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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Mace

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the partiesThe state of the GOP is not good.  

Jonathan Weisman at NYT:

When South Carolina’s First Congressional District evoked wide sand beaches, Spanish moss, oyster and cocktail bars and hot yoga, its Republican congresswoman, Nancy Mace, made her name appealing for moderation on abortion, climate change and marijuana legalization, while calling out the G.O.P.’s biggest bomb throwers as bigoted clowns.

Then in 2022 came the redrawing of district lines, as rural reaches like Cordesville, S.C., with their modest one-story brick homes and prefabricated double-wides, replaced the graceful mansions and Black neighborhoods of Charleston. So last week, when Ms. Mace shocked Washington and joined seven hard-core conservatives to oust Representative Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair, her new constituents were not surprised.

“I’ve always heard the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and when you’re a female, you don’t get heard unless you’re loud,” said Janet Jurosko, a new constituent of Ms. Mace’s from Cordesville and the auditor of Berkeley County, S.C., which joined the First District in its totality last year. “I think she’s doing a good job — I really do.”

Ms. Mace still calls herself an iconoclast, but her transformation from denouncing the likes of Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, to joining him in the first overthrow of a sitting speaker underscores a truism: Voters lead their politicians; politicians don’t lead their voters.