A Race Too Close To Call-- And Over Two-Thirds Of The Votes Uncounted

Lee Zeldin and his boss-- undermining America

When I lived there is the 1960s, Suffolk County was still to some extent a rural backwater. It was still the biggest potato-growing county in the U.S., although Idaho was coming on strong. I was once dragged in front of a grand jury in Riverhead, the county seat and, judging by the cast of characters and their values, I could have easily have been in Kansas. Today Suffolk County is the 4th most populous in New York State (about a million and a half people), after Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, with more people than the Bronx, Nassau, Westchester, Erie (Buffalo) or Monroe (Rochester). It takes up most of Long Island and is overwhelmingly suburban now, although it is still the most important farming county in New York.

NY-01 is most of Suffolk County, although both NY-02 in the south and NY-03 in the north both have sizable pieces. NY-01 is a swing district with a Republican congressman, Lee Zeldin. Obama won the district-- narrowly-- both times he ran, but in 2016 Trump beat Hillary by over 12 points.

A week ago, Democrats had a primary to pick the nominee who would take on Zeldin in November. Of the 3 serious candidates, two ran as moderately progressive, Perry Gershon and Nancy Goroff, and one ran as a typical conservative Democrat, Bridget Fleming. With all precincts counted, Wednesday showed an election way to close to call-- because most votes had been cast by mail and they had not been counted. This is what was counted:

• Perry Gershon- 5,166 (35.4%)
• Nancy Goroff- 5,002 (34.3%)
• Bridget Fleming- 4,062 (27.8%)

As of the June 3 FEC reports, Goroff had raised $2,342,792 ($1,005,600 self-funded) and spent $1,584,630; Gershon had raised $1,113,460 and spent $925,637; and Fleming had raised $703,116 and spent $591,288. Two dark money groups spent independent money in the primary, Blue Tide NY-1 LLC spent $168,919 in favor of Gershon and a notorious scam-artist/grifter sewer money group, 314 Action Fund, spent $516,670 smearing Gershon and supporting Goroff.

So what do the candidates do while they sit in limbo waiting to see which one of them will be duking it out with Zeldin? He has raised $3,906,970 so far this cycle. An e-mail to her supporters from Goroff helped shed some light on how a candidate navigates this in between time.

This campaign has always been focused on facts, data, and reality. So let me tell you where things currently stand.

Here are the facts: after an incredible election day with almost 15,000 votes cast in person, we’re down 164 votes. There are currently over 35,000 absentee votes still to be counted-- over ⅔ of the votes in this election. We’re very much in this.

Those votes won’t be counted until at least July 1, and depending on how fast the Suffolk County Board of Elections can count, we may not know the winner of our Primary until mid-July. Our campaign has promised to support this process to ensure that votes are counted as smoothly and quickly as possible to help us declare the eventual nominee and move on to run against Lee Zeldin.

As the absentee count progresses, we are cautiously optimistic that once every vote is counted, I will be the Democratic nominee. Here’s why:

On election day, we won the town of Brookhaven, and Brookhaven makes up substantially more of the absentee ballots than of the in-person vote-- 61% compared to 58%.

Our very active field program was exclusively designed to encourage our supporters to vote absentee until right before election day, so there is reason to believe that our supporters heard from us and submitted their votes by mail.

We are modeling these results, and any small adjustments in the margins make all the difference. For example, if we increase our margins by .5% across the district compared to the in-person vote, we win. If the absentee votes are split like the in-person votes, but we do 1% better in absentees in Brookhaven, we win. The uncertainty is greater than the precision we can get in any of our models. The situation boils down to this: we need to make sure every vote is counted, and when they are, we remain hopeful we will win.

But here’s the thing: While we watch the vote counting, Lee Zeldin isn’t slowing down. In fact, he just announced a fundraiser featuring fellow Trump apologist Jim Jordan as a special guest!

The primary is a first stop on the way to our goal of beating Lee Zeldin and replacing him with a scientist who is working to actually make lives better. We need to begin raising money to compete with Zeldin’s $2 Million war chest. With just over 130 days until the General Election, we can’t miss a day, even with the Primary winner uncertain. So we’re going to keep sending emails with updates, we’re going to keep holding Zeldin accountable, and we’re going to keep asking for money to do exactly that. And if it turns out that I am not the nominee, any funds you donate from this date forward will be refunded.

With two-thirds of the votes uncounted, there is no telling who the winner will be, not in a race this close. And one has to wonder how many races from last Tuesday that is true of. It certainly is the case in Kentucky's Senate race, where the Schumer candidate looked like she was leading but, since then, Charles Booker, the progressive, has pulled ahead-- and where most votes are still unaccounted for, but where we should see final results tomorrow.

How To Use Trump's Impeachment To Win 2020 Congressional Races

Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Trump, welded at the hip

Smart Democratic candidates running for Congress against GOP incumbents have gone on the offense against their Trump-enabling opponents. Nancy Goroff is running to represent the Suffolk County residents of swingy NY-01. The current incumbent gave up trying to pretend to be a mainstream Republican and shifted all the way too the right lately, likely with an eye on becoming a Fox News host in the near future. He became one of the most aggressive and obnoxious of the Trump defenders in the House.

Goroff sent out an e-mail to her supporters Wednesday night right after the vote reminding them that "the House of Representatives just voted to approve articles of impeachment against Donald Trump for his abuses of power and obstruction of Congress. This action was necessary against a President who has proven to be a clear and present danger to our democracy." She quickly turned the discuss to Zeldin:

But Lee Zeldin chose to put party over country. He ignored clear evidence that Trump attempted to bribe Ukraine with taxpayer dollars into interfering in the 2020 election. He voted to protect Trump and uphold corruption at the highest levels.

History will judge politicians like Zeldin for their lack of principle. But right now, we need to hold them accountable at the ballot box.

We need honest leadership in Congress - not unbridled partisanship.

...Tonight's vote is not about Democrats or Republicans. It is not about our personal opinions of Donald Trump's character. It is about affirming that no President is above the law, that we have co-equal branches of government, and that foreign interference in our democracy must be stopped.

By opposing the articles of impeachment, Zeldin showed that he cares more about his political networks than upholding free and fair elections. It's up to us to hold Zeldin accountable.

Two day earlier, Goroff had effectively set Zeldin up for what she knew was coming. She wrote: "Breitbart News-- the extremist news outlet which aligned with the alt-right under the leadership of Steve Bannon-- just came out with a glowing profile of my opponent in NY-01, Republican incumbent Lee Zeldin. They called him a 'legend' and 'impeachment’s biggest star.' Zeldin continues to see his job as a way to raise his profile in right-wing media-- not to represent the people in Suffolk County. Zeldin has grown more and more radical at the same time the district is growing rapidly more Democratic. The New York Times recently reported the profound political shift, and there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans on Long Island. The good news is that we can win: In my first quarter, with your help, I outraised Zeldin by $70,000 in individual contributions. Next November, I’ll unseat him to become the first female Ph.D. scientist in Congress, but as Trump’s GOP props up Zeldin, I will need your help."

She ended with an appeal to people "as frustrated as I am with Trump, Zeldin, and the rest of the GOP circus in Washington." Later, Nancy told me that "With his vote, Zeldin cemented his place on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of his constituents. There has never been energy and activism in NY-01 like we've seen due to Zeldin's votes to protect the president while harming his constituents (ie. not signing on to remove the SALT tax cap). Just this week, on a cold rainy night, over 600 people came out across Suffolk County to call for impeachment-- numbers at protests we've never seen before."

Mike Siegel is the progressive candidate running against far right Trumpist Michael McCaul in a gerrymandered central Texas district. Like Nancy Goroff, Mike saw an opportunity to draw a contrast between himself and his opponent on the question of impeachment. "Yesterday was a historic day," he wrote. "The House impeached a president for the third time in the history of our nation. But here in the Texas 10th, instead of standing up to the President’s abuse of power, Rep. McCaul abandoned all dignity and common sense. He said, 'some 63 million Americans voted for President Trump,' and therefore he should not be impeached. Complete nonsense. McCaul has failed to uphold his oath of office. He claims to be a foreign policy expert-- then he must know how important foreign aid is. He knows that when Congress appropriates aid and the President withholds it to advance his personal agenda-- that is an abuse of power. Michael McCaul swore an oath to defend our constitution but he has done nothing but protect his own political ambitions. While McCaul has been sucking up to Trump, our district is in need. Tens of thousands without health care and closing rural hospitals. Several counties with polluted groundwater due to coal ash contamination and fracking fluids. Closing public schools and a growing homeless population. What has McCaul done with his time in office for the people of Texas 10? Nothing. I am committed to fighting for the people of this district. To ensure their needs are put first. And to fight to protect democracy in the United States, from all threats, foreign and domestic."

Is Long Island Republican Lee Zeldin Throwing Away His Career Defending Trump?

I went to college at Stony Brook University in Suffolk County. Before I started school there, Democrat Otis Pike was the congressman. And when I graduated in 1969 he was still Suffolk's representative in Congress, a job he kept for another decade. I was never a big fan. He was too conservative and way too militaristic-- and at the height of the Vietnam War. When he retired he was succeeded by a far right crackpot, William Carney, best known for having been the first member of the Conservative Party to serve in the House. He later switch to the Republican Party and then retired after 4 term and was succeeded by Democrat George Hochbrueckner and was beaten by Republican Michael Forbes in 1994. Forbes, noting that the GOP was "tone deaf" to the plight of working families, switched to the Democratic Party in 1999, while still in Congress, but was so right-wing that he lost the Democratic primary to a 71 year old librarian (who was financed by the GOP to the tune of a quarter million dollars). Republican Felix Grucci beat her and represented Suffolk County in Congress for one term before being beaten by Democrat Tim Bishop, who served from 2003 to 2014 when he was beaten by Lee Zeldin, 55-45%, primarily because of a scandal in which a hedge fund manager paid him off in return for getting the family a fireworks permit for their kid's bar mitzvah.

Got it? That's Suffolk County, a quintessential swing district on the high growth eastern end of Long Island. When I lived there, it was the biggest potato-growing county in the U.S. Now it's 99.9% suburban (actual statistic) and 0.1% rural. It's also the 28th richest congressional district-- in terms of median income-- in the country. The more diverse and more Democratic western parts of the county are no longer part of the first congressional district. The northwestern area is part of NY-03 (Tom Suozzi's district) and the southwestern area is part of NY-02 (Peter King's district, soon to turn Democratic). Zeldin's district, which still includes Stony Brook starts at Nissequogue in the north, encompasses Smithtown, the eastern shore of Lake Ronkokoma and Patchogue. Everything to the east of that is Zeldin's district, including Port Jefferson, Brookhaven, Fire Island, the Hamptons, Riverhead and Montauk. It was an R+2 district until Hillary's abysmal campaign resulted in it being reclassified as an R+5. Obama won the district both times but Trump crushed Hillary 54.5% to 42.2%.

Last year Zeldin hung on, beating Perry Gershon 139,027 (51.5%) to 127,991 (47.4%), Zeldin having successfully labeled him "Park Avenue Perry." Gershon out-raised Zeldin, $5,017,361(about 40% of it self-financed) to $4,447,149. This cycle Gershon is trying again, but he has a strong primary opponent he has to get through first, Nancy Goroff, a distinguished scientist from Stony Brook. So far Zeldin has raised $1,855,879 to Gershon's $605,891 and Goroff's $521,006.

This morning, when Robert Reich wrote to his supporters that "Republican members of Congress are shredding reality to protect Trump in the face of mounting evidence that he and his administration are a criminal syndicate" he could well have been referring to Zeldin, who is apparently staking his whole career on Trump coattails. "Here's the truth," wrote Reich: "Congressional Republicans know that Trump is guilty, and they know that they look like damn fools for protecting him. Every day, they are making a calculation of how far they can take this without losing their careers."

Long Island media is covering Zeldin's role as a Trump enabler very closely and it is likely the 2020 congressional election will hinge, at least in part, on how Suffolk County voters view Trump. As of November 1, this is how party registration looked in the first district:

• Republicans- 159,329
• Democrats- 151,357
• Decline-to-state- 131,158

In other words, it will be the unaffiliated voters--who have been turning sharply away from Trump-- who determine Zeldin's fate next year. Last week a high-dollar donor fundraiser Zeldin held in St James-- one of Suffolk County's toniest neighborhoods-- attracted a strong contingent of protestors. Newsday interviewed several of them who complained about how Zeldin had "decided to throw his lot completely into the Trump camp and to adopt, in full, the Trumpian agenda." Some talked about organizing and how determined they are to remove Zeldin from office.

Last night Perry Gershon told us that "Lee Zeldin hasn’t held a town hall in over two years, and is consistently inaccessible to his constituents, which is why there is such dissatisfaction with him. To make matters worse, most people these days only see him when he is on cable news portraying himself as Trump’s #1 defender and cheerleader. I just held my third town hall in three months where we discussed affordable healthcare and the climate crisis we are in, as well as local issues like dangerous drinking water, lack of federal funding for our antiquated sewers and the crippling tax burden Long Islanders face. It has become crystal clear that residents are sick of Lee Zeldin and itching for a change."

This morning we heard from Nancy Goroff. Zeldin, of course, is the issue where she and Gershon are in complete sync. "Zeldin continues to lie and obfuscate in order to protect a corrupt President," she wrote. "He muddles the discussion of timeline, of what the President requested and of who knew about those requests when, to pretend that the President did nothing wrong. Zeldin has shown over and over that he cares more about getting on TV than about helping the people of our district. And by his metric, he has been enormously successful in the last month, because of his willingness to lie on camera on behalf of the President. Unfortunately, he does not show similar diligence when it comes to looking for solutions for healthcare, climate change, or financial security for his constituents. We deserve better!"

Reporting for NBC News, Allan Smith asked one salient question: how could some virtually unknown GOP lawmaker become a point man for Trump's impeachment defense? Zeldin might not be paying any attention to the water crisis in Southampton, but he's spoken more than any other Republican in the House about Trump's impeachment, which he insists is a "charade," a "clown show," and a "cocktail that is" House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff's "favorite drink to get America drunk on." He's become as much a Trump favorite as Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows. The difference is that they're both in super-gerrymandered districts created to elect Republicans. Zeldin's district is a true swing district and, unlike them, he's endangering his career. "Zeldin's loyalty to Trump," wrote Smith, "as well as his attacks on the impeachment process, has been met with much chagrin from Democrats. One House Democratic aide said Zeldin was 'maybe the best instance I’ve seen of someone using emulating Trump as a pathway to relevance.'"

The Climate Crisis Isn't On Hold Until After Trump Is Impeached

Everybody's attention span seems fully engaged with impeaching Trump right now. Many people predicted-- correctly-- that that is exactly hat would happen and that it would take a sense of urgency away from other urgent matters, the Climate Crisis being on the top of most lists. This isn't something that we have infinite time to get to; we have very little time get to it and the power of concentrated wealth is lined up against doing anything at all. This is insane, even if arguing that removing Trump would make it easier to address the crisis (which is true).

Nancy Goroff, a celebrated scientist, was the head of the chemistry department at Stony Brook University, where I went to school-- albeit when she was just student herself. Today she's a candidate for Congress on Long Island, in a district occupied by hard-core Trump enabler Lee Zeldin, a foolish guy who somehow has made sure to not understand that there even is a Climate Crisis. Goroff has told me from the first time we ever spoke that she was then thinking of running for Congress because of the Climate Crisis and that she agrees that it's time for scientists to take a more active public role. Today she told me that she "chose to step down from my position as Chair of the Chemistry Department at Stony Brook University to run for Congress because our current representative, Lee Zeldin, has done nothing to help the urgent climate crisis. We live on an island, where coastal erosion, extreme weather, and sea level rise threaten our way of life. Yet Zeldin has voted to prevent federal agencies from even considering climate change in their analysis of government regulations. Our district, our country, and the world need us to take ambitious, sustained action to reduce our CO2 emissions, and the sooner we move forward, the better."

Yesterday Matthew Green, reporting for Reuters, wrote that "Almost 400 scientists have endorsed a civil disobedience campaign aimed at forcing governments to take rapid action to tackle climate change, warning that failure could inflict “incalculable human suffering. In a joint declaration, climate scientists, physicists, biologists, engineers and others from at least 20 countries broke with the caution traditionally associated with academia to side with peaceful protesters courting arrest from Amsterdam to Melbourne."

Wearing white laboratory coats to symbolize their research credentials, a group of about 20 of the signatories gathered on Saturday to read out the text outside London’s century-old Science Museum in the city’s upmarket Kensington district.

“We believe that the continued governmental inaction over the climate and ecological crisis now justifies peaceful and non-violent protest and direct action, even if this goes beyond the bounds of the current law,” said Emily Grossman, a science broadcaster with a PhD in molecular biology. She read the declaration on behalf of the group.

“We therefore support those who are rising up peacefully against governments around the world that are failing to act proportionately to the scale of the crisis,” she said.

The declaration was coordinated by a group of scientists who support Extinction Rebellion, a civil disobedience campaign that formed in Britain a year ago and has since sparked offshoots in dozens of countries.

The group launched a fresh wave of international actions on Monday, aiming to get governments to address an ecological crisis caused by climate change and accelerating extinctions of plant and animal species.

A total of 1,307 volunteers had since been arrested at various protests in London by 2030 GMT on Saturday, Extinction Rebellion said. A further 1,463 volunteers have been arrested in the past week in another 20 cities, including Brussels, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney and Toronto, according to the group’s tally. More protests in this latest wave are due in the coming days.

While many scientists have shunned overt political debate, fearing that being perceived as activists might undermine their claims to objectivity, the 395 academics who had signed the declaration by 1100 GMT on Sunday chose to defy convention.

“The urgency of the crisis is now so great that many scientists feel, as humans, that we now have a moral duty to take radical action,” Grossman told Reuters.

Other signatories included several scientists who contributed to the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has produced a series of reports underscoring the urgency of dramatic cuts in carbon emissions.

“We can’t allow the role of scientists to be to just write papers and publish them in obscure journals and hope somehow that somebody out there will pay attention,” Julia Steinberger, an ecological economist at the University of Leeds and a lead IPCC author, told Reuters.

“We need to be rethinking the role of the scientist and engage with how social change happens at a massive and urgent scale,” she said. “We can’t allow science as usual.”

Extinction Rebellion’s flag is a stylized symbol of an hourglass in a circle, and its disruptive tactics include peacefully occupying bridges and roads.

The group has electrified supporters who said they had despaired at the failure of conventional campaigning to spur action. But its success in paralyzing parts of London has also angered critics who complained the movement has inconvenienced thousands of people and diverted police resources.

Extinction Rebellion is aligned with a school strike movement inspired by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, which mobilized millions of young people on Sept. 20. It hopes the scientists’ support for the urgency of its message and its embrace of civil disobedience will bolster its legitimacy and draw more volunteers.

The group said more than half the signatories of the declaration are experts in the fields of climate science and the loss of wildlife. Although British universities and institutes were well represented, signatories also worked in countries including the United States, Australia, Spain and France.

Progressive pastor and North Carolina congressional candidate Jason Butler get's the urgency. "This is indeed a crisis that cannot wait," he told me. But the sad reality is that many of our representatives have shown little to no interest in moving to reverse climate change. Here’s why-- most of our elected officials are rich and the rich can shield themselves from the affects of climate change. It will be the poor that suffer first. To me, this is a moral failure. Representatives like my opponent, George Holding, who took nearly $60,000 from oil & gas companies last election cycle, shelf life-saving green energy legislation. Holding recently voted in support of S.J. Res. 24, a 'resolution of disapproval' under the Congressional Review Act that would nullify the EPA's Clean Power Plan-- the first nation-wide limit on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and key climate change policy. Holding is content dining with oil executives while the poor and vulnerable suffer. I, unlike my opponent, will stand with these scientists and prophets like Greta Thunberg and move to take urgent and direct action to do all we can to try to reverse this crisis. This can’t wait. We need to fund the campaigns of those who can beat climate deniers, like Holding, in order to save our planet. We’ll have to take matters into our own hands, fill the streets, fund campaigns, and vote like the future of the human race depends on it-- because it does." Contribute to Jason's campaign here.

Kim Williams is the Central Valley progressive running for the Fresno/Merced/Los Baños congressional seat held by conservative Blue Dog Jim Costa. "Our district," she told me. "has the dirtiest air in America, and this is the result of decades of failed policies. Trump compounds the problem with his disparaging rhetoric and through the creation of echo chambers that dismiss every variety of expert testimony and research. Of course, he’s not alone. The Central Valley is home to plenty of climate deniers, but even more problematic are the climate delayers. Jim Costa is one such individual. He rushes to take selfies with Greta Thunberg and then cashes checks from Chevron. He condemns climate change at local democrat club meetings but won’t hold millionaire farmers, like himself, accountable. More than ever we need representation from inside the Central Valley that acknowledges the harsh realities of climate change and supports real reform. Blue dog calls for 'common sense' solutions have loosely translated into no solutions at all." Contribute to Kim's campaign here

Betsy Sweet is the progressive favorite in the Maine U.S. Senate race to replace Susan Collins. Chuck Schumer recruited a middle of the road obedient candidate of his own, Sara Gideon, but, Betsy pointed out-- "I am the only one who supports a Green New Deal. The world is literally and figuratively on fire and politicians in Washington are, at best, bringing a watering can to the edges. We need bold, fast action NOW. We can't wait til 2045-- Gideon's suggestion-- to be fossil fuel free... we must act now. And, for Maine it represents an incredible economic opportunity. We could be the Saudi Arabia of green energy production between solar, wind and ocean/tidal power we could not only make Maine fossil fuel free, but we could export much of that green energy to the rest of New England.  I am calling on the U.S. to END the 20 billion dollars a year of fossil fuel tax payer subsidies and redirect that money to the development of clean, efficient green technologies." Meanwhile Gideon won't comment and Collins takes money from fossil fuel money hand over fist. Contribute to Betsy's campaign here

State Rep. Jon Hoadley (D-MI), who is running for a seat occupied by multimillionaire pollution-protector Fred Upton, told us earlier that "It has never been more critical for our elected leaders to take action to address climate change. As a state representative, I have been proud to be a leader on this issue and, unlike my opponent who is funded by corporate polluters, I will take those same values to congress. I will continue to fight for the environmental issues facing our communities, address the climate crisis, and continue advocating with the thousands of concerned climate activists across southwest Michigan." Contribute to Jon's campaign here.

Rachel Ventura is one of an increasing number of progressive candidates who decided to run because of the Climate Crisis. Her opponent, wealthy New Dem Bill Foster, is an advocate of a go-too-slow approach. But Rachel told us that "the race in Will DuPage, Kane and Kendall counties mirrors the national debate between corporate Democrats and progressives about how we will address the climate crisis. I believe that we need to transition away from of fossil fuels and I oppose the expansion of the such infrastructure. We don’t need the fossil fuels industry, we need energy. This is where my opponent and I differ. He has co-sponsored the Use It Act that waste tax payer dollars in a farce of capturing carbon for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). EOR is something the fuel fossil industry has been doing for the last 30 years and in 2018 Trump expanded tax credits from $10/ton to $35/ton with no limit. He also allocated $50/ton if using sequestration. This is a clear tax bail out for the oil companies. They want to pressurized this captured carbon with water to push the oil toward the surface. We can no longer produce cheap oil, and this bill subsidizes the production of oil while compounding the climate crisis. The fossil fuel industry estimates CO2-EOR in United States could generate an additional 240 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources. This would be catastrophic for the environment. These tax credits alone may sequester between 200 million and 2.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. Whereas, I support carbon capture sequestration thru tried and true means using trees, prairie grasses, and soil. This will actually reduce carbon in the atmosphere and protect our oceans, land, and air. I’m a strong advocate for the Green New Deal (GND), $16 trillion dollars job bill that would incentivize making homes more energy efficient or installing solar panels on tax payers homes. The GND would also invest heavily in renewable municipal power and smart grid technology. The United States is far behind other industrialized Nations in using renewable energy. My opponent thinks the GND is a pie in the sky idea." Contribute to Rachel's campaign here.

If Evangelicals Are Supporting Trump Because They Can't Cope With Women's Bodies, Maybe They Should Skip The Election This Year And See A Psycho-Therapist Instead

Trump's support among white evangelicals hasn't sunk much despite the discomfort some of them feel about a few of his noticeably anti-Jesus policies and about the way he comports himself. 80% of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016 and, if the election were held today, 77% of them say they would do the same now. Writing for the Washington Post, Andrea Lucado cited a Maris poll for NPR and PBS from last month, in her piece that ran yesterday, How the female body became the scapegoat for white evangelicals. She pointed to the fact that 70% of white evangelicals reported hating Hillary Clinton, overwhelmingly because of her stand on women's Choice. "As a white, evangelical-raised Christian," wrote Lucado, "I am frustrated, angry and confused by the continued support of Trump even when his first term is coming to an end, but I can’t claim to be surprised." Not only do 65% of evangelicals oppose abortion-- a relatively new phenomenon; American evangelicals used to back Choice and deride Catholics for opposing it-- but "Americans who oppose the legality of abortion (27%) are significantly more likely than those who support the legality of abortion (18%) to say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on the issue."

I have grown suspicious of the way some evangelicals identify with their pro-life status so deeply that it affects every political decision they make.

French literary critic and philosopher René Girard studied how ancient civilizations relied on the tradition of the scapegoat. Girard claimed that scapegoating was necessary due to what he called “mimetic desire,” which, put simply, is the fact that we want what others have. This coveting ultimately leads to conflict only resolved through an act of violence, usually cast upon one victim chosen by the tribe: the scapegoat.





Girard found that this method of scapegoating changed when Jesus arrived in ancient Palestine. Jesus himself was described as a scapegoat, a “lamb led to slaughter” (Acts 8:32). But Girard argued that the circumstances around Christ’s crucifixion symbolized the end of the need of scapegoating. As he explained in his book “I See Satan Fall Like Lightening,” “Jesus is innocent, and those who crucify him are guilty.”





Girard theorized that because Jesus’ innocence was known by those in attendance at his crucifixion (See the accounts of Pontius Pilate in Matthew 27:23-24 and of the centurion in Matthew 27:54), the curtain was pulled back on the scapegoat method. It was finally clear that the truly guilty are those who scapegoat, not the scapegoat. The crucifixion symbolized the final sacrifice and negated the usefulness of the scapegoat tradition.

Even though Christianity was founded upon this very sacrifice, some have not gotten the message that scapegoating has ended.

Although the pro-life movement has made steps toward helping women through pregnancy, many of its tactics to prevent abortion are sometimes driven by shame. Each movie that portrays the horrors of the procedure, each image of a fetus, each hand-scribbled sign bobbing up and down outside a Planned Parenthood seems to be pointing a finger and asking, How could you? And the finger is always pointed at the woman. Her decision, her body, her fault.

What I have seen in the pro-life movement and elsewhere in evangelical culture is this ancient reliance upon the scapegoat mechanism, and the scapegoat is always the same-- the female body.

Purity culture-- an evangelical movement that reached its height in the late 1990s and early 2000s-- promoted a core message of abstinence before and outside of marriage. The way this sexual ethic was taught to me and many others badly warped my view of sex, the body and gender. Only in recent years have I been able to clumsily untangle the message from my faith, namely the weight, guilt and responsibility the movement put on females.

When learning about sex and purity, I was taught my virginity was my greatest commodity, therefore, I must protect it at all costs until I was married. Marriage and childbearing would be the pinnacle of my existence-- a belief many evangelicals still hold today. Just this week, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, suggested being a parent is what makes one human.

According to purity culture, the protection of my virginity was up to me. I remember many lectures about the importance of girls’ dressing modestly so as not to let our brothers stumble into the sin of lust. I once heard a youth leader say that a mere glimpse of a bra strap would cause a boy to have impure thoughts.

I was warned about how often boys thought about sex and the warning’s undertone was a warning for me: Don’t lead him into temptation. It was up to me to keep myself pure and to keep my brothers in Christ pure, as well. If I had sex before marriage, I would not only taint myself, but I would also own the guilt of causing the male I had sex with to have sex with me.

It made for a world nearly impossible for a girl to do right and for a boy to do wrong.

The shame and guilt that drove purity culture is the same shame I see driving the pro-life movement today. And like purity culture, the woman is the scapegoat. She is the one making the decision. She, and she alone, is at fault.

The fact that white evangelicals still as a whole support Trump for a 2020 reelection with abortion as the flag over their crusade points to an important truth: Evangelicals are still obsessed with female bodies, controlling them and blaming them.

Recalling Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, this leads me to wonder, what is the desire behind the scapegoat of the woman’s body? What do evangelicals want that others have? Is it power? Is it fame? Is it women themselves?

Or, do they fear what an end to their scapegoat mechanism would do? When the woman, or scapegoat, speaks, it causes unrest. It causes a dismantling. Look what it did to former Southern Baptist seminary president Paige Patterson, one of the most prominent religious leaders of the late 20th century. Is the pro-life movement just a convenient, moral excuse to keep the woman as scapegoat, and, therefore, maintain order?

Whatever it is, the pull to isolate a presidential vote to one issue is strong enough to blind many evangelicals to what Jesus would care about today: the poor (He was.), the immigrant (He was one.), the marginalized (He was.), the person of color (He was one.). It seems the primary rock some evangelicals are standing on is one in which the woman’s body is scapegoat, in which she is sacrificed.

President of the Evangelical States of America, Pig Man

And this isn't just about people in some backward part of Alabama or Oklahoma. How about Long Island? Nancy Goroff is running for a Suffolk County congressional seat held by anti-Choice fanatic Lee Zeldin. Yesterday, Goroff told her supporters that "Trump has instituted a 'gag rule' that prevents doctors from giving full medical advice to their patients. It has forced Planned Parenthood out of Title X, putting at risk wellness exams, STD and HIV screenings, birth control, and contraceptive education that millions of people count on. As a scientist, I believe medical decisions need to be made with the best information possible, and I don’t believe the government should stand between a patient and their doctor. Anti-choice politicians, like my opponent Lee Zeldin, are part of the problem and need to be replaced. Zeldin has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, to allow for 'personhood' legislation and to repeal the Affordable Care Act-- stripping health insurance from tens of millions of Americans. Overall, he’s voted against Planned Parenthood 30 times THIS YEAR-- and not once in favor of the women who need their help. When it comes to women's healthcare, Zeldin chooses policies that ignore the facts and data. As a scientist and a mom... I will work to debunk the lies about Planned Parenthood and fight to restore critical funding for it."