Elect Jill Karofsky to the Supreme Court

Elect Jill Karovsky to Rid Wisconsin's Supreme Court of Religious Extremism

We must elect Jill Karofsky in April because her opponent Daniel Kelly is a dangerous religious extremist, and we should remove him from Wisconsin’s Supreme Court before he causes serious damage to our state. Kelly wants to impose the doctrines of religious authorities on Wisconsin’s legal system.

A Hard-Won and Valuable Tradition of Secular Law

We in America believe that our government must be independent of any particular religion. We believe that the legitimacy of our laws comes from the will of the American people as expressed through their representatives. In our tradition, God enters the political arena only as the creator who endowed us with “unalienable rights.”

We came to that belief through painful experience. Our ancestors slaughtered each other in religious conflicts for generations, and many of the early settlers came to North American to escape those conflicts. Our founding fathers knew in their bones that trying to base a government on religious doctrine was a recipe for disaster. They specified clearly that the United States would have no established religion, and since then, our courts have established a long and honorable tradition of secular interpretation of the law.


That tradition has enabled us to build a country in which millions of people of widely different faiths are able to live together in relative harmony[1]. The American Constitution was written by English Protestants, but Irish Catholics and Russian Jews have found a home here. Where I live in Appleton, Wisconsin, we now have mosques and a Sikh Temple.  We have not eliminated religious hatred, but over the years, we have moved closer to doing so, and we must not abandon our struggle to build a society in which people of all faiths are welcome.

A Dangerous, Religious Extremist

Daniel Kelly would overthrow our tradition of secular law. He believes in the supremacy of religious doctrine over legal precedent. He believes deeply that, as a judge, he should interpret the law in accordance with his religious principles. On his blog, he says, 

I start with a series of jurisdictional propositions (why?  Because I’m a lawyer, that’s why).  In the beginning there was God, so the Bible tells us.  And because everything has to come from somewhere, all authority must come from him by virtue of having existed before all else.  But he did not stay alone – he made us.  And in doing so he spread complexity throughout the world.

But we can tease out some of the complexity by observing how he delegated some of his authority.  Those things he created, he created with a purpose, and authority followed the purpose.  So, we have, originally, individual authority.  That is, man’s right to do whatever he wishes so long as it does not contradict the boundaries established by his Author. [My italics]

That is, the Constitution of the United States is valid only when it “does not contradict the boundaries” established by God. How does Kelly know what those boundaries are? Kelly is a committed, born-again Christian. In his view, Christianity is the revealed word of God. He says that his religious beliefs will play no role in his work as a judge, but how can we believe that when his religious beliefs are at the core of his judicial philosophy?

Kelly Will Eliminate a Woman’s Right to Choose

A woman’s right to choose to have an abortion is one area where Kelly’s religious principles must affect his judicial interpretation. He says that judges should interpret the law and not try to make new law, but he believes that man-made laws – like our Constitution – are valid only to the degree that they are consistent with the will of God.

For example, in his view, every abortion without exception is a murder. He says on his blog,

An abortion, of course, involves taking the life of a human being.  And everyone involved in the subject knows it.  Not only is the proximal fuse short between the policy and the destructive consequence, it is simultaneous.  So, we may safely charge them [the Democratic Party and NARAL] with knowingly favoring a policy that has as its primary purpose harming children. 

There can be no doubt that, if an abortion is a murder, it is contrary to the ten commandments, where God clearly ordered, “Thou shalt not commit murder.”[2] In this context, it would make no difference to Kelly that Roe v. Wade is settled law. He has to see Roe v. Wade as invalid because it is inconsistent with God’s will. He would see overturning Roe v. Wade not as judicial activism but as the restoration of the proper meaning of our laws, which cannot contradict God’s will.

Save Our Tradition: Vote for Jill Karofsky

In effect, Kelly would set up his version of Christianity as the established church in Wisconsin, and we cannot allow that. Vote for Jill Karofsky for the Supreme Court and prevent Mr. Kelly from imposing his religious views on all of us. Vote to maintain our long tradition of secular law that has served us so well for more than two hundred years.

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[1] Most of the time.

[2] “This is a better translation of the Hebrew than “Thou shalt not kill.”

How to Deal with Accusations of “Socialism”

Don't be Trapped into Discussing Socialism

The radical right loves to accuse American leftists of being socialists and their policy ideas of being “socialism,” and the radical rightists add, as the OTWH did in his latest State of the Union speech, that America will never be a socialist. This accusation reveals the emptiness of radical rightist thinking. They can find no substantive reason for opposing the things that the left is proposing. So, they resort to name-calling.

The accusation has the additional advantage, from the rightists’ point of view, that it draws unwary leftists into an argument over socialism. They end up defending socialism instead of defending their policy proposals. This is a huge mistake. It is a trap, and leftists should not fall into it.

Promote Policies on the Basis of Widely Shared Values

What then should a leftist do when confronted with the accusation of socialism. He/She should ignore the accusation and should defend his/her policy recommendations on their merits. That is easy to do, and the rightists have no real defense against it except more name-calling. The defense should invoke basic American values and moral principles. Here is an example in the area of healthcare:

In a rich society like ours, people should not die because they cannot afford to pay for care. We all know that the free market does not always provide for everyone’s needs and that, in some cases, we should go beyond what the free market provides. For example, most of us feel that if a school child cannot afford to buy a winter coat in Wisconsin’s cold climate, that is unjust, and we go outside of the free market to find a remedy. We donate the coats that our children have outgrown to Goodwill, or we raise funds to pay for coats for children who cannot afford them. 

Healthcare is like winter coats for school children. Just as every school child ought to have a winter coat, so everyone in our country ought to have adequate healthcare, and we know that many people are not wealthy enough to provide it for themselves in our current healthcare system. The kind of private health insurance that we have in the United States is not an adequate answer because its cost keeps rising, and its coverage gets worse and worse. 

We know, too, that we cannot provide healthcare for everyone through individual charity.  In health care, there is no equivalent to donating our children’s outgrown coats to Goodwill. We can provide care for everyone only if we use our power as citizens and work through our government to establish a program that recognizes that no one should be denied health care because of an inability to pay. Medicare for All is one way of solving that problem.

Nowhere in this example is socialism mentioned, and the point is that we can promote the policies that we favor without invoking socialism and without discussing its merits. Polls have shown over and over again that while most Americans are wary of socialism, they favor some kind of a national health care system. We can appeal to them on the basis of the values that we all share, and that is how we win.

To Save Your Retirement, Vote for Amanda Stuck in Wisconsin’s Eighth District

Republicans Want to Gut Your Retirement and Mine

The Republican Party has begun its campaign to gut your retirement and mine. The first step is the proposal to cut Social Security in the current administration’s budget, but don’t be fooled. This is only the first step.

We Can Easily Make Social Security Solvent Without Cutting Benefits

Most of us depend on Social Security for all or part of our income in retirement, and most of us have worked all our lives and paid into the system because we were promised that it would be there for us when we retired. The Social Security system has problems, but they can be solved fairly easily for the next 75 years.

We have to make the system solvent in order to keep our promise that it will be there for all of us when we retire. In making Social Security solvent, we should rely on two principles:

1. Social Security is an earned benefit. It is not some sort of magic “entitlement.” It is a benefit for which most people have worked all their lives.
2. We Americans recognize that a promise is a promise, and we do not duck our responsibilities

Republicans Don't Believe That a Promise is a Promise

But the Republicans don’t believe in either of these principles. They don’t understand that we should receive a benefit for which we have worked all our lives, and they don’t believe that a promise should be a promise.  They think that it is ok for them to gut your retirement and mine in order to give tax breaks to make very rich people even richer.  It is not just our president. Other Republicans like Mitch McConnell are falling in line, and Amanda Stuck’s opponent supports a plan to “save” Social Security by pegging the payment to the poverty line, thereby reducing most people’s the Social Security benefits.

People Should Be Paid the Benefits They Have Earned

We Democrats oppose cutting the benefits of hard-working people in order to make rich people richer. We know that there are better ways to save Social Security for all of us. We know that in America, a promise is a promise and should not be broken. We know that Social Security is an earned benefit and that people should be paid what they are owed.

Elect Amanda Stuck to Save Your Retirement

We cannot allow Republicans to break the promises that we have made or to deny to Americans the money that they have worked for and earned. The only way to protect retirement security for all of us is to elect Democrats like Amanda Stuck to Congress to protect the benefits that we have earned.

So, the choice is clear. You can vote to deny earned benefits to hard-working people like you in order to make rich people richer, or you can vote for Amanda Stuck for Congress in the Wisconsin’s eighth district.

Don't Play the Radical Rightists' Game

Don't Be Trapped

A lot of my progressive friends have spent time on FB recently explaining “socialism” to radical rightists, and that is a complete waste of time. Worse, it amounts to falling into a radical rightist[i] trap.  When we are explaining socialism, we are not talking about the issues: climate change, healthcare, education, racism, and that suits the radical right just fine.

They know that on the issues, they are weak because their positions make no sense, but if they can frighten people by labeling our positions as “socialism,” they gain points.  As long as “socialism” is the topic, people are not thinking about the issues. For example, Medicare for All might be a good thing for most Americans, but they won’t think about that if they are worrying that it might be “socialism.”

Stay on Message

Our political struggle is not a political science seminar. We do not need to educate Americans on the true meaning of socialism. We need to protect our environment. We need a national health care system. We need to overcome racism and sexism.  We need to do a lot of things. We don’t need to spend our time arguing about labels.

So, stick to the message. Don’t be misled into explaining socialism. Don’t fall into the rightist trap.

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[i] I use the term “radical rightist” because in our current political situation, it is more accurate than “conservative.”

An Opportunity For Democrats

A Crack in the Republican Party

A crack is appearing in the Republican Party, and it creates an opportunity for Democrats. The contemporary Republican Party is an alliance between the radical rightist business Republicans on the one hand and the racist groups and cultural reactionaries who support the president on the other. In this alliance, the role of the racists and cultural reactionaries is to bring in the votes, and the role of the business Republicans is to pay the bills. Each party to the alliance is rewarded for its support: the racists get a wall at the southern border; the cultural reactionaries get defunding of Planned Parenthood; the business Republicans get a tax cut and the elimination of many environmental regulations; and they all get conservative judges.

The Interests of Republican Voters Are Threatened

This alliance has been very successful, but it is showing signs of strain because the tax-cutting doctrine of the radical rightist business Republicans has come into direct conflict with the economic interest of many racists and cultural reactionaries. The OTWH[i] has recently proposed sizeable cuts to Medicare and Social Security – programs on which many of his supporters depend. He has also proposed to eliminate a program of student loan forgiveness for people who enter the public service.

These proposals directly threaten the well-being of millions of Republican voters. Some of them may have voted Republican in the past because they were worried about immigration, others because they opposed abortion or gay marriage, but now, the Republicans are threatening their economic security. It is one thing to vote against immigration, abortion or gay marriage when you have no personal interest at stake, but it is quite another thing to do so in opposition to your own interests.

An Opportunity For Democrats

This is an opportunity for Democrats. We can drive in a wedge that will split the Republican alliance. If we can convince voters that the Republican Party is a danger to their well-being, some of them may decide to vote for Democrats. Not all Republicans will switch their votes, but we only need a few switchers to win in November. Elections are won by small margins. Let’s not miss this opportunity!

Let’s start a barrage of communication on this topic. Let’s stop moaning about what an awful person the OTWH is and focus our attention on the real concerns of the voters.

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[i] Occupant of the White House.

What is Revolutionary About the American Left?

What is revolutionary about the Democratic left? Its supporters love to claim that they are a revolutionary “movement” that is about much more than electing Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as president, and Sanders himself sometimes claims that his election would be a revolution. What does this mean? What is revolutionary about the Democratic left? What is it that excites its members? One thing is certain: the policy proposals of the Democratic left are not revolutionary. They are incremental changes to the status quo.

Unrevolutionary Proposals

The left’s policy proposals amount to a restoration of normal American politics and policy.  To see just how unrevolutionary the left’s ideas are, let us review a few of the proposals from the campaign web site of Bernie Sanders, the darling of the left.

Medicare for All

One signature issue of Sanders’s campaign is Medicare for All. He would expand Medicare to cover everyone in the United States.  This is hardly revolutionary. It is an expansion of an existing program, and the reasons for the expansion are the same as the reasons for the initial creation of Medicare.

Medicare was established in 1965 because it had become almost impossible for old people[i] to get health insurance.  Old people were starving or eating cat food because they could not pay their medical bills. So, we established Medicare, and it has become the most successful anti-poverty program in our history. Today, again, the cost of health care is driving millions of Americans into poverty.  Health emergencies are the most common cause of personal bankruptcy in our country, and every day, more of our people cannot afford adequate health insurance.  To solve this problem, Sanders proposes that we expand a very successful program to cover more people. That is not revolutionary. On the contrary, it is precisely the sort of pragmatic, incremental change that has always characterized American politics at its best.

Free College

Another signature issue in Sanders’ campaign is free post-secondary education at public colleges and universities. This is completely unrevolutionary. In fact, we used to have it, but under prodding from the Radical Right’s anti-tax crusaders, we gave it up. When I attended the University of California in 1958, the tuition was free, and the fees were $140 per semester. State universities in other states were just as inexpensive.  That was also the period of the GI Bill under which military veterans could have even these modest expenses paid by the federal government.

In the years since, radical rightist anti-tax crusaders have persuaded us gradually to reduce the states’ support for higher education and shifted the burden more and more onto the students. We have gone so far in that direction that Sanders’s proposal now seems revolutionary to some people, but it is not. It is merely a restoration of the normal, American way to pay for the higher education of our people.

Green New Deal

Sanders has adopted the idea of a Green New Deal from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Under this rubric, he proposes large investments in green energy projects that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and help to save our planet from global warming. At the same time, in theory, the projects would create millions of good jobs.

The Green New Deal sounds revolutionary, but in fact, it continues our long-standing policy of promoting the development of energy sources.  We have always believed that adequate supplies of energy were crucial to the development of our economy, and the Green New Deal merely redirects our energy policy toward promoting new energy sources that fit our country’s current needs in a time when the use of fossil fuels is endangering our country and its economy.

Today, we spend enormous amounts subsidizing the fossil fuel industries, as we have for many years. The Green New Deal proposes that we continue to subsidize energy production but that in doing so, we should focus our subsidies on green energy rather than fossil fuels. Today, the climate crisis has given rise to new needs, and we must shift our policies to meet them. Again, that is not revolutionary. It is precisely the sort of pragmatic, incremental change that has always made our country successful.

Why Are Moderate Proposals Seen as Revolutionary?

Why are proposals that are clearly in the main stream of American politics seen as revolutionary departures? One reason is that we on the political left like to describe our proposals that way. We like to think of ourselves as saving the world rather than merely making modest changes in our current policies. So, we describe what we are doing in revolutionary terms. Moreover, it is hard to mobilize millions of young people to work for a political campaign with the goal of tweaking the status quo. So, we call ourselves a revolution even when we aren’t really one.  We exaggerate as Bob Dylan did in the 1960s.

The political right also exaggerates the radicalness of leftist proposals, but they exaggerate in order to frighten people away from supporting such proposals. Ronald Reagan did that when he spoke of “socialized medicine” in his campaign against Medicare in the 1960s, and Pres. Trump used the same kind of language in his State of the Union speech on Feb. 4, 2020. Thus, both the left and the right tend to paint the left’s policy prescriptions as more radical than they really are. For the right, they are changes to be avoided at all costs, and for the left, they are changes that we must fight for if we are to have a better society.

However, there is a deeper reason why things like Medicare for All or the Green New Deal are seen as revolutionary when they are not. Since the 1970s, the Radical Right[ii] has shifted American political discourse so far to the right that policies that would once have been seen as main stream policies now seem to belong to the radical left. Radical rightists have promoted the idea that government is never the solution. Government is the problem, and the solution is to shrink government as far as possible and to rid ourselves of the idea that the agencies of government can ever produce results that are superior to those produced by the free market. We can see these ideas in the current administration’s opposition to environmental regulations, in its preference for private school vouchers over public schools, and in its opposition to Medicare for All.

The idea of shrinking government is of course very popular with the extremely wealthy because it can be used to justify reducing the taxes that wealthy people must pay and to increase the profits from their businesses. For that reason, the wealthy have been generous in supporting rightist think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, political actions groups like ALEC or the Freedom Caucus, and politicians like our current president. The money that has been spent on such groups has allowed them to issue a torrent of propaganda that has driven American political discourse to the right, and as a result, moderate ideas now seem radical, and American politics is dominated by the interests of the extremely wealthy who make up our ruling class and who fight to prevent the adoption of policies to solve the pressing problems of our time. The extremely wealthy fight against such policies because they will require an increased role for our government, and that means higher taxes on the members of the ruling class.

What is Revolutionary about the Democratic Left?

This brings us to the heart of our question: what is revolutionary about the American left? The answer is that the American left wants to alter the balance of power in our country to limit the power of the ruling class. The left understands that the domination of our politics by a wealthy elite is preventing us from solving our society’s acutest problems. We could have a decent health care system, but we don’t. We could reduce our dependence on fossils fuels, but we don’t. We could improve our educational system, but we don’t. We don’t do any of these things because our political system is paralyzed by the wealthy elite that governs in the name of keeping taxes low so that rich people can keep their money. The Democratic left wants to change the balance of power in this country that is preventing us from solving our most pressing problems.

The conflict between the monied elite and the rest of us is a perennial one in American history. The Jacksonian Democrats, the Populists of the 1890’s, the Progressive movement of the early 20^th century and the New Deal of the 1930’s all made claims similar to those of the contemporary Democratic Left, and the conflict has swung back and forth. The 1920s saw an increase in the power of the ruling class until the Great Depression brought on the New Deal. Ruling class opposition to the New Deal brought on the election of Ronald Reagan and the rightist era we are now living in. Perhaps, the current election will see a swing back to the left.

We can think of this struggle as our ongoing attempt to fulfill the ideals of the American Revolution. Our Founding Fathers declared that we were all created equal and that we were endowed with inalienable rights, but the republic they founded was never a full expression of those ideals. it included slavery; it subordinated women; it often excluded anyone who was not white.

Among our people there have always been those who saw how imperfectly our ideals were realized. The abolitionists insisted that slavery was wrong; the women’s movement insisted that women, too, were people with inalienable rights; black people today insist that black lives matter; many people today insist that healthcare is an inalienable right.  Through the struggles of these groups, we have gradually and haltingly moved closer to realizing the ideals of our founders, and the struggle of today’s Democratic Left is the latest incarnation of the movement toward realizing our ideals. The struggle of the Democratic left is a continuation of the American Revolution.

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[i] I am old, and I hate euphemisms like “seniors” or “elderly.”

[ii] I use the term “radical right” rather than “conservative” advisedly.

Bombshell: Systemic Sexism and Individual Decisions

A Movie About Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is an important problem in our society today. The #MeToo movement has made it clear to all of us that sexual harassment is very widespread, and we are being asked to act to eliminate or at least reduce it.  Bombshell is a useful movie in this context because it presents the moral issues involved in sexual harassment in high relief.

The movie is about the lawsuit brought by Gretchen Carlson against Roger Ailes of for sexual harassment at Fox News. The lawsuit affected other women at the station, and one of those was Megyn Kelly. She had to decide whether to join the suit, which she ultimately did, and much of the movie’s plot revolves around the process she went through to reach that decision. Bombshell is powerful and disturbing because it raises difficult and uncomfortable questions. The performances by Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson and Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly are marvelous as is John Lithgow’s portrayal of Roger Ailes.

Writing this article has advanced my own education. I started to write it because seeing the movie was a consciousness-raising experience.  It brought home to me strongly that our society has systemic features that trap women – even powerful, successful women like Carlson and Kelly - in situations where they have to make decisions that they should not have to make. Our system forces them to decide whether to give up their ambitions for professional advancement or to cooperate in their own degradation. That is what happened to Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly.

Sexual Harassment at Fox News

Carlson and Kelly were journalists at Fox News, and Ailes was a founder of the station and its director for many years. Fox News was rife with sexual harassment. Women there had to conform to Ailes’s idea of sexiness, and he took advantage of his position of power to exploit them sexually in various ways. Some gave him oral sex, while others simply did “the twirl” to allow him to appreciate the beauty of their bodies. Kelly said in an interview that he tried several times to kiss her, and she pushed him away. She said that the last time she pushed him away, he asked her when her contract would end(!) Ailes’s behavior was apparently not motivated primarily by sexual desire. It was a display of his power. He needed the women to show that they knew that they were entirely at his mercy and that they had to find ways to please him and demonstrate their loyalty to him.

Power, Culture and Sexual Harassment

Bombshell shows us how sexual harassment depends on both individual decisions and underlying systemic bases. On the individual level, a person in power has to decide to use that power to harass subordinates sexually, and they have to decide to allow themselves to be harassed. However, such decisions can only occur in a system that gives some people power and allows them to use it to degrade others.

What was systemic about the situation at Fox News, and what was individual? The individual part is easy to see. Roger Ailes was a man who took advantage of his power to harass women, and they went along with the harassment in order to advance their careers. A different man might have behaved differently, and in fact, not every employer is as bad as Fox News was under Ailes. Moreover, Carlson and Kelly knew what the game there was, and they went along with its Faustian bargain in order to advance their careers. Not all women choose to do that.

To see the systemic part, we have to take a broader view. We have to see that in our society, large organizations are usually run by men, which means that in most organizations, women are subordinate to men and are therefore vulnerable to harassment. We also have to see that our society generally accepts the exploitation of subordinates by their superiors, even when it is clearly illegal.[1] The exploitation is not always sexual, and the exploiter is not always a man.[2] However, in a society where most positions of authority are held by men, they are usually the exploiters, and since women are usually in subordinate positions, they are often exploited.

Moreover, we must recognize that our culture favors sexual exploitation in other ways, as well. We idolize powerful men, and often, we say that power is an aphrodisiac. It seems “natural” to us that a young, attractive woman will be drawn to an older, powerful man, and when a powerful man marries a young, attractive women, we call her a “trophy wife.” When the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted during the Clinton presidency, no one in our society had any difficulty understanding how Lewinsky’s relationship with Clinton emerged. Some people disapproved more than others, but everyone understood the relationship.

Our daughters recognize this situation, and they learn to work within it.  They learn to maximize their attractiveness to men and to interact with them in was that flatter their egos.  Young women are aware of this dynamic, and they have mixed feelings about it. Once, I asked a lecture hall full of college students how many of the women among them had let men explain to them things that they already knew. All of the women raised their hands, and one of them said that she didn’t really like doing it but that it was hard not to do it because, “the guys ate it up.”

A woman’s vulnerability to sexual harassment is increased by the premium we place on being “nice.” A woman in our society is supposed to avoid face-to-face conflict and to smooth over interpersonal interactions. So, when she is confronted with sexual harassment, she feels pressure to pass it off smoothly and to avoid embarrassing the man. She avoids making waves.

This situation puts ambitious women in a bind. We admire ambition and the restless striving that it drives.  We admire people who “make something of themselves” or who overcome difficult obstacles to become successful.[3]  However, an ambitious woman inevitably runs the risk of finding herself where Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly found themselves.  Roger Ailes used the power that our system had given him to force Carlson and Kelly to decide whether to allow themselves to be sexually harassed or give up their hope for advancement at Fox News.  They chose advancement. They allowed Ailes to harass them sexually because he could give them success in their careers, and indeed, he did so.  Both Carlson and Kelly went along with Ailes behavior for several years before they finally objected, and Carlson’s suit was originally motivated not directly by the harassment but by the fact that after all she had put up with, Ailes demoted her show to a bad time slot.

The Tragedy of Carlson and Kelly's Story

This brings us to the core of our topic: the relationship between systemic sexism and individual decisions. We hold people responsible for their individual decisions, and from that point of view alone, we can say that Carlson and Kelly knew what they were getting into. They decided to pay the price of success, and they can’t really blame anyone else when they had to pay that price.

However, we can now see why that point of view is wrong.  The women in Bombshell faced choices that were inherently illegitimate. No one should have to face the choices that they faced. They had to choose among the alternatives that were offered by Ailes because he controlled the conditions of advancement at Fox News. He had power, and they did not.[4]  The system at Fox allowed and encouraged him to offer the exploitative deals that he did offer.  The women had been trained to work to please men, and it exacted a high price for failing to go along with Ailes. 

So, they did what most of us do most of the time. They went along; they didn’t make waves; they allowed themselves to be coopted by the system; they accepted its benefits.  They were trapped in a system that forced them to make certain decisions, and like most of us, they were not heroes. They allowed the system to corrupt them. They became complicit in their own degradation until finally, they found the courage to fight back.

The tragedy here is not merely that the women were harassed. It is that they were forced to cooperate actively in their harassment. They had to become agents of the system that oppressed them. A survivor of the extermination camp at Treblinka, who had been a sondercommando, recounted that at a certain point in 1944, the supply of Jews to be gassed ran low. For several days, no trainloads of victims arrived, and the sondercommandos worried because they knew that if there was no more work for them, they would themselves be killed. Then, an SS sergeant came into the room where they were and said, “Tomorrow, the trains are rolling!” The survivor telling the story said, “You know what we did? We cheered. I die a little every time I think about it.”

The women at Fox News did not have to become murderers, but they did have to support and cooperate with the system that oppressed them.  Once we see that, we cannot unsee it. Once we see that we have a system that causes women to become complicit in their own degradation, we have only two choices: we must allow that to happen, or we must accept a responsibility to work to change the system. For me, only the latter is possible.

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[1] At Fox News, the Board of Directors did not discipline Roger Ailes until a lawsuit was brought against him.

[2] For example, the character of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada and the character of Alma Coin in The Hunger Games are both ruthlessly exploitative.

[3] We have ambiguous feelings about ambitious women. Sometimes, we disapprove of ambitious, competitive women who strive for success in ways that we think of as masculine, but that is not an issue in Bombshell. The movie accepts the legitimacy of Carlson and Kelly’s ambition and focuses on the story of what happened to them along the way and on the way that they ultimately stood up for themselves in a hostile environment.

[4] When Carlson and Kelly arrived at Fox News, they were not the powerful women that they have since become, and they were more vulnerable than they would be now.