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In the Before Times, Jody Kanikula and a half dozen fellow Democratic women activists would gather for drinks each Thursday after the weekly Kane County Democrats meeting in Geneva, Illinois. These days, they settle for Saturday morning Zoom calls to reimagine what their political organizing looks like now that their preferred tools of the tradedoor knocking and mail dropsare off the table.
I met Kanikula and her friends in October 2018, a high season of political activity. The group was trying to elect Democrat Lauren Underwood, then a 32-year-old nurse whod guided the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, to Congress. The women were mostly new to politics, having dipped their toes into activism in the wake of Donald Trumps election.They spent the 2018 cycle rebuilding Democratic infrastructure in their cluster of exurbs 50 miles west of Chicago, an area where Republicans had long ruled by default. That year, they focused their energies on ginning up excitement for a small slate of Democratic candidates. This time around, a Democrat is challenging a GOP officeholder in the county for every elected position but coroner.
In recent weeks, Tara Reades sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden have rippled through the group, setting off a flurry of notifications in their text chain with each new development. Reades claims are disheartening, Kanikula tells me. But like the 10 other resistance women I spoke with, shes sticking with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee regardless. If it was a different kind of election, Id give it more weight, she says. But the No. 1 goal is to get Trump out of there.
Kanikula and her friends seem yanked from research conducted by Harvard sociologist Theda Skopcol and University of Pittsburgh historian Lara Putnam in the wake of the 2016 election. The scholars had identified a new brand of Democratic activist: white, college-educated women who live in suburban and exurban communities where country club Republicans had long reigned. In the wake of Trumps victory, these women flocked to their nearest city for the Womens March, formed Indivisible groups, and, eventually, worked with their local Democratic parties to unseat Republicans at every level of government.
This is not the usual picture of the resurgent activist left. Many accounts of thesuburban womans political awakening are fond of anathematizing these activists as wine moms or MSNBC moms or the yoga vote. The Resistance was the new brunch, the new book club. For proof this was wrong one need only look at the 2018 midterms, when suburban women around the country retired teachers, librarians, health care people, some businesswomen, as Skocpol put ithelped power the Blue Wave that swept Democrats into control of the House. Health care was at the heart of their organizing efforts, a big reason its at the heart of the Democratic agenda today. This cycle, Biden not only needs these women to votehes relying on them to keep Democratic enthusiasm alive in their communities through November. The campaigns online strategy is shaped around appealing to what its digital director recently called, not a little cringingly, the suburban Facebook empathy moms.
These activists had been forged in no small part by Trumps chronic degradation of women; as it stands, roughly two dozen have accused him of sexual assault. But as an allegation concerning their partys presidential candidate captures national headlines, the women I spoke with remain committed to their political activism. Thats not because they believe Bidenthough many do. Its because their ultimate goal is limiting Trump to one term. If that requires some compromises along the way, so be it.
Do they think that sexual assault is okay? No, Putnam says. Do they think that being a woman involved in politics, where there are still lots of male politicians, means a lot of compromises all the time in order to get things done? Yes.
Reades claims against Biden have taken a muddled route to the national spotlight. In April 2019, Reade came forward to claim the former vice president had touched her neck and shoulders inappropriately when she had been an aide in his Senate office in the early 1990s; that claim had been corroborated by several of her contemporaries and more than half a dozen women whod made similar allegations.
But this spring, Reade leveled a more serious accusation at the former vice president: that he had shoved her against the wall of a Senate office building, reached under her skirt, and digitally penetrated her.Biden outright denies these claims. Reporters, lacking the copious documentation or clear pattern of predation on which much of #MeToo reporting is built, have thus far been unable to move the story onto the sturdier footing. The circumstances are best summarized by Voxs Laura McGann, who spent more than a year investigating Reades allegations: None of this means Reade is lying, but it leaves us in a limbo of Me Too: a story that may be true but that we cant prove.
A new Monmouth poll found that only 20 percent of Democrats think Reade is telling the truth, a sentiment mirrored by the activists I spoke with who say many are still processing the allegations. I dont think anyones rushing to judgment now, Kierstyn Zolfo, the Pennsylvania statewide legislative chair for Indivisible, tells me. Barb Kaplan, who leads an Indivisible group in the Cleveland suburbs, says fellow activists shes spoken with want to see some hard evidence, adding that most see it as a distraction.
But Putnam suggests another force is at work, and she points to the presidential primary as evidence. Biden had never been these activists favorite candidatemost of them preferred Elizabeth Warren or one of the other two dozen Democrats who sought the presidency this cycle. But these women got into politics, Putnam explains, with a vision of building Democratic political power above all else. Just as choosing one candidate over another is antithetical to their mission, so too would be calling for the removal of a candidate who most Democrats think did nothing wrong.
They have put a lot of energy into making politics be about more than just a single savior candidatewhether thats a candidate who they really loved or really disliked, Putnam says. They have been girding themselves for living with an outcome they knew they were not going to be personally excited about at the top of the ticket.
Coming out of 2016, most people have been unified in driving Trump out of the White House, Kaplan says. Its going to be really hard to dissuade them from that position.
This shouldnt be mistaken for blind party loyaltyindeed, a number of these activists, some of them former Republicans, identify as independents. Nor are these women turning a blind eye to the claims. In fact, quite the opposite: For many, Bidens history of behavior toward women has already been factored into their dim view of the candidate. Besides the allegations raised last spring, many activistsin particular, the older, professional women who make of up the bulk of the cohorthavent forgiven Biden for the way he treated Anita Hill, the law professor who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden presided over Thomas confirmation hearing and failed to seriously investigate Hills accusations or call corroborating witnesses to testify against Thomas. Last year, Hill accused Biden of having set the stage for Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court confirmation in 2018, when claims of sexual misconduct made against the judge were also poorly handled.
Such realpolitik can seem at odds with the revulsion that pushed many of the activists into politics in the first place. But to hear Lark Cowart tell it, that moral energy hasnt dissipated; it was merely channeled elsewhere once the womens preferred candidates began to exit the presidential race. When you lose your grand motivation, youre finding other races and things to focus on, says Cowart, a member of the Kane County group. Ill pour my energies behind the women who are running.
Melissa Rodriguez, who runs an Indivisible group near Dayton, Ohio, said her members had come to a similar agreement when Biden became the nominee. If you want to spend your energy on a local race or voter registration, go for it, she recalls saying. Were just pushing toward a great Democratic turnout.
The suburbs helped deliver the Democratic nomination to Biden, and hell rely on them to unseat Trump come November. His nascent digital operation has set its sights on those empathy moms whom the campaign believes can be won over with appeals to human decencythe premise of much of Bidens relatively non-ideological campaign. In the midst of the pandemic, paid family leave, health care, and related domestic issues are top of mind for swing voters. As for sexual assault, its way down the list, says Tresa Undem, a pollster who specializes in surveys on gender issues.
Undem is keeping a close eye on independent women voters. Theyre less likely to view the allegations through a politicized lensand in general they tend toward nihilistic doubts about their ability to change anything. Whether these voters see a difference between the parties on issues related to women could be an indicator of their apathy, Undem says. Could this dampen their vote? Yes.
And a lot of voter opinion, she says, will hinge on how much airtime the allegations receive in the coming weeks and months. That doesnt just mean news stories with new informationattack ads, Undem says, could play that role, something the Trump campaign already seems to have realized. Ultimately, she says, it could create the impression that neither candidate, and neither party, is good.
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For Some Facebook Empathy Moms, Joe Biden Is Just Another Compromise - Mother Jones
