I’ll confess that during these days of rage what brings out the worst in me are the stories about Trump, the GOP, and rightwing radio jocks revving up the base with vicious attacks against Blasey-Ford and Ramirez because they think/know that this could stop the blue wave in the November elections. Then, of course, there is the rising visibility of confederate flags and statues in the public sphere, children in detention camps. One can read in the history books about how senators from the antebellum south physically assaulted northern senators on the floor of the Senate. I try to remember that there are more of “us” than “them.” That one can reasonably suspect that so many of the people who don’t support Blasey-Ford are from southern, deep Red states has me thinking about this aggressive and ragged looking photograph of William Tecumseh Sherman as a political icon for today.

Yes, Carol Zemel, I have got to get a grip. But writing here in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said something along the same lines about political war in the age of Trump: However, in producing a worthless investigation and declaring open season on sex-crimes victims, Republicans push women out of the party and onto political war-footing. If power politics is what the Republicans want, women and others in the anti-Republican coalition (male and female Democrats, independents and ex-Republicans) will learn to play just as fiercely.