“THE political nightmare that has faced my colleague,” said Mark Hatfield on September 7th 1995, “is coming to an end.” The colleague was Bob Packwood, his fellow senator from Oregon, who was resigning. The “nightmare” was a Senate Ethics Committee investigation that found Mr Packwood had been sexually harassing subordinates since the 1960s. Mr Packwood battled the committee for three years, destroying evidence and appearing “perplexed or confused…about what actually constituted sexual harassment”. When he resigned, he won praise from senator after senator—not one of whom managed a single word of concern for his many victims.
In one sense, times have changed. Over the past year—ever since the #MeToo hashtag went viral in the wake of gruesome allegations of sexual assault levelled against Harvey Weinstein, a film producer—nine members of Congress have resigned or declined to run for re-election after facing credible charges of sexual misconduct. Two White House officials left after being accused of spousal abuse (they deny the charges) and three congressional candidates lost or quit their campaigns.
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But that change is unevenly distributed across the political spectrum. Republicans remain devoted to President Donald Trump, who has been recorded boasting about sexual assault and whom at least 19 women have accused of sexual misconduct. His second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least four women. The furore surrounding his nomination has become a partisan referendum on the #MeToo movement, which itself has become the defining cultural phenomenon of the Trump era.
That movement may have begun after the allegations against Mr Weinstein, but those were petrol poured on a fire kindled by Mr Trump’s election. On January 21st 2017, one day after his inauguration, millions of people across America (and the world) took to the streets for the Women’s March. Many of those who marched said that watching the first major-party female presidential candidate lose was painful; watching her lose to a man who has referred to several women as “dogs” and “piece[s] of ass” was infuriating.
It has also been inspiring. During the previous election cycle, 920 women contacted EMILY’s List, a political action committee devoted to electing pro-choice Democratic women, about running for office. Since Mr Trump’s election, more than 42,000 have. Half the Democrats’ first-time House candidates this year…
