Perhaps it is my imagination but it is my impression that the Democratic senior women of Congress are fighting like hell, while the senior Democratic men are sagging, compromising and capitulating to Trumpism.
It’s time to let the men know that we expect them to fight like hell just as much. They can seek allies, yes, especially among disaffected Republicans who are outraged by the corruption and treasonous behavior. But Democratic men must stand up to the criminal intentions of this administration. If Chuck Schumer wants to reach out to Republicans then let him reach out to the Bush’s, or McCain, or dozens of others.
It could be that women in politics get better under longterm pressure as underdogs. i am not sure. It is curious and worrisome that the men are flailing about. Misogyny is a contagious disease, and perhaps Trumpism is rubbing off, I don’t know. But I also wonder whether what happened to Al Franken created a deep division between men and women in Congress. i don’t know, but someone should be working on this because we will never get back the country divided, which is exactly what demagogues attempt to do, as they take over around the world, wound selectively, divide and demoralize democrats.
I have noticed that it is especially when the going gets rough historically that women rise in powerful determination. Not in the prosperous 1950s but yes in the the 1940s and wartime. We are now in grave existential danger, and I think the senior political men feel utterly defeated and outsmarted, even stunned, by proto-fascist tactics and the Russian collusion. I saw the same look of defeat on the face of Jeb Bush during the primaries when he lost to a foul-mouthed bully with absolutely no substance to him, except fascist tactics.
Trump has managed to employ many corrupt women, especially Devos and her horrible family’s impact on us, on war, on everything. At the same time, what intrigues me is that now that things have gotten so bad, it is women who are rising up inside and outside government. For sure part of it is that, despite the 50% or more of white women who voted for Trump, tens of millions understand that it is their freedom that are stake. Perhaps it is because more than any other group, it is they that Trump himself has so directly assaulted.
I am amazed at how many people of Hispanic origin have NOT risen to protect the dreamers and others, for example. I think the African American community and the Black Caucus inside government seem stunned into silence. There is a paralysis setting it that is typical of bullying and its effect on recipients. I cannot understand the Jewish establishment that I know so well from this inside; they too seem also stunned, betrayed also by Israeli Jewry’s support for proto-fascist antisemites here and in Europe, but unable to say anything against Israelis publicly, which in itself is deeply debilitating.
But somehow the women have become deeply angry and defiant in a way that I thought everyone would be. This is part of a global pattern of women’s resilience in the depths of war and oppression. We must rethink many assumptions about how to defeat totalitarianism, now and in the future, for totalitarianism is a deadly disease that periodically afflicts human society. And we do not know how to defeat it until it kills enough of the host to commit suicide, as it did in Germany and Japan. We need a less violent end to bad moods, silly anti-intellectual frenzy that often ends in horror. Perhaps we need to watch closely for women as heroes. it is not all women who have the answers, and indeed many are mesmerized by Trumpism, while others are dividing and not leading. But there is something going on here that reminds me of heroic women around the world who, when war destroyed everything, rose exactly then to seize life, seize common sense, and save society from its dark mood.
