Meredith Conroy

@meredithconroy.bsky.social

5475 Followers 672 Following

Political Scientist at CSUSB studying gender and media, 538 contributor (RIP), & I lead research @ the Geena Davis Institute. Fan of elections & multiracial pluralistic democracy. Idahoan. Subscribe to Gender Gap: https://meredithconroy.substack.com

screenshot of text from the story: Feminizing your opponent is simple: A deliberate effort to cast your opponent as insufficiently male (e.g., too soft, too weak, or too in touch with his feelings).
Screenshot of a tweet from Matt Stoller: "Graham Platner represents a rejection of Dem HR lady politics."
Chart with votes so far in CA GOV primary Hilton - 27% Becerra - 26% Steyer - 20%
Graphic showing icons associated with different professions and the share of Gen Z who want those professions. 18% of Gen Z wanna be tech entrepreneur who isn’t famous. 17% wanna be respected professor or intellectual. 14% wanna be a doctor. 12% say they don’t know. 10% say none of these. 11% said full-time parent. 9% said small business owner. 5% said digital crater or influencer. 3% said lawyer.
Chart showing % of men and women by party, asking who would win in a fight between the respondent and Donald Trump. 82% of D men said they’d win. Just 46% of R men said the same.
Cybertruck covered in images of white floofy dog, with said white floofy dog in back seat.
Photo of geena Davis as older Sabrina Carpenter at Coachella holding a tshirt that says “GEENAWOULD”
Chart showing 15 Cabinet positions, and green and purple squares to indicate if the role was held by a man or a woman. Columns are admins, and go back to Carter.
Gas pump with 5.99 per gallon regular
Billboard that says “hair to the throne?” And an image of the top of Gavin Newsom’s head.
Twitter post from @megbasham: So a bunch of Instagram are influencers now posting anti-ICE propaganda on Instagram. Once again, we have women whose primary careers are picking outfits and lipsticks (both things I love!) attempting to become political commentators on an issue for which they possess little understanding. What would be really wonderful to avoid a repeat of 2020 is if all of us conservative women DIDN’T ignore it this time. Part of the reason that Black Lives Matter and COVID propaganda was able to take hold was because so many of us sensible women didn’t want to push back against our hysterical friends. We didn’t wanna leave a negative comment on our favorite Instagram influencers black square post. So we just put our head down and ignored it. We can’t do that anymore. There is an information war being fought against sensible law enforcement. People are easily misled, especially on low information sites like Instagram. I think it is important this time that if you are a conservative with different convictions, speak up and you let them know that all women are not of the same mind.
Screenshot of an Instagram post by Vanessa_Chav. It is a video of her skiing and the text on the screen says reminder that although this is a skiing account, it’s gonna get political because you can’t ski Pow if ice murders you.
For generations in American society, ignorance was seen as a drawback and conspiracy theories were relegated to the fringes. In recent decades, however, those who rejected or were inconvenienced by that shared reality have banded together, building a new shared understanding of the world. In that alternate universe, ignorance and rejection of reality serve as validators, indicators of trust. Those within that circle of trust are granted wide latitude to do what they want.
White cat in a bow tie
screenshot of the New York Post homepage as of 12/31. headline is "WHODUNNIT" and features image of MN daycare manager ("Somali-run) and subhed noting "A rep is claiming somebody broke in and vandalized the center as the national spotlight has been shined on an unfolding billion-dollar fraud scandal involving Minnesota human services."
Line chart showing the share of men/women ages 18-40 who want to leave the US permanently from 2008 to 2025. In 2025, 40% of women, and 19% of men, in this age cohort say they want to leave.
Advert for a CBS x free press debate brought to you by Bank of America, called “has feminism failed women? Liz Plank vs Allie Beth Stuckey”
Idaho is a case study in geographic self-sorting, a trend across the country. In this land of sagebrush and self-reliance, that means a state that was already solidly red is becoming a magnet for fans of President Trump’s political movement and a laboratory for his policies. “I hear people moving here talking about themselves as ‘political refugees,’” especially people from Democratic states on the Pacific Coast, said Jason Monks, the Idaho House majority leader and a Republican from Meridian, Idaho.
Picture of Kamala Harris and Neephesa Collier on a stage at A Day of Unreasonable Conversations
Line chart from 2000 to 2020, showing D, R, I trust in media. Tanked among R, surged among Ds during Trump's first term.
Tweet from dril in 2012: “This Whole Thing Smacks Of Gender” i holler as i overturn my uncle’s barbecue grill and turn the 4th of July into the 4th of Shit
Tweet by @wormpuller: white people be eating cheese right before bed
Idaho OBGYN exodus continues: state lost 35% of obstetricians since abortion ban The exodus of Idaho obstetricians continues: a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows Idaho has lost a little more than a third of its OBGYNs since the repeal of Roe V. Wade in 2022. Before Idaho banned almost all abortions in August 2022, there were 268 OBGYNs in the state. Today, there are 174 obstetricians serving the state’s roughly one million women, 600,000 of whom are of reproductive age. The 35% decline is in line with falling numbers captured last year.
picture of Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers on a stage, at the taping of the Las Culturistas Awards.
Dapper white cat with a lion haircut on a pet-grooming station.
Elon saying Trump would’ve lost the White House and house (but not senate) without him.
Mad kitty sticker.
Take Trump’s executive orders on immigration. Michele Waslin, the program coordinator at George Mason University’s Institute for Immigration Research who has studied Trump’s executive actions on immigration, notes a pretty big cultural shift during Trump’s term, which makes dismantling his orders especially difficult. “Under the Trump administration, everything was set up to restrict immigration, to see immigrants as a problem, to see them as a threat,” she said. This had an effect even on legal immigration. Waslin described it as a “slow-walking” effect, meaning that Trump’s executive orders treating illegal migration as a threat likely spilled over to how legal migration was handled, too. “You can significantly slow legal migration to the United States by personnel practices and the guidance that they are given,” Waslin said.
So, by the time a revocation comes along, that “doesn’t just automatically flip the switch,” says Rudalevige. These orders are usually legally and politically sound. Plus, “agencies get moving in a certain direction,” Rudalevige told me. Once an agency moves in that direction — updating standard operating procedures and perhaps even agency culture — it can be difficult to reverse course.
Text article saying TKTK, which is journalism speak for details to be added before publication
This whole saga shines a spotlight on the rising levels of distrust in American institutions. In 2025, no organization is above suspicion, even the Girl Scouts.
White cat sleeping in white cat bed with orange bottom
The content of the chats themselves is grim, too, providing an insight into the petty and eager social dynamics within Trump’s inner circle and the administration’s principle-thin commitment to any understanding of policy. Vance pipes up to suggest delaying the strike; he claims to be worried about public opinion on the issue, and complains that an attack on the Houthis would provide economic benefits to Europe, who he wants to punish for some reason. He does not seem to feel he has enough clout to actually oppose the strike, however, undermining his own complaints with caveats that he will defer to others.
But I think media diets are at play here, too. How a platform is designed and its user base influence the type and accuracy of information available, and how that information is discussed, shared, and remembered. And that is going to influence political beliefs and identity, especially among younger audiences.
On the other hand: Only one of the 10 Trump voters-turned-critics said they'd choose Kamala Harris for president if they could do it over.
And the narrative is everything. Elon Musk is many things—the richest man in the world, an internet-addled conspiracy theorist, the controller of six companies, perhaps even the shadow president of the United States—but most importantly, he is an idea. The value of Musk may be tied more to his image than his actual performance. He’s a human meme stock.
While more creators on the right tap into the Lively vs Baldoni discourse, millions more liberals are falling into the right wing media pipeline. Ophie Dokie, a feminist YouTuber, said that it doesn't matter if many of the women who have gone down the right wing rabbit hole still identify as liberal, because they've already begun adopting a fundamentally right wing ideology towards women.
Image from jan6. “Murder the media” is written on a door surrounded by insurrectionists.
Usually, executive orders are written in a way that refer to their legal or constitutional authority, and also take into account the public's reaction, in hopes of avoiding a challenge from the courts or Congress, or negative attention from media or the public. "Congress and the courts play vital roles in the politics of unilateral action," Howell told me via email. "When presidents issue directives, after all, the adjoining branches of government have opportunities to respond — whether by writing these directives into law, amending them, or overturning them."
"Altogether, the effects of revocations are hard to predict, and undoing policies, in general, also needs to be paired with new policies. On that note, Rudalevige explained, "Since 'repeal and replace' takes work and effort, 'repeal' [alone] seems like a quick and easy option, especially when you don't care about policy continuity or … flatly reject it." With a blitz of repeals issued but many of his new policies still unclear, or stuck in limbo as they are subject to legal or logistical challenges, the future of much of Trump's agenda remains uncertain."
vertical bar chart of presidents' revocations of executive orders since Truman. Trump's use far exceeds other presidents in first 100 days.
screen grab of State Dept website for "LGB" Travelers.
Screengrab from the article where I wrote, “ moderation is necessary, even for executive action, if the threat of congressional opposition is present.”
This is a who revokes home chart. Showing presidents from Obama to FDR using a heat map to demonstrate which sitting presidents are targeting whose orders to undo.
A tweet of a user (@schizarella) that explains Marc Andreessen blocked them, so they googled him, and he looks like Humpty Dumpty, so they posted a picture of the twitter block, and a photo of Andreessen next to Humpty Dumpty. Likeness is uncanny.