Body-shaming

If you are a *true* progressive, as I am, you'd recognise that body-shaming needs to end.

That doesn't just mean that we should call time on body and fat-shaming allies and groups we relate to/empathise with, but censure all forms of body and fat-shaming, including those that are directed at our political enemies.

I'll give two examples I encountered today:

Firstly, an article suggesting that only 'ugly' and 'homely' people, not good-looking actors, should play villains. This is a deeply offensive conceit that essentially associates physical 'ugliness' with spiritual 'ugliness'.

Another example I encountered was a former marine and anti-MAGA spokesperson attacking a Tweet that suggested Ron DeSantis might be popular among some voters because 'he's regarded as handsome'. Now, I don't *personally* agree that DeSantis is particularly 'handsome' but what if he is? Can't Republicans be handsome? Or are they all born with the 'ugly gene'? The former marine* seemed to take offence at the notion that a politician he was against could be regarded by anyone else as 'good-looking'.

* Imagine if we all based our assumptions of people on basic stereotypes. I might be inclined to believe that all former military men (i.e. people paid by the government to shoot Black and brown people in foreign countries to uphold the US imperialist order) were all right-wingers...