Why the Future of American Politics is Female

By Maria Behan — SPOTLIGHT

Things feel fraught as we mark the second anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration. The government has shut down, everyone is anxiously speculating about what Special Counsel Robert Mueller is doing and when he’ll reveal it, and a dangerously “Home Alone” Trump is lashing out with a spiraling series of tantrums punctuated by the occasional unconvincing teleprompter speech. The malady that afflicts the government is also manifest in the population at large, as demonstrated by the discomfiting spectacle of MAGA-hat wearing anti-abortion teenage boys smirking and mocking a Native American elder, with both camps being menaced by foul-mouthed Black Israelites. The details of that confrontation are fuzzy, but you’d be hard pressed to find a more vivid symbol of how America is atomized and breaking ever-further apart.

But in other respects, these are exhilarating times — and the source of that hopeful joy is the other momentous event that happened two years ago: the five-million strong Women’s March on Washington, D.C. For me, the most indelible memory of that day was the chant that went up as the march started to disperse: “We’re not going away! Welcome to your first day!” We kept that vow, and can now see the results all over our country.