washingtonmonthly--2020-06-19--Why the 2020s Will Look a Lot Like the 1960s

I was born in 1969 so my introduction to the world was perfectly timed to provide a sense of discontinuity with the past .
My older brothers , both born in the 1950s , had memories of a time before the major civil rights legislation of the 1960s .
They witnessed the English Invasion and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin when they were alive .
They watched our cities burn in race riots and saw Malcolm and Martin and Robert get assassinated .
They were glued to the television when the Chicago police beat protestors during the Democratic National Convention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the moon in 1969 .
They faced the prospect of being sent to Vietnam if the war continued to drag on .
For me , all these things were in the past , and everything that came before them seemed as distant and foreign as the black and white footage of our World Wars .
What did The Bee Gees have in common with Buddy Holly , or Diff ’ rent Strokes have in common with My Three Sons ?
The rupture in time was so extreme that it seemed impossible to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twenty years in the past .
Of course , I went to high school and college in the years immediately prior to the internet , and this created another rupture in time .
Talking to my children , it can sometimes feel like my childhood experiences are similarly foreign to them .
But I don ’ t really think the second rip in time comes close to the first .
Anyone sent from the present back to the 1980s or early 1990s would not feel like they ’ d entered an entirely different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even the internet , the cell phone , or the end of the Cold War , that is as monumental as the introduction of the pill or end of Jim Crow or the trauma of Vietnam and Watergate .
But I think that is changing now .
I believe we ’ re entering a second period like the 1960s , and what ’ s really driving it is the arrival of a generation that does not share our assumptions about the virtuous past .
My generation rallied against apartheid in South Africa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we hadn ’ t maintained the same type of system right up to the moment of our conception in the mid-to-late 1960s .
But that meant that we thoroughly rejected that past .
What we were less likely to reject was the narrative of our country ’ s founding or the heroic stories of settling the West .
We were taught to question colonialism as practiced by the Europeans , but we were somehow exempt from that criticism .
In today ’ s context , it ’ s the difference between pushing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and pushing to take down every statue of a conquistador or slaveowner .
This is happening here in America , but it ’ s also happening in Europe .
There ’ s a new reckoning and a different moral judgment about the past , and much like Gone With the Wind is suddenly seen as far too celebratory of a way of life that was indefensible , so too is the idea of honoring someone like Cecil Rhodes .
We ’ re entering an iconoclastic age , where old symbols are smashed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of looking at the world .
How we police our cities is most definitely a central part of this , and how we go about incarcerating people will probably come next .
A lot of it is going to go too far and too fast for people of my generation , just as the changes in the 1960s challenged even the progressive-minded people behind the New Deal .
There will be a new kind of backlash as two irreconcilable worldviews are forced to live together within the same population and electorate .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and others will fight back with everything they have .
But what I ’ m pretty sure about is that twenty years from now , the last decade will seem as strange and distant as the 1950s looked to me in the 1970s .

I was born in 1969 so my introduction to the world was perfectly timed to provide a sense of discontinuity with the past. My older brothers, both born in the 1950s, had memories of a time before the major civil rights legislation of the 1960s. They witnessed the English Invasion and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin when they were alive. They watched our cities burn in race riots and saw Malcolm and Martin and Robert get assassinated. They were glued to the television when the Chicago police beat protestors during the Democratic National Convention of 1968, and when we landed on the moon in 1969. They faced the prospect of being sent to Vietnam if the war continued to drag on.
For me, all these things were in the past, and everything that came before them seemed as distant and foreign as the black and white footage of our World Wars. What did The Bee Gees have in common with Buddy Holly, or Diff’rent Strokes have in common with My Three Sons? The rupture in time was so extreme that it seemed impossible to me that the 1950s were less than twenty years in the past.
Of course, I went to high school and college in the years immediately prior to the internet, and this created another rupture in time. Talking to my children, it can sometimes feel like my childhood experiences are similarly foreign to them. But I don’t really think the second rip in time comes close to the first. Anyone sent from the present back to the 1980s or early 1990s would not feel like they’d entered an entirely different country or culture. Nothing has happened, even the internet, the cell phone, or the end of the Cold War, that is as monumental as the introduction of the pill or end of Jim Crow or the trauma of Vietnam and Watergate.
But I think that is changing now. I believe we’re entering a second period like the 1960s, and what’s really driving it is the arrival of a generation that does not share our assumptions about the virtuous past. My generation rallied against apartheid in South Africa in an amnestic way, as if we hadn’t maintained the same type of system right up to the moment of our conception in the mid-to-late 1960s. But that meant that we thoroughly rejected that past. What we were less likely to reject was the narrative of our country’s founding or the heroic stories of settling the West. We were taught to question colonialism as practiced by the Europeans, but we were somehow exempt from that criticism.
In today’s context, it’s the difference between pushing to take down relics of the old South and pushing to take down every statue of a conquistador or slaveowner. This is happening here in America, but it’s also happening in Europe. There’s a new reckoning and a different moral judgment about the past, and much like Gone With the Wind is suddenly seen as far too celebratory of a way of life that was indefensible, so too is the idea of honoring someone like Cecil Rhodes.
We’re entering an iconoclastic age, where old symbols are smashed to make way for a whole new way of looking at the world. How we police our cities is most definitely a central part of this, and how we go about incarcerating people will probably come next. A lot of it is going to go too far and too fast for people of my generation, just as the changes in the 1960s challenged even the progressive-minded people behind the New Deal. There will be a new kind of backlash as two irreconcilable worldviews are forced to live together within the same population and electorate. Many from my generation will evolve and adjust, and others will fight back with everything they have.
But what I’m pretty sure about is that twenty years from now, the last decade will seem as strange and distant as the 1950s looked to me in the 1970s.


washingtonmonthly--2020-06-20--Spike Lee Tells a Different Vietnam War History

Thirty-one years ago , Spike Lee made a tragically prescient film .
In Do the Right Thing ( 1989 ) , a white police officer kills a boom-box-wielding black man named Radio Raheem by choking him with a nightstick .
Riots quickly erupt , and a neighborhood pizzeria owned by Italian Americans—where the confrontation started—is burned to the ground .
When the film came out , it was enormously controversial .
Critics predicted that it would spark race riots across the country .
( It didn ’ t . )
Instead , the groundbreaking look at New York City race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has been an all too common feature of American life .
If anything , the rise of smart phones has only resulted in more of these instances getting caught on camera .
That has not been lost on Lee .
On May 31 , he released a short 95-second film interspersing real footage of the police murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd with fictional footage of Radio Raheem , played by Bill Nunn .
It ’ s a searing illustration of life-imitating art—and Lee ’ s way of telling us that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while Do the Right Thing seems to have predicted the future , Lee ’ s newest feature , Da 5 Bloods , tries to reconcile with the past .
Released June 12 on Netflix , the film follows four black veterans who return to Vietnam on a two-pronged mission .
They want to find and bring home the remains of their idealized commander Stormin ’ Norman , played by Chadwick Boseman , who died in combat .
At the same time , they hope to find a hidden stash of gold that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vietnamese but buried after an ambush .
The premise becomes the narrative engine for Lee to offer a history about the role of black Americans in the war .
The four men—Paul ( Delroy Lindo ) , Otis ( Clarke Peters ) , Eddie ( Norm Lewis ) , and Melvin ( Isiah Whitlock , Jr. ) —grapple with what happened to them .
“ We fought in an immoral war the wasn ’ t ours , for rights we didn ’ t have , ” says Paul .
Many of their fellow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At one point , Melvin reminds the group of an important stat : a quarter of all U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam were black , even though blacks made up only 11 percent of the U.S. population .
The center of the drama is Paul , their battle-scarred and emotionally erratic comrade who has since become a Trump supporter .
He dons a red MAGA hat and talks of the need to build a southern border wall .
To Lee ’ s credit , he doesn ’ t condescend to Paul .
By @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his anguish , the filmmaker empathizes with the roots of his paranoia .
Lee , of course , has made his deeply negative feelings about the current White House occupant no secret in real life , and in this movie , other characters refer to Trump as Agent Orange and a title card calls him President Fake Bone Spurs .
Accompanying the group is Paul ’ s estranged son David ( Johnathan Majors ) , who surprises them in Ho Chi Minh City , where they all meet at the beginning .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old man , who seems on the verge of a breakdown .
The two have always had an acrimonious relationship ; in an unnecessary and artificial insertion to the script , Paul tells Otis that David ’ s mother died giving birth to him , implying the source of his resentment .
The father and son ’ s attempt to reconcile comes to a head in one of the film ’ s more riveting scenes , when they are wandering through the jungle and David realizes that he ’ s stepped on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set it off .
Paul scrambles to figure out how to get him away without him blowing to pieces .
It ’ s one of the many reminders throughout Da 5 Bloods that wars never really end .
Movie lovers will quickly notice Lee ’ s many allusions to Apocalypse Now—from his replicating the famous shot of a helicopter flying across a sunset , to his playing “ Ride of the Valkyries ” —and the plot ’ s resemblance to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre .
Lee also pays tribute to Samuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war , such as The Steel Helmet .
In Bloods , as in Helmet , the gang sets up an observation post at a Buddhist temple .
More interesting , however , is where Lee diverges from one of his other cinematic heroes—and former NYU film professor—Martin Scorsese .
Unlike Scorsese ’ s choice to use de-aging technology in his 2019 epic The Irishman , Lee deliberately eschews any prosthetic help or computer-generated imagery to make his characters look younger .
Da 5 Bloods cuts back and forth from the war to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 16mm film and in a narrower aspect ratio , whereas most of the rest of the film is shot on digital .
But in both cases , the characters look the same then as they do now .
They have the same gray hair , the same wrinkles in their face .
Lee wants to show how the trauma of their experience in the war irreparably shaped the rest of their lives .
Da 5 Bloods evokes Faulkner ’ s famous aphorism : “ The past is never dead .
It is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accident that the film begins with a clip of Muhammad Ali .
“ Here we go with the damn Vietnam War , ” he says , “ and we still ain ’ t get nothin ’ but police brutality , et cetera.
” Lee then cuts to a montage of historical footage of the social unrest of the 1960s , of protests and riots much like the ones that have raged across America over the last month .
Lee began shooting the film in March 2019 .
Obviously , he did not have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ widespread anti-racism protests it would trigger in mind during the production .
The events of the world just so happened to reinforce his point .
The history books might say the Vietnam War is over , but we are still fighting the same old fights .

Thirty-one years ago, Spike Lee made a tragically prescient film. In Do the Right Thing (1989), a white police officer kills a boom-box-wielding black man named Radio Raheem by choking him with a nightstick. Riots quickly erupt, and a neighborhood pizzeria owned by Italian Americans—where the confrontation started—is burned to the ground.
When the film came out, it was enormously controversial. Critics predicted that it would spark race riots across the country. (It didn’t.) Instead, the groundbreaking look at New York City race relations portrayed a pattern of police brutality that has been an all too common feature of American life. If anything, the rise of smart phones has only resulted in more of these instances getting caught on camera.
That has not been lost on Lee. On May 31, he released a short 95-second film interspersing real footage of the police murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd with fictional footage of Radio Raheem, played by Bill Nunn. It’s a searing illustration of life imitating art—and Lee’s way of telling us that he’s been vindicated.
But while Do the Right Thing seems to have predicted the future, Lee’s newest feature, Da 5 Bloods, tries to reckon with the past. Released June 12 on Netflix, the film follows four black veterans who return to Vietnam on a two-pronged mission. They want to find and bring home the remains of their idealized commander Stormin’ Norman, played by Chadwick Boseman, who died in combat. At the same time, they hope to find a hidden stash of gold that they once intended to deliver to the South Vietnamese but buried after an ambush.
The premise becomes the narrative engine for Lee to offer a history about the role of black Americans in the war. The four men—Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.)—grapple with what happened to them. “We fought in an immoral war that wasn’t ours, for rights we didn’t have,” says Paul. Many of their fellow black soldiers didn’t survive. At one point, Melvin reminds the group of an important stat: In 1965, nearly a quarter of all U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam were black, even though blacks made up only 11 percent of the U.S. population.
The center of the drama is Paul, their battle-scarred and emotionally erratic comrade who has since become a Trump supporter. He dons a red MAGA hat and talks of the need to build a southern border wall. To Lee’s credit, he doesn’t condescend to Paul. By giving him the space to act out his anguish, the filmmaker empathizes with the roots of his paranoia. Lee, of course, has made his deeply negative feelings about the current White House occupant no secret in real life, and in this movie, other characters refer to Trump as Agent Orange and President Fake Bone Spurs.
Accompanying the group is Paul’s estranged son David (Johnathan Majors), who surprises them in Ho Chi Minh City, where they all meet at the beginning. For good reason, David worries about his old man, who seems on the verge of a breakdown. The two appear to have always had an acrimonious relationship; in an unnecessary and artificial insertion to the script, Paul tells Otis that David’s mother died giving birth to him, implying the source of his long-held resentment. The father and son’s attempt to reconcile comes to a head in one of the film’s more riveting scenes, when they are wandering through the jungle and David realizes that he’s stepped on a land mine but has yet to set it off, and Paul scrambles to figure out how to get him away without him blowing to pieces. It’s one of the many reminders throughout Da 5 Bloods that wars never really end.
Movie lovers will quickly notice Lee’s many allusions to Apocalypse Now—from his replicating the famous shot of a helicopter flying across a sunset, to his playing “Ride of the Valkyries”—and the plot’s resemblances to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Lee also pays tribute to Samuel Fuller’s films about the Korean war, such as The Steel Helmet. In Bloods, as in Helmet, the gang sets up an observation post at a Buddhist temple.
More interesting, however, is where Lee diverges from one of his other cinematic heroes—and former NYU film professor—Martin Scorsese. Unlike Scorsese’s choice to use de-aging technology in his 2019 epic The Irishman, Lee deliberately eschews any prosthetic help or computer-generated imagery to make his characters look younger.
Da 5 Bloods cuts back and forth from the war to the present; the flashbacks are shot on 16mm film and in a narrower aspect ratio, whereas most of the rest of the film is shot wide on digital. But in both cases, the characters look the same then as they do now. They have the same gray hair, the same wrinkles in their face. Lee wants to show how the trauma of their experience in the war irreparably shaped the rest of their lives. Da 5 Bloods evokes Faulkner’s famous aphorism: “The past is never dead. It is not even past.”
It’s no accident that the film begins with a clip of Muhammad Ali. “Here we go with the damn Vietnam War,” he says, “and we still ain’t get nothin’ but police brutality, et cetera.” Lee then cuts to a montage of historical footage of the social unrest of the 1960s, of protests and riots much like the ones that have raged across America over the last month.
Lee began shooting the film in March 2019. Obviously, he did not have George Floyd’s murder and the widespread anti-racism demonstrations it would trigger in mind during the production. The events of the world just so happened to reinforce his point. The history books might say the Vietnam War is over, but we are still fighting the same old fights.


washingtonmonthly--2020-06-20--America Just Learned About Two More Impeachable Offenses by Trump and Barr

If the United States had a functioning political system , this Friday night ’ s twin revelations of malfeasance by the Trump Administration would mark the end of Donald Trump ’ s presidency and force a snap election .
Instead , they are yet another signpost of an executive branch unaccountable to law and insulated from consequences by the cowardice and short-term self-interest of his supporters in Congress .
First , we learned that longtime Trump confidant and Trump campaign associate Roger Stone did in fact have advance knowledge of the release of Clinton ’ s emails by Wikileaks during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump all about it .
Trump repeatedly denied having foreknowledge of the matter : In July 2016 , political consultant Roger Stone told Trump as well as several campaign advisors that he had spoken with Julian Assange and that WikiLeaks would be publishing the documents in a matter of days .
Stone told the then-candidate via speakerphone that he “ did not know what the content of the materials was , ” according to the newly unveiled portions of the report , and Trump responded “ oh good , alright ” upon hearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of some 20,000 emails Russians hacked from the Democratic National Committee on July 22 of that year .
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told federal investigators that he overheard the phone call between Stone and Trump .
Agents were also told by former campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates that Stone had spoken several times in early June of something “ big ” coming from WikiLeaks .
Assange first mentioned having emails related to Clinton on June 12 .
The new revelations are the strongest indication to date that Trump and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hurt Clinton ’ s electoral chances , and that Stone played a direct role in communicating that situation to the Trump campaign .
Trump has publicly denied being aware of any information being relayed between WikiLeaks and his advisors .
It turns out Mueller ’ s team was rightly concerned that Trump was lying to them about the matter .
So in short , we now know that Trump ’ s team knew in advance about the release of Clinton campaign documents electronically burglarized by Russian operatives and passed on through Wikileaks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not inform the FBI , but actively welcomed the assistance and secretly kept tabs on the developments ; that Trump made public statements welcoming Russia ’ s further help in stealing private Clinton documents afterwards ; and that Trump almost certainly lied to Mueller ’ s investigators about it in a clear obstruction of justice .
Even if there ’ s no smoking gun ( yet ) implicating Trump and his campaign in directly trading favors with Russia in exchange for leaking the documents , keeping the Russian assistance secret , maintaining secret @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it afterwards is , on its own , a clear case of collusion , conspiracy and obstruction .
Worse , we only know about it now because of a Buzzfeed Freedom of Information Act request that forced the removal of the Attorney General Barr ’ s redactions of large section of the Mueller Report .
It is quite clear that there was no actual national security pretext for these redactions , and that by implementing them Barr was engaged in a political coverup for President Trump .
This , in addition to Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Report in his personal summaries as totally exonerating the president when it did nothing of the sort , amounts to obstruction of justice on the part of the Attorney General , hiding from Congress crucial information it would need in order to determine if impeachment proceedings were necessary .
Now it appears that both Trump and Barr has committed impeachable offenses on this matter .
This revelation alone would have brought any other presidential administration to its knees .
But it wasn ’ t even the biggest story of the night .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brewing in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney ’ s office .
This scandal once again is centered around Attorney General Barr , who is shamelessly acting not in service of the American people but rather as the Trump ’ s personal defense attorney with egregious abuse of power .
Barr suddenly announced the resignation of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in a Friday night news dump .
Berman just so happens to have been involved in and actively pursuing a series of investigations into shady figures in Trump ’ s orbit , from Rudy Giuliani @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jeffrey Epstein .
But , in a shocking development , Berman is refusing to fall on his sword .
He issued a defiant statement claiming that Barr didn ’ t have the authority to force his resignation , and that he would be staying on until the Senate confirmed a successor to take his place : The law does appear to be on Berman ’ s side : Keep in mind that this is the same Southern New York position previously occupied by Preet Bharara , whom Trump had already fired previously for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has raised interesting and intense speculation in the immediate aftermath of the conflict , tweeting that it doesn ’ t make sense for the president to be replacing his handpicked successor just five months before the election : He also retweeted legal analyst Daniel Goldman ’ s informed speculation that there is an intense disagreement within the Justice Department that led to Berman ’ s attempted removal , and noted that Barr lied about Berman supposedly resigning his position when Barr actually intended to fire him despite not having the power to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barr to take the rash step of trying to force the sudden resignation of Manhattan attorney involved in investigations of so many Trump associates on a Friday night , a move almost certain to cause an enormous scandal , right at a time when the Trump campaign is desperately trying to regain its footing in an election trending against them ?
It could be a random combination of incompetence and malevolence .
But smart money would suggest that Berman is getting close to something that Trump and Barr are desperate to keep hidden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lie ?
The official explanation is that Jay Clayton , Barr ’ s intended replacement for the position , asked to get the job .
But doing a favor for a friend hardly seems worth the risk and extraordinary at this particular moment .
It looks far more like obstruction of justice again .
In any case , Barr ’ s shameless lies about the incident are an impeachable offense .
If , as seems highly likely , Trump was involved in the decision to try to ax Berman in order to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would also be obstruction of justice and an impeachable offense .
Of course , the only direct impact any of this may have will be on perhaps a few swing voters who haven ’ t quite made up their mind yet .
The House won ’ t impeach Trump again this close to an election , and the Republican-controlled Senate will do nothing , hoping to ride it out until November and survive the storm .
America ’ s system of government is broken , and the president and his attorney general appear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and conspiracies of obstruction with no accountability in sight beyond that hopefully provided by the voters .
It ’ s an unsustainable system in the long run .

If the United States had a functioning political system, this Friday night’s twin revelations of malfeasance by the Trump Administration would mark the end of Donald Trump’s presidency and force a snap election. Instead, they are yet another signpost of an executive branch unaccountable to law and insulated from consequences by the cowardice and short-term self-interest of his supporters in Congress.
First, we learned that longtime Trump confidant and Trump campaign associate Roger Stone did in fact have advance knowledge of the release of Clinton’s emails by Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign–and, most importantly told Trump all about it. Trump repeatedly denied having foreknowledge of the matter:
In July 2016, political consultant Roger Stone told Trump as well as several campaign advisors that he had spoken with Julian Assange and that WikiLeaks would be publishing the documents in a matter of days. Stone told the then-candidate via speakerphone that he “did not know what the content of the materials was,” according to the newly unveiled portions of the report, and Trump responded “oh good, alright” upon hearing the news. WikiLeaks published a trove of some 20,000 emails Russians hacked from the Democratic National Committee on July 22 of that year. Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told federal investigators that he overheard the phone call between Stone and Trump. Agents were also told by former campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates that Stone had spoken several times in early June of something “big” coming from WikiLeaks. Assange first mentioned having emails related to Clinton on June 12. The new revelations are the strongest indication to date that Trump and his closest advisors were aware of outside efforts to hurt Clinton’s electoral chances, and that Stone played a direct role in communicating that situation to the Trump campaign. Trump has publicly denied being aware of any information being relayed between WikiLeaks and his advisors.
It turns out Mueller’s team was rightly concerned that Trump was lying to them about the matter. So in short, we now know that Trump’s team knew in advance about the release of Clinton campaign documents electronically burglarized by Russian operatives and passed on through Wikileaks; that Trump’s team did not inform the FBI, but actively welcomed the assistance and secretly kept tabs on the developments; that Trump made public statements welcoming Russia’s further help in stealing private Clinton documents afterwards; and that Trump almost certainly lied to Mueller’s investigators about it in a clear obstruction of justice. Even if there’s no smoking gun (yet) implicating Trump and his campaign in directly trading favors with Russia in exchange for leaking the documents, keeping the Russian assistance secret, maintaining secret contacts with its disseminators and lying about it afterwards is, on its own, a clear case of collusion, conspiracy and obstruction.
Worse, we only know about it now because of a Buzzfeed Freedom of Information Act request that forced the removal of the Attorney General Barr’s redactions of large section of the Mueller Report. It is quite clear that there was no actual national security pretext for these redactions, and that by implementing them Barr was engaged in a political coverup for President Trump. This, in addition to Barr’s previous mischaracterizations of the Mueller Report in his personal summaries as totally exonerating the president when it did nothing of the sort, amounts to obstruction of justice on the part of the Attorney General, hiding from Congress crucial information it would need in order to determine if impeachment proceedings were necessary. Now it appears that both Trump and Barr has committed impeachable offenses on this matter.
This revelation alone would have brought any other presidential administration to its knees. But it wasn’t even the biggest story of the night.
That honor belongs to a full-fledged Constutional crisis brewing in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office. This scandal once again is centered around Attorney General Barr, who is shamelessly acting not in service of the American people but rather as the Trump’s personal defense attorney with egregious abuse of power.
Barr suddenly announced the resignation of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in a Friday night news dump. Berman just so happens to have been involved in and actively pursuing a series of investigations into shady figures in Trump’s orbit, from Rudy Giuliani to Lev Parnas to Michael Cohen to Jeffrey Epstein.
But, in a shocking development, Berman is refusing to fall on his sword. He issued a defiant statement claiming that Barr didn’t have the authority to force his resignation, and that he would be staying on until the Senate confirmed a successor to take his place:
“I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was ‘stepping down’ as United States Attorney. I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York,” Berman said. “I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption. I cherish every day that I work with the men and women of this Office to pursue justice without fear or favor — and intend to ensure that this Office’s important cases continue unimpeded.”
The law does appear to be on Berman’s side:
Unlike many other U.S. attorneys, Berman is almost uniquely positioned to resist efforts to oust him, at least for a while. U.S. attorneys are typically nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but in Berman’s case he was appointed to the job by the federal court in his district, and there is some legal precedent indicating that only the court, not the Justice Department, can remove him until a replacement is confirmed by the Senate.
Keep in mind that this is the same Southern New York position previously occupied by Preet Bharara, whom Trump had already fired previously for being an ethical civil servant. Bharara has raised interesting and intense speculation in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, tweeting that it doesn’t make sense for the president to be replacing his handpicked successor just five months before the election:
He also retweeted legal analyst Daniel Goldman’s informed speculation that there is an intense disagreement within the Justice Department that led to Berman’s attempted removal, and noted that Barr lied about Berman supposedly resigning his position when Barr actually intended to fire him despite not having the power to do so.
What could cause Trump and Barr to take the rash step of trying to force the sudden resignation of Manhattan attorney involved in investigations of so many Trump associates on a Friday night, a move almost certain to cause an enormous scandal, right at a time when the Trump campaign is desperately trying to regain its footing in an election trending against them? It could be a random combination of incompetence and malevolence. But smart money would suggest that Berman is getting close to something that Trump and Barr are desperate to keep hidden. Otherwise why not let sleeping dogs lie? The official explanation is that Jay Clayton, Barr’s intended replacement for the position, asked to get the job. But doing a favor for a friend hardly seems worth the risk and extraordinary at this particular moment.
It looks far more like obstruction of justice again. In any case, Barr’s shameless lies about the incident are an impeachable offense. If, as seems highly likely, Trump was involved in the decision to try to ax Berman in order to stop him from a sensitive investigation, that would also be obstruction of justice and an impeachable offense.
Of course, the only direct impact any of this may have will be on perhaps a few swing voters who haven’t quite made up their mind yet. The House won’t impeach Trump again this close to an election, and the Republican-controlled Senate will do nothing, hoping to ride it out until November and survive the storm.
America’s system of government is broken, and the president and his attorney general appear to be engaged in multiple simultaneous coverups and conspiracies of obstruction with no accountability in sight beyond that hopefully provided by the voters. It’s an unsustainable system in the long run.


washingtonmonthly--2020-06-20--Even Trump’s Rallies Are a Problem For Him Now

Like most populist authoritarians , Donald Trump thrives on the energy of crowds .
The nearly religious fervor they inspire motivates his base , and the feedback loop between the frenzied crowd and Trump ’ s rambling , improvisational speaking style often drives news cycles .
It is likely no accident that Trump ’ s political fortunes have declined as the COVID pandemic has shuttered his in-person rallies .
Of course , the pandemic itself , the subsequent recession and the recent protests against racist police violence are all bigger factors , combined with Trump ’ s wrongfooted and unpopular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that he is unable to stand in front of adoring crowds on television also means he reportedly has been in a foul temper for weeks , and has difficulty dominating the news cycle or effectively attacking his opponents .
He has his twitter account , but the president ’ s stochastic musings have started to become a dull background noise in the country ’ s political life : even when their content is explosive , people tend to shrug and forget about it .
His inability to hold rallies also likely led @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID briefings as a replacement .
These briefings were largely disastrous , exposed the depth of Trump ’ s rudderless leadership and demonstrated his shocking ignorance of basic facts about government , science and biology .
So it ’ s no surprise that Trump is desperately eager to go back to the rally platform where he is happiest and most comfortable .
But the problem is that now those very rallies carry a huge political downrisk in both actual pandemic impacts and in public perception .
First and most obvious is the reality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and is in fact surging again after a plateau in new cases .
While other developed countries around the world has largely curbed the virus and brought new case rates to low levels , the United States never managed to even move past phase one before already moving on to phase two of new outbreaks .
We also know that the virus is much more dangerous and transmissible indoors than outdoors , spreading rapidly through air conditioning and poorly ventilated buildings in large gatherings .
And while many rural white Americans may think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , nonwhite and most city-dwelling Americans , that disproportionate impact is rapidly changing as the virus expands and spreads to less densely populated areas and as more comfortable populations who had been quarantining and social distancing begin to relax .
Sure enough , six Trump campaign staffers in Tulsa tested positive for COVID-19 , and it is a near certainty that Trump ’ s rally will be the source of a new major local outbreak .
Not only will that be bad for those who attend the rally and the healthcare workers who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be politically damaging .
Second , the effort to hold rallies is in part a desperate effort on the part of Trump and his allies to signal that they should recommence normal economic activity .
Trump still gets strong marks in polls for his handling of the economy , so getting the economy back on track is crucial to his campaign–despite the fact that his incompetent response to the pandemic is the biggest reason why the economy can not come back to normal .
But it ’ s not at all clear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back to anything resembling normal , and trying to force the issue could make things worse by plunging states and cities into a second wave of forced lockdowns before the first wave was ever truly over .
Finally , new polling shows that most Americans think that wearing masks is a good thing , and they disapprove of people holding big public rallies : A new Fox News poll published Friday found that registered voters think large political rallies are a bad idea , and most voters have a favorable view of face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t support large political rallies amid the coronavirus pandemic , with 59 % saying they ’ re a bad idea .
23 % of respondents said rallies were a good idea , and 16 % said it depends on the situation .
The poll also found that 80 % of respondents have a favorable view of wearing face masks , including 89 % of Democrats and 68 % of Republicans .
The poll was released on the eve of President Trump ’ s much-disputed rally in Tulsa , Oklahoma on Saturday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a non-controversial public health recommendation during a pandemic into yet another culture war issue fused with libertarianism and toxic masculine signaling .
Trump will not be requiring masks at his Tulsa rally , and both the optics and the practice of a big public rally indoors with no masks will be both a major public health risk for the rallygoers and the city of Tulsa , but also a gigantic political risk .
Rallies , in other words , were one of Trump ’ s greatest political assets .
But now they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liability .

Like most populist authoritarians, Donald Trump thrives on the energy of crowds. The nearly religious fervor they inspire motivates his base, and the feedback loop between the frenzied crowd and Trump’s rambling, improvisational speaking style often drives news cycles.
It is likely no accident that Trump’s political fortunes have declined as the COVID pandemic has shuttered his in-person rallies. Of course, the pandemic itself, the subsequent recession and the recent protests against racist police violence are all bigger factors, combined with Trump’s wrongfooted and unpopular approach to all three. But the fact that he is unable to stand in front of adoring crowds on television also means he reportedly has been in a foul temper for weeks, and has difficulty dominating the news cycle or effectively attacking his opponents. He has his twitter account, but the president’s stochastic musings have started to become a dull background noise in the country’s political life: even when their content is explosive, people tend to shrug and forget about it. His inability to hold rallies also likely led to his insistence on long, televised COVID briefings as a replacement. These briefings were largely disastrous, exposed the depth of Trump’s rudderless leadership and demonstrated his shocking ignorance of basic facts about government, science and biology.
So it’s no surprise that Trump is desperately eager to go back to the rally platform where he is happiest and most comfortable. But the problem is that now those very rallies carry a huge political downrisk in both actual pandemic impacts and in public perception.
First and most obvious is the reality that COVID-19 has not gone away, and is in fact surging again after a plateau in new cases. While other developed countries around the world has largely curbed the virus and brought new case rates to low levels, the United States never managed to even move past phase one before already moving on to phase two of new outbreaks. We also know that the virus is much more dangerous and transmissible indoors than outdoors, spreading rapidly through air conditioning and poorly ventilated buildings in large gatherings. And while many rural white Americans may think of the virus as mostly impacting poorer, nonwhite and most city-dwelling Americans, that disproportionate impact is rapidly changing as the virus expands and spreads to less densely populated areas and as more comfortable populations who had been quarantining and social distancing begin to relax. Sure enough, six Trump campaign staffers in Tulsa tested positive for COVID-19, and it is a near certainty that Trump’s rally will be the source of a new major local outbreak. Not only will that be bad for those who attend the rally and the healthcare workers who will treat them, it will also be politically damaging.
Second, the effort to hold rallies is in part a desperate effort on the part of Trump and his allies to signal that they should recommence normal economic activity. Trump still gets strong marks in polls for his handling of the economy, so getting the economy back on track is crucial to his campaign–despite the fact that his incompetent response to the pandemic is the biggest reason why the economy cannot come back to normal. But it’s not at all clear that most people will be willing to go back to anything resembling normal, and trying to force the issue could make things worse by plunging states and cities into a second wave of forced lockdowns before the first wave was ever truly over.
Finally, new polling shows that most Americans think that wearing masks is a good thing, and they disapprove of people holding big public rallies:
A new Fox News poll published Friday found that registered voters think large political rallies are a bad idea, and most voters have a favorable view of face masks. A majority of respondents don’t support large political rallies amid the coronavirus pandemic, with 59% saying they’re a bad idea. 23% of respondents said rallies were a good idea, and 16% said it depends on the situation. The poll also found that 80% of respondents have a favorable view of wearing face masks, including 89% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans. The poll was released on the eve of President Trump’s much-disputed rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday.
Mask-wearing, of course, has turned from a non-controversial public health recommendation during a pandemic into yet another culture war issue fused with libertarianism and toxic masculine signaling. Trump will not be requiring masks at his Tulsa rally, and both the optics and the practice of a big public rally indoors with no masks will be both a major public health risk for the rallygoers and the city of Tulsa, but also a gigantic political risk.
Rallies, in other words, were one of Trump’s greatest political assets. But now they have also become an enormous potential political liability.


washingtonmonthly--2020-06-20--Now We Know of Two More Impeachable Offenses by Trump and Barr


washingtonmonthly--2020-06-21--Trump Admitted to a Crime Against Humanity Last Night. And No, He Wasn’t Joking.

Trump ’ s rally in Tulsa last night was a disaster on so many levels it ’ s difficult to count them .
From the bad optics and public health risks of holding a rally in the first place , to the mistake of originally setting it on Juneteenth in the location of the Tulsa race massacre , to the bizarre game of overinflated expectations the campaign made in promoting a million sign-ups for the rally that were largely generated by trolling Zoomers on Tiktok , to the desultory 6,200 person turnout forcing the overflow stage to speak to an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ placing the blame for the low turnout not on the responsible behavior of even hardcore Trump supporters during the pandemic ( a good and encouraging development ! )
but on fear of “ antifa protesters , ” thereby not only lying but making his own supporters appear weak and intimidated in the bargain–all of it was a disaster of enormous proportions .
And that ’ s before we even talk about what came out of Trump ’ s mouth during the event .
Because among the bizarre statements and absurdist pieces of performance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10-minute riff on his own ability to walk down a gentle ramp , and a strange demonstration that he can actually drink a glass of water–if only slowly and carefully ) came one of the most shocking admissions by a president in all modern history .
Trump boasted that he had asked his officials to slow down COVID-19 testing because the rising number of cases was making him look bad .
He then emphasized the point by implying that many of the positive test results didn ’ t really matter if they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He spoke dismissively of a “ young man , 10 years old ” who “ got the sniffles–he ’ s gon na recover in about 15 minutes.
” And then he waited for applause .
Of course , some young people do die of COVID-19 , and many more may have lifelong health complications that we are only just now beginning to understand .
Most importantly , even that healthy 10-year-old can then become a vector to transmit the disease to an aging or more vulnerable person with potentially fatal consequences .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ positive , and Trump ’ s dismissal of the importance of testing him speaks volumes about his lack of understanding of the pandemic and of his callousness in placing his own political interest ahead of public health .
But let ’ s come back to the main shocking statement : “ I said to my people , slow the testing down please.
” It is hard to overstate the sheer evil of it .
The only way to stop a widespread pandemic is through mass , universal testing , aggressive contact tracing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for any reason virtually guarantees the deaths of thousands , to say nothing of broader damage to the social fabric and to the economy .
To slow down testing for political reasons is particularly abominable .
It constitutes a criminal , negligent abuse of power so unspeakable and so unthinkable that there isn ’ t even a law , federal or international , to adequately cover the case .
It is the sort of high crime that impeachment was explicitly designed for , because the potential for abuses of power by a chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it would be impossible to write laws for all the potential scenarios .
But to explicitly slow walk testing in a once-in-a-century pandemic , just to reduce the number of publicized cases for purely political purposes , allowing the virus to spread unchecked just to keep the economy humming along a little longer and to make his own response appear somewhat less incompetent , is the essence of a high crime .
Because the consequences are so deadly–potentially killing literally hundreds of thousands of his own fellow citizens and endangering the entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national and global crime against humanity .
Of course , the Trump campaign and administration ( is there even a difference at this point ? )
knew they would have to perform damage control .
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro claimed that Trump was only “ joking ” in a “ light moment.
” But listen to the audio again .
It is very clear that Trump wasn ’ t joking , and that the moment was anything but light .
Trump was blithe , sarcastic and dismissive , but that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump clearly meant every word he said at that moment .
It ’ s also not the first time Trump has intimated as much .
At the very beginning of the pandemic Trump insisted that the virus would not spread and did not need to be taken too seriously , saying “ You have 15 people , and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.
” Throughout the course of the pandemic he pooh-poohed the need for mass testing because the virus was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ disappear like a miracle.
” The United States did not seek help from the World Health Organization to acquire tests ( the WHO does tend to assist developing countries ) , but then the CDC bungled the creation and implementation of domestic tests while Trump dithered .
He repeatedly lied about the U.S. having the most stringent testing regimen in the world , while also saying that tests weren ’ t that helpful , and while not taking the necessary steps to ramp up testing .
And Trump has repeatedly claimed that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it makes us look bad.
” In other words , the president ’ s admission at his fizzled campaign rally last night that he asked his administration to slow down the testing because healthy 10-year-olds testing positive was made him look bad unfairly wasn ’ t a joke .
It was merely the most direct confirmation of what was already obvious and what he had obliquely already mentioned before .
And yes : it is a crime against humanity .
It is no joke .
The resulting death toll could number in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it constitutes one of the greatest criminal abuses of power in all of American history by a sitting president .

Trump’s rally in Tulsa last night was a disaster on so many levels it’s difficult to count them. From the bad optics and public health risks of holding a rally in the first place, to the mistake of originally setting it on Juneteenth in the location of the Tulsa race massacre, to the bizarre game of overinflated expectations the campaign made in promoting a million sign-ups for the rally that were largely generated by trolling Zoomers on Tiktok, to the desultory 6,200 person turnout forcing the overflow stage to speak to an empty parking lot, to the campaign placing the blame for the low turnout not on the responsible behavior of even hardcore Trump supporters during the pandemic (a good and encouraging development!) but on fear of “antifa protesters,” thereby not only lying but making his own supporters appear weak and intimidated in the bargain–all of it was a disaster of enormous proportions. And that’s before we even talk about what came out of Trump’s mouth during the event.
Because among the bizarre statements and absurdist pieces of performance art Trump displayed onstage (including a 10-minute riff on his own ability to walk down a gentle ramp, and a strange demonstration that he can actually drink a glass of water–if only slowly and carefully) came one of the most shocking admissions by a president in all modern history. Trump boasted that he had asked his officials to slow down COVID-19 testing because the rising number of cases was making him look bad.
“Here’s the bad part: when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please.”
He then emphasized the point by implying that many of the positive test results didn’t really matter if they were among young people likely to recover. He spoke dismissively of a “young man, 10 years old” who “got the sniffles–he’s gonna recover in about 15 minutes.” And then he waited for applause. Of course, some young people do die of COVID-19, and many more may have lifelong health complications that we are only just now beginning to understand. Most importantly, even that healthy 10-year-old can then become a vector to transmit the disease to an aging or more vulnerable person with potentially fatal consequences. So of course it matters if he tests positive, and Trump’s dismissal of the importance of testing him speaks volumes about his lack of understanding of the pandemic and of his callousness in placing his own political interest ahead of public health.
But let’s come back to the main shocking statement: “I said to my people, slow the testing down please.” It is hard to overstate the sheer evil of it. The only way to stop a widespread pandemic is through mass, universal testing, aggressive contact tracing and isolation measures. To slow down testing for any reason virtually guarantees the deaths of thousands, to say nothing of broader damage to the social fabric and to the economy. To slow down testing for political reasons is particularly abominable.
It constitutes a criminal, negligent abuse of power so unspeakable and so unthinkable that there isn’t even a law, federal or international, to adequately cover the case. It is the sort of high crime that impeachment was explicitly designed for, because the potential for abuses of power by a chief executive potentate is so vast and variegated that it would be impossible to write laws for all the potential scenarios. But to explicitly slow walk testing in a once-in-a-century pandemic, just to reduce the number of publicized cases for purely political purposes, allowing the virus to spread unchecked just to keep the economy humming along a little longer and to make his own response appear somewhat less incompetent, is the essence of a high crime. Because the consequences are so deadly–potentially killing literally hundreds of thousands of his own fellow citizens and endangering the entire interconnected world–it constitutes nothing less than a national and global crime against humanity.
Of course, the Trump campaign and administration (is there even a difference at this point?) knew they would have to perform damage control. White House trade advisor Peter Navarro claimed that Trump was only “joking” in a “light moment.” But listen to the audio again. It is very clear that Trump wasn’t joking, and that the moment was anything but light. Trump was blithe, sarcastic and dismissive, but that’s very different from engaging in pretense. Trump clearly meant every word he said at that moment.
It’s also not the first time Trump has intimated as much. At the very beginning of the pandemic Trump insisted that the virus would not spread and did not need to be taken too seriously, saying “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” Throughout the course of the pandemic he pooh-poohed the need for mass testing because the virus was either “under control” or would “disappear like a miracle.” The United States did not seek help from the World Health Organization to acquire tests (the WHO does tend to assist developing countries), but then the CDC bungled the creation and implementation of domestic tests while Trump dithered. He repeatedly lied about the U.S. having the most stringent testing regimen in the world, while also saying that tests weren’t that helpful, and while not taking the necessary steps to ramp up testing. And Trump has repeatedly claimed that “testing is overrated” because “it makes us look bad.”
In other words, the president’s admission at his fizzled campaign rally last night that he asked his administration to slow down the testing because healthy 10-year-olds testing positive was made him look bad unfairly wasn’t a joke. It was merely the most direct confirmation of what was already obvious and what he had obliquely already mentioned before.
And yes: it is a crime against humanity. It is no joke. The resulting death toll could number in the hundreds of thousands domestically alone. And it constitutes one of the greatest criminal abuses of power in all of American history by a sitting president.


washingtonmonthly--2020-06-22--Why Can’t Republicans Elect Women?

Why Can’t Republicans Elect Women?

In the long and mostly disappointing history of women in American politics , 1992 is widely considered a pivotal year .
Fueled in part by outrage over Anita Hill ’ s treatment by an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee during Clarence Thomas ’ s Supreme Court nomination hearings the previous fall , voters elected a record number of women to the House and Senate .
Headline writers would soon dub 1992 “ The Year of the Woman.
” In the popular imagination , that phrase has come to evoke the beginning of a decisive upward trajectory for women in elective office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a misnomer .
Of the 24 women elected to the House in 1992 , 20 were Democrats—as were all four of the newly elected senators .
A more accurate description would have been “ The Year of the Democratic Woman.
” That label would also have foreshadowed the path of progress for women in the years since .
The next 30 years of data tell a consistent story of two lines diverging .
In 2004 , 52 Democratic women were elected to Congress , compared to 30 on the Republican side .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s caucus was reduced to 21 , while Democrats had climbed up to 69 .
Today , partly on the strength of another “ year of the woman ” in 2018 , Democrats are up to 105 women .
And Republicans ?
Twenty-two .
In fact , while there are currently more Democratic women serving in the House than at any point in history , the number of Republican women in the House is the lowest it ’ s been since 1992 .
In light of the attrition , some Republicans are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elected in 2020 .
As of this writing , a record 220 ( and counting ) Republican women have filed to run in congressional primaries .
Susan Brooks , a Republican congresswoman who has been vocal about getting more women to run , was put in charge of the National Republican Congressional Committee ’ s ( NRCC ) candidate recruitment efforts .
Elise Stefanik , another House Republican , launched E-PAC , a political action committee , to support and raise money for GOP women candidates , with a focus on supporting their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” stands for “ Engage , Empower , Elevate , and Elect.
” ) And more than half of the NRCC ’ s 22 “ young guns ” —House candidates that the party identifies as especially promising—are women .
If Republicans are going to reverse the trend of the past nearly 30 years , it ’ s going to be thanks to candidates like Tiffany Shedd , who is running to represent Arizona ’ s First District .
Her CV boasts a wide range of talents : natural resource lawyer , farmer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 4-H certified shotgun coach .
She grew up in Arizona and stuck around for law school .
She realizes that she checks certain boxes for the party .
“ I don ’ t really have to guess or figure out , like , so-called ‘ messaging , ’ because I am the demographic we ’ re trying to win , ” she told me in April .
Her campaign ad tells the story of facing off drug smugglers trying to cross her land , interspliced with video of people climbing over border @ @ @ @ @ @ @ angrily , and Shedd shooting a rifle .
On her campaign site , she pledges to work with Donald Trump to secure the border .
The Republican establishment has lined up behind her .
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has endorsed her , and the NRCC named her a “ contender , ” one tier below a young gun .
She ’ s got support from more than a dozen members of Congress , the Arizona Farm Bureau , a handful of woman-focused conservative PACs , and more .
She ran in 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the primary , but this year she has outraised her only remaining primary opponent by more than five to one .
Her district is currently represented by a Democrat , but it voted for Trump in 2016 .
With all that backing , Shedd and candidates like her are a test case .
The GOP has been remade in Trump ’ s image .
Is there any room left for Republican women ?
There ’ s a Godwin ’ s law of conversations about women running for office : As a discussion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bringing up EMILY ’ s List approaches 100 percent .
Founded in 1985 to back Democratic women who support abortion rights , it ’ s the bar against which other efforts to support women candidates are measured .
The name is an acronym for “ Early Money Is Like Yeast ” —as in , it makes dough rise .
Financial support at the start of a campaign signals a candidate ’ s legitimacy and helps bring in other donors .
Many of the women it has backed have not only gone on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for decades .
Barbara Mikulski , one of the first two women the group supported in the 1986 midterms , went on to become the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress .
( She retired in 2016 . )
In 1992 , the organization was profiled on 60 Minutes , drawing national attention , and it grew its network of donors by more than sixfold .
Some of the women elected in 1992 , like Patty Murray and Dianne Feinstein , are still serving and have ascended to leadership roles in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s List started to help women who were running for state and local office as well , in effect building out the front end of the congressional candidate pipeline .
For the 2018 midterms , the organization raised more than $ 100 million for the candidates they had endorsed .
( Between Trump ’ s election in 2016 and the 2018 midterm elections , the group says , an unprecedented 42,000 women reached out to them to talk about running for office , compared to just 900 in the previous cycle .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s List recruits women to run for office .
Staff spread across the country often spend months identifying women with potential .
“ Take a look at somebody like Kyrsten Sinema , ” said Emily Cain , the organization ’ s coincidentally named executive director .
EMILY ’ s List worked with Sinema when she was a state legislator running for the U.S. House , and then backed her again when she ran for Senate .
It was the same with Maggie Hassan , who springboarded from the New Hampshire state senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. Senate .
EMILY ’ s List backed all six of the current Democratic women governors , who outnumber Republican women governors two to one .
Some , like Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan , have gained national exposure during the coronavirus pandemic .
Whitmer has become the subject of Trump ’ s harshest attacks on governors , and is widely considered to be on Joe Biden ’ s list of potential running mates .
EMILY ’ s List is so effective that it plays an important complementary role to the formal Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given state is quite happy if they can nominate a woman who is going to get EMILY ’ s List support , ” Debbie Walsh , the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University , told me .
“ It takes the pressure of fund-raising off the local party , and they can use those resources elsewhere.
” Other factors have driven Democratic women ’ s steady gains .
First , many of the Democratic women elected in the 1990s—like Nancy Pelosi—are now in powerful positions , setting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have five women in leadership roles in the Senate and 11 in the House , compared to one and one on the Republican side .
More women in the caucus means more advocates for promoting women within the party , and more role models for those considering a run for office .
Policy commitments are also important .
The party has consistently focused on issues that disproportionately affect women , like abortion , sexual assault , paid leave , and , more broadly , safety net programs , which women are more likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exclusively benefited from the gains in Congress made by women of color , who helped drive the Democratic wave in 2018 .
Currently , there are 47 women of color serving in Congress , and 46 of them are Democrats .
On the Republican side , there ’ s a long history of failed attempts to copy the success of EMILY ’ s List .
WISH List , founded in 1992 , was a PAC aimed at backing Republican women who were in favor of abortion rights .
But by the early 2000s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in 2010 it folded in with another group .
Then that group , Republican Majority for Choice , shut down in 2018 .
The Susan B. Anthony List PAC was created in 1992 to support women , on either side of the aisle , who oppose abortion access .
( The name is an apocryphal reference to the legendary suffragist ’ s supposed pro-life worldview .
The editor of Anthony ’ s papers has called that notion an “ invented memory.
” ) The SBA List still exists , but it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ female candidates .
VIEW PAC was founded in 1997 to elect more Republican women to Congress , but according to the organization , it has raised a total of less than $ 10 million since its founding .
She-PAC , a group formed in 2012 to back Republican women running for state and federal office , barely got started before it shut down in 2016 .
Other groups have formed in the past decade—Maggie ’ s List in 2010 , Winning for Women in 2017 , and Representative Stefanik ’ s E-PAC in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the record number of women running this year as evidence that the tide may be turning .
The Republican Party typically avoids supporting one candidate over another during the primaries , so when Stefanik pledged to throw her weight behind women in primaries , she got pushback .
Tom Emmer , then the incoming NRCC chairman , said it was a “ mistake.
” Stefanik fired back , tweeting , “ NEWSFLASH : I wasn ’ t asking for permission.
” It seems now , though , that party leaders back the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scalise have stepped up in tremendous ways , ” Stefanik told me , referring to GOP leaders in the House , “ and I think our model is working.
” Both McCarthy and Scalise wrote checks to E-PAC soon after its launch .
Still , history suggests tempering optimism .
Women voters have shifted sharply away from the GOP under Trump .
But even before Trump , Republican pro-women groups were making an identity politics pitch at odds with conservative ideology .
Republican donors “ reject affirmative action–type activities , ” Laurel Elder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hartwick College in New York , told me .
The candidates with the most merit , the thinking goes , will rise to the top .
“ They ’ re essentially opposed to making specific efforts to recruit women—or to recruit any group based on demographics—so it makes it challenging for these groups that are explicitly designed to try to recruit women to have a comfortable home in the party.
” This aversion to identity politics gets in the way of the groups ’ ability to make a full-throated case for their cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spokesperson for Winning for Women , why her organization thought it was important to get more women into Congress , her first answer was that Congress should reflect the country .
But that quickly came with a caveat .
They ’ re backing their chosen candidates , she said , “ not because they ’ re women , but because they ’ d be great members of Congress , and they ’ re great fits for their districts.
” Winning for Women , though , doesn ’ t support male candidates—even if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and great fits for their district .
Above all , the effort to elect more Republican women has sputtered because there simply isn ’ t much demand for change among Republicans .
A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2016 found that just under 40 percent of Republicans agreed that the country would be better off with more women in public office .
According to another study from the Pew Research Center , a majority of Republicans think we ’ ve already done enough on gender equality as a society , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve gone too far .
That puts groups like E-PAC in a pickle .
Republican voters don ’ t think the problem they ’ re trying to solve is really a problem at all .
Meanwhile , the trends that drove Democratic gains were mirrored on the Republican side , cutting in the opposite direction .
The party , which had once had room for Nelson Rockefeller–style liberals , grew uniformly conservative , its base of power shifted to the South , and it became increasingly dependent on the votes of white evangelicals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Elder said , is that that conservatism , “ which used to hold back women across the board , is only holding back Republican women.
” Her research demonstrates that the more conservative a district is , the less likely it is to elect a woman .
“ When the Republican Party started moving in a more conservative direction , that tracks almost perfectly with the emergence of the partisan gap and deteriorating performance of Republican women , ” she told me .
Michele Swers , a political scientist at Georgetown University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you look at the type of congressional districts over time that tend to elect women , these districts are usually more urban , more racially and ethnically diverse , and higher income , she says .
“ These days , that kind of district is electing Democrats.
” As a result , not enough Republican women have risen through the ranks to create the kind of virtuous cycle that Democrats benefit from .
Typically , leadership positions are filled by members who have been in Congress for years , often decades .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who fit that description ; many of the women elected decades ago have since lost their seats or resigned .
Research shows that elected Republican women have historically been more moderate than their male colleagues , which has driven their attrition as the party has drifted ever rightward .
“ One of the lessons is that you have to have Republican women in all sorts of seats , not just swing seats , ” Stefanik said .
When women win office in deep red districts , they ’ re more likely to stick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ To some extent , ” she continued , “ that ’ s still a challenge we need to work through.
” A week after the 2018 midterm elections , newly elected members of Congress descended on the Capitol for orientation .
Ethical guidelines were reviewed ; services of the Capitol police explained ; catered meals eaten .
Newcomers to the House gathered to take a group photo .
Included in the snapshot were a record 38 women : 36 Democrats and two Republicans .
Then , that caucus of two faltered .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ headed to D.C. for orientation , votes in her Orange County district were still being counted .
When the tabulation was complete , it turned out that her ( male ) Democratic opponent had narrowly won .
Out of the more than 120 Republican women who had run for the House , only one new member , Carol Miller of West Virginia , would be taking a seat in the Capitol .
Democrats had beaten their own records .
Including incumbents , 89 women had been elected to the House on the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first two Muslim women , the first two Native American women , and the youngest woman ever elected to Congress .
But in a year of record wins for women in Congress overall , Republican women had actually posted losses .
A combination of retirements and unsuccessful campaigns meant that their ranks in the House had shrunk by almost half .
In the Senate , the news was better , as the GOP increased from six to eight women—but still lagged behind the Democrats ’ 17 .
( Since then , Kelly Loeffler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open seat , bumping their total up to nine . )
“ A record number of [ Republican ] women ran , but that certainly wasn ’ t reflected in the Election Day results , ” said Perez-Cubas , the Winning for Women spokeswoman .
“ It was disappointing.
” Two thousand eighteen seemed like a low point , and yet 2020 could be worse .
Two out of the 13 Republican women currently in the House have announced that they won ’ t be running for reelection—including Susan Brooks , who chairs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Nearly half of the nine Republican women serving in the Senate are at risk of losing their seats in November : Martha McSally in Arizona , Susan Collins in Maine , Joni Ernst in Iowa , and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia .
Loeffler , in fact , may turn out to be a good case study in how Republican efforts to promote women lose steam .
She was appointed to the Senate by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to fill a vacancy created by a resignation .
Kemp ’ s logic appeared to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had come within striking distance of the governor ’ s mansion on the strength of a young , diverse , urban coalition .
The reliably red state was at risk of shifting to purple .
If the Republican Party was going to maintain its power , it needed to expand its support among white suburban women .
But most Republican elected leaders in the state were white men .
Enter Loeffler , a longtime conservative donor , CEO of a financial services company , and co-owner of Atlanta ’ s WNBA team—and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , preferred Doug Collins , a loyal defender of his in the House and on many a cable news show .
Kemp stuck with Loeffler , who took office in January and is up for election in November .
During her first few months in the Senate , though , Loeffler has already gotten into hot water .
In late January , before the public was alerted to the severity of the coronavirus crisis , she began selling stocks that would be adversely affected by it .
In fact , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate Health Committee , on which she sits , held a members-only hearing about the pandemic .
( Loeffler says that a third party makes trades on her and her husband ’ s behalf , without their knowledge . )
Her odds of winning in November look shaky for other reasons , too ; Collins has declared that he ’ ll be challenging her in Georgia ’ s primary .
Since her appointment , The Cook Political Report has downgraded the Georgia Senate race from “ Likely Republican ” to “ Lean Republican.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Collins or a Democrat—Trump will be emboldened to say “ I told you so ” and other Republicans may be less likely to promote women with the goal of expanding the party ’ s voting base in the future .
If GOP women are to expand their footprint , it will likely be thanks to people like Tiffany Shedd : candidates with ample backing and funding who are running in swing districts or districts where the incumbent isn ’ t running for reelection .
There are other women who fit that description , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican , who is running again in 2020 .
Or Genevieve Collins , who is competing for an open seat in a Texas district that leans Democrat .
Or Ashley Hinson , campaigning for a toss-up district in Iowa currently represented by freshman Democrat Abby Finkenauer .
If these Republicans do well in 2020 , it could give the effort to elect more women some momentum .
But a spate of congressional wins would almost surely mean that Trump , at the top of the ticket , had won as well .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the party in striking numbers would continue to define its goals and values .
“ Frankly , at this point , the Republicans are still able to win elections , even though they ’ re fielding such a paltry share of female candidates , ” Jennifer Lawless , a political scientist at the University of Virginia , told me .
“ Unless there are electoral consequences , it doesn ’ t really seem likely that there ’ s going to be a fundamental shift.
” But say 2020 is a bad year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rising unemployment claims and coronavirus deaths .
Republican political elites might draw the opposite conclusion : that their efforts to elect women like Shedd were a waste , and that trying to get more women elected isn ’ t worth the investment .
It ’ s possible , Rutgers ’ s Debbie Walsh said , that Democrats could elect equal numbers of men and women to Congress in 2020 .
“ But , ” she said , “ we are never going to get to parity overall if only one party is working @ @ @ @ @ @ @

In the long and mostly disappointing history of women in American politics, 1992 is widely considered a pivotal year. Fueled in part by outrage over Anita Hill’s treatment by an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearings the previous fall, voters elected a record number of women to the House and Senate.
Headline writers would soon dub 1992 “The Year of the Woman.” In the popular imagination, that phrase has come to evoke the beginning of a decisive upward trajectory for women in elective office. But it was always a bit of a misnomer. Of the 24 women elected to the House in 1992, 20 were Democrats—as were all four of the newly elected senators. A more accurate description would have been “The Year of the Democratic Woman.”
That label would also have foreshadowed the path of progress for women in the years since.
The next 30 years of data tell a consistent story of two lines diverging. In 2004, 52 Democratic women were elected to Congress, compared to 30 on the Republican side. But by 2008, the Republican women’s caucus was reduced to 21, while Democrats had climbed up to 69. Today, partly on the strength of another “year of the woman” in 2018, Democrats are up to 105 women. And Republicans? Twenty-two. In fact, while there are currently more Democratic women serving in the House than at any point in history, the number of Republican women in the House is the lowest it’s been since 1992.
In light of the attrition, some Republicans are making a push to get more women elected in 2020. As of this writing, a record 220 (and counting) Republican women have filed to run in congressional primaries. Susan Brooks, a Republican congresswoman who has been vocal about getting more women to run, was put in charge of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) candidate recruitment efforts. Elise Stefanik, another House Republican, launched E-PAC, a political action committee, to support and raise money for GOP women candidates, with a focus on supporting their primary bids. (The “E” stands for “Engage, Empower, Elevate, and Elect.”) And more than half of the NRCC’s 22 “young guns”—House candidates that the party identifies as especially promising—are women.
If Republicans are going to reverse the trend of the past nearly 30 years, it’s going to be thanks to candidates like Tiffany Shedd, who is running to represent Arizona’s First District. Her CV boasts a wide range of talents: natural resource lawyer, farmer, bilingual kindergarten teacher, homeschool mom, and 4-H certified shotgun coach. She grew up in Arizona and stuck around for law school. She realizes that she checks certain boxes for the party. “I don’t really have to guess or figure out, like, so-called ‘messaging,’ because I am the demographic we’re trying to win,” she told me in April. Her campaign ad tells the story of facing off drug smugglers trying to cross her land, interspliced with video of people climbing over border walls, clips of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking angrily, and Shedd shooting a rifle. On her campaign site, she pledges to work with Donald Trump to secure the border.
The Republican establishment has lined up behind her. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has endorsed her, and the NRCC named her a “contender,” one tier below a young gun. She’s got support from more than a dozen members of Congress, the Arizona Farm Bureau, a handful of woman-focused conservative PACs, and more. She ran in 2018 and didn’t make it out of the primary, but this year she has outraised her only remaining primary opponent by more than five to one. Her district is currently represented by a Democrat, but it voted for Trump in 2016. With all that backing, Shedd and candidates like her are a test case. The GOP has been remade in Trump’s image. Is there any room left for Republican women?
There’s a Godwin’s law of conversations about women running for office: As a discussion runs longer, the probability of someone bringing up EMILY’s List approaches 100 percent. Founded in 1985 to back Democratic women who support abortion rights, it’s the bar against which other efforts to support women candidates are measured. The name is an acronym for “Early Money Is Like Yeast”—as in, it makes dough rise. Financial support at the start of a campaign signals a candidate’s legitimacy and helps bring in other donors.
Many of the women it has backed have not only gone on to win office but have stayed in power for decades. Barbara Mikulski, one of the first two women the group supported in the 1986 midterms, went on to become the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress. (She retired in 2016.) In 1992, the organization was profiled on 60 Minutes, drawing national attention, and it grew its network of donors by more than sixfold. Some of the women elected in 1992, like Patty Murray and Dianne Feinstein, are still serving and have ascended to leadership roles in the Democratic Party. In 2000, EMILY’s List started to help women who were running for state and local office as well, in effect building out the front end of the congressional candidate pipeline. For the 2018 midterms, the organization raised more than $100 million for the candidates they had endorsed. (Between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2018 midterm elections, the group says, an unprecedented 42,000 women reached out to them to talk about running for office, compared to just 900 in the previous cycle.)
In addition to fund-raising, EMILY’s List recruits women to run for office. Staff spread across the country often spend months identifying women with potential. “Take a look at somebody like Kyrsten Sinema,” said Emily Cain, the organization’s coincidentally named executive director. EMILY’s List worked with Sinema when she was a state legislator running for the U.S. House, and then backed her again when she ran for Senate. It was the same with Maggie Hassan, who springboarded from the New Hampshire state senate to the governor’s mansion to the U.S. Senate. EMILY’s List backed all six of the current Democratic women governors, who outnumber Republican women governors two to one. Some, like Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, have gained national exposure during the coronavirus pandemic. Whitmer has become the subject of Trump’s harshest attacks on governors, and is widely considered to be on Joe Biden’s list of potential running mates.
EMILY’s List is so effective that it plays an important complementary role to the formal Democratic Party. “The party in any given state is quite happy if they can nominate a woman who is going to get EMILY’s List support,” Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, told me. “It takes the pressure of fund-raising off the local party, and they can use those resources elsewhere.”
Other factors have driven Democratic women’s steady gains. First, many of the Democratic women elected in the 1990s—like Nancy Pelosi—are now in powerful positions, setting off a positive feedback loop. Democrats have five women in leadership roles in the Senate and 11 in the House, compared to one and one on the Republican side. More women in the caucus means more advocates for promoting women within the party, and more role models for those considering a run for office.
Policy commitments are also important. The party has consistently focused on issues that disproportionately affect women, like abortion, sexual assault, paid leave, and, more broadly, safety net programs, which women are more likely to access. Democrats have also almost exclusively benefited from the gains in Congress made by women of color, who helped drive the Democratic wave in 2018. Currently, there are 47 women of color serving in Congress, and 46 of them are Democrats.
On the Republican side, there’s a long history of failed attempts to copy the success of EMILY’s List. WISH List, founded in 1992, was a PAC aimed at backing Republican women who were in favor of abortion rights. But by the early 2000s, its fund-raising was in decline, and in 2010 it folded in with another group. Then that group, Republican Majority for Choice, shut down in 2018. The Susan B. Anthony List PAC was created in 1992 to support women, on either side of the aisle, who oppose abortion access. (The name is an apocryphal reference to the legendary suffragist’s supposed pro-life worldview. The editor of Anthony’s papers has called that notion an “invented memory.”) The SBA List still exists, but it has shrugged off its rule of only supporting female candidates. VIEW PAC was founded in 1997 to elect more Republican women to Congress, but according to the organization, it has raised a total of less than $10 million since its founding. She-PAC, a group formed in 2012 to back Republican women running for state and federal office, barely got started before it shut down in 2016.
Other groups have formed in the past decade—Maggie’s List in 2010, Winning for Women in 2017, and Representative Stefanik’s E-PAC in 2019 are a few. They point to the record number of women running this year as evidence that the tide may be turning. The Republican Party typically avoids supporting one candidate over another during the primaries, so when Stefanik pledged to throw her weight behind women in primaries, she got pushback. Tom Emmer, then the incoming NRCC chairman, said it was a “mistake.” Stefanik fired back, tweeting, “NEWSFLASH: I wasn’t asking for permission.” It seems now, though, that party leaders back the effort. “Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise have stepped up in tremendous ways,” Stefanik told me, referring to GOP leaders in the House, “and I think our model is working.” Both McCarthy and Scalise wrote checks to E-PAC soon after its launch.
Still, history suggests tempering optimism. Women voters have shifted sharply away from the GOP under Trump. But even before Trump, Republican pro-women groups were making an identity politics pitch at odds with conservative ideology. Republican donors “reject affirmative action–type activities,” Laurel Elder, a political scientist and sociologist at Hartwick College in New York, told me. The candidates with the most merit, the thinking goes, will rise to the top. “They’re essentially opposed to making specific efforts to recruit women—or to recruit any group based on demographics—so it makes it challenging for these groups that are explicitly designed to try to recruit women to have a comfortable home in the party.”
This aversion to identity politics gets in the way of the groups’ ability to make a full-throated case for their cause. When I asked Olivia Perez-Cubas, spokesperson for Winning for Women, why her organization thought it was important to get more women into Congress, her first answer was that Congress should reflect the country. But that quickly came with a caveat. They’re backing their chosen candidates, she said, “not because they’re women, but because they’d be great members of Congress, and they’re great fits for their districts.” Winning for Women, though, doesn’t support male candidates—even if they’d be great members of Congress and great fits for their district.
Above all, the effort to elect more Republican women has sputtered because there simply isn’t much demand for change among Republicans. A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2016 found that just under 40 percent of Republicans agreed that the country would be better off with more women in public office. According to another study from the Pew Research Center, a majority of Republicans think we’ve already done enough on gender equality as a society, and almost 20 percent say we’ve gone too far. That puts groups like E-PAC in a pickle. Republican voters don’t think the problem they’re trying to solve is really a problem at all.
Meanwhile, the trends that drove Democratic gains were mirrored on the Republican side, cutting in the opposite direction. The party, which had once had room for Nelson Rockefeller–style liberals, grew uniformly conservative, its base of power shifted to the South, and it became increasingly dependent on the votes of white evangelicals. The result of this ideological sorting, Elder said, is that that conservatism, “which used to hold back women across the board, is only holding back Republican women.” Her research demonstrates that the more conservative a district is, the less likely it is to elect a woman. “When the Republican Party started moving in a more conservative direction, that tracks almost perfectly with the emergence of the partisan gap and deteriorating performance of Republican women,” she told me. Michele Swers, a political scientist at Georgetown University, makes a similar point. If you look at the type of congressional districts over time that tend to elect women, these districts are usually more urban, more racially and ethnically diverse, and higher income, she says. “These days, that kind of district is electing Democrats.”
As a result, not enough Republican women have risen through the ranks to create the kind of virtuous cycle that Democrats benefit from. Typically, leadership positions are filled by members who have been in Congress for years, often decades. There simply aren’t many Republican women who fit that description; many of the women elected decades ago have since lost their seats or resigned. Research shows that elected Republican women have historically been more moderate than their male colleagues, which has driven their attrition as the party has drifted ever rightward. “One of the lessons is that you have to have Republican women in all sorts of seats, not just swing seats,” Stefanik said. When women win office in deep red districts, they’re more likely to stick around in Congress and build seniority. “To some extent,” she continued, “that’s still a challenge we need to work through.”
A week after the 2018 midterm elections, newly elected members of Congress descended on the Capitol for orientation. Ethical guidelines were reviewed; services of the Capitol police explained; catered meals eaten. Newcomers to the House gathered to take a group photo. Included in the snapshot were a record 38 women: 36 Democrats and two Republicans.
Then, that caucus of two faltered. As California’s Young Kim had headed to D.C. for orientation, votes in her Orange County district were still being counted. When the tabulation was complete, it turned out that her (male) Democratic opponent had narrowly won. Out of the more than 120 Republican women who had run for the House, only one new member, Carol Miller of West Virginia, would be taking a seat in the Capitol.
Democrats had beaten their own records. Including incumbents, 89 women had been elected to the House on the Democratic side, a cohort that included the first two Muslim women, the first two Native American women, and the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. But in a year of record wins for women in Congress overall, Republican women had actually posted losses. A combination of retirements and unsuccessful campaigns meant that their ranks in the House had shrunk by almost half. In the Senate, the news was better, as the GOP increased from six to eight women—but still lagged behind the Democrats’ 17. (Since then, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia was appointed to fill an open seat, bumping their total up to nine.) “A record number of [Republican] women ran, but that certainly wasn’t reflected in the Election Day results,” said Perez-Cubas, the Winning for Women spokeswoman. “It was disappointing.”
Two thousand eighteen seemed like a low point, and yet 2020 could be worse. Two out of the 13 Republican women currently in the House have announced that they won’t be running for reelection—including Susan Brooks, who chairs the candidate recruitment efforts for the NRCC. Nearly half of the nine Republican women serving in the Senate are at risk of losing their seats in November: Martha McSally in Arizona, Susan Collins in Maine, Joni Ernst in Iowa, and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia.
Loeffler, in fact, may turn out to be a good case study in how Republican efforts to promote women lose steam. She was appointed to the Senate by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to fill a vacancy created by a resignation. Kemp’s logic appeared to go like this: Democrat Stacy Abrams had come within striking distance of the governor’s mansion on the strength of a young, diverse, urban coalition. The reliably red state was at risk of shifting to purple. If the Republican Party was going to maintain its power, it needed to expand its support among white suburban women. But most Republican elected leaders in the state were white men. Enter Loeffler, a longtime conservative donor, CEO of a financial services company, and co-owner of Atlanta’s WNBA team—and, of course, a woman. Trump, however, preferred Doug Collins, a loyal defender of his in the House and on many a cable news show. Kemp stuck with Loeffler, who took office in January and is up for election in November.
During her first few months in the Senate, though, Loeffler has already gotten into hot water. In late January, before the public was alerted to the severity of the coronavirus crisis, she began selling stocks that would be adversely affected by it. In fact, she commenced the sell-off the same day the Senate Health Committee, on which she sits, held a members-only hearing about the pandemic. (Loeffler says that a third party makes trades on her and her husband’s behalf, without their knowledge.) Her odds of winning in November look shaky for other reasons, too; Collins has declared that he’ll be challenging her in Georgia’s primary. Since her appointment, The Cook Political Report has downgraded the Georgia Senate race from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.” If Loeffler loses her seat—either to Collins or a Democrat—Trump will be emboldened to say “I told you so” and other Republicans may be less likely to promote women with the goal of expanding the party’s voting base in the future.
If GOP women are to expand their footprint, it will likely be thanks to people like Tiffany Shedd: candidates with ample backing and funding who are running in swing districts or districts where the incumbent isn’t running for reelection. There are other women who fit that description, like Young Kim, the Orange County Republican, who is running again in 2020. Or Beth Van Duyane, who is competing for an open seat in a Texas district rated “Republican toss up.” Or Ashley Hinson, campaigning for a toss-up district in Iowa currently represented by freshman Democrat Abby Finkenauer. If these Republicans do well in 2020, it could give the effort to elect more women some momentum.
But a spate of congressional wins would almost surely mean that Trump, at the top of the ticket, had won as well. A man who has driven women voters away from the party in striking numbers would continue to define its goals and values. “Frankly, at this point, the Republicans are still able to win elections, even though they’re fielding such a paltry share of female candidates,” Jennifer Lawless, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, told me. “Unless there are electoral consequences, it doesn’t really seem likely that there’s going to be a fundamental shift.”
But say 2020 is a bad year for the GOP—an increasingly likely outcome given rising unemployment claims and coronavirus deaths. Republican political elites might draw the opposite conclusion: that their efforts to elect women like Shedd were a waste, and that trying to get more women elected isn’t worth the investment. It’s possible, Rutgers’s Debbie Walsh said, that Democrats could elect equal numbers of men and women to Congress in 2020. “But,” she said, “we are never going to get to parity overall if only one party is working on recruiting and supporting women.”
Kristina Karisch contributed reporting.
Correction: A previous version of the article stated that Geneivieve Collins was competing for an open seat in Texas. That is not accurate, she is running against first-term congressman Colin Allred. We regret the error.