Foolishly, McConnell Ramps Up The Republican Party's War On Women Again

Why would McConnell get the GOP war against women rolling again, juts as the election season is moving into high gear? Who gained and who lost yesterday when he forced the Senate into a no-win situation with two abortion votes. McConnell's no fool and he knew there was no possibility the already-rejected bills would pass. So why move away from his strategy of no votes on policy, just on Trumpist confirmations of judges and other characters sent over by the Regime?

Do the culture war bills to sharply restrict access to late-term abortions and threaten doctors who perform them with criminal penalties signal a decision by the GOP to make Freedom of Choice a campaign issue this year? Apparently so. They'll certainly energize the anti-Choice warriors in the Republican coalition.

Most polling shows just over a third of voters think abortions should be illegal-- in a recent ABC-Washington Post poll 22% said illegal in most cases and 14% said illegal in all cases. As always, a majority of Americans agree that abortions should be legal on all or most cases and that the decision should be up to the pregnant woman.

A few years ago, Pew took a look at how opinions on abortions differed by state. The backward, reactionary states that always vote Republican and where people lose their teeth early in life because they don't understand dental care, are totally anti-choice of course. These are the states where the fewest people back a woman's right to choice:

• West Virginia- 35%
• Kentucky- 36%
• Mississippi- 36%
• Alabama- 37%
• Arkansas- 38%
• Louisiana- 39%
• Tennessee- 40%
• South Carolina- 42%

And these are the states-- almost all blue-- they overwhelmingly favor leave the decision up to the woman and those she chooses to consult:

• Massachusetts- 74%
• Vermont- 70%
• Connecticut- 67%
• Hawaii- 66%
• New Hampshire- 66%
• New York- 64%
• Maine- 64%
• Maryland- 64%
• Oregon- 63%
• Rhode Island- 63%
• Alaska- 63%
• Nevada- 62%
• New Jersey- 61%
• Washington- 60%
• Colorado- 59%
• California- 57%
• Illinois- 56%
• Florida- 56%
• Montana- 56%
• Delaware- 55%

Neither bill got through the Democratic technical filibuster. The first got 53 votes out of the 60 needed, with Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Bob Casey (D-PA) voting with all the Republicans except Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). The second vote got 56 votes, coming closer to being able to shut downtime filibuster. Collins and Murkowski both voted with the Republicans on that one, as did Alabama Democrat Doug Jones.

Will their votes against Choice today hurt Susan Collins (with hardcore Republicans in Maine), Dan Sullivan (AK), Cory Gardner (CO), Steve Daines (MT)? And what about in states with Senate races that are more closely divided? North Carolina, for example has 49% favoring Choice and 45% opposed. How is that going to impact Thom Tillis in November? Did Joni Ernst make a mistake today by voting against Choice? Iowa has a 52% pro-Choice majority and just 46% against it. Arizona senator Martha McSally voted for the restrictions but a plurality of her constituents-- 49-46%-- favor choice... and that plurality has been growing since the poll was taken half a dozen years ago.

People think of Alaska as a red state. Obama lost both times he ran and Trump beat Hillary 52.8% tp 37.6%. But look at those numbers on Choice. Alaskans are strongly on the pro-Choice side. Yesterday, savvy Republican Lisa Murkowski voted against the Republican position on the first bill, while Dan Sullivan, a bit of a bunk-head  and who's up for reelection, voted against Choice. His opponent, a political independent and a medical doctor, pounced. Al Gross told me that "Dan is nothing but a zealot for the far right wing's harmful partisan agenda, and this vote epitomizes that. For all his talk about small government, he and his DC pals believe it's the government's job to interfere with a woman's right to choose. Well I believe differently. As a Doctor, an Alaskan, and a father, I call this behavior out. Dan Sullivan-- maybe you haven't learned yet, but this is not representative of Alaskan values. Study quick, November is right around the corner and we're going to beat you."

As for the presidential campaign, this is an issue Republicans also lose on in key swing states in the Midwest (besides Florida and New Hampshire):

• Wisconsin- 53-45%
• Pennsylvania- 51-44%
• Ohio- 48-47%
• Michigan- 54-42%

The votes today may have been helpful to McConnell himself, but it looks like most vulnerable Republican senators will be hurt by it. Cory Gardner, another example, has always been an anti-Choice fanatic-- something he proved again yesterday. I asked his progressive opponent, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff how that vote will play in Gardner's struggling reelection campaign. "For Mitch McConnell, Cory Gardner, and their right-wing allies," said Romanoff, "criminalizing abortion is more important than feeding the 11 million children who will go hungry tonight in the richest nation on earth. Shameful."

Virginia Voted To Pass The ERA, But The Trump/Barr Justice Department Is Preventing It From Becoming The 28th Amendment To The Constitution

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution passed another milestone yesterday. Virginia became the 38th state-- and that's how many you need to make it the 28th amendment. But the Trump regime has already moved forcefully to prevent that. Let me explain. First the text of the resolution proposing the amendment (H.R. 208):

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission by the Congress:

"ARTICLE —

"Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

"Sec. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

"Sec. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."

Did you know that the ERA was first introduced in 1923? The Senate finally passed it in 1950. Eisenhower was more vocal about getting it passed than any other president had been and back in those days passing the ERA was part of the Republican Party platform. The AFL-CIO, the ACLU and many Democrats-- particularly progressive Democrats-- opposed it, primarily because they feared women would lose beneficial labor protections that had been hard-won past victories. JFK campaigned on it but backed off it entirely once he was elected president.

In 1971 a joint resolution passed the House 354 to 24 (51 not voting) and the following year passed the Senate 84-8 (7 not voting). Nixon, the president, endorsed it and off it went to the state legislatures-- with a deadline of Natch 22, 1979 to get 38 states. Within days it had been ratified by Hawaii, New Hampshire, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas. By 1977 Indiana voted to ratify and the whole thing kind off petered out. Then 40 years later Nevada suddenly ratified it (2017), followed by Illinois (2018) and then yesterday, the 38th state-- Virginia, where it passed both houses.

But in the meantime, 4 very backward conservative states-- had their legislatures rescind their ratification: Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho and Kentucky. No one knows if legislatures are even allowed to rescind ratification, so that will have to be litigated, as will Congress' decision to extend the deadline for ratification.

As of today there are 12 states that haven't ratified, although 6 of them have one of the houses of the legislature voting to ratify: South Carolina, Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Noth Carolina. Three states have had votes but the amendment was defeated: Arizona, Arkansas and Mississippi.

The most recent congressional action came at the end of last year when Jackie Speier's bill to abolish any time limits for ratification-- H.J.Res. 79, which has 224 co-sponsors, enough for passage. Passage is now being pushed by Democrats and generally opposed by Republicans, although there are 2 Republican co-sponsors making it, at least superficially, bipartisan.

That brings us to state 38 and Virginia's vote yesterday. The House of Delegates voted 59-41 to approve (a bipartisan victory) and then the Senate voted 28-12 (including 7 Republicans, one of whom was Tommy Norment, the Republican minority leader).

One far right sociopath, Senate Republican Amanda Chase, insisted that all the ERA does is use women as political pawns for liberal causes.

The Trump/Barr Department of Justice issued a legal opinion before the Virginia legislature voted that the deadline to ratify had expired and it didn't matter what Virginia did. Without a court decision the ERA can't be added to the Constitution. Trump screwed women again.

No one has been able to get a comment from Ivanka but we did reach out to two of the public officials who I know who have been the strongest advocates of equal rights I have ever known, Georgia Senate candidate Teresa Tomlinson, former mayor of Columbus, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and represents Seattle.

Pramila celebrated on Twitter yesterday... and to me, she said "What a great moment in history-- and a huge step forward for equality! The Equal Rights Amendment is about equality, pure and simple. It is about ending the second class status of women in America. We all know that we have a long way to go in achieving equality for all women. The gender pay gap continues for all women, with women of color bearing an even greater burden. Women who work full time, year-round still only make 82 cents on the dollar for men’s earnings, amounting to an annual gender wage gap of over ten thousand dollars. Black women make only 62 cents, Latinas make 54 cents, and Native women make 58 cents for every dollar paid to white men. And close to two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. Not only are women more likely to earn minimum and sub-minimum wages-- they are also subjected to exploitation and sexual harassment in the workplace and on the streets. We now have 38 states that have approved the ERA. In November, I joined my House Judiciary Committee colleagues to pass a resolution to remove the ratification deadline for the ERA, bring us closer to a day where all people, regardless of gender, are equal under our Constitution. Women deserve to see their equality recognized. It is past time-- we need to finally ratify the ERA."

Blood On His Tiny Hands by Nancy Ohanian

Republicans Only Have 13 Women In The House

Guess which party is havin' a meetin'

After the North Carolina Republican Party got caught trying to steal the NC-09 House seat last November, the election of far right Trumpist sociopath, Mark Harris was invalidated and a special election called for September 10. Citizens of a district going from Charlotte to Fayetteville will have had no representation in Congress for nearly a year. The Democrat in the race is, politically, a worthless Blue Dog, Dan McCready and his GOP opponent, Dan Bishop, is even worse-- a right-wing psychopath who made a name for himself as author of the legislation to deny transgender children bathrooms.

There are only 13 Republican women in the House, a shockingly low number likely to bear some of the responsibility for the output of such a horrifying GOP agenda, even more extreme than normal. Women have been encouraged to run in open-seat primaries and against Democrats, weakly by the NRCC and strongly by Elise Stefanik' and her pro-women leadership initiative E-PAC. [Spoiler: last cycle, Stefanik raised money by screaming about electing women-- for example, $10,000 each from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UPS, Goldman Sachs, the Laborers Union, Ernst & Young-- but in the end she contributed to 54 right-wing men and just 20 women. She's a phony; keep reading.] When it came time to sign up for the NC-09 race, 4 women qualified as candidates. The votes of all 4 combined didn't add up to the transgender bathroom bill guy.

• Transgender Bathroom Bill Guy- 14,178 (47.7%)
• Leigh Thomas Brown- 2,624 (8.8%)
• Stevie Rivenbark- 892 (3.0%)
• Fern Shubert- 433 (1.5%)
• Kathie Day- 190 (0.6%)

Two other crazy right-wing lunatics, Stony Rushing (5,820 votes) and Matthew Ridenhour (5,065 votes) also finished significantly ahead of Brown. The biggest outlay of outside money ($1.3 million) was spent on behalf of Brown by the National Association of Realtors-- with this ad-- but to no avail. The ad was too positive and uplifting, not what Republican primary voters expect to hear in North Carolina. They were more interested in Dan Bishop's negative ugly messaging against AOC and socialism and his image as someone for trans-fats and against transgender students. This is the ad the Club for Growth, which was backing Stony Rushing, ran to smear Brown:





Did the NRCC or Stefanik rush to her defense? Not a chance. On Sunday Laura Barrón-López and Mealnie Zanona, reporting for Politico wrote that "Before Leigh Brown ran for a vacant House seat in North Carolina earlier this year, she got plenty of encouragement from Republicans in Washington eager to grow the ranks of GOP women in Congress. Then Brown jumped into a crowded Republican primary-- and the people who had given her hope were nowhere to be found. Among those who disappeared, she said, was Rep. Elise Stefanik, who launched an initiative this year to elect more Republican women."

“That's a little frustrating to have initial conversations and then follow up and be ghosted,” Brown said in an interview with Politico. “I put my real estate business on hold. I've dinged my own reputation in order to put myself forward as a public servant, and then you find out exactly how lonely it is to run for office.”

Stefanik acknowledged Brown’s account during a brief exchange in the Capitol last week but declined to elaborate.

The Republican Party has ramped up its efforts to recruit female candidates for the 2020 election, following the brutal midterm that decimated the ranks of GOP women. But Brown’s experience highlights an enduring challenge for the party: translating widespread concern about the dearth of women in the House Republican Conference into significant campaign support and, ultimately, victories by female candidates.

GOP consultants and candidates acknowledge their recruitment and resources lag far behind Democrats. And no centralized group exists to provide hiring advice, social media guidance, press training, or messaging tactics to candidates. Democrats, on the other hand, have the behemoth EMILY’s List network, as well as groups focused on recruiting immigrants, women of color, female veterans and more.

“The support structure needs to be more than the idea that you can get some PAC dollars from random PACs out there,” Brown said. “I didn't know how to hire. I'm an outsider to this.”

Republicans are not blind to the problem. A growing number of outside GOP groups are dedicated to boosting female candidates since the House GOP’s official campaign arm doesn’t play in primaries. “Winning for Women” launched a new super PAC in response to the devastating losses Republicans suffered in 2018.

And after watching her party swear in a 29-member class of House freshmen that included 28 men, Stefanik repurposed her leadership PAC, known as E-PAC, to focus on backing women in primaries. She told Politico at the time that “we are at a crisis level for GOP women.”

But neither Stefanik nor Winning for Women supported Brown, who faced nine other Republicans in the North Carolina race-- including three other women, each of whom finished with fewer than a thousand votes. The National Association of Realtors threw $1.3 million behind Brown as she presented a more moderate tone than her conservative opponents, and View PAC, a group focused on electing more GOP women since 1997, endorsed her.

Brown also spoke to Winning for Women before she filed and received strong encouragement. But once she announced her candidacy, she never heard from them again. Winning for Women’s super PAC said it has limited resources and stresses candidate viability.

...[A] number of Washington Republicans, including Stefanik and Winning for Women, have coalesced around a different female candidate in another special North Carolina race this year: Joan Perry.

Perry’s success in an upcoming July 9 runoff will be the first real test of Republicans’ new efforts to propel female candidates through primaries. But Perry begins the race at a disadvantage: She finished with 15 percent of the vote in the April primary, behind the first-place candidate, Greg Murphy, who earned 23 percent.

If Perry fails, it will highlight the limits of Republicans’ cash-only strategy-- and amplify the party’s woman problem heading into 2020. [It will also highlight how bad GOP recruiting is when the best woman they could find is so obviously unsuited for Congress and who couldn't come up with a better ad than this pathetic attempt to run against AOC and Bernie. Has anyone asked her how she feels about the total abortion bans in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri?]





“Donors are taking it seriously. Outside groups are taking this seriously. The party is taking it seriously,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for the Winning for Women Action Fund. “It would be awesome if the first election after the midterms, Republican voters chose a woman. It would send a strong message.”

Indeed, Republican leaders have made replenishing their ranks of female lawmakers a top priority in 2020. The issue could take on even greater urgency if Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, decides to run for an open Senate seat in Wyoming.

The party’s leader, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA), has already contributed to New York state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who is running to unseat freshman Democratic Rep. Max Rose-- even though the rest of the GOP field has yet to take shape.

[Note: Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm is expected to run, win the primary and lose the general.]

...[A]ccording to recent data collected by The Associated Press, just 38 of 172 declared Republican House challengers for the 2020 elections were women, or around 1 in 5. That compares with 84 of 222 declared House Democratic challengers, nearly 2 in 5.

Part of the problem, critics say, is that there is little concert between the groups set up to help Republican women. And they limit where they get involved to vacant, open Republican-leaning seats or swing districts currently held by Democrats-- while deliberately shying away from backing challengers to male incumbents.

...The key to getting Republicans to commit to a cohesive effort to boost women candidates isn’t just convincing them that it’s good for the party’s image, but that women will make better candidates in general elections against Democrats, VIEW PAC’s Conway said.

"People need to put their thumbs on the scale during the primary to make the nominee be the person most likely to be able to win in November,” Conway said. “And the Republicans have not done enough of that.”

"The key to getting Republicans to commit to a cohesive effort to boost women candidates isn’t just convincing them that it’s good for the party’s image, but that women will make better candidates in general elections against Democrats." Yes, but that will never happen inside a party that seems to think that a way one women is a good strategy to turn out their base voters. Maybe not passing abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest in every state that Republicans control would be good messaging too?

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Sunday Thoughts:

Here ya go ladies! It's your lucky day! For some reason, I bet this Christo-Assclown is single and very available! He's extra special. He even cites apocryphal "lost" books of the buy-bull to make his case. And, he spared no expense to make his banner. Of course, maybe he bought it as a souvenir of the last Republican convention. What a catch! He even looks like he could be related, closely related, to Trump. Just put one of those stupid big red ties on him and you've got it.

Since it's Sunday, say a prayer for him, too, if you like. I'm praying that he meets some woman who kicks his ass to kingdom come.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Tonight's meme comes to you from the Noah's Big Pop-Up Archive Of Things You Can't Unsee. I hope it doesn't give you nightmares. Look at it this way: The nightmares can't be any worse than what we are all seeing every day. As a side benefit, if you have a weakness for cold Burger King, Big Macs and similar deadly crap, consider this an attempt at aversion therapy.

There's been a lot of talk in the last few days about Trump not inviting championship women's sports teams to the White House. Considering the Misogynist-In-Chief's history, that he hasn't been eager to issue such invitations can't possibly be surprising. Maybe some women would go. Maybe some would not, but I do know that all the women I know are very careful about not eating fast food junk. Maybe if they do go, they could do the world a service and bury him in burgers... or, berders. Smother him! Please jam some adderall-dusted fries up his nose for me!

Republican Ladies, There's A Fella Who Says It's OK For More Of You In Congress-- But Only The Types He Approves

Nice shoes! Can she dance?

New York's North Country Republican Elise Stefanik did well in November. Her R+4 district, the biggest in the state, which stretches from just not of the Albany/Schenectady/Sarasota Springs are along the Vermont border and Lake Champlain to Quebec, along the St. Lawrence, past Waterown and into Lake Ontario. In 2016, the district went for Trump 53.9% to 40.0%, after voting for Obama twice. In November, Stefanik beat progressive Democrat Tedra Cobb 131,981 (56.1%) to 99,791 (42.4%). She won 10 of the 12 counties, spending $2,810,249 to Cobb's $1,538,958. Neither the DCCC nor Pelosi's House Majority Fund gave Cobb a dime.

Stefanik is a well-liked mainstream conservative. Her Trump affinity score was 89.6%. Right around the average for the 9 New York state Republicans. (Aside from Stefanik, there are only 5 left, Faso, Donovan and Tenney having been swept away in the anti-red wave.) Serving on the Armed Services, Education and Labor, and Intelligence Committees, she was an ally of Ryan's and never gave leadership a hard time-- until after the election, when she served notice on GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy that she would no longer work with or pay dues to the NRCC and would be using her own leadership PAC to recruit women to run in primaries (against Republican men). "I am going to keep pointing out to my colleagues," she explained to the media, "that we are at a crisis level for GOP women. This election should be a wake-up call to Republicans that we need to do better... We need to be elevating women’s voices, not suppressing them."

This kind of thing doesn't go over with in the GOP. Identity politics is a no-no for white patriarchs and the new NRCC head, reactionary Tom Emmer (R-MN), blew his top, and menacingly told an on-the-record interviewer that she was "making a mistake" to help female candidates in primaries. Stefanik tweeted that she was informing him, not "asking for permission." Other GOP women-- including even some on the most extreme fringes, like Tennessee sociopath Diane Black-- backed Stefanik... and Emmer was forced to back down and apologize.

But Republicans are still smarting from the little lady stepping out of line and talking too loud. Over the weekend, one right-wing goof-ball, Neil Dwyer, wrote an OpEd for oligarch Philip Anschutz's crackpot misogynysitic website, the Washington Examiner, We need more GOP women, but not in the mold of Rep. Elise Stefanik. He tried-- but failed-- to make the point that Republicans lost so many seats in November was because they didn't have enough extremists and it was "moderates" who dragged the party down. He used long-time far right psychopath Barbara Comstock, who lost her suburban DC district in a landslide to a relatively conservative Democrat, Jennifer Wexton, as an example. "One moderate who did win re-election and has asserted herself in the face of her party's defeat," he fumed, "is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). She has conducted many interviews describing the level of women in the Republican caucus as at a 'crisis level.' Stefanik has also announced she will be using her political action committee, 'E-PAC.' for congressional recruiting, aiming for more Republican women to get through primaries and win races. There's nothing wrong with recruiting more female Republican candidates for Congress," he condescended. "But is Stefanik the mold we want to see the party's candidates being shaped from?" No, he wants the women to be just like neo-fascist Arizona lunatic Debbie Lesko or like even further right Marsha Blackburn.

Stefanik has voted for a farm bill without the original work requirements, for amnesty, against spending cuts, against tax cuts, and for taxpayer-funded sex change procedures in the military. She voted for $81 billion in emergency aid for natural disasters (two months after a $36.5 billion bill for aid was also passed). Meanwhile Republican women such as then-Reps. Martha McSally, Marsha Blackburn, and Kristi Noem all voted "nay." While Stefanik voted against the major tax reform law passed in 2017, her upstate New York Republican colleagues like Reps. John Katko, Chris Collins, and Tom Reed all voted for it. Katko's 24th District even trends at a D+4 rating on the Cook PVI, yet he won re-election by more than 6 percentage points.

...Republicans who want to limit Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's second term as speaker to two years need to find women who serve as a counterpoint to the Women's March, women who can speak directly to the mothers in these suburban districts and appeal to their family values, which include treasuring life, security (which includes immigration), and prosperity. Recruiting women for the sake of optics will get the party nowhere."

This past cycle, Stefanik's leadership PAC raised $250,167 and contributed $105,000 directly to 68 House candidates, 49 of them men and 20 of them women. Among the Republicans she gave to were very extreme right candidates like Steve Knight (CA), Mimi Walters (CA), Rod Blum (IA), Barbara Comstock (VA), Dino Rossi (WA), Randy Hultgren (IL), David Young (IA) and Marty Nothstein (PA), all of whom were defeated Nov. 6 by Democratic women.

Dwyer should go out on tour-- perhaps with that other long-time GOP woman-hater, Ed Rollins, who referred to Ocasio as "the little girl" a couple of days ago omg Fox. Maybe they can start with an interview with Teen Vogue. I'm sure editor Lucy Diavolo would be delighted to take them on.

OMG! The Problem Was White Evangelicals The Whole Time

It hasn't been uneducated white working class men per se who are the backbone holding top the Trumpist Regime... it's been evangelical uneducated white working class men. Keep this in the back of your mind: 45% of all white voters without a college degree self identify as evangelical Christians. Ron Brownstein revealed some fascinating exit poll data that shows the toxic role white working class evangelicals are playing in our politics. "Though Republican candidates almost everywhere registered large margins among white voters without a college degree," he wrote, "Democrats ran much more competitively among the roughly half of that group who are not evangelical Christians [and] particularly well this year among white working-class women who are not evangelicals, a group that also displayed substantial disenchantment in the exit poll with Trump's performance. Those women could be a key constituency for Democrats in 2020 in pivotal Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where relatively fewer blue-collar whites are also evangelical Christians."

Nationwide, nearly three-fifths of blue-collar white women who are not evangelicals voted Democratic in last month's House races, while an equal number said they disapproved of Trump's performance in office, the analysis of exit poll results found. That was well over double the Democratic share of the vote among non-college white women who are evangelical Christians. And while Republicans last month still carried a majority among working-class white men who are not evangelicals, Democrats attracted about twice as much support from them as they did among the equivalent men who are evangelicals.

"It's another overlay to the conclusion that there are some parts of the white non-college population that are open to Democrats and can be moved a few points in your direction," says Ruy Teixeira, a long-time Democratic analyst of voting trends who now serves as a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress.

...At issue is how much emphasis the party should place on trying to recapture white working-class voters as opposed to maximizing turnout among its new base of minority, millennial and college-educated white voters, especially women and those in urban areas.

While some Democrats have come to view white working-class voters as largely a lost cause for the party in the Trump era, other party strategists, including some affiliated with organized labor, have privately argued that the large number of staunchly conservative evangelical Christians in the group has overstated Democratic weakness among them.

Strategists in this camp argue it would be a mistake for the party to downplay outreach to white working-class voters who are not evangelicals, especially the women in that group.

The detailed exit poll results provided to CNN show clear openings for Democrats with some groups of white working-class voters. But they also indicate that Democrats still face significant headwinds with most of those blue-collar whites and that white evangelical Christians look increasingly monolithic in their support for Republicans. That's a big challenge for Democrats in many southern states, where half or more of working-class whites are also evangelical Christians.

...To start, this analysis underscores how many white working-class voters are also evangelical Christians. Nationwide, the exit poll found that evangelical Christians this year comprised fully 45% of all white voters without a college degree, a substantial portion of the total electorate. By contrast, evangelicals represented only one-fourth of college-educated white voters. (In 2016, the exit polls found that evangelicals constituted slightly larger shares of each group.)

In all of the southern states where the question was asked this year, evangelicals represented a majority of working-class white voters, including fully two-thirds in Georgia and Tennessee. Evangelicals were also a majority of white working class voters in West Virginia and Indiana and exactly half in Missouri.

That's a big hill for Democrats in those states, because the exit poll results show that they face virtually monolithic opposition from all segments of the evangelical community.

At least 77% of white evangelicals without a college degree voted against the Democratic Senate candidates in Florida, Missouri and Tennessee, while 72% opposed defeated Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly in Indiana, the exit polls found. In the Georgia governor's race, a breathtaking 89% of non-college white evangelicals voted for Republican Brian Kemp over African-American Democrat Stacey Abrams; 84% of those voters picked Ted Cruz over O'Rourke in Texas. Only Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia ran competitively, losing those voters by a narrow 52% to 46% margin.

In House races, the exit polls found that exactly three-fourths of white evangelicals without a college degree voted Republican, while only about one-fifth supported Democrats. Democrats lost the men in this group by 57 percentage points and the women by a still daunting 49 points.

...In Public Religion Research Institute, surveys... evangelical Christians have declined from about 21% of the total population in 2008 to 15% this year. That erosion, Jones says, has been "asymmetrical," with younger and better-educated members becoming the most likely to leave the faith. That's left behind a group that is older and more uniformly conservative.

"As this group is shrinking and aging it is just becoming more and more homogenous," says Robert Jones, author of the 2017 book The End of White Christian America. "When you have that kind of attrition, and it's coming all from the low [younger] end, and the low end is more likely to be college educated and likely to be more liberal on a whole range of cultural issues and less anti-immigrant... you start losing differences."

But if the 2018 election results highlight the solidifying uniformity of white evangelicals-- male and female, college-educated or not-- the findings simultaneously illuminate pressing reasons for Republican concern about white voters who are not evangelicals, both those with and without college degrees.

Although Democrats this year posted their best recent showing among white voters holding at least a four-year college degree, the GOP's continuing strength among such well-educated white evangelicals obscured the full extent of the party's decline.

In the national House exit poll, Democrats carried fully two-thirds of college-educated whites that are not evangelical Christians. That included not only a head-turning 71% of college educated white women who are not evangelicals but also 59% of the equivalent men. The shares that said they disapproved of Trump's performance were even higher in both groups: 74% of the women and 63% of the men.

Democrats carried about three-fifths of these non-evangelical white-collar whites in the Florida Senate race and about two-thirds of them in Indiana, Tennessee and Missouri. Even in Texas, O'Rourke carried 61% of them, while Abrams won 55% of them in the Georgia governor's race. Those geographically dispersed results testify to the breadth of the recoil from the Trump-era GOP among these well-educated white voters that Republicans in an earlier generation considered part of their base.

In a process that Trump has accelerated, Republicans in this century have instead come to see whites without a college degree as the foundation of their support. But the detailed results from Edison show some cracks in that base among the working-class whites that are not evangelicals.

In the national House exit poll, Democrats actually carried a slim 52% to 46% majority among non-college whites who are not evangelicals, though with a significant gender gap. While Democrats won the blue-collar women who are not evangelicals by 16 percentage points, Republicans won the equivalent men by 9 points.

Frank Schaeffer knows more about the evangelical community-- and the evangelical con-- than anyone I know. This is how he explained it to me this morning: "Empire builders are empire builders, and entertainers are entertainers, regardless of what they call themselves. That’s why Trump and the evangelical leaders understood each other. The average uneducated white evangelical male voter has been looking for entertainment value for generations in church. The televangelists provided it. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Walt Disney Company are a perfect match. Mea culpa! I only understood the reality of the symbiotic relationship between the consumer/entertainment culture and our star religious-empire builders after I quit being one myself. Judging by the many emails I’m getting from pastors who have read my Calvin Becker Trilogy of novels (which are humorous stories about a preacher’s family, seen from the inside), it seems that many a preacher is in the position of Groucho Marx. Groucho said he’d never want to belong to a club that would let someone like him join. The doubt and self-loathing expressed to me by so many pastors is amazing. Of course, they all beg me never to tell anyone what they are telling me. The con is the same one Trump perpetuates of 'success.' Go will make you rich like he made me rich is the prosperity gospel hook for the dumb. No wonder they fell for the same con from Trump."

 And evangelical women aren't the only women giving Republican leaders a headache. Republican congresswoman are too. Rachael Bade and Sarah Ferris, writing for Politico, reported that "Several Republican women are preparing their own plans to help their female colleagues, support women candidates and woo suburban women just in case nobody listens. Wagner, for example, is about to relaunch a “suburban caucus” in the House. The group will craft an agenda aimed at winning back suburban women by promoting issues like paid family leave and child care tax credits." That's Ann Wagner, who represents Missouri's 2nd district, the St. Louis suburbs. On paper, the district is still comfortably Republican-- with a nearly unassailable R+8 PVI. Obama was defeated there both times he ran and Trump beat Hillary by 10 points-- 52.6% to 42.3%. But... last month Wagner had a tough reelection campaign against Democrat Cort VanOstran. She did beat him-- 190,008 (51.3%) to 174,486 (47.1%), but in the St. Louis County portion of the district (which is over 70% of the population), the margin was razor thin, despite her spending $4,115,076 to his $2,334,726. This year the DCCC spent nothing in MO-02. That's unlikely to be the case in 2020.

Wagner isn't alone in turning her attention towards electing more Republican women to Congress. New York Republican Elise Stefanik is doing the same thing, and in primaries no less. That means she'll be backing Republican women against Republican men in primaries. In GOP-land that is an unforgivable heresy. But Republican congresswomen are angry. In the same year Congress finally got around to designating a bathroom for women off the House floor (2011), there were 76 women serving in the House. Starting in January, there will be 103. The problem is that almost 90% of them are Democrats-- more like super-progressive leaders Alexandria Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayssa Pressley, Deb Haaland and Katie Porter than like reactionary shrews Virginia Foxx, Diane Black, Claudia Tenney and Liz Cheney.

“I am going to keep pointing out to my colleagues that we are at a crisis level for GOP women,” Stefanik said in a recent interview. “This election should be a wake-up call to Republicans that we need to do better … We need to be elevating women’s voices, not suppressing them.”

In interviews with Politico, Republican women were divided about whether GOP leaders and their male colleagues were getting the message. In one of his first moves as NRCC chairman-elect, for example, Tom Emmer told a reporter Stefanik’s idea to help female candidates in primaries was “a mistake.”

...“I’m sorry-- Tom Emmer is wrong on this one,” said retiring Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee, who supported Stefanik in her first election and supports her primary idea. “To say what Elise is doing is a mistake? We need to applaud her. She’s filling a void.”

She added: “OK, the NRCC’s policy is that they are not going to help in the primary ... But if [women] don’t get out of the primary, what good is that?”

Stefanik, for her part, tweeted Emmer’ comments out with a bit of her own sass:

...[T]he NRCC has been on the defensive since Emmer’s comments, which come as the number of House GOP women is set to drop to the lowest number since 1994. When he takes office, Emmer plans to sit down with all 13 remaining GOP women for a candid tell-all “listening session” about what went wrong in 2018, according to an NRCC aide.

“You can’t not recognize the problem, the numbers are so terrible,” said an NRCC aide.

But it’s unclear whether that will be enough. Some women like Wagner are still frustrated that the gravity of the situation has yet to sink in, arguing that “I have seen no sign” of reflection. Even Stefanik is pushing her colleagues to conduct an “autopsy” of what happened and why they lost so many female voters and lawmakers this year.

Republicans Seek To Go Out With A Bang-- Reaffirming Their War Against Women In The Lame Duck Session

The House Republicans have always hated the Violence Against Women Act-- first passed in 1994-- and yesterday Roll Call reported that they plan to use the cover of the lame duck session to let it lapse. "The law was set to expire Sept. 30, but it was extended through Dec. 7 under a stopgap spending bill that expires this week. Text of another short term spending deal was released Monday and does not include a VAWA extension, according to Republican aides in both the House and Senate."

The law authorizes funding for social service agencies that aid victims affected by sexual violence, including rape crisis centers, shelters and legal-assistance programs. Reauthorizations over the years have included expanded provisions focused on reporting mechanisms for sexual violence on college campuses and extending protections for the LGBT community.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in three women and one in six men encounter sexual violence during their lifetime.

...House Democrats introduced a VAWA reauthorization proposal in July, sponsored by Texas’s Sheila Jackson Lee, that includes updates to the law such as provisions to help victims of domestic violence and stalking stay in stable housing situations and to bar evictions based on the actions of an abuser.

The update, backed by more than 160 Democrats and no Republicans, also includes a gun-related provision that could prove to be a poison pill for any action in the GOP-led House. The Democratic proposal would expand firearms laws to ensure that partners under protective orders or convicted of dating violence or stalking are prohibited from having a gun. Some states already have so-called red flag laws in place, with the aim of preventing escalation of violence.

Several dozen mainstream conservatives say they will vote with the Democrats to reauthorize the bill, but Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy are preventing a vote and are tossing some red meat to misogynistic Trumpists and religious fanatics in their conference who feel the GOP war against women works for them politically. Republican Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) is one of the GOP members who want to see VAWA extended: "Congress must continue to aggressively combat domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking by swiftly reauthorizing the bipartisan Violence Against Women Act.

Ryan, McCarthy and Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte have prevented Jackson Lee's bill from getting a committee hearing, let alone a floor vote. Before the pressure on Ryan and McConnell became too much for them to handle-- causing them agree to extend VAWA-- I spoke with Ted Lieu one of the rising stars on the Judiciary Committee. He pointed out that "Women ran away from Republicans in the midterm election. As a result, Republicans lost the popular vote by the largest margin in US history; lost the House by 40 seats; lost six legislative chambers; and lost 7 governorships. And what does the GOP do? Refuse to extend VAWA. Democrats will fix the Republican stupidity next year by passing an extension of VAWA. It will be one of our first priorities." I also reached out to Jamie Raskin, vice ranking member of the committee to ask him if the Democrats will be able to fix the Republican mischief once they formally take over the House in January.

Something tells me Elle Magazine didn't select Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at random to kick off their insanely powerful new "We the People" ad (which was just debuted on Morning Joe). Meanwhile... if I was a Republican congressional election strategist or operative, I'd be paying attention to the zeitgeist this "free marketplace of ideas" ad is flowing out of. It's more important than a 30 second campaign spot-- much, much more important.



UPDATE: War Against Women

And speaking about the Republican Party's war against women, an Oklahoma state senator, GOP crackpot Joseph Silk of Broken Arrow, introduced a bill that would classify abortion as a felony homicide and sentence women to a mandatory life sentence. He represents the 5th district southeast of Oklahoma City in the remote corner where Oklahoma meets Texas and Arkansas. Silk was reelected in 2016 against Stacey Ebert 14,665 (57.17%) to 10,987 (42.73%). "It’s gonna be classified as a homicide because, essentially, a fertilized egg is a human life just like a 1-year-old baby is a human life,” he said on Friday. "So, an abortion would be considered intentionally taking a human life." He calls for Oklahoma to ignore federal rulings on abortion and dismisses the idea of rape or incest as being relevent.

Republicans Are Shocked Women Don't Like Them

I don't like either of the two freshman that Democrats are sending from the House to the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Jacky Rosen (NV). But even if I find them both horribly conservative-- and one of them batshitcrazy-- I am glad there are two more women in the Senate. There really ought to be at least 50, although I'd prefer 50 good ones-- like Elizabeth Warren, Mazie Hirono and Tammy Baldwin-- rather than any bad ones.

In the House, there will be over 100 women-- 89 Democrats and 13 Republicans. The Democratic freshman class is filled with outstanding luminaries like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Katie Porter (CA), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ilhan Omar (MN) and... I have high hopes for Debbie Haaland (NM), Haley Stevens (MI), Lucy McBath (GA), Kim Schrier (WA) and Jahana Hayes (CT) too. There are at least 33 Democratic women in the freshmen class. As for the Republicans-- one, the right-wing self-funder from West Virginia who barely uttered a peep in the campaign that pitted her name with an "R" against Richard Ojeda: Carol Miller. Sad. Reporting for the Associated Press yesterday, Alan Fram wrote that Republicans are trying figure out why Dems get all the girls and they're stuck with Lindsey Graham, Mark Foley, Patrick McHenry Miss McConnell and Adrian Smith. Republicans, he wrote, are concerned "that Democrats’ lopsided edge among female voters could carry over to 2020, when President Donald Trump will be seeking a second term and House and Senate control will be in play. If the current trend continues, Republicans risk being branded the party of men."

“You will see a very significant recruiting effort occur” for female candidates, said David Winston, a pollster who advises GOP congressional leaders. “It’s a natural conclusion. An environment has got to be created where that can be a success.”

Evidence of the GOP gender gap was just as clear in the 100-member Senate, where Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn will be the only Republican freshman. If Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith wins a runoff later this month there will be record-setting seven GOP women in the Republican-run Senate. But even that record is less than half the class of 17 Democratic women, which includes two freshmen.

The search for answers leads to some familiar places. President Donald Trump’s fraught history with women, combined with the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, helped motivate Democratic women to seek office but did not appear to have the same effect with GOP women, politicians and analysts say. More broadly, the president’s brash style doesn’t sit well many female voters or potential candidates.

“Women don’t like the tweets,” said Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a moderate GOP group. “I don’t know how to tone down the rhetoric. If I could have a fantasy, one wish, that would be my one wish.”

Women backed Democratic candidates over Republicans on Election Day by a telling 57 percent to 41 percent, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate conducted by The Associated Press. Women broke by similar margins in the crucial suburbs, where Democratic victories in swing districts helped power the gains they needed to win House control. Men supported Republicans over Democrats, 51 percent to 46 percent.

Strategists note the issue isn’t just about current personalities; it’s about party infrastructure.

“We as a party have to make recruiting women candidates who can win a high priority,” said Andrea Bozek, spokeswoman for Winning for Women, a fledging GOP group that tries bolstering female Republican candidates. She added, “Unless people in leadership really make it a priority, I don’t think it will happen.”

A record number of women ran for the House as major-party candidates this year. But Democrats outnumbered Republicans by nearly 3 to 1, according to AP data, and Democratic women were more likely to win their primaries.

Of those contenders who ran in November, 183 were Democrats, the most ever, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Fifty-two were Republicans, a near-record but a fraction of female Democrats running.

That partisan imbalance was aggravated by Democrats’ superior campaign infrastructure for helping female candidates.

Winning for Women, created in early 2017, says it spent more than $1 million helping female candidates for the recent election. That and other GOP groups assisting female candidates couldn’t match Democrats’ 33-year-old Emily’s List, a well-financed organization that poured tens of millions into primaries and general elections and provided recruiting, training and other services to female candidates.

“Democrats have been doing a much better job of getting women elected,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics.

Asked to explain her success against other female candidates’ defeats, West Virginia’s Miller sent an email lauding Trump and other Republicans and GOP women’s groups and saying “liberal special interests” had spent heavily to defeat Republican women. Officials at the White House and the GOP did not provide answers to requests for comment.

Republicans have displayed a sensitivity this year to their overwhelmingly male numbers. That includes hiring a female prosecutor to question Kavanaugh’s chief accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, when she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and its all-male Republicans.

Within days of the elections, Republicans vaulted women into congressional leadership positions.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, will be No. 3 House GOP leader next year, that chamber’s highest-ranking Republican woman ever. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, will be vice chairwoman of the Senate GOP conference, a lower-tier post, making her the first Republican woman in a Senate leadership job in eight years.

Cheney said Republicans must better communicate that their policies on national security, the economy and health care are best for men and women. She called it “fundamentally offensive and paternalistic” to think women’s votes are driven by their gender.

Asked on CBS’ Face the Nation last week whether Trump’s rhetoric alienated women, Ernst said, “We could do a better job of communicating clearly that we support women.”

Not with a clueless mysogynistic ape like Trump as their leader they can't.

What Would Freud Do? by Nancy Ohanian

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Strange as it seems, there are actually people who think that Republicans are normally adjusted, mature human beings. But, once again, reality shakes the naive from such notions.

Case in point: In Minnesota on Monday, 4 term state rep Duane Quam debated challenger Jamie Mahlberg, the candidate of Minnesota's Democratic Fram Labor Party (a Minnesota affiliate of the Democratic Party). During questioning about education funding, Republican Quam just couldn't stand the indignity of having to discuss anything with one o' them women folks, especially about education, something his party has so much disdain for. It was all more than his soulless women-hating self could bear. What to do? Well, if you are a Repug, the solution is obvious! You rather rudely seize the woman's microphone. Then, when it is obvious to all but you that you have been offensive, you just speak your rebuttal and toss the microphone down on the table in front of her, which is exactly what he did. Hey, at least he didn't start chanting the Republican "Lock Her Up" mantra... yet.

Quam later apologized and blamed "nerves" for the microphone grab. I'll assume that the fact that he apologized will end any opportunities for him to advance his career in the Republican Party. Certainly, he won't be getting any job offers from the Trump White House.

Frat-Boy McDrunkFace Confirmed. Now What?

-by Digby

It was a good week for Republicans, let's give them that. They managed to confirm a far-right political hit-man and accused sexual abuser to the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment. And they did it by using the language of domestic abusers-- blaming the Democrats and taunting protesters by saying, "look what you made me do." Clever boys.

When asked on Air Force One what his message is to women across the country who are feeling devastated by Kavanaugh's confirmation, Trump replied, "I don't think they are. If you look at the biggest fans and I can tell you that the people who spoke in the strongest of terms in his favor were women, women. Women were OUTRAGED at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh."

In other words, you can believe me or you can believe your lyin' eyes. The tens of millions of women who have been protesting this misogynist sausage fest, whether on January 21st 2017 or on the steps of the Supreme Court on Saturday have been disappeared and replaced with people like Susan Collins, the alleged "moderate" who cast the deciding vote after gaslighting the country with a speech that pretended Kavanaugh's outrageous performance in his last hearing never happened.

It's clear that after Trump's victory in 2016 and the success of brute imposition of conservative white male dominance in this fight, they are convinced that the key to winning is to bring the hammer down on the feminists, male and female, who support progressive Democrats.

IT. WILL. NOT. WORK.

That wailing and whining you hear from these conservative white men (and the conservative white women who are desperately clinging to their sad status as daddy's favorite female-- as long as she doesn't step out of line) is the sound of the death throes of a movement that's on its way to extinction.

If Donald Trump isn't an example of a species that's run its course, I don't know what is.

They won't go without a fight. They have shown they are willing to win by any means necessary which is why it's so important that progressive women be elected to government as soon as possible.

After the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings were held in 1992 the voters elected 47 women to the House of Representatives, 24 for the first time, out of 435. That year 4 new female Senators were elected to the Senate bringing the total to 6 out of 100. A generation later we have 84 women in the House, equalling 19 percent. The Senate has made a similar percentage gain, with 21 (16 of whom are Democrats) bringing the percentage up to a whopping 21%.

That is pathetic. Women make up 51% of the population.

This has to change now. But as we've seen with the so-called moderate Susan Collins; it doesn't help to elect Republican women. They are happy to support a vile misogynist like Donald Trump and help install a right-wing Supreme Court majority for a generation. We need progressive women and men who represent the majority of this country, not appeasers and collaborators.

This election is a turning point. You can do your part by helping our Blue America slate of progressive female fighters who aren't just willing to go to battle on behalf of the vulnerable and the powerless, they are chomping at the bit to stare down these phony macho bullies once and for all. They aren't afraid because they know these right-wing whiners are nothing more than petty, schoolyard tyrants who need to be put in the corner for a long time out to think about what they've done. [And you can do that by clicking on the thermometer on the right and contributing what you can.]

They're willing to take on the challenge and it isn't easy. We need to have their backs.

This morning, one of our most dynamic candidates (of either gender), Katie Porter, told us that "electing women can improve our country’s leadership and Congress’ productivity. But not all women will be champions for equality or diversify the voices in Congress. I am proud to be a single, working middle-class mother of three school-age kids, and to be one of the first woman to bring this experience-- shared by millions of other hardworking mothers to Congress. When I fight for federal investment in childcare or paid parental leave, my voice will carry the weight of personal experience. We cannot win change for women without having women who share the most common experiences of American women like being told they should stop working and care for kids, despite financial realities that prevent that. Or being asked in job interviews whether they planned to have more kids. Women and men in America know that working parents are driving economic growth. That’s why I will fight for affordable childcare, paid family leave, equal pay for women, quality public schools, and living wages."

 



UPDATE: Confessions of a Proud Beta Male

John Pavlovitz is on the VoteCommonGood bus helping introduce progressive Democrats to evangelical voters. This afternoon they're with Kendra Fershee at the Morgantown Farmers Market on Spruce Street in Morgantown West Virginia. Last week he wrote on his blog that a Trumpist had called him a "Beta Male" while he was on social media expressing his respect for survivors of sexual assault, in the wake of the President’s vile and reprehensible public ridiculing of Christine Blasey Ford. The Trumpist had dropped "what he thought was some leg sweep, knockout punch, mic drop, designed to leave me in a quivering mass on the floor."

Apparently I was supposed to be insulted.


I wasn’t it.


I felt complimented.


I felt validated.


I realized I’m on the right track.

“Beta Male,” seems to be a Trump fan’s word for a man with decency, self-control, and compassion; someone a woman wouldn’t need to fear being around when alone or vulnerable.


It’s the label they slap on any man who is sickened by the misogyny on display in this Administration, who pushes back against the cultivating of a lowest-common-denominator expression of toxic masculinity, who rejects the idea that dehumanizing a woman and talking about grabbing her by the genitalia, is something decent men do.

Based on my observations, in the minds of these folks, Beta Males:

• are capable of deep empathy for people who are suffering.
• yield to a woman’s consent regarding her body and her needs.
• are burdened to be sources of gentleness and restraint and kindness.

• don’t need to display physical dominance in order to feel validated.
• aren’t a physical or emotional danger to women around them.

Sign me up.

With what we’re seeing unfold right now in America, the last thing we need are more men like this President and the men who emulate him; perpetually insecure man-children who’ve never been able to find a fully formed understanding of what it means to be a gentleman and human being. We don’t need anymore knuckle-dragging cavemen who are terrified of strong women and intimidated by sexuality and orientation that don’t fit their brittle Old Testament sensibilities.

I want my son to be a Beta Male. I want him to be a safe place for the women around him. I want him to respect their humanity and honor their wishes and see them is equal. I want him to see in his father, someone who is secure enough in who he is, not to need to damage someone else to prove his worth.

I want my daughter to be surrounded by these Beta Males; men who value her enough to let her decide what happens to her body, who see her as more than a tool for their self-gratification, who are not intimidated by her strength or intellect or accomplishments, who don’t leveraging religion or guilt or fear to coerce women into anything.

If Donald Trump is an Alpha Male, if Lindsey Graham is an Alpha Male, if Brett Kavanaugh is an Alpha Male-- count me out. That’s not exactly a mark I’m interested in attaining. I’d rather sleep at night knowing that I’ve left this world more compassionate and loving than I found it.

If being an “Alpha Male” is what this Administration is cultivating, employing, and perpetuating-- I’ll gladly be a Beta Male.

I think that just means I’m being human.