After years of fighting for visibility, basic women everywhere finally have a representative in office. Jennifer Maltby, the first openly basic mayor of Caridale, Wisconsin, is as basic as they come – and proud of it!
“This really isn’t about me,” said Maltby, sipping a green juice and wearing a “Netflix AF” tank top in her office at City Hall. “This is about all those young basic women out there who are being told no, you’re not right for politics, go back to reading books about horses and giving yourself french tips with wite-out.”
Firing up the Imagine Dragons Pandora radio station, she added: “To those kids I say: the sky is the limit. And take an Insta of the sky because it looks so insanely gorgeous right now!”
Maltby’s election is a much-needed diversity win for a population that has been sorely underrepresented in American politics.
“Look, I like Pumpkin Spice and scented candles and I still fall asleep to Friends reruns. I am about that life,” she explains over a grapefruit LaCroix. “But I don’t like, have a YouTube channel. I’m more Blake Lively than Bella Hadid. I’m more Nick Jonas than Tom Holland…do you see the distinction?”
Maltby ran on a platform of longer brunch hours, fewer deaths on Grey’s Anatomy, and the nationalization of Throwback Thursday (“It should be a calendar holiday,” she said in a campaign speech that The New York Times described as, “My God, the vocal fry!”).
Her slogan was the pithy and effective, “More Dogs!”
But make no mistake, this gal is not about to let any part of her #aesthetic stand in the way of her dreams. She’s a serious woman with serious goals – goals that are written in her bullet journal, which she is pretty sure she left at her mom’s. She reads every morning and has a subscription to her favorite political journal, The Skimm. She calls Rachel Maddow “the best.” She plans to start wearing pantsuits the moment Kate Spade starts making them.
And her favorite thing in the world – besides videos of soldiers surprising their kids – is meeting her constituents. “I take one of those mini Instant Cameras from Urban Outfitters wherever I go, because I want to document all the amazing people and places in my town,” she said, before adding, seemingly out of the blue: “Beyoncé got political too, so…”
As to what her ultimate impact will be, Maltby’s the first to admit she can’t see the future, but she is hopeful about what her election means. “For too long, the basics of this country have been stuck in the closet. I mean, my closet’s a walk-in, so it’s super comfortable, but still. Rude!”
