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For Hillary Clinton, the meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi in late 2011 was a moment of both professional triumph and personal celebration.

Clinton, then the U.S. secretary of state, was in Yangon, Myanmar, to sit down with the woman she called her inspiration as part of a broader, if undeclared, U.S. strategy to drive a wedge between nations on Chinas perimeter and Beijing, including long-isolated Myanmar, under the aegis of the Obama administrations pivot to Asia. And during a tenure at the State Department in which Clinton hadnt accomplished much beyond hard-toned speeches and soft diplomacy, her opening to Myanmar was a rare diplomatic victory. A year later, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country, ostensibly to promote democracy, but also to nudge Myanmar closer to Washingtons sphere of influence.

A decade later, that strategy lies in ruins. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize-winning democracy activist who hosted Clinton and later ran the country, is back in detention after the military launched yet another coup on Monday. Nor is there much diplomacy afoot: Such is her estrangement from Washington today that in the week before Aung San Suu Kyis arrest, the Biden administration, fearing just this outcome, had tried and failed to get in contact with her.

But if the U.S. strategy is in ruins, so is Aung San Suu Kyis reputation. While many in the West have in recent days called for her release, she is no longer the heroine and human-rights icon she once was. Her cold-blooded assent to the armys slaughter of the Muslim Rohingya minority has soured her image around the world, to the point where some democracy activists have petitioned Oslo to revoke her Nobel. Once a magnet for human rights pressure on Myanmar from abroad, today she remains largely isolated internationally.

The coup that seems to have hurled Myanmar back three decades is another grim 21st-century lesson in the difficulties of democracy and the staying power of authoritarianismand the limitations of diplomacy in building a bridge between the two.

While most Western governments, including the United States, condemned the Myanmar militarys actions, most authoritarian states, led by China, did not. Beijing, which has long resisted the U.S. policy of wooing its client states in Southeast Asia, described the coup as a cabinet reshuffle. Last month the Chinese governments top diplomat, Wang Yi, visited Myanmar to meet with military chief Min Aung Hlaing, Aung San Suu Kyis nemesisand, this week, the new ruler of the country.

U.S. President Joe Bidens foreign-policy team knows the Myanmar challenge well, because many of its members were present at the creation. Jake Sullivan, now national security advisor, was in 2011 Clintons deputy chief of staff and head of policy planning. Kurt Campbell, now on the National Security Council, was at the time the Asia head for the State Department and played an intimate role in orchestrating the new strategy.

But unlike a decade ago, Bidens team now must reckon with a bizarre echo of former President Donald Trumps attempt to undermine Bidens own thumping election victory at home. After Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) won even more votes in the November 2020 election than it had in 2015, the Myanmar military, just as Trump did, declared the vote fraudulent without any evidenceand then it arrested her.

And, for better or worse, unlike in 2011, the United States doesnt have the unalloyed appeal of Aung San Suu Kyi to turn to. As Myanmar began its transition to democracy, her continuing high popularity inside the country was a chronic threat to the military junta. U.S. diplomats were acutely aware of this and sought to leverage the lifting of sanctions by making her consent to free and fair elections part of the deal. Eager to get on good terms with the regimeas Aung San Suu Kyi herself reportedly wasClinton dropped her demand for a United Nations-backed war crimes probe, proffered immediate aid, and gave her assent to the military regimes control over elections.

In some ways, the pace and scope of U.S. engagement with Myanmar were driven by Aung San Suu Kyi. Asked in an interview with the BBC in 2011 whether she had conceded too much, Clinton replied that Washington was depending on Aung San Suu Kyis assent, saying that from her perspective, its important to validate the political process.

That continued for years, despite sometimes intense internal debate in the Obama administration over easing sanctions. When in 2016 Obama pledged to lift sanctions on Myanmar, declaring that It is the right thing to do in order to ensure that the people of Burma see rewards from a new way of doing business and a new government, Aung San Suu Kyi herself gave the green light. We think that the time has now come to remove all the sanctions that hurt us economically so that foreign businesses could invest, she saideven though the country had not, as the U.S. road map presupposed, progressed toward democracy. Even after her party won the 2015 electionswith one-quarter of parliament reserved for the military, in any eventshe was denied the presidency because she had been married to a foreigner and had children with foreign citizenship.

Now the Biden administration appears ready to start the whole cycle over again, saying it is rolling back sanctions relief, in the words of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, and suggesting new sanctions are coming. But the administration at first temporized even over calling the military takeover a coup, according to several news reports. And its not clear the old playbook will work again, if it ever did before. The United States and other Western countries maintained sanctions on Myanmar for decades with little progress toward democracy. Defenders of the Obama administrations approach say that while its true some of the new team participated in the earlier diplomacy, four years in the interim under Trump have emboldened autocrats everywhere, making diplomacy more difficult and Aung San Suu Kyis efforts to gain power democratically more elusive.

And its not clear that Aung San Suu Kyi is the solution, if she ever was. Some Myanmar experts believe that, confident in her domestic popularity, she might have overestimated her political strength and made too many demands of the juntaand particularly of Min Aung Hlaing, the new ruler.

I think its possible that she could have agreed to some concessions that would have averted the coup, said Christina Fink, a Myanmar expert at George Washington University. That could have meant allowing Min Aung Hlaing to stay on as commander in chief, or perhaps even to take the nominal presidency. But the NLD didnt want to play ball, Fink said.

Others say she was playing an impossible game. People have always projected onto her something that shes not. She always said, Im a politician, nothing more, said Robert Lieberman, a Cornell University physics professor and filmmaker who made the 2011 film They Call It Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain, and who interviewed the NLD leader extensively. She had no choice, in the sense that shes always been on a tight wire, balanced between the military and the rest of the world.

Except that the rest of the world, after Aung San Suu Kyi sought to cover up the militarys atrocities against the Rohingya at a hearing in front of the U.N. International Court of Justice in 2019, no longer has her on a pedestal.

Now, the new junta is counting on less of an outcry from former supporters of the once-sainted dissident and a larger comfort zone in a world where authoritarian governments have had four years of encouragement under Trump. And the Biden team that once sought to romance the stone-headed generals of Myanmar may end up with a lot fewer levers for change than it once had.

Feb. 2: This story has been updated with additional information about internal debate in the Obama administration

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How the US Tried and Failed to Woo Myanmar - Foreign Policy

In 2020 the pandemic, protests against racial injustice, and political unrest challenged virtually every aspect of life in New York City. As we enter 2021, New Yorkers will discern how these challenges will be met by deciding who will lead the city as mayor and council members. Get ready for the upcoming city elections by joining the Rev. Phillip Jackson as he talks with Errol Louis, political analyst and host of New York 1s Inside City Hall, as they consider the pressing issues facing the city.

Errol Louis is the political anchor of NY1 News, where he hostsInside City Hall,a nightly prime-time show about New York City politics, featuring interviews with top political and cultural leaders, including an exclusive weekly one-on-one conversation with Mayor Bill de Blasio. Louis has also conducted interviews with former mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Bloomberg; governors Andrew Cuomo and George Pataki; and presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump.

Louis has moderated more than two dozen debates between candidates for mayor, public advocate, city and state comptroller, state Attorney General, congress and U.S. Senate. In 2016 he was a questioner in the final CNN presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

In addition to political leaders, Louis has interviewed iconic cultural figures including filmmaker Ken Burns, activist Gloria Steinem and authors Robert Caro and Gay Talese. In 2019 he launched a popular weekly podcast, You Decide with Errol Louis, that features longer discussions with political and cultural figures including presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders; playwright Aaron Sorkin; actors Edward Norton and Brian Cox; and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Louis is a longtime CNN contributor, providing on-air commentary on key events including presidential primaries and election night. He writes regularly for CNN.com, as well as a weekly column for theNew York Daily Newson a range of political and social affairs.

Louis was recently ranked #40 on the list of the 100 most powerful people in New York City politics. He is an adjunct professor of Urban Reporting at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where he has taught political and investigative reporting to more than 100 graduate students. He is co-editor ofDeadline Artists, a two-volume anthology of Americas greatest newspaper columns published in October 2011.

Louis graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. in Government. He also earned an M.A. in Political Science from Yale University and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School.

He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Juanita Scarlett, and their son.

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The Future of New York City: A Conversation with Errol Louis - Episcopal News Service

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a first-term member of the House, has endorsed QAnon and other violent conspiracy theories. (Erin Scott / Pool Photo via AP)

Warning: Disturbing stuff ahead.

Theres a conspiracy theory called Frazzledrip. Even for QAnon types, its pretty fringe, which is saying something. Recall that the central belief in Q-world is that theres a secret cabal of Satan-worshiping, sex-trafficking pedophiles running the government.

Frazzledrip is worse. It is the name of an imagined video of a young girl on Huma Abedins laptop in a folder labeled life insurance. Abedin, the ex-wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, was an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

According to Vice, the nonexistent video shows Clinton filleting off the young girls face. The two women take turns wearing the girls face as a mask to terrify the child so blood is suffused with adrenochrome. They drink her blood as part of a satanic ritual.

Oh, Frazzledrip also believes Clinton murdered New York City police officers who saw the video and covered up their deaths as suicides.

Now, you dont have to be a Clinton fan Im certainly not to recognize this garbage as evil and insane. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-friendly Republican representative from Georgia, disagrees. She endorsed the theory on her Facebook page in 2018.

Greene has spread other wicked stuff: Mass school shootings were false flag operations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be shot for treason. Etc.

And yet, to listen to some Republicans, it would be too divisive to excommunicate Greene or other QAnon-aligned Republicans because the party must unify.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy plans to have a conversation with Greene. Hes under pressure to at least take her off the Education Committee, but some Republicans fear he wont even go that far because, Politico reports, Greene represents an energetic wing of the party and hell feel he cant afford to risk punishing one of Trumps favored office-holders.

The Hawaii GOP recently tweeted out support for QAnon, saying it was largely motivated by a sincere and deep love for America. When newly elected Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) appeared on a QAnon streaming site, the National Republican Congressional Committee responded to criticism by noting his opponent appeared on Russia conspiracy network MSNBC.

Story continues

Meanwhile, these same people think real heretics in need of canceling are Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and nine other Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, who reportedly said that QAnon just believes in good government. Various state parties have moved to censure Cheney and others for supporting impeachment.

So, in the name of fighting cancel culture, Republicans who condemned a president who tried to topple the Constitution to hold power must now be canceled yet Republicans who think Clinton drinks the blood of children must not be canceled or even criticized in the name of conscience.

Indeed, QAnon is being recast into a kind of oppressed religious minority with an inalienable right to its beliefs and any attempt to curtail it would put America on a slippery slope to tyranny.

Tucker Carlson, a prime-time host at Fox News (where I am a contributor), recently ran a long montage of pundits not politicians fretting over QAnons influence. After mocking them for making such a fuss, Carlson declared, Theres a clear line between democracy and tyranny, between self-government and dictatorship. And heres what that line is. That line is your conscience. They cannot cross that.

Government has every right to tell you what to do, Carlson said, citing things like laws against rape, murder and jaywalking. But, he insisted, No democratic government can ever tell you what to think. Your mind belongs to you. It is yours and yours alone.

Once politicians attempt to control what you believe, he continued, they are no longer politicians. They are by definition dictators. And if they succeed in controlling what you believe you are no longer a citizen, you are not a free man, you are a slave.

This is all nonsense.

Sure, the government can police behavior like rape and murder. But it doesnt have every right to tell you what to do. See the Bill of Rights or, for that matter, conservative objections to the individual healthcare mandate.

Sure, government cant make you violate your conscience (if your conscience says you should rape or murder, youre out of luck, though). But government can and should try to make you believe some things. It should try to convince you that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and necessary. It can tell you the correct date of election day.

This isnt dictatorial by any definition. Its telling the truth, and truth-telling is supposed to be the first obligation of both politicians and pundits, because democracy doesnt work without the truth. And neither will the GOP.

@JonahDispatch

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Originally published February 2, 2021, 6:30 AM

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Column: Where QAnon goes, so goes the Republican Party - Yahoo News

In 2020, for the first time in a generation, Democrats scored huge victories in the state of Georgia by winning the presidential election and subsequently both Senate seats. While not completely unprecedented after the strong Democratic showing in Georgia in 2018, this flip illustrated the partys increasing electoral strength in the Sun Belt and it should scare Republicans. As we shift our focus to the midterm elections and beyond, it is imperative that we do not slip and lose ground in places like Georgia and similar states swinging blue in recent years, such as Arizona and Nevada. As Democrats continue to build a diverse and powerful coalition, it is crucial that our focus turns to the next states we can flip. The two that stand out, and that Democrats should most fervently pursue, are North Carolina and the behemoth of Texas.

A realignment of the American electorate has been underway for the past several cycles and played a major role in Donald Trumps 2016 win. For the first time since 1988, Republicans won three key states in the Rust Belt Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan on the backs of white working-class voters, many of whom are ancestral Democrats. According to one study, Republicans won only 32 percent of white working class voters in 1992, while in 2016, they won 62 percent. Conversely, Democrats have increasingly become the party of urban and suburban voters. The latter class of voters, once a reliable moderate Republican voting bloc, has become increasingly diverse and educated over the years and subsequently has started tilting left. While President Biden won back those three midwestern states in 2020 in part because he cut into Trumps rural margins and benefited from increased turnout in cities the largest reason for his victories were his gains among these suburban voters. It is for this reason that some southern states are now in play for the Democrats.

Georgia is one of a number of southern states that has experienced rapid population growth in the last 10 years, a large part of which has been concentrated in urban areas and their surrounding suburbs. In cities across the South and West, there has been accelerated population growth, both due to a lower cost of living as well as large businesses migrating to those areas. The Atlanta metropolitan area, which has become one of the Souths premiere technology and financial hubs, is no exception. For example, the largest county in the state, Fulton County, has grown by 15 percent in population since 2010, compared to the national average of 7 percent. Hillary Clinton won Fulton by a 180,000-vote margin against Trump in 2016, compared to Biden, who won it by a margin exceeding 240,000 votes. This trend is consistent in other parts of the Atlanta metropolitan area. The grassroots organizing of Fair Fight, Mijente and other groups throughout the state bolstered existing Democratic strength in large metropolitan counties like Fulton to carry Biden, Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff to victory this past election season. The areas growth combined with its overwhelming population, which constitutes about 60 percent of the state, allowed Democrats to bleed votes in rural Georgia yet still win the state.

A similar situation could occur in both North Carolina and Texas, likewise driven by increasing population growth in cities and simultaneous Democratic gains in the suburbs. North Carolina is perhaps a more immediate possibility after Bidens narrow loss to Trump in 2020. With an open Senate seat up for grabs in 2022 and with well-liked, impressive retail politician Jeff Jackson in the race, there is a very real chance Democrats can win in the state in 2022. That victory could be used as a springboard to flip the state in the presidential election as well. Just like in Georgia, some of the fastest-growing areas of North Carolina are places like Wake and Mecklenburg County, the two largest counties in the state and Democratic strongholds to boot. This is in part because Wake County is part of the Research Triangle, a fast-growing and highly educated region anchored by North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. Even as Democrats have lost ground in the rural areas of North Carolina, they have, following a countrywide pattern, run up the score in urban areas while becoming more competitive in or flipping suburban areas.

Texas suburbs and metropolitan areas mirror these trends, which have fueled Texas shift from ruby red to magenta. The Austin metropolitan area, which has become a technology hub, has experienced even faster population growth. Just a few days ago, Senator John Cornyn tweeted about another tech company moving from San Francisco to Austin. While he perhaps meant to attack California for anti-business policies, he ironically merely illustrated that large groups of liberals are leaving blue states for jobs in Texas, thus turning the state bluer. In the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, the national suburban tilt toward blue has already manifested in successes such Beto ORourkes 2018 win in Tarrant County, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb. In the last election, Biden rode on Democrats recent success in the state and trimmed the margin there to fewer than six points, garnering the greatest percentage of the vote since 1976 coincidentally the last time a Democrat won Texas.

Despite these positive trends, which bode well for the future, Democrats still have a lot of work left to do. North Carolina is notably less diverse than Georgia, and more rural. And unlike in Georgia, Democrats have not already bottomed out in rural areas while being able to count on a single, massive metropolitan area to carry them over the line. However, Jeff Jackson should excite North Carolina Democratic voters. He has the potential to hold the line in rural areas while expanding Democrats lead in other areas, in part because of his 100 county campaign, in which he plans to visit and hold a town hall in every single county. This was a strategy that Beto ORourke utilized in 2018, which almost won him Texas, and North Carolina is a much bluer state now than Texas was then.

The Democratic strategy failed to deliver in Texas during this past election, in part because the party lost a large swath of traditionally Democrat-supporting Latino voters in the Rio Grande Valley. For example, Hillary Clinton won Starr County by 60 percent but Biden only won it by 5 percent. This failure was partially rooted in Democrats primarily immigration-focused outreach to Latinos, which treated these voters as a monolith as opposed to distinct ethnic and ideological groups. Democrats would do well to tailor their messaging to more specific groups of voters in Texas in the future.

The Democratic Party used to win in the South, but on the back of a very different coalition. Dixiecrats ruled the roost for decades, often advocating for more conservative or flat out racist policies. Now, however, the Democratic Party is made up of an incredibly diverse coalition of voters, and it has become competitive in the South because of its embrace of progressive ideas, not in spite of it. If Democrats are able to flip North Carolina and Texas, they would be nearly impossible to beat in the Electoral College, a system which is already rigged against them. Now is not the time to stop or rest on our laurels, but to keep pushing and continue flipping the Sun Belt blue.

Caleb Apple 21 can be reached at caleb_apple@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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Apple '21: Dems turned Georgia blue and they shouldn't stop there - The Brown Daily Herald

Was the hair accessory that Amanda Gorman wore to the presidential inauguration a headband? Or was it a crown?

The wide padded satin piece by Prada, in a shade the brand calls Fiery Red, sat not astride Ms. Gormans head but on top, encircling her braided updo. It heightened the presence of the petite 22-year-old poet behind the large podium with the presidential seal, drawing the viewers eyes from her sunny yellow coat up to her face as she recited her work.

Accessories aficionados rejoiced. It read so powerful and strong, like she had crowned herself, said Jennifer Behr, an accessories designer in New York.

We saw that the whole world saw that the way Amanda Gorman held herself like a goddamn queen, said Ateh Jewel, a British beauty journalist and diversity advocate. Ms. Jewel began wearing headbands last spring when the pandemic started, both at home for herself but also in her television appearances, as a celebration and a call to action.

The headband has made me turn the volume up on who I am, my ambitions, my aspirations, she said. She collaborated with Roseings London, a hair accessories brand in the U.K., on a limited-edition pink embellished style called the Kamala; she encourages people to post pictures with the hashtag #crownyourself.

The humble headband has morphed from a preppy status symbol to an empowering exclamation point, its purpose now less controlling than crowning. The designs trending today, puffed up with padding and glittering with gemstones, have the height and sparkle of fine jewelry reserved for royalty. Cast aside your childish Alice in Wonderland connotations; these headbands are about making a statement.

Its such a powerful way for women to take back symbols that traditionally were used to diminish female power, said Nell Diamond, the chief executive and founder of Hill House Home, the lifestyle brand. Fans of the brands Nap Dress styles often scoop up a padded headband in a matching print.

The one-size-fits-all, mood-lifting headband owes a bit of its popularity to the pandemic, too, standing out in a shoulders-up Zoom. Youre not going out, youre not buying party dresses, youre definitely not buying shoes and bags, said Lele Sadoughi, the founder and creative director of her namesake accessories brand. The headband has been something super special. Recently Ms. Sadoughi introduced a new collection with embellished headbands, priced between $150 and $195. The brand sold 500 within a half-hour.

Heres where this reporter should confess her own headband enthusiasm. Ive graduated from the elastic ones I relied on to keep my hair out of my face for a run or, in the case of my first son, childbirth. Inspired by the royal connotation, I went all in on statement headbands last year in appearances for my book, HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style. I chose a bright purple satin one for my publishers pre-pandemic media lunch and a black beaded version for an appointment at the bank to deposit my first advance check. For two virtual book parties I wore a light blue velvet headband, picking the color to match my book cover. My collection has swelled to require its own drawer in my closet. I can confidently report that these oversize designs do make you stand a bit taller, and stand out in the crowd.

This maxed-out headband moment is just the latest in the accessorys long history. From Grecian goddesses to bobbed flappers, there has been a headband for every fashion era. Just think of its visible roots in modern times: the simple band Grace Kelly wore or how chic Catherine Deneuve looked with her oversize black bow. Diana, Princess of Wales, stripped an emerald choker across her forehead in 1985, and Whitney Houston sported a wide white headband with her tracksuit to sing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl. Hillary Clinton donned a padded headband as first lady, then a super thin version as secretary of state. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy opted for the tortoiseshell look. Would the style of Clueless be so iconic without headbands on Cher Horowitz and Dionne Davenport? As if!

Headbands are such a potent place for personal expression, said Elizabeth Way, assistant curator at the Museum at F.I.T. and co-curator of an upcoming accessories exhibition, Head to Toe. People must wear shoes or carry bags, but headbands are something completely accessory, Ms. Way said. Decadent is how Ms. Sadoughi describes them.

Todays headband craze owes a special thanks to another queen bee: Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl. Hers were preppy, yes, and prim on occasion. But the embellished, oversize pieces had a hint of campy rebellion to them when worn tucked into tousled hair. In the beginning, people just didnt know how to wear headbands, said Ms. Behr, the designer. The teen drama gave people a visual of how to have fun with them.

Back in the summer of 2018, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge ne Kate Middleton arrived at her youngest sons christening in a towering Jane Taylor creation. The padded, woven piece was dotted with beads, and topped off with a corsages worth of faux flowers. It looked like a headband aspiring to be a hat; a hatband, if you will. One could wonder if the Duchess just sparked a new trend of chunky headbands going forward, Marlen Komar at Bustle mused. A few months later, Prada sent a parade of padded headbands down the runway for its spring 2019 collection.

In the years since, the statement headband crowd has split into two factions, the have-knots and the not-knots (padded). Both have been bedazzled in a big way pearls, beads, rhinestone, bows. Babba Rivera, founder of the hair care brand Ceremonia, recently launched the Frida Headband, a voluminous braided piece inspired by Frida Kahlo. Eugenia Kim was so inspired by the inauguration fashion that soon her accessories brand will launch a capsule Unity collection with headbands in red and yellow, la Ms. Gorman, but also the other colors on the stage, including vibrant purple and deep burgundy.

Todays bold pieces demand intentionality. Its not something you put on without thinking, its something you pick out, said Carmen Myer, 31, a Montessori teacher in Houston. Ms. Myer has two dozen headbands, including a pink knotted pearl one. A parent mistook it for a costume last Halloween, commenting that she loved Ms. Myers princess look. It was an aha moment for her. This is what it projects to people, she said, meaning regalness.

As a new year dawned, Ms. Myer feared the headband trend could be waning. Then she saw Ms. Gorman at that podium, single-handedly securing the accessorys continued reign. It was particularly meaningful for Ms. Myer as a Black woman.

It was a great way to show anybody can wear this. Its not just for a white woman who has straight thick hair, said Ms. Myer. It could also be for braided, curly, kinky and coily hair.

If youve never worn a statement headband, it can take a bit of courage to wear your first. Ummm, am I even worthy to wear this gorgeous piece? someone on Instagram asked Autumn Adeigbo, who designs headbands as part of her eponymous fashion label. Um yes you are queen, Ms. Adeigbo wrote in her repost, punctuating her reply with a crown emoji. Her creations, she told me, are to remind ourselves that were worth it.

Ms. Gorman recently wore one of Ms. Adeigbos designs on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, but the designer assures me that theres no need to go anywhere in order to wear a fancy headband. You can be the queen of the Zoom, she said. Or the queen of your home, or the queen of your car.

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Why Amanda Gorman's Headband Joins Others in Fashion History - The New York Times