I look drained and my mascara’s gone clumpy. According to TikTok, this is all it takes to resemble a hardcore US Republican

Somewhere in the wilderness, in a top-secret location, there is an underground lab where normal women go in and Fox News hosts come out. Their hair gets dyed an approved shade of blond before getting snipped (long-ish) and styled (wavy-ish) in exactly the same way. They are fitted from one big Stepford Wives wardrobe, then heavily made up. All over the US, rightwing women emulate this look, creating an army of conservative clones.

Obviously, I am being hyperbolic: Republican women don’t look exactly the same. The occasional brunette is tolerated, even celebrated. (Melania Trump has done wonders for diversity.) Nevertheless, the fact that many conservatives – men and women – seem to look and dress eerily alike, almost as if they are in a weird cult, is hard to ignore. It was a big topic of discussion as far back as 2019, when Bombshell (a movie about the sexual harassment scandal that brought down the former Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes) came out, prompting widespread analysis of the Fox News “look”.