Dem
51
GOP
49
Last week, The Washington Post published an interesting profile of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). The primary question the paper was interested in was how Stefanik moved so rapidly from a reach-across-the-aisle basically centrist Republican to a fire-breathing die-hard member of the MAGA militia.
In search of answers, the Post not only talked to Stefanik and a couple of high-ranking members of her staff, but also to a number of people who knew Stefanik before and/or during her rise to power. Pretty much all of them said that, beyond being ambitious, the current iteration of Elise Stefanik is basically unrecognizable to them. Several of them also note that, since the Representative's turn to Trumpism, she has destroyed relationships with many people and institutions that she once held close.
Naturally, the main question the paper put to Stefanik is "What happened?" That is to say, how does she explain the change in herself and in her relationships? There is, of course, no chance that she is going to point the finger at herself. And there is no chance that she is going to concede that Trumpism might be the problem. And so, her answer to the question, in a word, is "sexism." Stefanik believes that most people who have turned against her and/or have been critical of her are put off by powerful women. In turn, she says she has consciously grown more prickly and has developed a thick skin as a necessary defensive precaution.
We cannot possibly say how correct Stefanik's assessment is, since we cannot know her experience. That said, there are also men, politicians and otherwise, who have embraced Trumpism and experienced ostracism. So, Stefanik's thesis probably isn't the whole story. The Post somewhat implies that she's bending over backwards to justify the choices she's made, and in particular her embrace of Trump. That sounds about right to us, although let's not also forget that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. From our vantage point, it looks like Stefanik got a taste of real power when she replaced Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as Chair of the House Republican Conference, and decided she liked it very much, indeed. She was once seen as a temporary fill-in, but now she's laid claim to the job on a non-interim basis. Further, she's gotta be thinking of herself as a potential VP candidate for Donald Trump or for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). All of those things demand a full-throated, unapologetic embrace of the MAGA ethic.
Anyhow, the profile is well worth reading if this sort of thing is your cup of tea. And given the site you're reading right now, it's pretty much by definition your cup of tea. (Z)