Read This Book…

I spent most of the holiday weekend grooming the Corgis and cleaning my house, anything to keep listening to Naomi Klein’s new book. When a friend of mine recommended Doppelganger, I hit play and settled in for this “through the looking glass” sort of book.

For years, Naomi Klein has found herself continuously confused with Naomi Wolfe. They are both Jewish women who have historically moved through feminist spaces. But in the last decade, Wolfe has steadily become more connected with extremist right-wing politics. In this one-of-a-kind book, Klein details the history of the confusion and misidentification the two women have experienced online.

What first starts as a casual, sometimes even funny, misidentification between Klein and “the other Naomi” turns into a constant confusion that fills Klein’s Twitter notifications. From there, Klein expands into what she calls the mirror world, a place where men like Steve Bannon go off about stolen elections and forced mask mandates. Wolfe joins Bannon on his popular podcast, which astounds Klein as she listens to Wolfe’s guest appearance after guest appearance. Doppelganger is a fascinating look at the evolution of American politics and how we got to the chaos that we’re experiencing now.

In the last major section of the book, Klein examines Wolfe’s anti-vaxxer stance and the constant ableism that Wolfe spouts across all of her channels. As the mother of an autistic child, Klein is all too aware of the passion many “autistic parents” have against vaccinations. These parents see she has an autistic child and hand her fliers about why vaccines are “to blame” for how her son’s mind works. Klein breaks down these arguments, illustrating the history of violent ableism towards disabled people. As a disabled person, I appreciated the solidarity—the push for people like Wolfe to confront how their beliefs about vaccines are based on a hatred for disabled and neurodivergent people.

Klein’s mind is so organized. I constantly marveled as she guided us through Wolfe’s mirror world, pointing out and disapproving of a host of Wolfe’s false claims. I will never be able to properly describe her skill here. So please, don’t take my word for it. Go read Doppelganger for yourself.