The Great British Baking Show vs. the World According to Hollie Noveletsky

Recently, my wife and I have been binge watching “The Great British Baking Show.” I know we are late to the game, but better late than never. It may be the second greatest televised spectator sport ever. The best in NFL football. Both allow you to look up from your laptop browsing now and again to watch the dramatic parts; it’s not like watching an episode of Midsomer Murders (also late adopters) where if your attention wanders or you have a strengthening beer, you can forget about remembering the names or who did what to whom. And it’s better than US shows like Hell’s Kitchen. I’ve worked in plenty of restaurant kitchens, and I can tell you that had Gordon Ramsay pulled his typical schtick with me, his next conscious memory would be of looking up at me from the floor of the kitchen. But people seem to like that kind of thing.

By contrast, the GBBS is relentlessly pleasant. It is set on a beautiful estate in a tent surrounded by bucolic green and pleasant fields filled with inquisitive wild animals and birds. The judges are restrained in their criticism of less than perfect baking and always look for something to praise. The contestants actually help each other and weep when one of them is sent home. I have no idea how they pick the contestants, but I suspect they ask questions such as “What was it like when your beloved cocker spaniel died?” and if they don’t tear up, they probably aren’t GBBS material. But they all seem like genuinely nice people. 

I also like the absurd baking challenges. A couple examples:

Tennis Cake: A dense 1890s fruitcake that then had to be fully iced and decorated as a realistic tennis court with royal icing, a net, and rackets; nobody truly nailed it, and even competent bakers produced underbaked cakes and lurid decorations.

Torta Setteveli: A seven-layer Italian entremet with multiple distinct textures (sponge, bavarois, praline, mousse, and mirror glaze) completed in a GBBO time window. I had to look up “entremets” and came up with this explanation. An entremet is a French multi-layered dessert, usually a mousse-based cake with several distinct textures (sponge, mousse, cremeux, praline, jelly/compote, and a glaze) assembled in a mold and served cold.

I’m sure it’s good, but it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go to. But I think I could kick it up a notch:

“Bakers, for this technical challenge, I want you to create a planetoid out of angel food cake, covered in fondant and at least five colors of buttercream frosting. It must have at least three macarons orbiting within its gravitational field, each following a different elliptical orbit, with clearly distinct eccentricities. Inside the planetoid, I want you to construct a singularity that contains a rapidly developing life form; what type is up to you, but they must reach an industrial revolution when your baking time is up.”

But then there’s that commercial over and over. It’s Hollie Noveletsky’s campaign spot at least four times per episode. I tried to tune it out, but after the first 50 repetitions, I couldn’t help but consider what she was actually saying. I do question the placement, given that the GBBS clearly leans progressive, with the LGBTQ community well represented along with immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Central Europe baking in harmony.

Hollie Noveletsky’s ad is the kind of spot that looks harmless if you have the sound off. There she is, the steel‑mill owner with the hard hat and the soft smile, talking about “commonsense” and “protecting Granite Staters.” I’m happy to give her credit where it’s due: serving in the military and running a steel‑fabrication plant are real work, even if I doubt she’s out there bending beams with her bare hands. Turn the sound up, though, and the checklist comes into focus: Biden wrecked the economy, “illegal immigrants” are draining the system, “criminal illegals” are prowling our streets, and men are muscling into women’s sports. It’s a worldview that fits neatly into thirty seconds, especially if you never ask whether any of it is actually true.

On the immigration side, putting aside the thoughtless cruelty of stepped‑up deportations, Trump’s “Hire American” push has followed a familiar pattern. Mass deportations and stepped-up ICE raids have driven net migration down and filled detention centers, but research so far finds little evidence of benefits for U.S.-born workers. High‑enforcement areas see fewer jobs overall and more economic disruption as employers lose experienced workers and projects stall—and in some places, these tactics even undermine cooperation with police. None of this is an argument for going soft on serious crime—anyone, citizen or not, who commits a violent felony should be locked up, and if they’re here illegally, deported when their sentence is done. The problem is that Trump’s dragnet hasn’t mostly gone after those people; it’s swept up large numbers of nonviolent and non‑criminal immigrants while doing little to change overall crime.

At the same time, serious violence has come down from its pandemic highs—homicides and gun assaults dropped sharply in 2024–25, with big cities like Chicago and New York seeing double‑digit declines in shootings before or independent of Trump’s latest immigration crackdowns. In other words, it’s true that violence has fallen—but there’s no good evidence that “dangerous illegals, deport them” is the reason why. This is rhetoric a slice of the electorate likes to hear, yet the deportation dragnet has done almost nothing to make American streets and homes safer. It has no business being one of the centerpieces of Hollie’s campaign.

And then there’s the line about “keeping boys out of girls’ sports.” I’ll admit I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, I’m all for inclusion and treating trans kids with basic dignity. On the other hand, as an ex‑wrestler, I know most people who’ve actually stepped on a mat have a hard‑no reaction to the idea of someone with a clear physical advantage competing against young women. Theory and slogans are one thing; they don’t magically make biological differences disappear or settle every edge case. This is a genuinely complicated, nuanced issue that deserves careful, sport‑by‑sport, level‑by‑level discussion—rules about fairness, safety, and inclusion—rather than being reduced to “ban them” applause lines.

And just to drive the point home, here’s how Hollie herself talks about the supposed root of America’s problems, straight from her campaign website: the “effects of the Biden economy,” “illegal immigrants…taxing our system,” “extreme liberal policies pushed by radical Democrats,” and a promise to “keep men out of women’s sports” while “support[ing] President Trump” as he “removes criminal illegal aliens from our streets and country.”

Maybe part of why Hollie’s ad grates on me is that I’ve been binging The Great British Baking Show, which is basically weaponized kindness. Nobody’s screaming about “dangerous illegals” or “radical Democrats”; they’re just trying not to overproof their dough while they cheer for each other’s bakes. It’s hard to go from that world of gentle competition and mutual support back to a politics where every problem has to be someone’s fault and every solution sounds like a punishment. Hollie strikes me as someone who could benefit from a few seasons in the tent. If she internalized even a little of that “be firm, but be kind” ethos, she might still talk about borders and budgets—but maybe with less relish for the crackdown and more awareness of the people on the receiving end. And if nothing else, a candidate who’s spent 25 years in structural steel could probably turn out a mean pavlova with those fabricating hands. I’d rather see her perfect a lemon tart for her family and friends than perfect the art of blaming half the country for all our troubles.