it has yet to bestow CMA awards on any of them. Last year, legend Tracy Chapman and her iconic song “Fast Car” became the first Black woman in history to win a CMA award for Song of the Year — but she did so only because of a white man, Luke Combs, and his viral cover of the song. In other words, while there may be some logistical arguments behind the industry’s snub of Beyoncé that have nothing to do with identity, the CMA has a noticeable pattern of erasing and sidelining Black women, even in their own art. Beyoncé is actively aware of this gatekeeping; Cowboy Carter is built on the marginalized contributions of centuries of Black artists that came before her. It’s hardly any wonder she distanced herself and her album from the country establishment from the start; she likely knew well before the rest of us that the CMAs were never going to let her in the door — even with the entire world clamoring for her to be let in.

For decades, the anti-abortion movement in the United States worked toward one major goal: the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established a federal right to abortion. In 2022, it finally succeeded, and states across the country began banning abortion immediately. Today about half the states either ban or severely restrict abortion. But now the anti-abortion movement is regrouping around a new goal: using the federal government to ban abortion in the rest of the country. If Republicans take control of Congress in the 2024 election, it’s possible they could pass a national abortion ban law. But experts don’t consider that the most likely way a national abortion ban could come about, for two reasons: polling shows it would be extremely unpopular, and it would require the elimination of the Senate filibuster. Instead, they point to a different branch of the federal government — the president’s office and all the federal agencies it oversees. In the federal agencies, opponents of abortion could fashion a de facto abortion ban by chipping away at abortion access in numerous ways; for example, limiting access to medication abortion, which now constitutes nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US. The biggest way that the president’s office could limit abortion is by deciding to enforce something called the Comstock Act: a 150-year-old abortion ban made obsolete by Roe v. Wade but possibly revived by its repeal. The final way the next president could determine the future of abortion rights is through federal court appointments. The anti-abortion movement’s “next Roe v. Wade” is the national legal recognition of fetal personhood, an idea that would by definition outlaw all abortion. The current Supreme Court isn’t yet right-wing enough to endorse this idea. But after another Trump term, that could change. Watch the video above for the details of how this all could happen.

Today, Vox editor-in-chief and publisher Swati Sharma announced a new cross-platform editorial franchise that will further the brand’s mission of explaining the world. Launching on Wednesday, September 18th as a podcast and newsletter, with a video series to kick off later in the month, Explain It to Me will answer questions from Vox’s audience with deep reporting and expert insight. With new episodes out weekly on Wednesdays, the podcast will be hosted by Jonquilyn Hill, who will serve as a trusted resource to listeners, answering complicated questions about everything from retirement and why there’s so much money in politics to Gen Z’s odds of avoiding an apocalypse and why jars are so hard to open. The newsletter will also publish on a weekly cadence, featuring a rotating cast of journalists from across Vox’s newsroom, answering questions from readers about politics and policy, the economy, culture, science, technology, and more. Explain It to Me launches with Klaviyo as its sponsor across its podcast, newsletter, and video editions.  “Since we first launched ten years ago, we’ve cultivated an audience at Vox that is hungry to learn more about the world around them,” says Vox editor-in-chief and publisher Swati Sharma. “Our audience has never been shy about reaching out to us directly with their questions, and now, with our new Explain It to Me franchise, we’re doubling down on our mission of serving our audience by creating a forum for weekly conversations with them across platforms. On the podcast each week, listeners will get to hang with the lively and thoughtful Jonquilyn Hill on a show that is sure to be appointment listening and in the newsletter, you’ll get to hear directly from a roster of expert voices from across our newsroom.” Drawing on Vox’s strengths as a modern newsroom with text, audio, and video journalism, Explain It to Me is the first editorial product to launch as a multi-platform franchise, and is aimed at deepening Vox’s relationship with its loyal audience by being in direct conversation with them about the questions they care about the most.  “Explain It To Me is a show for the naturally curious,” says Hill. “Our world is full of so many questions and whether they’re big or small, they reveal so much about the world around us and the way it functions. I’m so excited to be a guide for our audience as we go down these fun and informative rabbit holes.” “One of the things Vox prides itself on is our commitment to answering, in an approachable and rigorous way, the questions on people’s minds,” said Elbert Ventura, executive editor of Vox. “The Explain It to Me newsletter is a logical extension of our mission, one that puts our audience’s curiosity and our newsroom’s expertise in closer conversation.”  The trailer for the Explain It to Me podcast is out today and available here, with the first episode to follow on Wednesday, September 18th. It joins a slate of podcasts at Vox that includes the flagship daily news show, Today, Explained, the award-winning science show, Unexplainable, and interview show, The Gray Area. Vox’s podcasts are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, which is a top 10 podcast publisher and home to influential voices like journalist Kara Swisher, entrepreneur Scott Galloway, former Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, research professor Brené Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers team captain Cam Heyward, and more. Listeners can submit their questions to the show via the Explain It to Me hotline at 1-800-618-8545. Follow Explain It to Me on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Subscribe to the ‘Explain It to Me’ newsletter here, and look out for the first video from the “Explain It to Me” series on Vox’s YouTube channel later this month. About Vox Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it.

Much like Bradshaw on Sex and the City, I can’t stop watching. | James Devaney/GC Images via Getty Images The first time Molly Rutter’s followers accused her of being “rage bait” (that is, someone who posts something online exclusively to make people angry), she was about to go on a date with a finance bro. He was younger — 23 to her 32 — but offered to help with her taxes. Then, in a familiar twist to anyone who has ever used a dating app, he ghosted.  Yet Rutter’s audience decided she was the one at fault: In comments sections, in the tabloid media, and in other TikToks, she was called desperate, unhinged, and even, bizarrely, a “pedophile” for dating someone younger and for being willing to trust an internet stranger with her financial information.  “It’s just so funny to me,” she says now, months later. “People have latched onto this caricature of me: someone who doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks to the point that she’s self-destructive, doesn’t care about other people, is emotionally unstable.” This, however, is precisely the caricature that has made Rutter, a former teacher and now full-time content creator in Buffalo, New York, so fascinating to a growing and devoted following of 85,000 people who obsessively watch her videos. Like a modern-day Carrie Bradshaw — if scene-y nightclubs were replaced with Hinge and the glittering lights of Manhattan with snowy upstate — Rutter has built a budding career off juicy, detailed posts about what it’s like to be on the dating market in 2024. And much like viewers of Sex and the City, the fans aren’t always on her side. @mollyerutter I barely got any content on this date because I was so in the moment! I take that as a good sign ? #datingstorytime #datinginyour30s #datinglife ♬ original sound – Molly Rutter TikTok is full of Bradshaw protégés right now: women — mostly in their 20s and 30s, and mostly those who date men — who have used the platform as their personal dating diary, captivating millions of viewers in multi-part sagas about men with their own nicknames, like “dangly earrings,” “five date guy,” or “Mr. America.” Their content feels like FaceTiming with your most endearingly chaotic single friend, the one you root for even when they miss the glaring red flags. They also provide a refreshingly hopeful perspective on an otherwise bleak subject. The media is currently awash in heterosexual dating horror stories: The major dating apps are, we’re told, in their flop era, prioritizing the money they can gouge from users by paywalling their most attractive users over the business of actual matchmaking. Women are weeping on TikTok, exhausted after years of trying and failing to find a decent partner; others are going “boysober” and taking extended breaks from sex and dating. There’s a sense that dating these days is worse in every possible way than it was in the golden age of yore, even though nobody can quite put their finger on when, exactly, that was.  Yet all of the dating diaries TikTokers I spoke to believed the opposite. “I’m kind of, like, delusionally optimistic about things, so I would say that dating is better than ever,” says Anne Marie Hagerty, a 28-year-old founder of a production company in New York City. “We have so many more options. You can go out and about and meet people, you can be on dating apps. We have social media. You have so much more education about how to be emotionally healthy, therapy, and [how to] be a good partner. That’s one reframe on the dating conversation that I think is pretty important.” Hagerty’s videos gained traction in early 2023 when she recounted the story of meeting a guy at a wedding and immediately feeling as though she’d found her perfect match, despite the fact that, at the time, he had a girlfriend. Months later, she posted a video titled, “POV: getting ready for a first date(?!) w person you think is your soulmate,” since she wasn’t sure if he was single yet.  The date — and it was, in fact, a date — was “the best first date of my life,” she wrote on a video immediately afterward, adding that it felt like she was falling in love. The man, nicknamed in her content as “soulmate first date,” soon became her boyfriend.  Her commenters didn’t necessarily see it that way. “Honestly the whole thing sounds like a red flag,” wrote one. Said another: “Run.” After their eventual breakup, Hagerty says that her viewers may have picked up on something she hadn’t. “They called our breakup months before it happened,” she says. “The comments about him were always not very nice, and they ended up being true.” @annemariehagerty shoot for the stars ya feel #datingstorytime #storytime #datingdiaries #dateideas #datinglife #helicopter #fyp #nyc #bachelorette #sexandthecity #manhattan #newyorkcity #newyorker #dateoutfit #nycdateideas #nycdating ♬ original sound – Anne Marie ? But that kind of real-time feedback isn’t always welcome. Last fall, when Hagerty planned a surprise helicopter ride for a man who thought they were only going for coffee, people ridiculed her with sexist jokes and for “treat[ing] him like the princess he is.” “It’s the cost of doing business,” says Hagerty of the rude comments. But, she says, “I’m probably a chronic oversharer, but I’m also a storyteller at heart.” That’s part of why her content is so appealing: “It’s a lot of living vicariously as you would with a TV show, but TikTok is way more intimate,” she says.  Wisdom Sinclaire, a Chicago-based 24-year-old who works in data analytics for a housing nonprofit, occasionally gets heat for dating multiple men at the same time and supposedly being a “gold digger” (sexism is often a theme in the negative reactions). Overwhelmingly, though, her comments are from either young women who feel grateful that she’s normalizing the idea of dating around, or from older women who tell her they wish they had done the same in their 20s.  “I’m a girl who wants to get married eventually, I want to have kids eventually,” says Sinclaire. “But in my 20s, I think it’s really important that I learn what I like and what I don’t like, and if I just settle down for the first guy who makes me smile and laugh, I might be missing out on so much more happiness. So of course I’m going to go out and date and meet as many new people as I can, and I feel like a lot of women should do that.” @wisdomsinclaire First date in Miami… but this story takes a major turn ??? #dating #datingadvice #datingstorytime #flewedout #firstdate #datingtips #datenight #miami #datingdiaries #date #dateideas #relationship #storytime #CapCut ♬ original sound – Wisdom Sinclaire Rutter’s fanbase, like most TikTokers’, includes people who watch her with some level of either schadenfreude or not-exactly-kind voyeurism. She tends to have a plucky attitude toward her haters — “I always respond to people when they think I’m insane. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m cuckoo bananas!’” she says. But recently, someone leaked her Hinge profile on the snark subreddit devoted to making fun of her. The replies were so cruel — mostly criticizing her for supposedly “catfishing” by including older photos — that Rutter deleted her dating apps.  Sometimes, the criticism comes from the suitors themselves. All of the TikTokers I talked to had dealt with dates who were staunchly against the idea of being mentioned online, even anonymously and even though the creators took care to obscure their identities and faces.  “I know for certain there are probably men who have not gone on a second date with me because of my social media. And to that I say, good riddance,” says Rutter. “This is my job. I recognize that doing what I do is going to limit my options. It’s way more socially acceptable to be a teacher than it is to be an influencer on TikTok. But I’m not meant to be with those people who aren’t comfortable with it.” One of her recent dates — a British man on a trip to the US whom Rutter drove two hours to meet — was so upset that he asked her to delete the video she’d already posted of herself getting ready that morning. “I told him I wouldn’t [delete the videos] because I stand by the fact that there’s nothing revealing about you on there,” she explains. “What I didn’t tell him was that I had already gone really viral for those videos, and I looked at the amount of money I was going to make, and I was like, ‘No way are you taking away $500 from me.’” Rutter’s dating diaries are now her livelihood: She recently quit her job teaching at a private elementary school because she was earning thousands more from TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program, which allows eligible users to earn cash for views, than she was from her salaried position (parents had also complained to the school about her videos, even though she says she never violated its social media policy). She’s also found success on Cameo, the app that allows you to book personalized video messages from celebrities and influencers. In less than two weeks, Rutter says she’s booked 50 of them at $20 apiece.  Michelle Knutson, a 30-year-old realtor living on a rural ranch outside Nashville, found that posting about her dating life has come with other pleasant surprises. She hasn’t made money or found a partner, but she’s met some of her best friends through the platform, women who related to her approach to dating — that is, waiting to find someone who is truly additive to her already-great life — as many of their peers were settling down with husbands and kids. @michelleknutson Replying to @Kathy warning in advance for multiple hand slams ? but thats a wrap on five date guy #datingstorytime ♬ original sound – michelleknutson Knutson guesses that the reason so many women (and the vast majority of dating diaries’ viewers are women) find her content so compelling is that it’s a huge break from the way influencers typically post. “You know what to post when you get pregnant: It’s going to be your gender reveal, your nursery haul, the names you loved but didn’t choose — it’s this cadence people are familiar with. It’s highly consumed content, but it’s very guarded and very curated,” she says. “I think the fact that I’m saying, ‘This is the date I went on and I blew it,’ or ‘this was embarrassing,’ people see themselves in that mirror of like, ‘Oh, I do that too, but I would never share that on the internet.’” Hagerty says that when she began posting about dating, her audience shifted older to women in their 30s to 50s. “If you’re married, the dating content is interesting because it’s like, ‘What’s happening out there these days?’ Then if you’re single, you’re empathizing, and you’re like, ‘How are we navigating the scene?’” she says. For Rutter, the answer to why she shares such an intimate part of her life — and opens herself up to harsh judgment at times — is much more personal. “Because of my body composition, I think it can be really lovely and inspiring for people to see someone being so unapologetic and confident. It can also be equally as uncomfortable for someone to see someone that confident,” she says. “It’s almost as though [people think], ‘She shouldn’t be this confident because of her body. Dating should be harder for her.’” Now that content creation is her full-time job, Rutter is steeling for even more scrutiny from her commenters, Reddit, and the rest of the internet. But it hasn’t stopped her: She’s already planning a podcast, writing a children’s book, and dreaming about someday being a professional speaker or, if the stars align, a stint on a dating reality TV show. A soul mate? That’d be nice — as long as he’s cool with the camera. 

The baddies of respiratory viral season are at your doorstep: The US is currently in the midst of a large uptick in Covid-19 cases, and flu and RSV season is just a few months away.  More than 200 viruses cause the coughs and sneezes that make so many of us miserable every fall and winter. “Respiratory infections are actually inevitable,” says Shira Doron, an infectious disease doctor and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.  The good news is that there are now a range of strategies available to fight them, although after years of battling a constantly shifting pandemic, many people are understandably exhausted and confused about how they should keep themselves and others safe. The bottom line is you can minimize respiratory viruses’ effects on your life by reducing your exposure to them, priming your immune system to fight them off, getting vaccinated, and making a plan to get tested and treated for an infection if you’re someone who’ll benefit. Here’s how to think about this year’s cold, flu, and ongoing Covid-19 season, how to keep yourself healthy and safe, and how to be strategic about testing, vaccines, and medications. Should I treat Covid like the flu? Or like the common cold? The further we get from the OG Covid of 2020, the less likely it is that infections will translate into hospitalizations, deaths, or long-term disability. That doesn’t mean the virus doesn’t carry risk. “Covid continues to be a more dangerous virus than flu, [but] they’re becoming more similar,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Mandy Cohen in a late August press briefing. Last season, Covid-19 caused more hospitalizations than flu and RSV combined. However, with each successive wave of Covid, a smaller proportion of infected people are hospitalized or die as a result. That suggests the virus is less likely to cause severe illness, especially in low-risk people.  A Covid-19 infection does still carry the risk of persistent symptoms — also called long Covid — but that risk has significantly decreased over time, in large part due to Covid-19 vaccines. “We can’t attribute characteristics to Covid 2024 that we did to Covid 2020,” Doron says.  If anything, people should be taking more care with other, non-Covid infections Indeed, an important question when thinking about Covid risk remains, “Who are you?” says William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Older, immunocompromised, pregnant, and frail people still “ought to be clearly more concerned,” he says, because the consequences of an infection are worse for them than for others.  How long should I stay away from others if I have Covid-19?  Although there are no longer any hard guidelines about how many days you should isolate if infected with Covid-19 as of this year, the CDC recommends staying home and away from others if you have respiratory symptoms, regardless of the cause. Whether you had a positive Covid test or not, don’t go back to normal activities until your symptoms are improving overall and you’ve been fever-free (without meds like Tylenol or ibuprofen) for at least 24 hours. In conversations among infectious disease specialists, says Doron, most advocate that workers with Covid-19 infections should apply the same rules for going back to work as they do with flu or cold infections.  That doesn’t mean you should be flippant about Covid’s risks, says Doron. If anything, people should be taking more care with other, non-Covid infections. “You should stay away from people who are high-risk or immunocompromised regardless of what virus you have,” she says, “because all viruses can be dangerous to high-risk people.” Doron recommends masking for people with any respiratory symptoms when in close contact with others, and for severely immunocompromised people (for example, people with low levels of infection-fighting cells after chemotherapy) when in public. During periods when lots of Covid-19 is circulating — like now — Schaffner suggests masking and avoiding crowded public locations for all high-risk individuals, including people 65 and up.  Should I be testing for Covid-19 if I get sick? Since CDC and other experts say the methods for protecting others should be the same for all respiratory infections, the main reason to get tested if you’re sick is to determine whether you should take medicines directed at specific viruses. Tamiflu (the brand name for oseltamivir) and other medications can make flu infections less lethal for high-risk people (e.g. people of all ages with asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions). Paxlovid (the brand name for nirmatrelvir-ritonavir) can have similar effects in older and immunocompromised people with Covid-19 infections.  These drugs can be lifesaving if people take them for the right infections, but neither will do much good for other viruses. If you’re sick and you’re among those who’d benefit from treatment with one of these medications, it’s smart to get tested. The US government will once again mail free Covid-19 tests to Americans who request them starting at the end of September, and you can get tested for flu at many pharmacies, at urgent care centers, or at a health care provider’s office.  What’s the deal with all these different vaccines? Before the pandemic, the only seasonal vaccine most people needed to think about was a flu shot each fall. Now, there’s a Covid-19 booster vaccine available at about the same time. Additionally, shots to protect babies and older adults from the pneumonia-causing RSV virus — which was in development for years before the pandemic — finally became available to the public last fall. The toolkit is bigger now than it was a few years ago. It’s a good thing, but it can feel confusing. US recommendations aim to keep things simple for most people: The CDC recommends everyone over 6 months old get a Covid-19 booster and a flu shot for this fall (more below on how to time your shots).  When it comes to RSV, three categories of people should be getting a vaccine: older people, pregnant people, and babies. For now, this is a one-and-done shot — people who get it don’t need to worry about an annual booster. If you’re 75 or over, 60 or older with an underlying illness, pregnant, or have a newborn baby, talk to a health care provider about getting an RSV vaccine. How should I time the flu and Covid vaccines to give myself the best protection?  Getting the flu shot and the Covid-19 vaccine at the same time is perfectly fine, and you can even get them in the same arm a few inches apart. Any time before New Year’s is good protection, although you can be strategic with the timing if you need to. Experts have landed on Halloween as optimal vaccination time for both to avoid the worst of the winter flu season and whatever Covid might also be bouncing around in late winter.  The main benefit of Covid-19 vaccination is protection from severe infection and hospitalization, not protection from infection altogether. However, there is a short-lived period after vaccination when antibody levels are so high that even infection is unlikely. If you have an important life event planned — say, a big overseas trip or a wedding — it’s not unreasonable to try to time your vaccine for about a month before that event in order to make it less likely you’ll be sick during your big moment, says Doron. Experts have landed on Halloween as optimal vaccination time to avoid the worst of the winter flu season and whatever Covid might also be bouncing around in late winter If you’re at risk for a severe Covid-19 infection, get a Covid booster as soon as you can, says Schaffner. His reasoning: There’s a lot of Covid circulating right now, and in any case, people who need extra protection can get an extra dose of the updated vaccine midwinter. If you’re someone who’d benefit from the RSV vaccine, the best time to get it is in the late summer or early fall, before the virus starts spreading. Vaccination for pregnant people in particular should happen between September and January.  Seriously, do I really need to get another Covid vaccine? “You betcha,” says Schaffner, echoing the CDC’s broad recommendation. Experts have determined that in the US, the benefit of getting the vaccine exceeds the risk for all age groups.  That said, it’s more crucial for some than others. “The more high-risk you are, the more you’ll stand to benefit from the updated vaccine,” says Doron. That includes older people (65 and up) and those who are severely immunocompromised, like those actively receiving chemotherapy. All three Covid-19 vaccines expected to be offered this fall are safe and effective at preventing hospitalization. Novavax is less likely to cause side effects than the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines; in her latest newsletter, epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina noted that’s a major reason she’ll be waiting to get a Novavax booster.  Despite the vaccines’ safety record, a recent survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania suggests false Covid beliefs are on the rise, with one in five Americans believing Covid infection is safer than vaccination. “The level of messaging on one side didn’t change. On the other side, it did change,” director Kathleen Hall Jamieson told me. “There’s less pro-vaccination messaging that you’re routinely hearing, and you’ve still got the same amount of anti-vaccination messaging out there.” Do I need to get the Covid-19 vaccine if I recently had Covid? Wastewater measurements suggest we’re in the midst of a big Covid-19 uptick nationwide, with infections likely continuing to climb upward in the Midwest and Northeast. That means many Americans have recently been infected with the virus. There’s not much benefit to receiving a Covid-19 vaccine in the three months after a Covid-19 infection. Holding out for longer gets you more bang for your vaccine buck and allows the immunity produced by a Covid-19 infection to mature and solidify, says Doron. Studies of vaccine timing have borne this out: In one study, for example, antibody levels (which are protective against infection) were 11 times higher in people vaccinated eight months after infection than in people who only waited three months. On the flip side, the longer you wait to get vaccinated after a Covid-19 infection, the more likely you’ll get infected in the interim. (However, most people are not reinfected in the first nine to 12 months after an infection, says Doron.) What else can I do to stay healthy this season? If you’re not sick, several familiar strategies can help keep you healthy: Wash your hands before touching your face or preparing food and after touching shared surfaces or using the bathroom; use a mask in crowded places; ventilate shared spaces by opening a window and turning on a fan if possible, and consider using an air purifier when gathering with others. “During the height of Covid, we forgot about reinforcing how important sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress reduction, all of those things impact the immune system,” says Doron. Optimizing those factors — while also maintaining a healthy weight and controlling underlying medical conditions — makes it more likely you’ll stay healthy if and when you get a respiratory infection.

Welcome to Your Mileage May Vary, my new twice-monthly advice column offering you a framework for thinking through your ethical dilemmas and philosophical questions. Your Mileage May Vary isn’t like other advice columns, which usually aim to give you a single answer — the underlying premise being that there is an objectively “right” answer to the complex moral questions that life throws at us. I don’t buy that premise.  This story was first featured in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to explore the big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Sent twice a week. So I’m reimagining the genre. My advice column is based on value pluralism, the idea — developed by philosophers like Isaiah Berlin and Bernard Williams — that each person has multiple values that are equally valid but that sometimes conflict with each other. When values clash, dilemmas arise.  What happens when you value authenticity, for example, but also want to use ChatGPT to write your wedding speech because it would be more efficient? Or when you value fighting climate change but also desperately want to have kids?   When you write in with a dilemma, I won’t give you my answer; I’ll show you how to find your own. First, I’ll tease out the different values at stake in the question. Then I’ll show how wise people — from ancient philosophers to spiritual thinkers to modern scientists — have thought about these values and conflicts between them. Finally, I’ll guide you to decide which value you want to put more weight on. Only you can decide that; that’s why the column is called Your Mileage May Vary. Here, I answer the first Vox reader’s question, which has been condensed and edited for clarity. My mother is retired, disabled, and poor. I assist her with her medical care by arranging appointments, talking to her doctors, and finding medical resources that she needs for her many ailments. I’ve even been able to find a home health aide to come to her house six days a week to assist her with daily cleaning, cooking, and other tasks.  But as she ages, I know she will need more help than I can provide from afar. And I know I cannot take on the actual tasks of caring for an elderly person with the many issues she has. … Am I a monster for accepting the fact that she will likely end up in a state-run retirement community?  Dear Definitely-Not-a-Monster, This is not a traditional advice column, where someone writes in with a question and comes away with a simple answer. In your case, though, there is one question I can answer very simply right off the bat: “Am I a monster?” The answer is no. The world isn’t divided into good people and bad people (despite what fairy tales and superhero movies tell us). We’re all just human beings, trying to live in line with our values as best we can under the conditions we’re given.  It’s clear that you hold multiple values simultaneously. You want your mother to be well-cared for. You also want yourself to be well-cared for.  What could be more natural? I imagine that every animal on Earth feels this dilemma in their guts. And, demographically, it’s a fact that more and more people are going to find themselves in exactly this position as baby boomers age. But I also know from personal experience that just realizing how common a dilemma is doesn’t make the internal tug-of-war any less confusing or painful.  Have a question you want me to answer in the next Your Mileage May Vary column? Feel free to email me at sigal.samuel@vox.com or fill out this anonymous form! Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here! People have been wrestling with this painful confusion for thousands of years. They’ve come up with different ways to navigate trade-offs between these competing values, depending on the social mores of the time. We can learn from the insights they’ve surfaced along the way. Historically, even ancient traditions that take filial piety very seriously acknowledge that there will always be a tension between caring for your parents and caring for yourself. In Judaism, “Honor your father and your mother” is one of the Ten Commandments — it’s not all 10! In fact, biblical commentators have understood another commandment from Deuteronomy, “Guard yourself and guard your soul very carefully,” to mean that you’re obligated to take care of your own body and soul.    In the Chinese ethical tradition of Confucianism, your body is considered a gift from your parents, so to harm its health (for example, by stretching yourself too thin) would be to disrespect them. That means caring for your parents can’t be the be-all and end-all value without becoming self-defeating.  So to ask the question “What should care for my mom look like?” is to ask the question at the wrong level of granularity. A better question might be “What should care for my mom look like, considering everyone involved?”  To answer that, you’ll want to think about your mom’s evolving needs, but you’ll also want to consider: How much bandwidth do you have in terms of your physical and mental health? Who else is counting on you — a partner, a child, a dear friend? What other commitments do you value? You straight-up say, “I know I cannot take on the actual tasks of caring for an elderly person with the many issues she has.” That actually makes things pretty simple in your case. Even Immanuel Kant — the 18th-century German philosopher I think of as Mr. Duty — said that “ought” implies “can,” meaning that if you’ve really thought through the situation and concluded that you can’t care for your mother on your own, you aren’t morally obliged to.  But there’s a more radical point to internalize here: Even if we imagine a scenario where you can take on all these tasks for your mom, that alone doesn’t mean you should. Being able to do something is necessary but not sufficient for having an obligation to do it. Even if, for example, you could have your mom move in with you, it doesn’t automatically follow that that’s a wise idea. It depends on what the effects would be on everyone involved — yourself included.  If you feel that the effects of doing something, even something “good,” are prohibitive, that’s not an indictment of your morality as an individual. Modern life does not make caregiving easy.  As the surgeon Atul Gawande explains in his book Being Mortal, children used to live close to their parents and parents used to, well, die earlier. It was more feasible for children to be their parents’ caregivers. Now, we live in a globalized world where the young often migrate to get an education or a job, and surviving into old age is much more common. (For someone born in 1900, the global average life expectancy was 32 years; now that we have more medical knowledge and less poverty, it’s 71 years, and substantially higher in high-income countries.)  Plus, today’s parents are having kids later in life than in the past, so when the parents reach old age, their offspring are in their prime. That means the young are trying to establish their careers and raise their own children at exactly the time their parents experience declining health and call for help — often from afar.  Our society is not set up to handle that. And it’s one of the reasons why retirement communities first became a widespread fixture of American life in the 1960s. These communities vary a lot in quality. You can try to find one with qualities that appeal to your mom, but you might also have to accept the fact that her living conditions may not be ideal. She might have an unhappy time there. That’s a societal failure that you can’t single-handedly fix. If you happen to be in a position to improve the system — if you work in public policy, say — great! Consider pulling those levers. More likely, though, you’ll want to focus on what you can do for her right now, given the system you live in and given all your other commitments.        The existence of retirement communities doesn’t mean you should totally exempt yourself from caring for your mom. How you approach caregiving has implications for her, but it also has implications for your own moral development.  Philosopher Shannon Vallor argues that the experience of caregiving helps build our moral character, allowing us to cultivate virtues like empathy, patience, and understanding. So outsourcing that work wouldn’t just mean abdicating a duty to nurture others; it would also mean cheating ourselves out of a valuable opportunity to grow. Vallor calls that “moral deskilling.”  Yet she’s careful to note that caring for someone else doesn’t automatically make you into a better person. If you don’t have enough resources and support at your disposal, you can end up burned out, bitter, and possibly less empathetic than you were before.  As Vallor says, there’s a big difference between liberation from care and liberation to care. We don’t want the former, because caregiving can actually help us grow as moral beings. But we do want the latter, and if a retirement community gives us that by making caregiving more sustainable, that’s a win. Bonus: What I’m reading Ancient Greeks — they’re just like us! Aware that we often act against one of our core values, they gave the phenomenon a name: akrasia. Shayla Love does a great job explaining it in The Guardian.  Isaiah Berlin, the granddaddy of value pluralism, insisted that it was not the same as moral relativism. His tongue-in-cheek writing style makes this short piece a fun read. I love when I stumble across a philosophical idea that actually helps me a lot in real life. Bernard Williams’s idea of “moral luck,” first introduced to me by this Aeon essay, has done that for me.