Resistance How women saved democracy from Donald Trump

Donald Trump's 2016 triumph over Hillary Clinton will go down as one of the most inexplicable presidential victories in political history. For women especially, and Rubin specifically, Clinton's defeat felt personal and existential. But if there was a silver lining to the stomach-churning angst, it was that Trump's election ignited a fire-in-the-gut ferocity for women to become more politically involved in all levels of government. The story of who these women are, how they achieved their missions, and the challenges that still lie ahead is told through Rubin's dual roles as both observer and participant. From her respected positions as a columnist for the Washington Post and contributor to MSNBC, Rubin is uniquely situated to assess this political uprising and chronicle the role of women on the front lines in the war to claim gender equity and protect democratic values. The result is a keenly analytical appreciation for and deeply personal connection to the ways in which the modern American female electorate has been reawakened and reenergized to reimagine a more inclusive political landscape.

Washington Post columnist Rubin debuts with an illuminating take on the Trump presidency that focuses on how "millions of women transformed their own lives and recaptured our democracy from the clutches of an authoritarian narcissist." Profile subjects include Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America; Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent who flipped her Virginia congressional district in 2018; and Leah Greenberg, who founded the Indivisible Project in 2016 to help organize anti-Trump activists on a local level. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives with the help of EMILY's List, a 35-year-old nonprofit that supported female candidates such as California congresswoman Katie Porter, the first Democrat elected to her Orange County district. Rubin also details the "misogynistic chatter" that sought to undermine Kamala Harris's vice presidential nomination, and discusses protests against Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination and Republican women's abandonment of the party out of disgust with Trump. Rubin's portrait of the Democratic Party favors centrists while downplaying the contributions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives. Still, this is a cohesive and wide-ranging look at how women led the fight against the Trump administration. Agent: Bridget Wagner Matzie, Aevitas Creative Management. (Sept.)

Washington Post writer Rubin delivers a thoughtful study of the critical role of women in containing and defeating Donald Trump. There were plenty of Republican women who supported Trump's nationalist, White supremacist regime. Upon his election in 2016, writes the author, "I steeled myself for the likelihood that Republicans would countenance reckless and even illegal behavior." Which they did, to destructive effect. But there were plenty of others who were determined to fight Trump's policies. Many left the Republican Party as a result of his election since the signals were strong that women would have little in the way of a meaningful role in the new administration--unless their name was Ivanka. Many more organized, ran for office, joined grassroots organizations, and donated time and money. Rubin ponders numerous questions that may in fact be imponderable, including the central one of the moment: Why wasn't Hillary Clinton elected? The answer may hinge in part on her weakness as a campaigner; more likely, writes the author, it was simple misogyny at work. Whatever the case, the resistance of women had an immediate effect, proven in the 2018 midterm elections, when, in formerly Republican Virginia the Democrats fielded a record number of women candidates at all levels of government, including a transgender woman, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and a self-identified lesbian. All won. Even in Alabama, "every single county swung left compared to 2016," while in Georgia, Stacey Abrams, foreseeing legislation that would attempt to suppress the minority vote, enrolled more than 1 million Black voters. (Rubin correctly notes that if women were the principal change agents in 2018 and 2020, Black women were at the absolute center of the movement.) A sleeping giant thus awakened, Rubin holds that no one should imagine that women will now sit back and allow Trump to return, since, after all, he "taught us the unacceptable price of passivity." An excellent contribution to the literature of contemporary electoral politics. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.