thenation--2020-07-13--The Many Lives of Catherine the Great

The Many Lives of Catherine the Great

Popular protest has been raging around the world for years now , but the streaming services and networks are still churning out shows about monarchs .
Absolute power never loses its appeal , at least where television is concerned .
The Last Czars , The White Princess , Victoria , The Spanish Princess , Versailles , Reign , The White Queen , Wolf Hall—take your pick .
Female rulers have proved especially alluring , giving screenwriters a chance to hash out contemporary anxieties about women and politics against a palace background .
Catherine the Great , one of history ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is the imperial star of the moment .
In 2019 , HBO released Catherine the Great , a Helen Mirren vehicle that focused on Catherine ’ s long relationship with her minister Potemkin .
The show had lots of sex—in one scene , Catherine watches Potemkin get a hand job at the opera from her best friend—but it also emphasized her famous workaholism and interest in science , and it devoted significant attention to her smallpox inoculation campaign .
( Catherine had herself and her son inoculated by a Scottish doctor in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
The series was a fairly traditional period drama , jewel-toned and sticking more or less to the facts .
Now Hulu offers us The Great , a very different approach to Catherinology .
Scripted by Tony McNamara , who cowrote 2018 ’ s The Favourite , The Great declares itself only “ an occasionally true story.
” Beginning with the arrival of the teenage Catherine ( Elle Fanning ) in St. Petersburg , the show condenses the events of nearly two decades—her introduction at court , her painfully long betrothal to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ III , their eventual marriage , and her successful coup against him—into just a few months , with countless jokey anachronisms along the way .
The Great begins with the delicate , flaxen-haired Catherine hoping to be the heroine of a happy love story .
She soon realizes that her destiny lies not with a husband but with Russia itself .
She aspires to enlighten the barbaric Russians by introducing universal education , the printing press , freedom of speech , and modern medicine and to put an end to pointless war .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ demeaning sex jokes , would-be screwball comedy , and winks to liberal feminism , The Great makes Catherine look much less capable than she truly was .
Turning away from the political aspects of her romantic liaisons , the series pretends that sex and power can be isolated in the story of a woman who was summoned to Russia to bear an heir to the throne .
Catherine began her life as a minor German princess , Sophia Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst .
She was plucked from obscurity when she was chosen as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Peter the Great .
Accompanied by her difficult mother , the 14-year-old Sophia traveled to St. Petersburg , where she became Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna , or Catherine .
The childless Empress Elizabeth had retrieved her nephew Peter from his native Holstein years earlier , in the hope that this new heir would promptly father a son and thus fortify her claim to the throne .
Peter was a terrible disappointment—undersized , unprepossessing , and resistant to all attempts at education .
Orphaned early and later brutally abused by his German tutor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He despised everything Russian and worshipped the Prussian king Frederick the Great , forcing his servants to perform Prussian-style military drills for his amusement .
Elizabeth took an immediate shine to the tactful , attractive , and eminently educable Catherine , who seemed to have enough good qualities to compensate for Peter ’ s many flaws .
Canny and ambitious even as a teenager , she did everything she could to please the empress .
Catherine stayed up late into the night studying Russian , soon mastering the language ; embraced Russian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and professed her Russian patriotism early and often .
Although she was hardly enchanted by Peter , she knew that love was not the aim of marriages like hers and did her best to be pleasant .
This became even harder when Peter told her about his infatuations with various other ladies of the court and after his face was disfigured by a bout of smallpox .
Nevertheless , she persisted .
Elizabeth was desperate for the young pair to be married and produce a child , but for years the court doctor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to become a father .
The exact reasons for the doctor ’ s concern are unknown , but there are abundant possibilities .
Malnutrition may have delayed Peter ’ s puberty ; some have speculated that he had a tight foreskin that inhibited sexual activity .
His excruciatingly traumatic childhood probably didn ’ t set him up for a lifetime of healthy relationships , and it was becoming clear that he was insane .
When the pair finally married in 1745 , neither , it seems , had any knowledge of the nature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wedding night Catherine lay alone in bed for hours , waiting for Peter to show up and do something to her , but she had little idea what that something might be .
When he did arrive , he was very drunk ( he ’ d been boozing since childhood ) and promptly fell asleep .
It seems likely they never consummated their marriage .
Peter spoiled Catherine ’ s rest by playing with toy soldiers late into the night , weighing down the bedspread with his regiments .
Dismayed by the fruitlessness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unhappy couple confined and surveilled for evidence of unfaithfulness .
Peter was eventually assigned an experienced widow to teach him the ways of love ( or at least sexual intercourse ) , and he proceeded to take up with various ladies-in-waiting , though he remained demonstratively indifferent to Catherine ’ s charms .
She began her own sexual career at age 23 , when she was seduced by a handsome , rakish nobleman named Sergei Saltykov .
Their affair became common knowledge at court , and no one was much troubled by it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was cause for celebration .
Without making any fuss , Peter claimed paternity for the infant , Paul .
Elizabeth took the baby at birth and raised him as her own , smothering him with affection and furs .
Catherine ’ s next lover was the gallant , cosmopolitan Stanislaus Poniatowski , a Polish prince resident at the Russian court .
A virgin when they fell in love , he was something of an ideal boyfriend for her .
As the biographer Robert Massie puts it , “ He expressed admiration not merely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Catherine ’ s mind and temperament , which both he and she recognized as superior to his own.
” She had a daughter , Anna , from this relationship .
Snatched by Elizabeth at birth , the child died in infancy .
When Elizabeth died of a stroke in 1762 , Peter became emperor .
During his disastrous six-month reign and despite all his experience with toy soldiers , he managed to enrage the military , the church , and much of the Russian elite .
With the help of her third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Orlov , Catherine took the throne in a coup d ’ état .
She donned a soldier ’ s uniform , mounted a white stallion , and led 14,000 troops from St. Petersburg to arrest her husband at the royal residence at Oranienbaum .
It wasn ’ t very hard : As Frederick the Great observed , Peter “ allowed himself to be dethroned like a child being sent to bed.
” A few days later , Grigory Orlov ’ s brother Aleksei Orlov strangled Peter , supposedly after they drank too much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the result of colic , and his injuries were concealed at his open-casket funeral .
Catherine was now the empress , autocrat of all the Russias .
In The Great , we meet Catherine as a starry-eyed teenager arriving in St. Petersburg implausibly alone , full of romantic illusions .
Unlike his historical prototype , the show ’ s Peter ( Nicholas Hoult ) is tall and handsome .
More realistically , he is also fatuous , ignorant , vulgar , and given to idiotic pranks .
At their first meeting , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her she smells funny .
She chalks his bad behavior up to “ cultural issues ” and remains certain that they will soon be as one .
Rather than waiting two years for her wedding and many more for the consummation of their marriage , Fanning ’ s Catherine is immediately subjected to Peter ’ s attentions , such as they are .
As she waits for him on their wedding night , she tells her maid what she expects from the sexual act : “ You float for a time in ecstasy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pull you back into your body.
” Peter strolls in , gives her a casual kiss , pushes her onto the bed , and ejaculates without interrupting his conversation with a male friend , who waits for him at the door .
The scene is played for laughs , but it ’ s disturbing .
Depictions of Catherine have focused disproportionately on her sex life .
Sometimes this is in the service of torrid biographical drama ; in other cases , sex is used to deride her .
More negative portrayals have often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the case with many female rulers—as if a woman ’ s political ambition were a variety of nymphomania .
But Catherine ’ s long list of lovers makes her a particularly easy target for this trope .
After Peter ’ s death , she took on a succession of favorites , mostly handsome military men in their 20s .
( To be the favorite was a quasi-official post , complete with chambers , a sign-on bonus , and a roster of official duties .
The usual term was two years . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ beautiful young lovers would hardly have attracted notice , but empresses were held to other standards .
As Catherine got older and her favorites remained the same age , tongues wagged .
Obscene caricatures and jokes about her circulated in Russia and across Europe , uniting misogyny with Russophobia .
After the 67-year-old Catherine died of a stroke , a scurrilous rumor circulated that she was killed in an accident while having sex with her favorite stallion .
The Great makes frequent references to this rumor , which yields plenty of ribald jokes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a horse is invented by the ladies of the Russian court , who think Catherine is a “ bitch.
” She keeps telling people the rumor isn ’ t true , but as the Swedish queen tells her , “ the first lie wins.
” What ’ s striking is that despite the show ’ s often tiresome raunchiness , it sanitizes Catherine ’ s sex life , erasing the children she had with her lovers and giving her nothing more than the wholesome sexual appetite of your average rom-com heroine .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ rumors about her sexual insatiability , it also denies simple historical realities by decoupling her sexual relationships from her rise to power .
Though Fanning ’ s Catherine is resolutely optimistic about her prospects for marital bliss , she loses her composure when Peter burns down her school for girls , hits her , and kills her pet bear .
Noting their incompatibility and her lack of sexual enthusiasm for him , Peter proposes a kind of open marriage and presents her with a lover .
According to Peter , the handsome , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sonnets , is conveniently sterile , and “ has a pretty big cock.
” Catherine rejects Leo at first but takes him back when Peter brutally beats him for failing to please her .
It ’ s not that she wants Leo , particularly ; she ’ s just a nice girl who doesn ’ t like to see a man kicked to death before her eyes .
In time , she claims her sexual agency and has sex with him .
He confesses that he has minimal sexual experience .
The sex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fall in love .
Now that Catherine has sorted out her love life , The Great turns to the burning question of her work-life balance .
Like so many ambitious women , she soon finds herself struggling with the tensions between her relationship and her career .
On the whole , Leo is a supportive partner , smiling approvingly when she outlines her plans for universal education just before she has an orgasm .
( She ’ s on top . )
But she hasn ’ t been entirely honest with him .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a coup .
When Leo gets sulky about all her work meetings and threatens to leave , she realizes that secrecy is imperiling her relationship .
Her helpful maid tells Leo the truth .
It turns out that Leo is fine with being Mr. Catherine the Great , even if he doesn ’ t have much to contribute conspiracywise .
However , as if reminding us that Catherine really can ’ t have it all , the show produces , at the end of the season , another reason for her to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chooses her coup .
The Great ’ s divergence from historical fact is not , of course , a fault in itself .
Any anachronism is acceptable , as long as the artistic results are good .
But in the name of lean-in feminism , The Great disentangles sex and power , even though this nexus is an essential part of the real Catherine ’ s story .
The show has nothing perceptive to say about how Catherine navigated the dangerous straits of sex and politics during a period when her position at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being her lover and the father of her child as well as her coconspirator , the show ’ s version of Orlov , Count Orlo , is comically sexless , a kind of intellectual eunuch whom she gets to know thanks to their shared love of reading clever books .
When Catherine is advised to secure Orlo ’ s cooperation by seducing him , he flees in horror at her clumsy attempt .
The show ’ s revisions manifest a modern conviction that sex and work occupy separate realms and that a smart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a love affair .
But historically women ’ s lives have not been so simple .
Though The Great shows Catherine ’ s bodily integrity being violated in a wide variety of ways , it offers no insight into how it feels to be treated as a public vessel .
Shortly after she arrives at the Russian court , the grossly ahistorical archbishop ( played by the gawky , baleful Adam Godley ) licks his fingers with a flourish , announcing that he will personally confirm her virginity .
Catherine is strangely unfazed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , old general tackles her , tries to rape her , and then loses control of his bladder while on top of her .
We learn later that the general will help her with the coup , but there is never any consideration of the relationship between these two events .
She isn ’ t even safe in the company of women : She fields a proposal from her husband ’ s daffy , sex-crazed Aunt Elizabeth ( here not an empress ) to boost her fertility by inserting Chinese bamboo sticks into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I was puzzled about their intention .
Are we meant to admire Catherine ’ s imperviousness to sexual assault ?
Or were these scenes just misguided slapstick ?
The Great invites us to sympathize with Catherine .
She is presented as a highly intelligent , ambitious , competent woman in a patriarchal system .
She is a helper , a reformer who wishes to bring freedom , goodness , and light to a barbaric land .
Also , she ’ s young and pretty .
What ’ s not to like ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ backsliding on Enlightenment ideals or her endless appetite for self-celebration—fair enough , since it deals only with the years before she was empress .
But the show fails to make you like Catherine , because her character is terribly unconvincing .
We ’ re reminded at every turn that she ’ s really , really smart , but she does things that don ’ t make her look very smart at all .
She tries to mail herself home in a trunk , and she keeps the details of her coup plot on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Her supposed intelligence is indicated mostly through frequent mentions of abstract and proper nouns .
She never stops reminding us that she loves books !
And ideas !
Plus she ’ s met Descartes .
( Never mind that in reality , he lived a century before her . )
Catherine educates Peter about the virtues of modern medicine .
After rejecting a plan to quash a smallpox outbreak by burning sick servants alive , she leaps up on a table and announces to the court that she has procured some smallpox-infected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If we place it in the bloodstream , a tiny amount , our body learns to accommodate it , so it will not kill us , ” she explains .
“ It is not unlike freedom .
We absorb a small amount , knowing it is not dangerous… .
The press freed us , did it not ?
” ( She previously introduced the printing press to Russia , arguing that the free exchange of ideas could only strengthen the country . )
She cuts herself and dabs pus into the wound .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ she never becomes ill. Take that , anti-vaxxers !
In another heavy nod to the zeitgeist , the show includes many jokes about women ’ s innate superiority .
On a peacemaking expedition , Catherine chats with the Swedish queen .
As the two women speak wisely about matters of state , their husbands get drunk and make lewd jokes .
Later , Elizabeth tells Catherine , “ Most women die with an unsaid better idea in their hearts.
” The rape jokes have subsided , and we ’ re on safer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
Kill your incompetent emperor !
Huzzah !
But a belief in the moral superiority of women makes it harder to stomach the real-life Catherine ’ s complicity in her husband ’ s murder .
( Though she doesn ’ t seem to have ordered it or known about it in advance , she certainly helped create its preconditions . )
The Great ties itself in knots as it tries to cope with this dilemma .
There are jokes from the very first episode about Catherine killing her husband , and we see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murder him .
But the show is also sure to remind us that if she is “ doing a coup , ” it ’ s for the good of Russia , not for her own advancement .
She proclaims that she wants “ a coup of ideas , not bloodshed.
” Just as you can ’ t silo sex and power in the real Catherine ’ s story , you can ’ t disentangle power and violence .
This is a story about an autocrat , after all .
What do we want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Great ’ s answer is that someone like Catherine should be sexy but not manipulative or voracious , feisty but not tormented or prone to rage , well read but in a fun way .
Her hair and skin should be flawless , she should love art and believe in science , and she should understand that women deserve to have orgasms .
She should be smarter and more competent than her husband , and she should dispense with her lover if she ’ s summoned to a greater destiny—but she shouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Great makes Catherine ’ s rise to power into a naughty , frothy empowerment tale , albeit one with lots of dark humor .
But history isn ’ t a rom-com , and an empress isn ’ t a girlboss .

This article appears in the July 27/August 3, 2020 issue.
Illustration by Tim Robinson.
Popular protest has been raging around the world for years now, but the streaming services and networks are still churning out shows about monarchs. Absolute power never loses its appeal, at least where television is concerned. The Last Czars, The White Princess, Victoria, The Spanish Princess, Versailles, Reign, The White Queen, Wolf Hall—take your pick. Female rulers have proved especially alluring, giving screenwriters a chance to hash out contemporary anxieties about women and politics against a palace background.
Catherine the Great, one of history’s most accomplished and longest-reigning female monarchs, is the imperial star of the moment. In 2019, HBO released Catherine the Great, a Helen Mirren vehicle that focused on Catherine’s long relationship with her minister Potemkin. The show had lots of sex—in one scene, Catherine watches Potemkin get a hand job at the opera from her best friend—but it also emphasized her famous workaholism and interest in science, and it devoted significant attention to her smallpox inoculation campaign. (Catherine had herself and her son inoculated by a Scottish doctor in 1768 and arranged for inoculations across Russia.) The series was a fairly traditional period drama, jewel-toned and sticking more or less to the facts.
Now Hulu offers us The Great, a very different approach to Catherinology. Scripted by Tony McNamara, who cowrote 2018’s The Favourite, The Great declares itself only “an occasionally true story.” Beginning with the arrival of the teenage Catherine (Elle Fanning) in St. Petersburg, the show condenses the events of nearly two decades—her introduction at court, her painfully long betrothal to the German duke who would become Peter III, their eventual marriage, and her successful coup against him—into just a few months, with countless jokey anachronisms along the way.
The Great begins with the delicate, flaxen-haired Catherine hoping to be the heroine of a happy love story. She soon realizes that her destiny lies not with a husband but with Russia itself. She aspires to enlighten the barbaric Russians by introducing universal education, the printing press, freedom of speech, and modern medicine and to put an end to pointless war. And yet with its odd combination of demeaning sex jokes, would-be screwball comedy, and winks to liberal feminism, The Great makes Catherine look much less capable than she truly was. Turning away from the political aspects of her romantic liaisons, the series pretends that sex and power can be isolated in the story of a woman who was summoned to Russia to bear an heir to the throne.
Catherine began her life as a minor German princess, Sophia Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst. She was plucked from obscurity when she was chosen as a bride for Peter, a grandson of Peter the Great. Accompanied by her difficult mother, the 14-year-old Sophia traveled to St. Petersburg, where she became Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna, or Catherine. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
The childless Empress Elizabeth had retrieved her nephew Peter from his native Holstein years earlier, in the hope that this new heir would promptly father a son and thus fortify her claim to the throne. Peter was a terrible disappointment—undersized, unprepossessing, and resistant to all attempts at education. Orphaned early and later brutally abused by his German tutor, he was emotionally and physically damaged. He despised everything Russian and worshipped the Prussian king Frederick the Great, forcing his servants to perform Prussian-style military drills for his amusement.
Elizabeth took an immediate shine to the tactful, attractive, and eminently educable Catherine, who seemed to have enough good qualities to compensate for Peter’s many flaws. Canny and ambitious even as a teenager, she did everything she could to please the empress. Catherine stayed up late into the night studying Russian, soon mastering the language; embraced Russian Orthodoxy, at least in public; and professed her Russian patriotism early and often. Although she was hardly enchanted by Peter, she knew that love was not the aim of marriages like hers and did her best to be pleasant. This became even harder when Peter told her about his infatuations with various other ladies of the court and after his face was disfigured by a bout of smallpox. Nevertheless, she persisted. Current Issue View our current issue
Elizabeth was desperate for the young pair to be married and produce a child, but for years the court doctor insisted that Peter wasn’t ready to become a father. The exact reasons for the doctor’s concern are unknown, but there are abundant possibilities. Malnutrition may have delayed Peter’s puberty; some have speculated that he had a tight foreskin that inhibited sexual activity. His excruciatingly traumatic childhood probably didn’t set him up for a lifetime of healthy relationships, and it was becoming clear that he was insane.
When the pair finally married in 1745, neither, it seems, had any knowledge of the nature of the sexual act. On their wedding night Catherine lay alone in bed for hours, waiting for Peter to show up and do something to her, but she had little idea what that something might be. When he did arrive, he was very drunk (he’d been boozing since childhood) and promptly fell asleep. It seems likely they never consummated their marriage. Peter spoiled Catherine’s rest by playing with toy soldiers late into the night, weighing down the bedspread with his regiments.
Dismayed by the fruitlessness of the union, Elizabeth had the unhappy couple confined and surveilled for evidence of unfaithfulness. Peter was eventually assigned an experienced widow to teach him the ways of love (or at least sexual intercourse), and he proceeded to take up with various ladies-in-waiting, though he remained demonstratively indifferent to Catherine’s charms. She began her own sexual career at age 23, when she was seduced by a handsome, rakish nobleman named Sergei Saltykov. Their affair became common knowledge at court, and no one was much troubled by it. When Catherine became pregnant, it was cause for celebration. Without making any fuss, Peter claimed paternity for the infant, Paul. Elizabeth took the baby at birth and raised him as her own, smothering him with affection and furs.
Catherine’s next lover was the gallant, cosmopolitan Stanislaus Poniatowski, a Polish prince resident at the Russian court. A virgin when they fell in love, he was something of an ideal boyfriend for her. As the biographer Robert Massie puts it, “He expressed admiration not merely for her title and beauty but also for Catherine’s mind and temperament, which both he and she recognized as superior to his own.” She had a daughter, Anna, from this relationship. Snatched by Elizabeth at birth, the child died in infancy.
When Elizabeth died of a stroke in 1762, Peter became emperor. During his disastrous six-month reign and despite all his experience with toy soldiers, he managed to enrage the military, the church, and much of the Russian elite. With the help of her third lover, the dashing war hero Grigory Orlov, Catherine took the throne in a coup d’état. She donned a soldier’s uniform, mounted a white stallion, and led 14,000 troops from St. Petersburg to arrest her husband at the royal residence at Oranienbaum. It wasn’t very hard: As Frederick the Great observed, Peter “allowed himself to be dethroned like a child being sent to bed.” A few days later, Grigory Orlov’s brother Aleksei Orlov strangled Peter, supposedly after they drank too much at lunch. His death was declared the result of colic, and his injuries were concealed at his open-casket funeral. Catherine was now the empress, autocrat of all the Russias.
In The Great, we meet Catherine as a starry-eyed teenager arriving in St. Petersburg implausibly alone, full of romantic illusions. Unlike his historical prototype, the show’s Peter (Nicholas Hoult) is tall and handsome. More realistically, he is also fatuous, ignorant, vulgar, and given to idiotic pranks. At their first meeting, he pretends to reject Catherine and then tells her she smells funny. She chalks his bad behavior up to “cultural issues” and remains certain that they will soon be as one. Rather than waiting two years for her wedding and many more for the consummation of their marriage, Fanning’s Catherine is immediately subjected to Peter’s attentions, such as they are. As she waits for him on their wedding night, she tells her maid what she expects from the sexual act: “You float for a time in ecstasy, before waves of pleasure push and pull you back into your body.” Peter strolls in, gives her a casual kiss, pushes her onto the bed, and ejaculates without interrupting his conversation with a male friend, who waits for him at the door. The scene is played for laughs, but it’s disturbing.
Depictions of Catherine have focused disproportionately on her sex life. Sometimes this is in the service of torrid biographical drama; in other cases, sex is used to deride her. More negative portrayals have often cast her as sexually insatiable. This is the case with many female rulers—as if a woman’s political ambition were a variety of nymphomania. But Catherine’s long list of lovers makes her a particularly easy target for this trope. After Peter’s death, she took on a succession of favorites, mostly handsome military men in their 20s. (To be the favorite was a quasi-official post, complete with chambers, a sign-on bonus, and a roster of official duties. The usual term was two years.) An aging emperor’s enthusiasm for beautiful young lovers would hardly have attracted notice, but empresses were held to other standards. As Catherine got older and her favorites remained the same age, tongues wagged. Obscene caricatures and jokes about her circulated in Russia and across Europe, uniting misogyny with Russophobia. After the 67-year-old Catherine died of a stroke, a scurrilous rumor circulated that she was killed in an accident while having sex with her favorite stallion.
The Great makes frequent references to this rumor, which yields plenty of ribald jokes. Here the story of her dalliances with a horse is invented by the ladies of the Russian court, who think Catherine is a “bitch.” She keeps telling people the rumor isn’t true, but as the Swedish queen tells her, “the first lie wins.” What’s striking is that despite the show’s often tiresome raunchiness, it sanitizes Catherine’s sex life, erasing the children she had with her lovers and giving her nothing more than the wholesome sexual appetite of your average rom-com heroine. While this negates the vicious, misogynistic rumors about her sexual insatiability, it also denies simple historical realities by decoupling her sexual relationships from her rise to power.
Though Fanning’s Catherine is resolutely optimistic about her prospects for marital bliss, she loses her composure when Peter burns down her school for girls, hits her, and kills her pet bear. Noting their incompatibility and her lack of sexual enthusiasm for him, Peter proposes a kind of open marriage and presents her with a lover. According to Peter, the handsome, compact Leo is smart, can recite sonnets, is conveniently sterile, and “has a pretty big cock.” Catherine rejects Leo at first but takes him back when Peter brutally beats him for failing to please her. It’s not that she wants Leo, particularly; she’s just a nice girl who doesn’t like to see a man kicked to death before her eyes. In time, she claims her sexual agency and has sex with him. He confesses that he has minimal sexual experience. The sex is good, and she and Leo fall in love.
Now that Catherine has sorted out her love life, The Great turns to the burning question of her work-life balance. Like so many ambitious women, she soon finds herself struggling with the tensions between her relationship and her career. On the whole, Leo is a supportive partner, smiling approvingly when she outlines her plans for universal education just before she has an orgasm. (She’s on top.) But she hasn’t been entirely honest with him. She’s been concealing her plans for a coup. When Leo gets sulky about all her work meetings and threatens to leave, she realizes that secrecy is imperiling her relationship. Her helpful maid tells Leo the truth. It turns out that Leo is fine with being Mr. Catherine the Great, even if he doesn’t have much to contribute conspiracywise. However, as if reminding us that Catherine really can’t have it all, the show produces, at the end of the season, another reason for her to choose between relationship and career. She chooses her coup.
The Great’s divergence from historical fact is not, of course, a fault in itself. Any anachronism is acceptable, as long as the artistic results are good. But in the name of lean-in feminism, The Great disentangles sex and power, even though this nexus is an essential part of the real Catherine’s story. The show has nothing perceptive to say about how Catherine navigated the dangerous straits of sex and politics during a period when her position at court was extremely precarious. Rather than being her lover and the father of her child as well as her coconspirator, the show’s version of Orlov, Count Orlo, is comically sexless, a kind of intellectual eunuch whom she gets to know thanks to their shared love of reading clever books. When Catherine is advised to secure Orlo’s cooperation by seducing him, he flees in horror at her clumsy attempt. The show’s revisions manifest a modern conviction that sex and work occupy separate realms and that a smart woman will choose a high-powered job over a love affair. But historically women’s lives have not been so simple.
Though The Great shows Catherine’s bodily integrity being violated in a wide variety of ways, it offers no insight into how it feels to be treated as a public vessel. Shortly after she arrives at the Russian court, the grossly ahistorical archbishop (played by the gawky, baleful Adam Godley) licks his fingers with a flourish, announcing that he will personally confirm her virginity. Catherine is strangely unfazed. Later, a fat, drunk, old general tackles her, tries to rape her, and then loses control of his bladder while on top of her. We learn later that the general will help her with the coup, but there is never any consideration of the relationship between these two events. She isn’t even safe in the company of women: She fields a proposal from her husband’s daffy, sex-crazed Aunt Elizabeth (here not an empress) to boost her fertility by inserting Chinese bamboo sticks into her vagina. Watching these distasteful episodes, I was puzzled about their intention. Are we meant to admire Catherine’s imperviousness to sexual assault? Or were these scenes just misguided slapstick?
The Great invites us to sympathize with Catherine. She is presented as a highly intelligent, ambitious, competent woman in a patriarchal system. She is a helper, a reformer who wishes to bring freedom, goodness, and light to a barbaric land. Also, she’s young and pretty. What’s not to like? The show makes no allusion to her backsliding on Enlightenment ideals or her endless appetite for self-celebration—fair enough, since it deals only with the years before she was empress. But the show fails to make you like Catherine, because her character is terribly unconvincing. We’re reminded at every turn that she’s really, really smart, but she does things that don’t make her look very smart at all. She tries to mail herself home in a trunk, and she keeps the details of her coup plot on a large bulletin board in her bedroom. Her supposed intelligence is indicated mostly through frequent mentions of abstract and proper nouns. She never stops reminding us that she loves books! And ideas! Plus she’s met Descartes. (Never mind that in reality, he lived a century before her.)
Catherine educates Peter about the virtues of modern medicine. After rejecting a plan to quash a smallpox outbreak by burning sick servants alive, she leaps up on a table and announces to the court that she has procured some smallpox-infected pus from the court doctor. “If we place it in the bloodstream, a tiny amount, our body learns to accommodate it, so it will not kill us,” she explains. “It is not unlike freedom. We absorb a small amount, knowing it is not dangerous…. The press freed us, did it not?” (She previously introduced the printing press to Russia, arguing that the free exchange of ideas could only strengthen the country.) She cuts herself and dabs pus into the wound. To the court’s surprise, she never becomes ill. Take that, anti-vaxxers!
In another heavy nod to the zeitgeist, the show includes many jokes about women’s innate superiority. On a peacemaking expedition, Catherine chats with the Swedish queen. As the two women speak wisely about matters of state, their husbands get drunk and make lewd jokes. Later, Elizabeth tells Catherine, “Most women die with an unsaid better idea in their hearts.” The rape jokes have subsided, and we’re on safer, more familiar ground. Run for office! Kill your incompetent emperor! Huzzah!
But a belief in the moral superiority of women makes it harder to stomach the real-life Catherine’s complicity in her husband’s murder. (Though she doesn’t seem to have ordered it or known about it in advance, she certainly helped create its preconditions.) The Great ties itself in knots as it tries to cope with this dilemma. There are jokes from the very first episode about Catherine killing her husband, and we see plenty of reasons she might want to murder him. But the show is also sure to remind us that if she is “doing a coup,” it’s for the good of Russia, not for her own advancement. She proclaims that she wants “a coup of ideas, not bloodshed.” Just as you can’t silo sex and power in the real Catherine’s story, you can’t disentangle power and violence. This is a story about an autocrat, after all.
What do we want from the famous women we admire? The Great’s answer is that someone like Catherine should be sexy but not manipulative or voracious, feisty but not tormented or prone to rage, well read but in a fun way. Her hair and skin should be flawless, she should love art and believe in science, and she should understand that women deserve to have orgasms. She should be smarter and more competent than her husband, and she should dispense with her lover if she’s summoned to a greater destiny—but she shouldn’t land the fatal blows herself. The Great makes Catherine’s rise to power into a naughty, frothy empowerment tale, albeit one with lots of dark humor. But history isn’t a rom-com, and an empress isn’t a girlboss.


thenation--2020-07-13--Democrats Will Be Lost Without the Senate

It ’ s looking pretty good for Joe Biden .
Polls have been putting the presumptive Democratic nominee well ahead of President Trump in the 2020 campaign , and a New York Times survey in late June saw Biden opening up a comfortable lead in each of the half-dozen battleground states that will decide things in November .
But before Democrats start making too many plans for undoing the damage done by four years of Donald Trump , let alone for the “ big structural change ” that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren , Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders , and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an unfortunate truth.1 If Biden is elected but Republicans maintain control of the Senate , he will enter office as a lame-duck president .
After the inaugural celebrations are done , Biden will settle into a dysfunctional relationship in which Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will determine precisely how ambitious his agenda can be .
“ If we remove Trump but we don ’ t remove McConnell , people need to understand how frustrating that will be , ” says People for the American Way president Ben Jealous .
“ What good will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t get new laws passed ?
” 2 This prospect is so depressing that Democrats do not rush to discuss it .
They focus on the feel-good politics of a presidential race that seems to be going well rather than the stark reality that ending mass unemployment , expanding health care , addressing the climate crisis , and implementing genuine criminal justice reform will be all but impossible with a Republican-led Senate.3 Democrats need to confront this reality .
In a moment of tremendous instability and potential for progress , old expectations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discarded in favor of a sense of mission that seeks to mobilize new voters and increase turnout everywhere .
A winning strategy for November has to be grounded in a deep recognition of the fact that the combination of a Democratic president and a Republican Senate is fraught with peril .
“ A capable Senate minority leader who is opposed to the president can cause a lot of problems for that president , ” says Rebecca Katz , who served as a top aide to former Senate majority leader Harry Reid .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost anything.
” 4 Why Won ’ t Democrats Just Come Out for Legalizing Marijuana ?
Republicans Lose Their Collective Mind Over Ilhan Omar ’ s Call to Dismantle ‘ Systems of Oppression ’ Like it or not , McConnell is capable .
The most honest political history of the 2010s would be a biography of the Kentucky Republican , whose mastery of the Senate ’ s rules and politics has enabled him to disempower an honorable Democratic president and to empower a dishonorable Republican one .
McConnell is the reason Judge Merrick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while Brett Kavanaugh is busy tipping the balance to the right on 5-4 decisions .
And the high court is just the tip of the iceberg .
When McConnell appeared on Sean Hannity ’ s Fox News show last year , the two men talked about the federal courts .
“ I was shocked that former President Obama left so many vacancies and didn ’ t try to fill those positions , ” Hannity said .
McConnell chortled in response .
“ I ’ ll tell you why , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.
” The Senate majority leader maintained his grip on power after Trump ’ s inauguration , steering the new president ’ s rogues ’ gallery of judicial picks through the confirmation process and then ensuring that Trump had nothing to fear even after Democrats took control of the House and made a credible case for impeachment .
“ Let ’ s be very clear , ” says Robert Reich , a labor secretary under Bill Clinton , “ Mitch McConnell and Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greatest deliberative body to serve their Dear Leader.
” 5 If Trump is defeated while McConnell retains his seat and remains majority leader , the Kentuckian will no longer have to provide cover for an erratic president , but that doesn ’ t mean proper order—as least as it is understood in civics books—will be restored .
Even before Trump began remaking the Republican Party in his image , McConnell had remade the Senate GOP as a fully owned subsidiary of the corporate interests and billionaire donors that fund campaigns .
That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is elected , despite the dim-witted fantasy the former vice president entertains about sitting down with a former Senate colleague to work things out.6 McConnell and the Senate Republicans will put the brakes on every meaningful policy initiative that Biden advances .
Hundreds of measures that have been approved by the House since the Democrats took over in January 2019—including the Heroes Act package of Covid-19 relief measures that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues passed in May—have been laid to rest in what Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer describes as “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Republican lawmaker and his cadre of obedient partisans have made it perfectly clear time and again that they will not be moved by the fact that a legislative initiative is essential.7 The challenges that a President Biden will face on Day One—pandemic surges , mass unemployment , a climate crisis , and demands for racial justice—are daunting enough .
The prospect of seeking to address them in a process defined by McConnell ought to send chills down the spines of Democrats .
As the majority leader has proved beyond a reasonable doubt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes to maintain conservative control of the Supreme Court—which is no small matter , since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will turn 88 in the early months of the next presidential term and Justice Stephen Breyer will turn 83 that summer .
To fill those positions with jurists who respect civil rights and civil liberties , Jealous says , requires not just the election of a president who will make sound appointments but also “ the firing of Mitch McConnell.
” 8 To disempower McConnell , Democrats need a clear-eyed political calculus that recognizes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate matters just as much as the battle between Biden and Trump—perhaps more .
They must fully embrace an understanding expressed by the Rev .
Raphael Warnock , a leading Democratic contender in the special election for one of two Georgia Senate seats up this year .
In order to “ restore moral leadership to our government , ” says the pastor , it is necessary to “ flip the Senate.
” Democratic candidates , strategists , donors , volunteers , and voters all talk about the need to fundamentally alter the direction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If fundamental change is the point , winning the Senate has to be understood as the defining struggle of a definitional election year .
To that end , even as he mounts his own reelection bid this year , Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is fundraising and campaigning for Democratic challengers nationwide with a message that pulls all the pieces together : “ Dump Trump .
Ditch Mitch .
Save America.
” 9 “ That ’ s my six-word mantra .
It ends with ‘ Save America ’ for a reason , ” says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to send the message that all the things we ’ re campaigning on won ’ t happen if we don ’ t win the Senate.
” To do that , the chamber ’ s Democratic caucus must grow.10 It currently has 47 members ( 45 Democrats plus two independents , Sanders and Angus King of Maine ) .
If Biden wins , the party will need at least three more seats to take charge of the chamber in a 50-50 scenario , with a Democratic vice president casting the deciding vote .
Ideally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority .
But even a 51-49 split would remain problematic , as it could hand outsize influence over the party ’ s agenda to more socially or economically conservative Democrats , such as West Virginia ’ s Joe Manchin and Virginia ’ s Mark Warner .
So what progressives are looking for is a substantial shift of five or more seats .
That ’ s a tall order in any election cycle , and on paper at least , it ’ s even more challenging this year.11 Thirty-five Senate seats are up for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are held by Republicans , while just 12 are held by Democrats .
That sounds good because , in a moment of tremendous turbulence , when unemployment numbers could rival those of the Great Depression , the Republicans have to defend a lot more seats than the Democrats .
The trouble is that most of the Republican seats are in deep-red states where Trump won in 2016 , where be will probably win again in 2020 , and where incumbents like Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton—whose Democratic challenger quit the race , leaving the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t be defeated .
At the same time , there is at least one Democratic seat , Alabama Senator Doug Jones ’ s , that could well fall to the Republicans .
Another Democrat , Michigan ’ s Gary Peters , was once considered vulnerable , but a late June New York Times poll had him up by 10 percentage points.12 So where will the Democrats find the seats they need ?
And what ’ s the best strategy for winning them ?
13 In what are frequently identified as red states .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ lines of Lyndon Johnson ’ s thumping of Barry Goldwater in 1964 or at least Barack Obama ’ s defeat of John McCain in 2008 , some of the Democratic victories needed to flip the Senate are going to have to come in states where Trump prevailed in 2016 and might do so again this year.14 Mitch McConnell Is Even Worse Than Trump Of the five Republican-held seats that The Cook Political Report labels as toss-ups in 2020 , two are in states that Biden is likely to win : Colorado and Maine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where he also could prevail : Arizona and North Carolina .
The last is in Montana , a state that went for Trump by 20 points in 2016 and where the president ’ s ahead this time .
But there ’ s a twist : Montana voters have shown a penchant for supporting Democratic candidates—like three-term Senator Jon Tester and this year ’ s Senate nominee , popular incumbent Governor Steve Bullock—even when they back Republicans for president.15 The Democrats need to win the toss-up seats before they can entertain the prospect of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , there ’ s a chance : Polls have Democratic contenders like former astronaut Mark Kelly in Arizona and state House Speaker Sara Gideon in Maine ahead , respectively , of Republicans Martha McSally and Susan Collins .
The two incumbents have long been seen as vulnerable , as has another senator who joined Collins in the ill-fated 2018 vote to confirm Kavanaugh , Colorado ’ s Cory Gardner , who trails Democrat John Hickenlooper .
What ’ s notable is that , as of now , Democrats can point to polling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In Montana , for instance , Bullock , who made his name as an attorney general who took on corporate interests and crusaded for campaign finance and ethics reforms , leads Republican incumbent Steve Daines by seven percentage points in the latest Montana State University survey .
With the president ’ s personal approval rating tanking amid widespread frustration with his dangerous response to the coronavirus pandemic and the protests over police violence , CNN reported in late May that “ Republican strategists are increasingly worried that Trump is headed for defeat in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans down with him.
” 16 Even if things are going very well for Biden , it ’ s unlikely Trump will lose a state like Montana , which last backed a Democrat for president in 1992 .
But if Biden can gain more than 40 percent of the state ’ s vote , as Obama did in 2008 and 2012 , then it is realistic to suggest that Bullock can take things the rest of the way .
However , if Biden gets stuck in the mid-30s , as Hillary Clinton did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To get a Democratic-controlled Senate , Biden has to do what Clinton did not in 2016 : run an aggressively progressive national campaign that expands its focus beyond a small group of traditional battleground states .
By mobilizing voters and expanding Democratic turnout in red states and red regions of swing states , Biden can increase his national popular vote—which is important for claiming a mandate—and grab back battlegrounds such as Wisconsin , Michigan , and Pennsylvania for the Electoral College win .
But the benefit of a 50-state strategy , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dean implemented when the party was at the top of its game during the 2006 and 2008 election cycles , is that the Democrats can still win Senate seats even in toss-up states where they fall short in the presidential race.17 The same goes for states that The Cook Political Report labels as leaning Republican or in some cases likely Republican—such as Georgia ( with its two 2020 contests ) , Iowa , Kansas , South Carolina , and Kentucky ( where former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath won a close primary with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take on McConnell ) .
All of these states went for Trump in 2016 .
If the current polling numbers hold , they ’ ll be more competitive in 2020 , and states such as Iowa and Georgia could back Biden .
Even more important , all of them could back Democrats for the Senate , thus empowering a Biden presidency.18 Let ’ s start with South Carolina , where no Democrat has won a presidential race since Jimmy Carter in 1976 or a Senate race since Fritz Hollings in 1998 .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but he was up by only 10 points in a May Civiqs poll .
The big news from that survey had to do with the state ’ s Senate race .
Jaime Harrison , the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party , was tied 42-42 with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham .
Yes , tied.19 Harrison is one of a number of Black candidates who are out to change assumptions about what is possible in Southern states .
Others include former secretary of agriculture Mike Espy in Mississippi and Georgia ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta , who is challenging the appointed and scandal-plagued Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler.20 Can This Montana Governor Deliver the Senate to the Democrats ?
Jealous , a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , argues that Democratic strategists and commentators need to recognize the potential of these African American candidates to expand turnout and forge new coalitions .
“ Pundits who dismiss the ability of Black candidates to win US Senate seats south of the Mason-Dixon Line should consider whether the bigger issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters but the bias in their own hearts , ” he says.21 In South Carolina , Harrison has benefited from a turn against Graham , who once dismissed Trump as “ a race-baiting , xenophobic religious bigot ” but now serves as the president ’ s most ardent defender in the Senate .
Harrison isn ’ t making the mistake of trying to run to the right of Graham .
Rather , he is running against Graham ’ s blatant hypocrisy and hoping to attract at least some swing voters .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky , and Georgia is not so much swing voters as new ones .
“ Harrison ’ s campaign knows where it has to boost turnout across the board , citing 400,000 unregistered people of color in South Carolina who need to get on the books to vote for Harrison along with white , college-educated voters who are starting to shift to the left politically and constitute the fastest-growing demographic in the state , ” reads a recent analysis of the race by The State , South Carolina ’ s second-largest newspaper.22 Boosting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a number of candidates who are challenging suddenly vulnerable Republican senators .
In 2018 , Democratic congressional candidates made some of their most important gains in states where Trump won in 2016 but where a surge in participation by women , people of color , and young voters tipped the balance .
That ’ s something Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Theresa Greenfield is talking about in her bid to unseat Republican Senator Joni Ernst .
Noting that Democratic voter registration numbers are now higher than those for Republicans—and that Democratic turnout in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that of Republicans—Greenfield says , “ There ’ s a lot of momentum here.
” She argues voters understand the need for a politics that recognizes “ health care is a right , not a privilege ” and that is resolute in taking on corporate special interests .
A June Des Moines Register poll put Greenfield ahead of Ernst , drawing attention to a race that remained off the radar until recently .
Greenfield is stressing her family farm roots and making a big deal about the need to defend the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacks on USPS are an attack on the people who depend on its services , especially those living in rural areas where other delivery services don ’ t reach.
” 23 An emphasis on issues that are important to the states where the candidates are running is vital , says Katz , the former Reid aide , who argues that “ voters in these states don ’ t want a cookie-cutter approach.
” Instead of sending talking points from D.C. , party leaders must recognize that “ you need candidates who are grounded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who actually understand what is happening on the ground and are ready to talk about it.
” 24 Merkley gets it .
Twelve years ago , he was a state legislator bidding to dislodge Republican Senator Gordon Smith from a seat no Democrat had held since 1967 .
Merkley trailed Smith until the fall race heated up and then—with a progressive campaign that challenged the incumbent ’ s stances on the Iraq War , tax policy , and climate change—began to close the gap .
In November , with a boost from Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Merkley narrowly upset Smith.25 This year , Merkley looks to candidates like Warnock , Greenfield , and Kansas ’ s Barbara Bollier to be among the winners who build a meaningful Democratic majority .
Of course , says Merkley , those are tough races .
But in years that go well for the top of the Democratic ticket , prospects for Senate wins open up in unlikely places .
The key is to provide the resources and the support necessary for those candidates to seize those openings—as he did in the 2008 elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Republicans to Democrats .
“ Everything I care about depends on winning the Senate .
Unless we win it in November and then reform it so the minority can not block action on the issues that matter , the Senate will continue to be rigged for the powerful , ” says Merkley .
“ We ’ ve seen that movie way too many times before .
We ’ ve got to change the script.
” 26

This article appears in the July 27/August 3, 2020 issue.
It’s looking pretty good for Joe Biden. Polls have been putting the presumptive Democratic nominee well ahead of President Trump in the 2020 campaign, and a New York Times survey in late June saw Biden opening up a comfortable lead in each of the half-dozen battleground states that will decide things in November. But before Democrats start making too many plans for undoing the damage done by four years of Donald Trump, let alone for the “big structural change” that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and other progressives propose, they need to consider an unfortunate truth.1
If Biden is elected but Republicans maintain control of the Senate, he will enter office as a lame-duck president. After the inaugural celebrations are done, Biden will settle into a dysfunctional relationship in which Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will determine precisely how ambitious his agenda can be. “If we remove Trump but we don’t remove McConnell, people need to understand how frustrating that will be,” says People for the American Way president Ben Jealous. “What good will a new president be if we can’t get new laws passed?”2
This prospect is so depressing that Democrats do not rush to discuss it. They focus on the feel-good politics of a presidential race that seems to be going well rather than the stark reality that ending mass unemployment, expanding health care, addressing the climate crisis, and implementing genuine criminal justice reform will be all but impossible with a Republican-led Senate.3
Democrats need to confront this reality. In a moment of tremendous instability and potential for progress, old expectations about what is possible have to be discarded in favor of a sense of mission that seeks to mobilize new voters and increase turnout everywhere. A winning strategy for November has to be grounded in a deep recognition of the fact that the combination of a Democratic president and a Republican Senate is fraught with peril. “A capable Senate minority leader who is opposed to the president can cause a lot of problems for that president,” says Rebecca Katz, who served as a top aide to former Senate majority leader Harry Reid. “A capable Senate majority leader can stop almost anything.”4 More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
Like it or not, McConnell is capable. The most honest political history of the 2010s would be a biography of the Kentucky Republican, whose mastery of the Senate’s rules and politics has enabled him to disempower an honorable Democratic president and to empower a dishonorable Republican one. McConnell is the reason Judge Merrick Garland is not on the Supreme Court, while Brett Kavanaugh is busy tipping the balance to the right on 5-4 decisions. And the high court is just the tip of the iceberg. When McConnell appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last year, the two men talked about the federal courts. “I was shocked that former President Obama left so many vacancies and didn’t try to fill those positions,” Hannity said. McConnell chortled in response. “I’ll tell you why,” he said. “I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.” The Senate majority leader maintained his grip on power after Trump’s inauguration, steering the new president’s rogues’ gallery of judicial picks through the confirmation process and then ensuring that Trump had nothing to fear even after Democrats took control of the House and made a credible case for impeachment. “Let’s be very clear,” says Robert Reich, a labor secretary under Bill Clinton, “Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans are sacrificing the world’s greatest deliberative body to serve their Dear Leader.”5 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
If Trump is defeated while McConnell retains his seat and remains majority leader, the Kentuckian will no longer have to provide cover for an erratic president, but that doesn’t mean proper order—as least as it is understood in civics books—will be restored. Even before Trump began remaking the Republican Party in his image, McConnell had remade the Senate GOP as a fully owned subsidiary of the corporate interests and billionaire donors that fund campaigns. That’s not going to change if Biden is elected, despite the dim-witted fantasy the former vice president entertains about sitting down with a former Senate colleague to work things out.6 Current Issue View our current issue
McConnell and the Senate Republicans will put the brakes on every meaningful policy initiative that Biden advances. Hundreds of measures that have been approved by the House since the Democrats took over in January 2019—including the Heroes Act package of Covid-19 relief measures that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues passed in May—have been laid to rest in what Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer describes as “Leader McConnell’s legislative graveyard.” The Republican lawmaker and his cadre of obedient partisans have made it perfectly clear time and again that they will not be moved by the fact that a legislative initiative is essential.7
The challenges that a President Biden will face on Day One—pandemic surges, mass unemployment, a climate crisis, and demands for racial justice—are daunting enough. The prospect of seeking to address them in a process defined by McConnell ought to send chills down the spines of Democrats. As the majority leader has proved beyond a reasonable doubt, his caucus will do whatever it takes to maintain conservative control of the Supreme Court—which is no small matter, since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will turn 88 in the early months of the next presidential term and Justice Stephen Breyer will turn 83 that summer. To fill those positions with jurists who respect civil rights and civil liberties, Jealous says, requires not just the election of a president who will make sound appointments but also “the firing of Mitch McConnell.”8
To disempower McConnell, Democrats need a clear-eyed political calculus that recognizes that the fight for control of the Senate matters just as much as the battle between Biden and Trump—perhaps more. They must fully embrace an understanding expressed by the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a leading Democratic contender in the special election for one of two Georgia Senate seats up this year. In order to “restore moral leadership to our government,” says the pastor, it is necessary to “flip the Senate.” Democratic candidates, strategists, donors, volunteers, and voters all talk about the need to fundamentally alter the direction of our governance and our country. If fundamental change is the point, winning the Senate has to be understood as the defining struggle of a definitional election year. To that end, even as he mounts his own reelection bid this year, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is fundraising and campaigning for Democratic challengers nationwide with a message that pulls all the pieces together: “Dump Trump. Ditch Mitch. Save America.”9
“That’s my six-word mantra. It ends with ‘Save America’ for a reason,” says Merkley. “I am absolutely trying to send the message that all the things we’re campaigning on won’t happen if we don’t win the Senate.” To do that, the chamber’s Democratic caucus must grow.10
It currently has 47 members (45 Democrats plus two independents, Sanders and Angus King of Maine). If Biden wins, the party will need at least three more seats to take charge of the chamber in a 50-50 scenario, with a Democratic vice president casting the deciding vote. Ideally, the party would gain a clear majority. But even a 51-49 split would remain problematic, as it could hand outsize influence over the party’s agenda to more socially or economically conservative Democrats, such as West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Virginia’s Mark Warner. So what progressives are looking for is a substantial shift of five or more seats. That’s a tall order in any election cycle, and on paper at least, it’s even more challenging this year.11
Thirty-five Senate seats are up for grabs in 2020. Twenty-three of them are held by Republicans, while just 12 are held by Democrats. That sounds good because, in a moment of tremendous turbulence, when unemployment numbers could rival those of the Great Depression, the Republicans have to defend a lot more seats than the Democrats. The trouble is that most of the Republican seats are in deep-red states where Trump won in 2016, where be will probably win again in 2020, and where incumbents like Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton—whose Democratic challenger quit the race, leaving the party’s ballot line empty—won’t be defeated. At the same time, there is at least one Democratic seat, Alabama Senator Doug Jones’s, that could well fall to the Republicans. Another Democrat, Michigan’s Gary Peters, was once considered vulnerable, but a late June New York Times poll had him up by 10 percentage points.12
So where will the Democrats find the seats they need? And what’s the best strategy for winning them?13
In what are frequently identified as red states. Unless Biden scores a victory along the lines of Lyndon Johnson’s thumping of Barry Goldwater in 1964 or at least Barack Obama’s defeat of John McCain in 2008, some of the Democratic victories needed to flip the Senate are going to have to come in states where Trump prevailed in 2016 and might do so again this year.14 Mitch McConnell Mitch McConnell Is Even Worse Than Trump Jeet Heer
Of the five Republican-held seats that The Cook Political Report labels as toss-ups in 2020, two are in states that Biden is likely to win: Colorado and Maine. Two more are in battleground states where he also could prevail: Arizona and North Carolina. The last is in Montana, a state that went for Trump by 20 points in 2016 and where the president’s ahead this time. But there’s a twist: Montana voters have shown a penchant for supporting Democratic candidates—like three-term Senator Jon Tester and this year’s Senate nominee, popular incumbent Governor Steve Bullock—even when they back Republicans for president.15
The Democrats need to win the toss-up seats before they can entertain the prospect of governing in a meaningful way. Right now, there’s a chance: Polls have Democratic contenders like former astronaut Mark Kelly in Arizona and state House Speaker Sara Gideon in Maine ahead, respectively, of Republicans Martha McSally and Susan Collins. The two incumbents have long been seen as vulnerable, as has another senator who joined Collins in the ill-fated 2018 vote to confirm Kavanaugh, Colorado’s Cory Gardner, who trails Democrat John Hickenlooper. What’s notable is that, as of now, Democrats can point to polling advantages in all five toss-up states. In Montana, for instance, Bullock, who made his name as an attorney general who took on corporate interests and crusaded for campaign finance and ethics reforms, leads Republican incumbent Steve Daines by seven percentage points in the latest Montana State University survey. With the president’s personal approval rating tanking amid widespread frustration with his dangerous response to the coronavirus pandemic and the protests over police violence, CNN reported in late May that “Republican strategists are increasingly worried that Trump is headed for defeat in November and that he may drag other Republicans down with him.”16
Even if things are going very well for Biden, it’s unlikely Trump will lose a state like Montana, which last backed a Democrat for president in 1992. But if Biden can gain more than 40 percent of the state’s vote, as Obama did in 2008 and 2012, then it is realistic to suggest that Bullock can take things the rest of the way. However, if Biden gets stuck in the mid-30s, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, the climb gets steeper. To get a Democratic-controlled Senate, Biden has to do what Clinton did not in 2016: run an aggressively progressive national campaign that expands its focus beyond a small group of traditional battleground states. By mobilizing voters and expanding Democratic turnout in red states and red regions of swing states, Biden can increase his national popular vote—which is important for claiming a mandate—and grab back battlegrounds such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for the Electoral College win. But the benefit of a 50-state strategy, of the sort then–Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean implemented when the party was at the top of its game during the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, is that the Democrats can still win Senate seats even in toss-up states where they fall short in the presidential race.17
The same goes for states that The Cook Political Report labels as leaning Republican or in some cases likely Republican—such as Georgia (with its two 2020 contests), Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, and Kentucky (where former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath won a close primary with progressive legislator Charles Booker and will now take on McConnell). All of these states went for Trump in 2016. If the current polling numbers hold, they’ll be more competitive in 2020, and states such as Iowa and Georgia could back Biden. Even more important, all of them could back Democrats for the Senate, thus empowering a Biden presidency.18
Let’s start with South Carolina, where no Democrat has won a presidential race since Jimmy Carter in 1976 or a Senate race since Fritz Hollings in 1998. Trump won there by 15 points in 2016, but he was up by only 10 points in a May Civiqs poll. The big news from that survey had to do with the state’s Senate race. Jaime Harrison, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, was tied 42-42 with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Yes, tied.19
Harrison is one of a number of Black candidates who are out to change assumptions about what is possible in Southern states. Others include former secretary of agriculture Mike Espy in Mississippi and Georgia’s Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, who is challenging the appointed and scandal-plagued Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler.20 Montana Senate Race Can This Montana Governor Deliver the Senate to the Democrats? Gabriel Furshong
Jealous, a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, argues that Democratic strategists and commentators need to recognize the potential of these African American candidates to expand turnout and forge new coalitions. “Pundits who dismiss the ability of Black candidates to win US Senate seats south of the Mason-Dixon Line should consider whether the bigger issue is not the bias they see in voters but the bias in their own hearts,” he says.21
In South Carolina, Harrison has benefited from a turn against Graham, who once dismissed Trump as “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” but now serves as the president’s most ardent defender in the Senate. Harrison isn’t making the mistake of trying to run to the right of Graham. Rather, he is running against Graham’s blatant hypocrisy and hoping to attract at least some swing voters. But the key to states like South Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia is not so much swing voters as new ones. “Harrison’s campaign knows where it has to boost turnout across the board, citing 400,000 unregistered people of color in South Carolina who need to get on the books to vote for Harrison along with white, college-educated voters who are starting to shift to the left politically and constitute the fastest-growing demographic in the state,” reads a recent analysis of the race by The State, South Carolina’s second-largest newspaper.22
Boosting turnout is part of the strategy for a number of candidates who are challenging suddenly vulnerable Republican senators. In 2018, Democratic congressional candidates made some of their most important gains in states where Trump won in 2016 but where a surge in participation by women, people of color, and young voters tipped the balance. That’s something Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Theresa Greenfield is talking about in her bid to unseat Republican Senator Joni Ernst. Noting that Democratic voter registration numbers are now higher than those for Republicans—and that Democratic turnout in the state’s June primary significantly exceeded that of Republicans—Greenfield says, “There’s a lot of momentum here.” She argues voters understand the need for a politics that recognizes “health care is a right, not a privilege” and that is resolute in taking on corporate special interests. A June Des Moines Register poll put Greenfield ahead of Ernst, drawing attention to a race that remained off the radar until recently. Greenfield is stressing her family farm roots and making a big deal about the need to defend the United States Postal Service, declaring, “Continued attacks on USPS are an attack on the people who depend on its services, especially those living in rural areas where other delivery services don’t reach.”23
An emphasis on issues that are important to the states where the candidates are running is vital, says Katz, the former Reid aide, who argues that “voters in these states don’t want a cookie-cutter approach.” Instead of sending talking points from D.C., party leaders must recognize that “you need candidates who are grounded in the experience of their states, who actually understand what is happening on the ground and are ready to talk about it.”24
Merkley gets it. Twelve years ago, he was a state legislator bidding to dislodge Republican Senator Gordon Smith from a seat no Democrat had held since 1967. Merkley trailed Smith until the fall race heated up and then—with a progressive campaign that challenged the incumbent’s stances on the Iraq War, tax policy, and climate change—began to close the gap. In November, with a boost from Obama’s landslide win in Oregon, Merkley narrowly upset Smith.25
This year, Merkley looks to candidates like Warnock, Greenfield, and Kansas’s Barbara Bollier to be among the winners who build a meaningful Democratic majority. Of course, says Merkley, those are tough races. But in years that go well for the top of the Democratic ticket, prospects for Senate wins open up in unlikely places. The key is to provide the resources and the support necessary for those candidates to seize those openings—as he did in the 2008 elections, which saw eight Senate seats flip from Republicans to Democrats. “Everything I care about depends on winning the Senate. Unless we win it in November and then reform it so the minority cannot block action on the issues that matter, the Senate will continue to be rigged for the powerful,” says Merkley. “We’ve seen that movie way too many times before. We’ve got to change the script.”26