SUMMER 2018 The Public Eye

In this issue: Blurring the Border: Immigration Enforcement and Solidarity in Before the Alt Right: and the Growth of Misogynist Ideology Beyond Strange Bedfellows: How the “War on Trafficking” Was Made to Unite the Left and Right Trump, the Republican Party, and Westmoreland County editor’s letter

THE PUBLIC EYE QUARTERLY

With the nomination of to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, the bal- PUBLISHER Tarso Luís Ramos ance of the Supreme Court threatens to tip toward the Hard Right for decades to come. Com- EDITOR ing on the heels of several disastrous SCOTUS rulings, the administration’s cruel family sep- Kathryn Joyce aration policy, and Trump’s continuing embrace of authoritarianism, the stakes couldn’t be COVER ART higher. There are immediate threats to reproductive and sexual health and rights, commu- “The Love Series #17” by Rae Senarighi nities of color and immigrants, workers and voters alike, as well as longer-term repercus- PRINTING sions yet to be seen. Red Sun Press Nearly 30 years ago, another fierce and pivotal SCOTUS battle took place over the con- EDITORIAL BOARD firmation of Justice . As Alex DiBranco writes in “Before the Alt Right” Frederick Clarkson • Alex DiBranco (pg. 5), when professor Anita Hill alleged that Thomas had egregiously sexually ha- Gabriel Joffe• Kapya Kaoma rassed her, her testimony helped launch an early reckoning over in Greeley O’Connor • L. Cole Parke Tarso Luís Ramos • Zeina Zaatari the workplace. But it also inspired a generation of conservative activists who advanced a secular form of anti-, complementing the ’s scriptural case against The Public Eye is published by with vicious personal attacks. That laid the groundwork for the movement Political Research Associates we’re seeing today. Both then and now, the sense of aggrieved entitlement these Tarso Luís Ramos Executive Director antifeminist activists cultivate has too often boiled over in deadly assaults at the hands of Sarah Burzillo men who believe feminism has stolen their birthright. Finance Manager The argument that some anti-trafficking advocates deliberately blur the line between sex Frederick Clarkson work and forced or coerced prostitution could hardly have been made more clear than in Senior Research Analyst this July’s arrest of Stormy Daniels, in what law enforcement falsely claimed was a human Cloee Cooper trafficking sting. For years, conservative activists have sought to make common cause with Research Analyst some feminists and liberals on the slippery terrain of “,” succeeding in bring- Steven Gardiner Senior Research Analyst ing together such divergent figures as Chuck Colson and . But as Melissa Heron Greenesmith Gira Grant writes in “Beyond Strange Bedfellows” (pg. 11), in the bipartisan “war on traf- Senior Research Analyst ficking,” that unusual collaboration isn’t a byproduct but the primary point. With a moral Gabriel Joffe narrative shaped by a small group of right-wing activists, the issue offered both ends of Program Coordinator the political spectrum “a chance to adopt a new identity: neither preachers nor scolds, but Kapya Kaoma Senior Research Analyst defenders of human rights.” Isabelle H. Leighton In “Blurring the Border” (pg. 3), Austin Kocher reports on how draconian immigration Development Director enforcement in Ohio has furthered the sense that the border is no longer defined by geogra- Greeley O’Connor phy, but rather wherever vulnerable communities in the U.S. reside. Just as they do farther Communications Director south, immigrants in Ohio are regulating their behavior in fear of ICE arrest—avoiding pub- L. Cole Parke lic spaces and cancelling doctors appointments for their kids. “When public space becomes Research Analyst hostile to immigrants, immigrants retreat from public spaces,” writes Kocher, “creating the Renee Vallejo Development Coordinator illusion of the kind of immigrant-free, ethno-racial state that White supremacists imagine Zeina Zaatari the U.S. to be.” Research Director In our last feature, “Trump, the Republican Party, and Westmoreland County” (pg. Fellows 17), Margaret Power returns home to Westmoreland County, : a former Rust Tope Fadiran • Jessica Quiason Belt region that delivered overwhelming support to Trump in 2016. Today, Westmoreland Spencer Sunshine • Mariya Strauss • Carl Williams County is home to “the Trump House” and a traveling “Trump Mobile.” But within the re- Interns cent past, it was a Democratic stronghold that received a post-Depression lifeline from the Boles • Samantha Lee • Radhika Moral New Deal—most evocatively, in a community for jobless residents named after Eleanor Board of Directors Roosevelt. What happened in between is more complex than the story that’s usually told: Jenny Levison, Chair not just “economic anxiety” in a post-industrial landscape but also the replacement of com- Saqib Bhatti • Lynette Jackson • Hamid Khan munity-shaping unions with conservative megachurches; the consolidation of the local Scot Nakagawa • Dania Rajendra • Mohan Sikka press under right-wing ownership; and the persistent racism of a nearly-all-White county Zeke Spier • Carla Wallace • Susan Wefald Cassandra Overton Welchlin where residents draw a sharp line between the help once extended to their grandparents Founder and those who they now consider the “undeserving poor.” It’s a clear-eyed look from a one- Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. time local, and necessary background to understanding whether ’s Westmore- landers can change. 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 Somerville, MA 02144-1837 In between issues of The Public Eye, PRA publishes blog posts, features, reports, and more Tel: 617.666.5300 every week, so be sure to visit us at politicalresearch.org. [email protected] © Political Research Associates, 2018 All rights reserved. ISN 0275-9322 Kathryn Joyce ISSUE 95 www.politicalresearch.org commentary

BY AUSTIN KOCHER THE PUBLIC EYE QUARTERLY

PUBLISHER Tarso Luís Ramos EDITOR Kathryn Joyce Blurring the Border COVER ART Immigration Enforcement and Solidarity in Ohio “The Love Series #17” by Rae Senarighi PRINTING Red Sun Press EDITORIAL BOARD Frederick Clarkson • Alex DiBranco Gabriel Joffe• Kapya Kaoma Greeley O’Connor • L. Cole Parke Tarso Luís Ramos • Zeina Zaatari The Public Eye is published by Political Research Associates Tarso Luís Ramos Executive Director Sarah Burzillo Finance Manager Frederick Clarkson Senior Research Analyst Cloee Cooper Research Analyst Steven Gardiner Senior Research Analyst Heron Greenesmith Senior Research Analyst Gabriel Joffe Program Coordinator Kapya Kaoma Senior Research Analyst “” rally and march in Ohio, June 30, 2018. Photo: Becker1999 via Flickr. Isabelle H. Leighton oledo: Stay safe! Border public spaces and regulating their social it is no accident that the legal exclusion Development Director Greeley O’Connor Patrol spotted on South visibility, while others are bringing the of immigrant workers reflects the racial 9 Communications Director and Broadway today!” Just nationwide fight for immigrant rights prejudice against Latinx and African im- L. Cole Parke days after Immigration home to the Midwest. migrants. Research Analyst “Tand Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents Over the past several years, I’ve had the Ohio may seem like an unlikely place Renee Vallejo arrested 114 immigrant workers at a opportunity to observe the growth of im- to conduct fieldwork on immigration Development Coordinator gardening center in Sandusky, Ohio,1 migration enforcement in Ohio by study- enforcement. But over the past decade, Zeina Zaatari Research Director and 146 more at a meat plant in Salem, ing the network of courts, detention Ohio has encouraged the expansion of Ohio,2 this alert was sent out over social centers, and enforcement agencies that immigration enforcement, detention, Fellows Tope Fadiran • Jessica Quiason media in English and Spanish, warning coordinate deportations, and to witness and deportation infrastructure. In 2006, Spencer Sunshine • Mariya Strauss • Carl Williams residents about alleged Customs and the various responses by the immigrant the Department of Justice recognized the Border Patrol activity in Toledo, Ohio, community and their allies. Deportation growth of cases coming from Ohio and Interns Sydney Boles • Samantha Lee • Radhika Moral over 150 miles away. Anyone who lives, is a technology that is used to regulate the the Midwest and established an immigra- works, or visits the region near the Mexi- viability of certain social groups to live tion court in . In 2008, Sheriff Board of Directors 6 Jenny Levison, Chair co-U.S. border is familiar with white and and thrive in society. The deportation Richard Jones of Butler County, just north Saqib Bhatti • Lynette Jackson • Hamid Khan green Border Patrol vehicles; the legacy of allegedly “illegal” immigrant groups is of , signed one of the first im- Scot Nakagawa • Dania Rajendra • Mohan Sikka of border checkpoints is well document- racially uneven, both in terms of who has migration enforcement agreements with Zeke Spier • Carla Wallace • Susan Wefald ed in Supreme Court decisions,3 aca- been illegalized at different points in U.S. ICE in the country, empowering his dep- Cassandra Overton Welchlin demic research,4 and the phenomenon of history7 and in terms of who is targeted uties to screen for immigration status in Founder 5 8 Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. “checkpoint refusal videos” on YouTube. by ICE officers in the field. In the current the local jail and hold immigrant detain- But the growth of immigration enforce- immigration frenzy, Latinx immigrants ees for the federal agency.10 Jones, re- 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 ment farther north has led many within have become the ethno-racial target of cently described by a local newspaper as Somerville, MA 02144-1837 11 Tel: 617.666.5300 immigrant and refugee communities to Far Right rhetoric about immigration. a “mini-Trump,” is a fourth-term sheriff [email protected] feel that they, too, live on the border. As Like the Jim Crow era in the South or who’s become well known for his racially © Political Research Associates, 2018 a result, many immigrants are avoiding the Jewish exclusion of the 1930s, motivated policing and anti-immigrant All rights reserved. ISN 0275-9322 ISSUE 95 www.politicalresearch.org SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 3 antics, including once sending a letter to immigrants retreat from public spaces, What do these immigrant rights strat- the president of demanding pay- creating the illusion of the kind of immi- egies teach us? On the one hand, many ment for “dealing with your criminals.”12 grant-free, ethno-racial state that White of these responses are survival strate- In the intervening years, immigrant de- supremacists imagine the U.S. to be.16 gies designed to cope with the commu- tention facilities in the state expanded to The consequences of the Trump adminis- nity effects of aggressive immigration include several county jails throughout tration’s policies are highly racialized and enforcement. From ICE’s worksite raids rural Ohio. In 2016, CoreCivic (formerly have the effect of exposing immigrant to Sheriff Jones’ aggressive policing, im- the Corrections Corporation of America), minorities to an embedded system of ra- migrants are under attack every day and a for-profit prison company, converted cial controls.17 are forced to create new networks of re- one wing of its Youngstown federal cor- The surge in immigration enforcement silience. Trump’s policies not only put rectional facility into a for-profit deten- is generating a counter-surge in creative more families at risk of separation and tion center for immigrants from across strategies and tactics among immigrants deportation, they also have the potential the eastern .13 When com- and immigrant allies to challenge immi- to drive immigrants underground. On the other hand, these resistance strate- gies also send another message that by When public space becomes hostile to immigrants, working together, immigrants and citi- immigrants retreat from public spaces, creating the zens in America’s heartland are build- illusion of the kind of immigrant-free, ethno-racial ing the social networks needed to resist the anti-immigrant of the Trump state that White supremacists imagine the U.S. to be. administration. Protests, rallies, and vig- ils put immigrants’ faces and narratives bined with the unapologetically anti- grant social control. In response to the back into circulation through social and immigrant rhetoric of President Trump immigration raids in June in Ohio, labor traditional media, thereby challenging as well as the explicit racism of his White unions,18 social workers, teachers, and the pressure to remain invisible. Sus- supremacist supporters,14 the immigra- churches organized to provide direct sup- tained forms of resistance through the tion enforcement infrastructure is lead- port for immigrant families that lost one labor movement, grassroots organiza- ing not only to an increase of immigrants or both parents to the ICE raids. Com- tions, and sanctuary churches are creat- being arrested and detained15 but also munities across the state organized pub- ing longer-lasting networks that cross leading immigrants to avoid using basic lic vigils and rallies outside of detention lines of citizen/non-citizen, immigrant/ social and educational services. facilities and elected officials’ offices.19 non-immigrant, and documented/un- Immigrants across Ohio feel the con- Residents in Ohio and set up documented. nection between ICE raids and their sustained encampments outside of ICE In his well-known book, Imagined Com- own everyday social existence along ra- field offices to protest their involvement munities, the late Benedict Anderson ar- cial lines. One health professional who in the recent raids, calling the actions gues that although nationalism and citi- works with Spanish-speaking clients Occupy ICE.20 An estimated 2,000 people zenship have always relied on a notion recently told me, “I had three separate participated in a rally for immigrant fam- of “horizontal comradeship,” in reality families cancel their child’s appointment ilies in Columbus on June 30 as part of a nationalism has historically depended on with me today because they are afraid to national day of action.21 Columbus is also the violent exclusion of people who don’t leave the house because of ICE.” One im- home to two churches that are providing conform to the specific racial and ethnic migrant who gained temporary lawful sanctuary for immigrants who are at risk national ideal. Through grassroots ac- status through the Deferred Action for of deportation: the Columbus Menno- tion, Ohioans—and indeed others across Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program told nite Church, which extended sanctuary the United States—are imagining a new me that although her parents work in the to Edith Espinal in the fall of 2017,22 and American community that responds to same location, they had recently begun First English Lutheran Church, which anti-immigrant injustice through coordi- to drive to work separately so that should offered sanctuary to Miriam Vargas this nated action that is motivated by solidar- one of them be arrested in a traffic stop, July.23 Other organizations provide more ity and a refusal to allow Trump’s vision the other could go home and take care of ongoing community support. The Cen- for the U.S. to become reality. their two minor children. A friend and tral Ohio Worker Center conducted de- colleague, herself a daughter of recent portation defense trainings for college Austin Kocher teaches geography at West- Mexican immigrants, recently moved students, social workers, and grassroots ern Governors University and the Univer- abroad to live with her husband who was organizers across Ohio.24 Avanza To- sity of Michigan. His research focuses on deported from Ohio just months ago. gether, an organization created by local the legal and institutional geographies of These seemingly minor forms of self- immigrants after the 2016 election, pro- immigration policing and the politics of regulation are not of secondary concern vides direct social support for families immigrant rights movements in the United in immigration enforcement. When pub- with one or more family member going States and Europe. lic space becomes hostile to immigrants, through the deportation process.25

4 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 BY ALEX DIBRANCO

Before the Alt Right Anita Hill and the Growth of Misogynist Ideology

n October 1991, Professor Anita Hill testified before Congress that her former supervisor, Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, had Isexually harassed her in the workplace. The committee of White male senators conducting the hearings (chaired by then Sen. Joe Biden) responded to Hill, a Black woman, by disparaging her character and questioning her motives. (Thomas, also Black, portrayed himself as the vic- tim of a “high-tech lynching” for even be- ing questioned on the accusations.) Hill’s description of how Thomas repeatedly pressured her for dates, described por- nography in detail, and once asked her who had put “pubic hair” on his Coke can triggered sharply divided reaction in the viewing audience. Women inspired by Hill’s example— and objecting to her treatment at the hands of an all-male Senate panel—ran for office in record numbers, leading -me Anita Hill testifies before Congress during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, October 11, 1991. Photo: Rob Crandall/Alamy Stock Photo. dia outlets to refer to 1992 as “The Year of the Woman.” Four new female sena- er spheres. alist Society, a group of conservative and tors were elected, tripling the number of As calls for Supreme Court Justice libertarian lawyers and academics, and women in the Senate.1 Today, #MeToo, a Thomas’ impeachment are renewed,4 so- the Free Congress Foundation (FCF), a Twitter hashtag now synonymous with cial justice advocates and researchers can think tank run by Paul Weyrich, the New the campaign to call attention to the benefit from understanding the other Right “chief strategist” who helped found widespread problem of sexual harass- side of the impact of Hill’s testimony: a , American Leg- ment and often name perpetrators, picks misogynist backlash to the infringement islative Exchange Council (ALEC), and up on Hill’s legacy in bringing this issue on male entitlement. . A new group, Women into the national spotlight.2 A study ana- Hostile viewers saw a lying woman for Judge Thomas, sprouted up to pro- lyzing the period from December 2016 scheming to take down a powerful — vide female faces to counter feminist to June 2018 found that hundreds of or perhaps simply did not care whether activists. It would later evolve into the high-profile executives, employees, and her story was true or not. Right-wing Independent Women’s Forum: a lead- celebrities accused of media and organizations took advantage ing anti-feminist group.6 The American have been fired or faced other job- con of what Mother Jones editor Jeffrey Klein Spectator, the magazine that took the sequences, an unprecedented change, called the growth of “male resentment” lead in trashing Hill—and went on to set though this represents only a drop in the against “a perceived slippage of author- its sights on former First Lady Hillary bucket in dealing with the systemic prob- ity, a slippage of power, in an uncertain Rodham Clinton—received millions of lem.3 This comes after years of revitalized world with uncertain enemies.”5 A num- dollars from major conservative founda- activism to fight sexual harassment and ber of conservative organizations collab- tions through the 1990s. Hill and Rod- —in universities, the military, orated in defending Thomas against Hill’s ham Clinton became the embodiment the Peace Corps, the workplace, and oth- testimony. Among them were the Feder- of female transgression against male su-

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 5 premacy. (And as a female Black law pro- en!”8 The next day, he opened fire at a In a commentary on a 2014 attack fessor, Hill threatened White male power different restaurant, in Killeen, , targeting sorority women, Kimmel ex- on two fronts.) Virulent hostility toward largely passing over men to target wom- plains, “Aggrieved entitlement” is the women became a more prominent part of en, killing 23 in all before killing himself belief “that [mass shooters] are entitled conservative media, often couched as op- once police arrived. Survivors reported to certain things—power, wealth, sex— position to “political correctness,” from him shouting, “All women of Killeen and and that they are entitled to use violence talk radio host to publi- Belton are vipers! See what you’ve done to restore what they believe is rightfully cations with a prior reputation for more to me and my family! … It’s payback time. theirs.”13 In his book, Angry White Men, respectful engagement, like William F. It’s payback time. Is it worth it? Is it worth Kimmel analyzes Hennard and 48-year- Buckley’s The Firing Line.7 it?”9 old George Sodini, who, before open- This resentment was certainly not Earlier that year, Hennard had been ing fire at a Pennsylvania fitness class in new. It had been there in hostile respons- reported to the police for stalking two 2009—killing three women and injuring es to the campaign for women’s suffrage young women—sisters who lived in his nine more—seethed in an online jour- and to women entering the workforce neighborhood. He sent them a letter in nal about being rejected by “30 million in larger numbers during World War II. June, praising them as on “one side” of women” and expressed intense jealousy ’s bestselling 1991 book a moral divide, with “the abundance of toward sexually active teenage girls. This Backlash: The Undeclared War Against evil women that make up the worst on type of mass violence, tied to hatred of American Women (published the same the other side.” He continued, “I would women or feminism, is only one mani- month as Hill’s testimony) focused on like to personally remind all those vipers festation of misogynist violence. Kimmel the pushback to feminist gains since the that I have civil rights too.” A short time also describes the far more common phe- late 1960s and ‘70s. Though Faludi rec- before sending his letter, Hennard had nomenon of “everyday Sodinis”—men ognized the backlash of the 1980s as the tried to file a civil rights complaint with who physically and sexually abuse indi- continuation of a longer historical trend, the FBI against the “white women of the vidual women in their lives, sometimes the late-20th century response appeared world” for a conspiracy against him. Al- ending in murder. especially panicked about traditional though a psychiatrist had analyzed the male authority, fostering new frames letter as demonstrating troubling “Pent THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT’S claiming male victimization at the hands up anger” and a “Grandiose sense of ATTACK ON HILL of powerful women. power,” the police failed to take the let- While George Hennard expressed his Those arguments developed further ter or report of stalking and harassment rage against Anita Hill and other wom- with the 1993 publication of The Myth seriously.10 en through extreme violence, the same of Male Power, an influential text that Hennard’s attack came amid a rise of male resentment coursed throughout the has been referred to as the “bible” of the mass killings, perpetrated primarily by broader Right, which sought recompense “men’s rights movement.” As Hill’s tes- White men, in the 1990s—an escalation for the perceived mass violation of male timony about workplace sexual harass- that was an anomaly at the time, as other entitlement that followed Second Wave ment threatened both male economic types of homicide were decreasing.11 feminism. Although Clarence Thomas dominance and security in their sexual In Montreal, , two years prior, a was confirmed, many on the Right found entitlement, other misogynist responses young man, Marc Lepine, killed 14 wom- their victory insufficient. Republicans would follow, such as the “seduction” or en at an engineering school in the name nursed bitter resentment over the 1987 “pickup artist” industry, which taught of “fighting feminism.” The 1990s also defeat of ’s nomination for men to manipulate women into sexual saw a rise in attacks against reproductive the Supreme Court, thanks to his vocal intercourse in an upended society. All health clinics in the United States, simi- opposition to civil rights progress with are part of a misogyny that has increas- larly at the hands of mostly White men, regards to race and gender.14 (The opin- ingly come to dominate the modern as the anti-abortion movement met with ion page of the conservative Wall Street Right, sometimes boiling over in deadly legislative failures.12 Journal responded by popularizing15 the violence. Writing about school shootings—yet term “to bork,” as a synonym for system- again an epidemic dominated by White atic .16) A Black woman’s role MEN’S ENTITLEMENT AND MASS males—sociologist of in nearly derailing another nominee, and VIOLENCE and co-author Rachel in the process spotlighting the problem George Hennard, an unemployed for- Kalish rejected the popular narrative of sexual harassment and encouraging mer Merchant Marine living in Belton, that bullying was to blame. While a wave of liberal female political candi- Texas, began to scream and rant when perpetrators often feel victimized by their dates, infuriated conservatives. At the Anita Hill appeared on the television peers (justly or not), Kimmel and Kalish 1992 Republican National Convention, screen in the restaurant where he sat write in Health Review, it is a some delegates followed Nina Totenberg, on October 15, 1991, his 35th birthday. “sense of entitlement” and superiority one of the NPR journalists who broke “You dumb bitch!” he shouted. “You bas- that “transforms the aggrieved into mass Hill’s story, around the convention floor, tards opened the door for all the wom- murderers.” calling her a “whore.”17

6 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 According to author , traditional conservative Christian ideol- alism,” Brock writes in his 2002 tell-all, Elizabeth Brady Lurie, president of the ogy in focusing less on moral outrage Blinded by the Right. “I hoped to turn back conservative W.H. Brady Foundation, against abortion and contraception (in this feminist tide, exposing the treach- financed a “special investigation” into fact, it sometimes supports access to such ery of what we saw as a liberal cabal that Hill18 that would be published by The reproductive services, though not neces- leaked Hill’s uncorroborated charges into American Spectator. Started as a student sarily as an aspect of women’s rights). It the public domain and forced her public publication in 1967 at Univer- eschews patriarchal frameworks that put testimony.” sity (under the name The Alternative), the “good” women on a pedestal or portray Brock’s article fed an eager right-wing magazine ridiculed Leftist “student radi- sexist policies as “protecting” women. media infrastructure and went on to ben- calism” from antiwar protests to femi- Instead, those operating out of a secular efit from mainstream media’s own prob- nism. misogynist ideology dedicate themselves lematic willingness to accept misogynist Support from wealthy conservative more to directly maligning feminists, ob- rhetoric. His 1993 follow-up book, The philanthropists Ruth Lilly/the Lilly En- jectifying women or calling them “ugly,” Real Anita Hill, received positive reviews dowment and enabled the magazine to make the un- usual transition from campus to national While the Religious Right is often treated as having stage. There, it established a reputation a monopoly on opposing gender justice, misogyny, for sexist and anti-gay content. Histo- rian Daniel Spillman points to a piece by as with racism or xenophobia, need not be directly Spectator founder and editor-in-chief R. religiously motivated. Emmett Tyrrell, “Call It Women’s Glib,” which argues, “Women’s liberation is and mocking the concept of equality. even in publications condemned by the probably the most successful pestilence While the Religious Right is often treated Right as liberal (mostly by male review- since Prohibition… What passed for as having a monopoly on opposing gen- ers, Brock recalls), such as The New ideas in the women’s movement were der justice, misogyny, as with racism or Times.24 Journalist Jane Mayer, whose some of the scrawniest specimens of cog- xenophobia, need not be directly reli- book Strange Justice: The Selling of Clar- nition ever spied.”19 The piece, included giously motivated. ence Thomas was published in 1994, re- in Tyrrell’s 1979 book, Public Nuisances, hired Brock, called, “After [the Spectator’s] charges was reprinted in The Times, in- a former Heritage Foundation fellow were broadcast repeatedly on the grow- dicating his was not a fringe voice. The then working for The Times ing right-wing talk-radio circuit, and book also helped to land him a syndi- (a right-wing publication established by then picked up by the mainstream press cated column at , Unification Church authoritarian leader and television, Brock’s long article con- which in 1979 referred to him as “one of Sun Myung Moon), to write its “investi- vinced many open-minded Americans to the most luminous young gadflies now gative” exposé on Hill. Brock’s article, reassess their thinking.”25 Of chief influ- singing in the American wilderness.”20 “The Real Anita Hill,” published in 1992, ence in the talk-radio world in the early (The Post dropped the column a few years portrayed Hill as a liar, incompetent, and 1990s was Rush Limbaugh, who seized later, when Tyrrell’s loyal support for the vengeful—infamously labeling her “a bit on Brock’s article, quoting long sections Reagan administration made for dull nutty, and a bit slutty”—as well as a pawn on the air to his estimated audience of writing.) of a liberal conspiracy against Thomas.21 14 million listeners26 (adding his own Spillman emphasizes that the Specta- Brock later recalled that his managing degrading speculations about Hill).27 tor was primarily enlisted in the “secular editor, Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, com- Limbaugh—who, like Tyrrell, came of culture wars,” writing in his dissertation mented in okaying the piece that, “All age in the late 1960s with a deep hostil- on the magazine that “it considered its women were ‘emotional’ and thus prone ity to Leftist youth activism—shared the gay and feminist opposition an extension to fabrication.” (More recently, President Spectator’s vitriolic and mocking style in of its war against student radicals… The Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly has re- his own attacks on “feminazis,” LGBTQ magazine saw itself as fighting a culture peatedly told aides that women are emo- people, and liberals.28 (Thomas himself war, not for religious values, but against tional.22) Stereotypes hyper-sexualizing listened regularly and approvingly to what it considered the values of 1960s Black women also played a part in selling Limbaugh’s show, and after meeting the student radicalism.” This approach the story. The Spectator issue with Brock’s radio star in 1994, officiated at his third helped the magazine appeal to a wider cover story featured a caricature of Hill, wedding.) swath of the conservative movement, African-American features heavily exag- Between January and December of including neoconservatives alienated by gerated. It sold out in a record two days.23 1992, the Spectator’s circulation jumped explicitly religious organizations, while “[T]he Thomas-Hill hearing was more from 30,000 to 114,000 subscribers.29 still appealing to the and ho- than a shocking media spectacle; it was (Other publications, like Reason, a lib- mophobia integral to the Christian Right. part of a broader struggle for political ertarian magazine founded in 1968, This version of misogyny diverges from power between and liber- shared in its good fortune by advertising

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 7 to its expanded reader base.) Pleszcynski reports that Spectator publisher Ron Burr woman with the audacity to become a opined to the National Journal: asked him jokingly, “Can’t you find any law professor in in the 1980s the magazine has tapped into “the more women to attack?”32 They found and ‘90s in her place. phenomenon that created Rush Lim- their target in —half of a baugh”—which the editor views as a couple whom the Spectator considered DATE RAPE AND DATE ROBBERY: THE long-overdue cultural response to lib- the 1960s generation of student radicals WORLD OF eral political correctness. This is the all grown up. By 1994, the Spectator was Since the 1990s, this sense of male main theme of a Spectator TV ad that outselling the conservative intellectual hostility and aggrieved entitlement has has run on Limbaugh’s television show; heavyweight journal, , been promoted by Dr. Warren Farrell, a young, well-dressed, professional- and observers took note of its path to suc- once a 1970s feminist and “men’s libera- looking woman declares of the maga- cess.33 “Is it a coincidence that the Spec- tion” activist who took a hard turn toward zine: “It’s so incorrect. I like that.”30 tator rocketed in popularity by targeting misogyny as he began to believe that men The frame of opposing political cor- first a woman who accused a man of sex- were the truly oppressed class. The shift began to be visible in his 1986 book, Why Men Are the Way They Are, but it was his 1993 The Myth of Male Power that laid the foundation for a new ideology of “men’s rights” and inspired a movement based on the notion of male victim- hood to balance out the women’s movement’s gains. (While ostensibly race-neutral, Farrell’s audience has been pri- marily White men.) Rejecting the exis- tence of a male-dom- inated society, Farrell instead claims men and women have been equally harmed by sex Warren Farrell leads a group of men protesting at a Women’s Strike For Equality demonstration (circa 1972). Photo: Wikimedia. roles: “Both sexes made themselves ‘slaves’ to the rectness was used by purveyors of mi- ual harassment and secondly a woman other sex in different ways.” But, Farrell sogynist and racist content in the 1990s who has made the First Lady post an un- writes, women were still better off. -Un including the Spectator, Limbaugh, and precedented seat of policy-making pow- der the traditional system of sex roles, he bestselling rightist books that came er?” asked the centrist National Journal. explains in an analogy that trivializes the out over the next couple years—such as Looking back on his work, Brock in- of slavery, “[t]he male role (out in Dinesh D’Souza’s 1991 Illiberal Educa- forms readers that the quotes in his ar- the field) is akin to the field slave—or the tion: The Politics of Sex and Race on Cam- ticle on Hill were suspect—not explicitly second-class slave,” while he views “the pus and Katie Roiphe’s 1993 The Morning made up, but rumor and spite published traditional female role (homemaker) [as] After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus. as fact. (Among them, Brock’s false im- akin to the house slave—the first-class Despite the young woman in the ad- plication that multiple sources had cor- slave.” vertisement, the Spectator’s misogyny roborated the claim that Hill had left pu- The influence of the right-wing- por appealed to very few women: its reader- bic hairs in the assignments of her male trayal of Anita Hill’s testimony on Farrell’s ship was 91 percent male.31 The maga- law students—a charge lobbed after Hill thinking is visible in a section primar- zine’s leadership continued to cater to accused Thomas of making his own com- ily drawn from Brock’s work, where 10 aggrieved male readers throughout its ment regarding pubic hair.) However, footnotes in a row cite The Real Anita Hill. heyday in the 1990s, when the magazine even Brock’s mea culpa failed to consider Farrell regurgitated the worst elements also received millions of dollars from how her identity made her a particular of the article, pointing to allegations conservative foundations. Its disparage- target of resentful men (especially for- that “Anita,” as he referred to Hill, was ment of Hill was so successful that Brock mer students) willing to lie to put a Black “untrustworthy, selfish, and extremely

8 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 bitter,” and an incompetent employee to describe women’s expectation that Myth of Male Power.35 In The Washington covering her inadequacy by falsely claim- men initiate physical intimacy—for sex- Post, Camille Paglia praised the book as ing sexual harassment. He repeats the ual violence. “If we want to stop date rape “the kind of original, abrasive, hereti- “pubic hair” accusation, and although by men, we have to also stop ‘date pas- cal text that is desperately needed to re- Brock has since admitted that this was sivity’ by women,” Farrell argues, deftly store fairness and balance to the present merely one aggrieved former student’s drawing upon half of a feminist critique ideology-sodden curriculum of women’s unverified claim, Farrell let it, and the of gender roles—that men are expected to studies courses.”36 Publishers Weekly add- debunked assertion that “many students initiate romantic and sexual behavior— ed, “While some feminists may assert have confirmed” it, remain in the 2014 while ignoring vital issues of consent and that it is an attack on women, the book ebook edition (which was elsewhere up- assuring men they aren’t responsible for attempts to show areas in which males dated to include changes to the text like a their actions. In this way, Farrell weaves operate at a disadvantage without claim- reference to Fifty Shades of Grey).34 a twisted version of feminist ideology ing that women are responsible for their Farrell writes that as the definition of throughout his book, strengthening its plight.”37 sexual harassment expanded—in his words, “to anything a woman defined as a ‘hostile work environment’”—“Men Farrell’s addiction framework lets men off the hook for were oblivious until the Clarence Thom- making their own decisions when it comes to sexual as hearings pulled their heads out of the sand: they saw that the definition of ha- violence and relocates the blame onto women for rassment had expanded to include dis- cultivating this disease. cussing pornography, telling a dirty joke, calling an employee ‘honey,’ or taking a longer look at a short skirt.” Warning appeal for readers unfamiliar with femi- Simon & Schuster, Myth’s publisher, that “One woman’s accusation of sexual nism who sense a ring of truth. followed up the next year with Chris- harassment can stop the government in In other places, he’s blunter, consis- tina Hoff Sommers’ Who Stole Feminism? its tracks (à la Anita Hill),” Farrell prom- tently trivializing rape and comparing it How Women Have Betrayed Women. Like ised his book would outline “the steps we to male disappointment, claiming that The Real Anita Hill, Sommers’ book was can take before we paint ourselves into a paying for a woman on a date—some- written with support from right-wing corner.” thing Farrell suggests calling “date rob- foundations (including the John M. Olin In everyday interactions as well as bery”—and then being “rejected [for Foundation and the Lynde and Harry grand political battles, Farrell saw women sex] can feel like the male version of date Bradley Foundation).38 In it, Sommers as wielding enormous power over men. rape.” “Feminism has taught women to coined the term “equity feminist” (also What kind of power? To Farrell it was a sue men for sexual harassment or date used by Paglia) to describe an ideologi- women’s “sex power” or “beauty pow- rape when men initiate with the wrong cal stance that claims to support equal er,” including the “secretary’s miniskirt timing,” he writes, but “no one has gender rights but rejects the existence power, cleavage power, and flirtation taught men to sue for sexual trauma for of structural oppression, aligning it with power”—something he saw as equivalent saying ‘yes,’ then ‘no,’ then ‘yes,’ then the men’s rights position and other liber- to (or greater than) that of the secretary’s ‘no.’” Elsewhere in the book, he contin- tarian philosophies.39 (The Independent male boss. He approvingly quotes one of ues the theme: “A man being sued after Women’s Forum, which emerged out of Hill’s colleagues saying, “Her flirtatious- a woman has more sex than intended female support for Clarence Thomas, dis- ness, her provocative manner of dress, is like Lay’s being sued after someone plays this type of ideological thinking.) was not sweet or sexy, it’s sort of angry, has more potato chips than intended. In Similarly to Farrell, Sommers challenges almost a weapon.” In his chapter on “The brief, date rape can be a crime, a misun- statistics regarding the extent of sexual Politics of Rape,” Farrell claims that rape derstanding, or buyer’s remorse.” (Rep- and physical , occurs because of men’s “addiction to fe- resentative of secular misogyny, Farrell’s emphasizes the specter of false accusa- male sexual beauty,” which women reap ideology pays little attention to abortion; tions, and denies the existence of con- the rewards of in getting men to pay for the most attention he gives to this occurs tinuing structural inequalities against and pursue them. Rejecting the feminist in section on “The Social Incentives for women. analysis of rape as a crime of power, Far- False Accusations,” in which he critiques rell’s addiction framework lets men off laws that only allow abortion in case of TRUMP, THE ALT RIGHT, AND the hook for making their own decisions rape or incest as pressuring women to CONTEMPORARY MISOGYNY when it comes to sexual violence and re- make false accusations.) The Myth of Male Power was not the only locates the blame onto women for culti- After falling out with the feminist book telling men what they want to hear: vating this disease. movement by the 1980s, following his that ignoring a woman’s verbal “no” is In another segment, Farrell blames from his first wife, Farrell- re acceptable because her “body language” women’s “date passivity”—a phrase used turned to the media spotlight with The tells them differently. The “seduction”

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 9 or “pickup artist” industry, which also erate element of the movement, differed might be going “too far” and courting a developed following the advances of the from communities like that backlash. When the concept of “back- , in its present form became politicized in Trump’s favor and lash” is used in this way, it is with little teaches men to use coercive behavior and saw support for Clinton as antithetical to understanding of how journalist Susan sexual assault (under other names) as a their ideology. However, Farrell has also Faludi and academics define the term: form of “game.” appeared on Alt Right White nationalist as an acknowledgment of how hostile In her book on right-wing media in the Lana Lokteff’s radio show, as have Chris- reactions can come in response to prog- United States, historian Nicole Hemmer tina Hoff Sommers and Paul Elam, a pro- ress for justice and equality—even when writes that “Rush Limbaugh topped polls tégé of Farrell and founder of the men’s that progress does not go as far as need- as the de facto leader of the Republican rights website (AVFM). ed. At the same time, hard-fought gains Party” in 2009—propelled there by his In a major step toward recognizing achieved by campus anti-rape advocates virulent rants against women, LGBTQ the threat posed by misogynist groups, under the Obama administration have people, and liberals. Though The Ameri- earlier this year, the Southern Poverty been rolled back by the Trump adminis- can Spectator and Limbaugh are no longer Law Center for the first time recognized tration and Secretary of Education Betsy as prominent, the misogyny they traf- two male supremacist organizations as DeVos, undermining survivors’ ability ficked in has only grown stronger. Since hate groups: AVFM and Return of Kings to pursue justice at their universities.44 the 1990s, this type of misogyny has (ROK). AVFM founder Paul Elam has The top Department of Education civil substantially influenced the conservative encouraged violence against women, rights official, Candice Jackson, - oper movement and proliferated through on- launched another website to facilitate ated as a mouthpiece for misogynist talk- line forums that together boast hundreds harassment of women, and engaged in ing points last year, defaming women of thousands of followers. Men’s rights virulent victim blaming and disparage- en masse as reckless liars out to destroy and pickup artist ideologies combined in ment of women. ROK, founded by Dary- men, in her statement claiming that “90 another community started in 2012 on ush Valizadeh (known as “.”), percent” of campus sexual violence ac- Reddit, r/TheRedPill, a thriving forum has called for repealing women’s suffrage cusations “fall into the category of, ‘we that promotes conspiracy theories about and the legalization of rape on private were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six feminist control of society; a smaller and property.41 months later I found myself under a Title recently banned forum, r/, catered Valizadeh has further blamed feminists IX investigation because she just decided to “involuntarily celibate” men who felt and progressives for recent acts of mass that our last sleeping together was not wronged by their lack of sexual access to violence perpetrated by “incels,” arguing quite right.’” attractive women. that these mass murders could have been From David Brock to Betsy DeVos, the The founder of The Red Pill, who went prevented by “encouraging [men] to learn mainstream media has regularly proven by the pseudonym “pk_atheist,” was re- game, seek out a Thai wife, or engage in willing to accept right-wing framing on vealed last year by The Daily Beast to be legalized prostitution.”42 Among these social justice issues and turn against vic- Republican state rep- attacks is that committed by 22-year-old tims. The expanded organization and de- resentative Robert Fisher, who used his Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in velopment of misogynist ideology in the political position to fight to undermine 2014 in Santa Barbara, claiming to seek 1990s in response to Anita Hill and femi- bills addressing violence against women. “retribution” against “evil and sadistic” nist challenges is integral to the results Misogyny was a defining feature of Don- women for not dating him. While his we’re seeing today: in the mobilization ald Trump’s presidential campaign, in words echo the rants of George Hennard, of predominantly White men in the Alt which he regularly insulted and objecti- who slaughtered 23 people amid the Right; the agenda of an administration fied women, and wherein his past boasts Anita Hill controversy, Rodger’s lengthy deeply sympathetic to White and male about grabbing women by their geni- autobiographical manifesto describes be- ; and the mindset of perpe- tals without consent didn’t cost him the ing influenced by the online misogynist trators of mass violence driven by resent- election. And the same misogyny, once forums that have popularized this hate- ment and anger toward women. again frequently defended as opposition ful ideology. Rodger in turn influenced Alex DiBranco is a sociology PhD candi- to political correctness, is a foundational subsequent mass murderers, including date at Yale University, writing her dis- part of the White supremacist Alt Right. Christopher Harper-Mercer, who killed sertation on the U.S. movement Though influenced by right-wing - mi nine people in in 2015, and Alek infrastructure from 1971-1997. She is a sogynist ideology, the men’s rights move- Minassian, who in 2018 cited Rodger and member of The Public Eye editorial board, ment appeals across party lines. Farrell the “ Rebellion” in a Facebook post formerly PRA’s Communications Director, considers himself a liberal Democrat and before plowing his vehicle into over two and currently a graduate policy fellow at 43 supported Clinton in 2016 despite be- dozen people in , killing 10. the Institute for Social and Policy Studies. ing turned off by her Although new and disturbing rev- and drawn to Trump’s comments about elations about prominent men keep her playing the “woman card.”40 In this surfacing as part of #MeToo, that hasn’t way, Farrell, seen today as a more mod- stopped suggestions that the movement

10 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 BY MELISSA GIRA GRANT

Beyond Strange Bedfellows How the “War on Trafficking” Was Made to Unite the Left and Right

President signs H.R. 1865 (FOSTA) into law, 2018. Photo: Office of Congresswoman Ann Wagner.

ix months into the , then sex trade. This commerce in human dren worldwide have sex with strangers President George W. Bush ad- life generates billions of dollars each only because someone kidnaps them and dressed the United Nations Gen- year—much of which is used to finance threatens to kill them,” argued a feature eral Assembly.1 “Events during organized crime. There’s a special evil story in Christianity Today published that Sthe past two years have set before us the in the abuse and exploitation of the same fall of 2003, already inflating the clearest of divides,” Bush declared, “be- most innocent and vulnerable. figures Bush quoted at the UN.3 “You may tween those who seek order, and those Terrorism was the work of “evil,” Bush have passed some of these victims on the who spread chaos; between those who had said long before—now, a new crime street,” the story warned. Like terrorism, work for peaceful change, and those who would join his index of evil: human traf- this “hidden” evil was now close to home. adopt the methods of gangsters.” On the ficking.2 The link between the two may The story of as side of chaos and gangsterism, he con- have been lost in the moment; terror, President Bush told it in 2003 has tinued, were terrorists. But he didn’t stop “weapons of mass destruction,” and then become the dominant narrative found in there: President Saddam Hussein were still the media accounts, activist campaigns, and There’s another humanitarian cri- star of the show. But for the policymak- fundraising appeals to this day. But Bush sis spreading, yet hidden from view. ers, diplomats, and advocates who had didn’t craft this story; he merely delivered Each year, an estimated 800,000 to been fighting for years to get human traf- it. Its characters and moral dilemma were 900,000 human beings are bought, ficking a prime place on the global stage, shaped by a relatively small group of sold or forced across the world’s bor- Bush’s declaration was a major win. political influencers on the Right—with ders. Among them are hundreds of Bush was, in some ways, merely tak- dreams of organizing Christian activists thousands of teenage girls, and others ing the national temperature of his base. around winnable social issues—and their as young as five, who fall victim to the “Each year, two million women and chil- newfound allies: liberal feminists whose

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 11 longtime opposition to prostitution and ing religious and secular leaders. He had rights’ work and put a moral spin on traf- pornography had, by the turn of the 21st envisioned a coalition like this before he ficking that reinforced a particular- con century, fallen far down the women’s zeroed in on trafficking as the cause—the ception of sexuality.” rights agenda. What both groups sought, vehicle—that could achieve it. He’d tried The movement to combat human traf- from different ends of the political before, in 1998, when he helped pass ficking, as conceived by Horowitz, would spectrum, was a chance to adopt a new the International Religious Freedom Act use that “moral spin” to attract more con- identity: neither preachers nor scolds, (IRFA), to protect the human rights of servatives to this “human rights” cause. but defenders of human rights. persecuted Christians outside the Unit- Allen D. Hertzke, a religion and politics scholar at the , says from their first meeting in 1998, The prevailing narrative about “human trafficking” Horowitz encouraged him to “be the chronicler of the movement,” includ- was shaped by a relatively small group of political ing the passage of the landmark TVPA, influencers on the Right who had dreams of organizing in order to make trafficking into a major Christian activists around winnable social issues. issue. “The legislative campaign built upon the earlier alliance against per- secution,” as Horowitz worked to fur- Together, this new coalition popular- ed States, with support from Rep. Chris ther his goal of Right/Left consensus, ized the anti-trafficking fight as a moral Smith (R-NJ).5 At the time, Horowitz Hertzke writes in his book, Freeing God’s crusade on par with the abolition of saw the religious freedom issue as one Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global slavery in the United States, even adopt- that could galvanize Christians to politi- Human Rights. In May 1999, “in a hide- ing its language: abolition. And the “cri- cal action in the name of human rights, away room in the U.S. Capitol,” Hertzke sis” Bush placed on the world’s stage in without appearing as stereotypical moral continues, Horowitz convened a strategy March 2003 became an opportunity: to scolds. “Horowitz has almost single- meeting, which Charles Colson opened change their image, and to build a broad- handedly transformed persecution of with a prayer.7 er consensus, from Right to Left, that Christians into a major issue,” deemed Also in attendance, Hertzke writes, both recognized their moral authority in 1997.6 were some familiar conservative faces: and widened their appeal. And so they Not long after, he envisioned the fight Rep. Smith and House Majority Leader began, first by declaring war on what against human trafficking as another Dick Armey (R-TX), who promised to came to be known as “human traffick- joint cause, framing the terms of the get a vote on Smith’s trafficking legisla- ing,” and then by dedicating themselves battle so as to best draw disparate groups tion, as well as conservative pundit and to defining what this war would mean so together. From the beginning, he saw former Education Secretary William that their aims and authority were always the anti-trafficking issue as an opportu- Bennett, Richard Land of the Southern at its center. nity he offered to lobbyists, politicians, Baptist Convention, and Richard Cizik and the media—a chance to be on the of the National Association of Evangeli- UNITING THE BUNNY AND THE right side of history. “Don’t try to join the cals. But there was also David Saperstein, HATCHET MAN establishment,” he said then. “Let them a prominent liberal rabbi (about whom “You’ve got soccer moms and Southern join you.” Horowitz joked, “David’s constituency Baptists, the National Organization for He would use the same appeals to hu- pays him to right the Christian Right, but Women and the National Association of man rights he’d employed for the IRFA to with considerable courage he took on the Evangelicals on the same side of the is- push the Trafficking Victims Protection persecution issue”), and Laura Lederer, a sue,” Michael Horowitz, senior fellow Act (TVPA), again working with Con- veteran women’s rights advocate and, at and director at the Hudson Institute, told gressman Smith. “The sexual component the time, a convert to the anti-trafficking Bob Jones at World magazine in 2002.4 of trafficking, rather than its coercive -na fight. “Gloria Steinem and Chuck Colson to- ture, was what attracted Smith and other Lederer would be central to Horow- gether.” conservatives to the issue,” observed itz’s mission to transform trafficking into Today, nearly 20 years have passed Alicia W. Peters, an anthropologist at “the human rights issue of our times.” He since Horowitz managed to align one- the University of New England. “For con- would use her, Hertzke recounted, “to time Playboy Club muckraker Steinem servative Christians and evangelicals, get women’s groups behind the effort.” with Nixon’s “dirty tricks” man Colson the issue of trafficking, and sex traffick- Lederer thought Equality Now would be under the banner of fighting human traf- ing in particular, was an example of de- the best group to recruit: through their ficking. But the fact of these “strange praved moral behavior that violated the connection to Gloria Steinem, perhaps bedfellows” coming together despite principle that sex should be reserved for she could use her influence to bring other their differences isn’t the whole story. marriage between a man and a woman… prominent feminists into the trafficking From the outset, Horowitz’s goal was to Debates around the TVPA became a way fight. “That is,” writes Hertzke, “in fact, unite conservatives and liberals, includ- for conservatives to engage in ‘human what happened.”

12 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 As a Bush administration official Horowitz’s network of religious right in- “forced prostitution”—distinct from once characterized Lederer’s new ally in fluencers, she found a new set of allies the broader category of all prostitution Washington to The American Prospect, willing to prioritize these issues as they and sex work—would be defined as traf- “Horowitz is the Charlie to their An- made their own claim to human rights ficking. This incensed the Horowitz- co gels.”8 Alongside Lederer, he attracted defense. alition, from abolitionists like Jessica Donna M. Hughes, a contributor to the Organizations like Equality Now, Neuwirth to Religious Right figures like National Review and a chair of women’s writes Barnard women’s studies and soci- Charles Colson. studies at the University of Rhode Is- ology professor Elizabeth Bernstein, be- Colson and William Bennett took to The land. Like Lederer—editor of the 1982 lieved that by moving the field of debate Wall Street Journal to lay the blame with book Take Back the Night: Women on Por- on prostitution and pornography to “hu- then–First Lady Hillary Clinton, who, in nography—Hughes was a veteran of the man rights,” they could finally emerge her role as honorary chairwoman of the feminist anti-pornography cause. She from the contentious sex wars victorious. President’s Interagency Council on Wom- was also a neoconservative. Since 9/11, In the “humanitarian terrain,” Bernstein en, had participated with the U.S. State Hughes had entreated fellow feminists to writes, “the abolitionist constituency Department in the UN trafficking negoti- look to the Right as allies on causes such was more likely to prevail.”12 In seeking ations. Neuwirth drafted other feminists as “Islamic fundamentalism” and “anti- support for their rebranded anti-prosti- to sign a group letter challenging the U.S. Zionism.” As she argued in a Washington tution politics, such organizations would to drop the “forced” from “forced prosti- Post op-ed exchange with feminist activ- answer Horowitz’s call. tution,” arguing, “The position taken by ist : the administration suggests you do not In the past, when faced with choosing FROM THE WHITE HOUSE TO THE consider prostitution of others to be a allies, feminists made compromises. “WHOREHOUSE” form of sexual exploitation… The defini- To gain the support of the liberal left, At the close of the Clinton administra- tion would not only fail to protect a sub- feminists acquiesced in the exploita- tion, these newfound allies faced their stantial number of trafficking victims, it tion of women in the pornography first public test of unity. would also shield many traffickers in the trade—in the name of free speech. Between 1999 and 2000, as the Horow- global sex trade from prosecution.”14 The issue of abortion has prevented itz coalition gathered steam, the United Many leading feminists signed, includ- most feminists from considering work- States took a lead role in developing what ing National Organization for Women ing with conservative or faith-based would become the United Nations’ “Pro- President Patricia Ireland; Planned Par- groups. Feminists are right to support tocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish enthood President Gloria Feldt; Frances and sexual auton- Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free omy for women, but they should stop and Children,” which was signed by 80 Choice; , co-executive demonizing the conservative and faith- based groups that could be better allies on some issues than the liberal left has Horowitz envisioned a coalition like this before he been… Human rights work is not the zeroed in on trafficking as the vehicle to achieve it. province of any one ideology. Saving lives and defending freedom are more important than loyalty to an outdated countries in December 2000.13 From the director of the Coalition Against Traf- and too-limited feminist sisterhood.9 beginning, debates about what constitut- ficking in Women; Julia Scott, president This line of argument wasn’t unique to ed human trafficking consumed months of the National Black Women’s Health neoconservatives like Hughes who were of meetings, as recounted by trafficking Project; president of Feminist Majority seeking new ground on which to reposi- researcher Jo Doezema in her 2010 book, Foundation Eleanor Smeal; and activists tion their anti-prostitution politics as hu- Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters. and Gloria Steinem. man rights concerns. It was also the po- Over two years of negotiations, del- Though aligned in purpose with the sition of Equality Now, an international egates heard from anti-trafficking advo- Religious Right leaders, the abolition- women’s rights organization that cam- cates who urged a rights-based response ists were careful to say they didn’t blame paigned to expand laws against prostitu- that differentiated between sex work and Clinton herself; Equality Now followed tion in the United States and abroad.10 human trafficking, while other groups, its first letter with a statement that Col- The group’s founder, Jessica Neuwirth, like the Coalition Against Trafficking in son and Bennett’s criticism of the U.S. had once worked at Amnesty Interna- Women, argued that human trafficking government was “an attempted manipu- tional, and she was quick to admit to and prostitution were inseparable and re- lation of feminist leaders as a political that she’d modeled quired a tough criminal justice response ploy to attack Hillary Clinton.” Yet Clin- Equality Now in its image.11 But she’d left they defined as “abolitionist.” ton remained a target throughout fur- Amnesty frustrated that they didn’t focus At first, the United States leaned- to ther contentious debates over the defini- enough on women’s issues like female ward the rights-based response, and tion of trafficking. When it covered the genital mutilation and prostitution. In supported the draft language that only debate, The New York Post headlined its

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 13 story, “‘Hooker Panel’ Puts First Lady on 22 (NSPD-22), defining human traffick- security issue.19 In 2001, Lederer was ap- the Spot.”15 ing as a priority issue of national secu- pointed as a deputy senior advisor to the The same group of abolitionists rity and holding that “The policy of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and pressed Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), United States is to attack vigorously the Combat Trafficking in Persons; the- fol who first introduced a more comprehen- worldwide problems of trafficking in lowing year, under Lederer’s influence, sive trafficking bill in 1999, to separate persons, using law enforcement efforts, Bush issued NSPD-22. human trafficking into “labor traffick- diplomacy, and all other appropriate “This administration is saying you can- ing”—defined as the use of force, fraud, tools.”17 Four paragraphs of NSPD-22 not clean [sex work] up,” Lederer told or coercion to compel labor—and “sex remain classified, but what was public World magazine in 2002, a few months trafficking,” which would not require defined trafficking as a “transnational after Bush signed NSPD-22. “It can never the presence of force, fraud, or coer- threat”—and one defined as related to be a legitimate way to make a living be- cion, thus mirroring the definition they sex work alone. cause it’s inherently harmful for men, pushed for the UN protocol to adopt. Our policy is based on an abolition- women, and children. It goes in the op- When he would not, Clinton was ist approach to trafficking in persons, posite direction of President Bush’s pro- blamed for that as well. In an interview and our efforts must involve a -com woman, pro-family, human-rights agen- with anthropologist Alicia W. Peters, prehensive attack on such trafficking, da.” a congressional staffer at that time- re which is a modern day form of slavery. NSPD-22 was a validation of Lederer’s called, “It was this incredible, you know, In this regard, the United States Gov- own mission to cast the fight against ‘Hillary has a whorehouse’ [thing.]” The ernment opposes prostitution and any trafficking as a fight against sex work. “I staffer, “Megan,” continued, “Now you related activities, including pimping, think I’m safe in saying that many of the kind of forget, but in that period…the pandering, or maintaining brothels, organizations taking the lead in the early right wing rhetoric was really ramping as contributing to the phenomenon of days in the UN and in other world arenas up and it was extreme… It was about sex, trafficking in persons. These activities were comfortable talking about one kind and it was about rape, and it was about… are inherently harmful and dehuman- of trafficking—labor trafficking—and women’s virtue, and if you had the labor izing. The United States Government’s then addressing sex trafficking as a sub- definition then you were…complicit in position is that these activities should set of labor trafficking,” Lederer said at a the rape of thousands of young girls.”16 not be regulated as a legitimate form of 2005 Commission on the Status of Wom- TVPA was signed into law in the final work for any human being. en briefing in Washington.20 months of the Clinton administration, Sex work, the directive argued, was “We saw it as a degradation of the on October 28, 2000, as part of the Vic- not only the sole factor responsible for most intimate act between a man and a tims of Trafficking and Violence Protec- driving trafficking, but opposing it—in woman,” Lederer continued. “We saw it tion Act. In a compromise, the bill split any form—was necessary for a “compre- as encouraging exploitation and abuse of trafficking into “labor trafficking” and hensive attack” on trafficking. females and contributing to dysfunction- “sex trafficking,” but it maintained a Donna Hughes was one of the anti-traf- al families. We felt it was linked to public “force, fraud, or coercion” definition for ficking advocates who noticed NSPD-22. and private health crises, and, last but both. The victory elated the coalition of Before the House Committee on Foreign not least, we believed it fueled human religious conservatives and feminist abo- Relations in October 2002, Hughes ex- trafficking. We wanted a new policy that litionists, but it worried other progres- plicitly linked the case for fighting traf- reflected these concerns.” sives. “[C]onservative and evangelical ficking and fighting sex work. “Traffick- Though NSPD-22 ostensibly addresses movements were becoming much more ing is a modern form of slavery,” Hughes trafficking as a national security issue, successful in human rights issues,” the testified, employing what was -becom Lederer and Hughes understood it as a congressional staffer, Megan, told- Pe ing a conventional metaphor among policy to support the continued crimi- ters. “And there was a real concern that many anti-trafficking advocates. “To not nalization of sex work. “A conservative they were capturing this major issue, and understand the relationship between Republican president of the United States not just as a kind of ‘oh, it’s ours,’ but also prostitution and trafficking is like not had issued a policy consistent with both that they were going to redefine it.” understanding the relationship between radical on prostitution slavery in the Old South and the kidnap- and sexual exploitation,” Hughes later NSPD-22 ping of victims in Africa and the transat- wrote, “and conservative, religious phi- A year before his 2003 UN speech, lantic shipment of them to our shores.”18 losophy of protecting human dignity.”21 President Bush had already declared war As a prominent conservative, Hughes on human trafficking—in harsher terms was closer to the Bush administration THE GLOBAL SHERIFF than he’d use at the General Assembly— than other feminists involved in anti- Though couched in humanitarian though few outside the anti-trafficking trafficking movements. But it was Laura terms, the war on trafficking has done policy world had taken notice. Lederer, Hughes would later argue, who less to protect human rights than to em- On February 25, 2002, Bush signed ultimately convinced the Bush adminis- power law enforcement on the global National Security Presidential Directive tration to regard trafficking as a national stage. The Trafficking Victims Protection

14 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 Act, while defining trafficking as a crime trafficking fight, whether by “work[ing] ensure that pimps and brothel owners under U.S. law, is also a tool for shap- to ‘empower’ victims of trafficking rath- don’t become, via an NGO that supports ing trafficking policy in other countries. er than rescue them” or “support[ing] such exploitation, U.S. government part- It elevates the U.S. to the role of “global unionizing prostitutes as the solution to ners.”30 In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court sheriff,”22 writes Janie Chuang, an asso- trafficking.” ruled that to require U.S.-based NGOs to ciate professor at ’s Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) el- sign the pledge was a violation of their law school. evated these claims in debates over the constitutional right to free speech.31 But TVPA “establishes a sanctions regime,” Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, NGOs outside the U.S. had no such pro- writes Chuang. If the United States be- Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act (which tection. lieves a country is failing to comply with created PEPFAR, the President’s Emer- its “minimum standards for the elimina- gency Plan for AIDS Relief). Smith pro- “AMERICA’S CHILDREN” AND BEYOND tion of trafficking,” then the U.S. may posed that in order to qualify for PEPFAR “It was as if God whispered in my ear, withdraw aid to that country. The TVPA funds, non-governmental organizations ‘Touch her for Me,’” said Linda Smith, created the U.S. State Department’s Of- must adopt an explicit policy opposing recalling her formative encounter with fice to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in prostitution. Congresswoman Barbara a young woman in the Mumbai brothel Persons, which each year issues its “Traf- Lee (D-CA), who helped write PEPFAR, district in 1998.32 Smith, who was then ficking In Persons” or TIP report, as the opposed Smith’s amendment. “I’ll never serving in the U.S. House of Representa- primary mechanism for judging foreign forget that day,” said Lee.27 “We thought tives, often describes this as the moment governments’ compliance with U.S. anti- we had the votes to pass [PEPFAR] based her career was born again.33 trafficking policy. The aim of the report on negotiations, but then Chris Smith The woman who entered Congress as isn’t just to document compliance but offers this—what did he call it? -A con part of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Republican to publicly shame countries into doing science clause. This was the start of this Revolution,” and was once named the more to “combat trafficking.” “We’ve got to push them very hard,” Horowitz said in 2004. “That’s one of Smith’s advocacy rests in decidedly anti-feminist the great things about being a superpow- notions of gender roles and family structure. er.”23 (Meanwhile, the U.S. only began evaluating itself in the 2010 TIP report.) “The stigma of the scorecard makes anti-prostitution clause.” PEPFAR did House’s “farthest Right of the Right,”34 states change their behavior,” writes Ju- pass, but with Smith’s amendment, en- responded by turning her attention away dith G. Kelley in Scorecard Diplomacy: shrining what came to be known as “the from Washington, D.C. and toward com- Grading States to Influence Their Reputa- anti-prostitution loyalty oath” or simply bating trafficking. She founded Shared tion and Behavior. No TIP report has been “the pledge” into U.S. law. Hope International to carry out her released without provoking controversy. Notice of the new policy came in Janu- mission—rooted in her conversion mo- Scholars have noted the methods used ary 2003 in a cable from Colin Powell.28 ment in India, but aimed at children in by the State Department to collect anti- The policy stated that “organizations ad- the United States. Smith’s turn to what trafficking data are inconsistent and that vocating prostitution as an employment she calls “domestic minor sex traffick- the politics behind TIP compromise its choice or which advocate or support the ing” represents another evolution in the credibility. “[T]he TIP Report weaves a legalization of prostitution are not ap- Horowitz coalition’s Right/Left appeal. simple—and ultimately comforting— propriate partners” for the U.S. govern- Smith is a fitting bridge figure for the tale of trafficking being about bad people ment anti-trafficking grants. future of the Horowitz coalition. “She’s doing bad things to good people,” wrote The pledge didn’t just cost aid organi- the leader of a movement that opposes Anne T. Gallagher, a criminal justice and zations desperately needed funding, but nearly everything feminists support,” The human rights scholar, in 2015. “It fails led to a global chilling effect. By 2004, Seattle Times wrote of her early career in to seriously interrogate the deep econo- how program officers, field workers, and Washington state politics. “But she’s also my of human exploitation—to ask what human-rights advocates felt about pros- a strong woman who could be mistaken would happen to global wealth and pro- titution had “become a litmus test for for a feminist.”35 Smith came into politics ductivity if such exploitation were sud- the Bush administration,” reported Tara through ’s , denly removed.”24 McKelvey in The American Prospect. An and Smith and Schlafly still moved in the The original Horowitz-convened al- NGO worker summarized the U.S. line on same circles as recently as 2011, when, liance took issue with the TIP report as prostitution to her in terms familiar dur- at the Values Voter Summit Schlafly key- well. Donna Hughes protested25 in 2002 ing the Bush era: “You’re either with us or noted, and Smith gave a talk promoting that it didn’t sufficiently punish -coun you’re against us.”29 Shared Hope’s model trafficking legisla- tries that don’t criminalize prostitution, Congressman Smith continued to tion framework, called “Saving America’s and complained26 that the U.S. was still claim, well into the Obama administra- Children from Pimps and Perverts: The funding groups who compromised the tion, that the pledge was “designed to Protected Innocence Initiative.”36 Smith’s

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 15 advocacy has a maternal feel; it rests in The disparate groups Horowitz gath- movement’s platform goals. Clinton, ac- decidedly anti-feminist notions of gen- ered continue to vie for influence and cording to an email later published by der roles and family structure. Before an resources over what it meant to combat Wikileaks, said, “I support the idea of audience at the , trafficking. Congressman Chris Smith it. I’m not sure exactly how you would Smith once described a young woman remains in Washington, still working, implement it.” She added, “there is a dif- she had personally “saved,” saying the as advocates noted in February 2018, to ference between an adult sex worker and woman had been “vulnerable” to traffick- insert the anti-prostitution pledge into a child trafficked into being a sex worker, ers because her mother worked two jobs, new legislation. According to some ad- so you cannot just make a blanket state- and her “daddy…wasn’t there.”37 vocates, Smith is at odds with Sen. Bob ment, you have to figure out what the dif- Shared Hope’s method of activism was Corker, the architect of the global fund to ferent work situations are.” to test its anti-trafficking projects inter- “end modern-day slavery,” which is pos- Donna Hughes, the longtime anti- nationally,38 and then bring them back to sibly modeled on the Global Fund to Fight trafficking leader, was among the first the United States to target “domestic mi- AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Smith people on social media to share the story, nor” trafficking. To create political pres- considers anti-trafficking his issue. It’s which appeared to prove that Hughes had sure on “domestic minor sex trafficking,” this fund that announced not, in fact, been wrong nearly 20 years Shared Hope promotes its annual traf- at the United Nations in 2017, serving as earlier, when she claimed that Clinton ficking report card, prepared in collabo- the de facto head of anti-trafficking work saw sex work and trafficking as distinct ration with the American Center for Law under her father’s administration (usu- concerns. and Justice, one of the key legal advocacy ally a job reserved for the State Depart- But the same 20 years have only fur- groups on the Christian Right, with an ment). Her “braintrust” is stacked with ther eroded such nuanced perspectives anti-LGBTQ, anti-Islam agenda. The current and former staffers of Interna- in terms of policies that link sex work report card evaluates U.S. states as the tional Justice Mission, the Christian anti- and trafficking. In April 2018, - Presi State Department TIP report judges oth- trafficking NGO and a Horowitz ally from dent Trump signed the Fight Online Sex er countries. As the Horowitz coalition the late 1990s which has worked with the Trafficking Act (FOSTA), expanding the worked to link trafficking with prostitu- Department of Justice. century-old White Slave Traffic Act to tion internationally, Smith’s group links Meanwhile, Chris Smith and Lederer include websites used by sex workers, trafficking to domestic prostitution. By continue to find new angles on the anti- so that state attorneys general can bring expanding her anti-trafficking focus to trafficking fight. In 2017, they spoke at a suits against such websites. Almost im- “saving America’s children from pimps UN General Assembly side event, “Slave mediately after the legislation passed and perverts,” she has also elevated her Trade in Minors in the Digital Age,” Congress, websites sex workers rely on profile. In 2017, Smith campaigned, un- sponsored by C-FAM, one of two right- to work in relative safety began going successfully, to be appointed Ambassa- wing organizations President Donald offline for fear of being targeted in new dor at Large to Combat Trafficking in Per- Trump selected to represent the U.S. at prosecutions. Since then, sex workers sons.39 (At present, President Trump has the 2017 UN Commission on the Status report that they are no longer able to announced his intent to nominate for- of Women.42 use websites to share information about mer federal prosecutor John Cotton Rich- The Coalition Against Trafficking in abusive customers,44 and that abusive mond to head the TIP office. Richmond Women remains active in U.S. traffick- customers they had once refused have re- was also once the India field director for ing politics, defending Rep. Smith’s anti- turned45 to take advantage of their newly International Justice Mission, a Christian prostitution pledge against its 2013 chal- precarious position. The groups leading anti-trafficking organization.40) lenge at the U.S. Supreme Court. Most the charge for FOSTA include the Coali- The Horowitz coalition has evolved, recently, CATW has lobbied Congress, tion Against Trafficking in Women and now that his goal of claiming human with the National Center on Sexual Ex- Shared Hope International. The Horow- rights for the Religious Right has found a ploitation (formerly Morality in Media) itz coalition has proven itself to be the new generation. As described by sociolo- and Shared Hope International, to focus first successful moral entrepreneurs of gist Elizabeth Bernstein, members of this anti-trafficking laws on men who buy the war to combat human trafficking. new generation “do not identify with the sex. Melissa Gira Grant is a senior reporter at Christian right at all, but rather describe Hillary Clinton, the coalition’s one- The Appeal and the author of Playing the themselves as Christian ‘moderates,’ and time target, was again criticized over her Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso). in some cases, even as Christian progres- stance on trafficking during her 2016 She has covered sex work and human traf- 41 sives.” Combating trafficking is one presidential campaign. In October 2016, ficking for the Village Voice, The Nation, way for them, Bernstein says, to “not just weeks before the election, right- and Pacific Standard, among other pub- 43 only embrace the languages of women’s wing blogs spread the news that Clin- lications. Follow her at melissagiragrant. rights and social justice but [also take] ton had been asked, during a closed-door com and on Twitter @melissagira. deliberate steps to distinguish their work meeting with Black Lives Matter activists from the sexual politics of other conser- in 2015, whether she supported the de- vative Christians.” criminalization of sex work—one of the

16 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 BY MARGARET POWER

Trump, the Republican Party, and Westmoreland County

The “Trump House,” Pennsylvania, March 2018. Photo: Courtesy of the author. ennsylvania was key to Westmoreland County.4 The county is of Greensburg, but they might be famil- Trump’s presidential victo- now solidly red, but it hasn’t always been. iar with its neighbor, Latrobe, the home ry, Westmoreland County I grew up in Westmoreland County in the of Mr. Rogers, Arnold Palmer, and Roll- was key to Pennsylvania, 1960s and ‘70s, and despite my mother ing Rock beer. “Pand District 7 was key to Westmoreland being a loyal, committed Republican, From the late 1880s to the 1920s, County.”1 Whether District 7 and West- the county was solidly blue. When elec- Westmoreland County was coal country. moreland County were as central to the tions came around, my mother would The world’s richest seam of bituminous 2016 election as Paul Verostko, Presi- ask, “Why do I even bother to vote? The coal—used to make coke—ran through dent of District 7’s Republican Party, Democrats always win!” southwestern Pennsylvania. Coke was claims, one thing is certain: the area is When and why Westmoreland County critical to fueling the steel mills that Trump territory. In March 2018, Verost- switched from a Democratic Party bas- sprung up in and along the ko invited me to meet him at “the Trump tion to a Republican stronghold is a com- Monongahela River Valley. Steel—as House.” Local Republican Leslie Rossi plicated question. To start to find the Trump’s 2016 campaign promises ham- had opened the house in mid-2016,2 not answer, it helps to look back to when the mered home—was the exemplary and only as a visible display of her support region’s party orientation first shifted the essential product of an industrializing for the Republican candidate but also as other way. United States. a key distribution center for Trump gear. Henry Frick, Andrew Carnegie, and The house had “all the Trump materials WESTMORELAND COUNTY: Andrew Mellon—all names associated you could imagine: hats, flags, t-shirts, A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW with elite academic and cultural insti- bumper stickers,” Verostko told me, and Westmoreland County is one of 10 tutions today—amassed huge fortunes visitors could pick any four items, “All for counties that make up southwestern from their ownership of or investment free, no charge.”3 Pennsylvania. On a good day, Greens- in the coal, coke, and steel industries. In the 2016 presidential election, Don- burg, the county seat, is about a 30-min- Frick, born and raised in Westmoreland ald Trump obtained 63.5 percent of the ute drive southeast of Pittsburgh. Most County, was known as the “Coke King” vote to Hillary Clinton’s 32.5 percent in people outside the area have never heard because he was the single largest owner

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 17 of coke ovens in the area. When he died 1930, they were desperate. The New Deal parks to attract smaller companies. To- in 1919, he was worth what would be Programs of the Roosevelt administra- day 18 industrial parks dot the county, $3.9 billion in today’s money. Frick’s tion altered the economic and political providing 9,000 nonunionized jobs.6 wealth, like Carnegie’s and Mellon’s, re- landscape. The 1933 National Industrial Between 1990 and 2000 the economy sulted from the exploited labor of coal Recovery Act gave workers the right to improved. New sources of employment miners who burrowed deep underground collective bargaining and the Civilian in information, health care, services, and the workers who then distilled that Conservation Corps and Works Progress and education opened. Employment coal into coke. Administration offered jobs and govern- rates increased, more women entered Tens of thousands of Catholic immi- ment funding. The Subsistence Home- the workforce, salaries rose, and many grants from Southern and Eastern Europe steads Division established settlements household incomes increased by 44 per- streamed into southwestern Pennsylva- offering housing, work, and dignity to cent. Nonetheless, 14 municipalities ex- nia to labor in the coal and coke indus- the jobless and their families, such as the perienced growing poverty.7 tries in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Westmoreland community of Norvelt, Westmoreland County was predomi- Forced to live in company towns (known named for EleaNOR RooseVELT. nantly White in the 20th century and locally as patch communities) attached As a result of the New Deal, people’s remains so today. According to the 2010 to the mines and coke ovens, the men lives gradually improved and their voting census, 95.3 percent of the population worked long, dangerous hours for very patterns shifted. The Democratic Party is White, and in some small towns that little pay. The women struggled to keep welcomed Eastern and Southern Catho- figure rises to 99 percent or higher. At their families fed and clothed in the face lic Europeans into the party, beginning just 2.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respec- of highly adverse conditions. Together, their assimilation into White America tively, Black or mixed-race residents just they supported the United Mine Workers’ and obtaining their political loyalty for make it into single digit figures, while call for unionization that helped make decades. In 1932 Westmoreland Coun- Asians and Latinos each account for less the region strongly pro-union for most of ty voted Democrat in the presidential than 1 percent of the population. the 20th century and, in some pockets, elections, according to Westmoreland Westmoreland’s fate was similar to still today. County Court House records, and con- most U.S. industrial centers. As factories The 1920s witnessed a resurgence tinued doing so until the 2000 election and ancillary industries closed, union of the Ku Klux Klan, with an estimated of George W. Bush, albeit at a declining jobs and membership plunged, and four to six million Americans identify- rate and with the exception of the 1972 workers who had found comradeship in ing themselves as members of this White election of , who captured their workplaces and union halls found supremacist organization. A quarter-of- a majority of votes there. themselves not just unemployed, but no a-million Klan members lived in Penn- Voting Democratic also meant belong- longer part of a group with a common sylvania, and the southwest corner of the ing to or supporting unions. However, identity and shared purpose. They also state saw more than its share of Klan ac- the closure of industrial sites and the loss lost the affective community that had tivity,5 which frequently targeted Catho- of union jobs inevitably led to a decline sustained them for decades. lic immigrants. The Klan, like many in union membership there and across In its place, smaller, non-unionized Americans, defined the country as White the United States. During the 1980s, workplaces filled the void, as have the and Protestant, and feared the growing the massive steel mills in Pittsburgh Protestant megachurches that now at- Catholic population threatened the na- and the Monongahela River Valley shut- tract thousands across the county. The tion’s identity and their own position tered. When the Wheeling-Pittsburgh new jobs may pay better, the work may within it. Most of the immigrants spoke Steel plant in Monessen, Westmoreland even be less difficult, but the esprit de little to no English and lived in semi-iso- County, closed in 1986, 800 people lost corps that had bound the industrialized lated, impoverished communities sur- their jobs. The small town of Jeanette was workers to each other, their community, rounding the mines and factories where the “Glass Capital of the World,” until its and the Democratic Party is gone, if not they worked. glass production factories closed in the entirely for their generation, then almost Voters in Pennsylvania cast their bal- 1980s. Another blow to organized la- completely for their children. lots for Republicans for the first third of bor came when the Volkswagen factory, the 20th century, and Westmoreland which employed over 2,500 laborers, THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY was a reliable part of that trend. The De- closed in 1988. The economic picture in When I was growing up, I associated pression and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Westmoreland County became bleak. Westmoreland’s Republican Party with changed that. The mining and coke in- County commissioners responded the “old” families in Greensburg: the dustries were the largest source of em- with economic restructuring, creating country club set that golfed together, ployment in the county in the 1920s. Yet, the Westmoreland County Industrial De- rode horses for sport, and attended the the glut of laborers meant that mining velopment Corporation (WCIDC), which Golden Cup Steeplechase races at the and coke families suffered under- or un- recommended that banking on large in- Rolling Rock Club, on the Mellon estate employment and declining wages even dustrial enterprises was futile, and the in Ligonier. They belonged to the same prior to the economic crash in 1929. By county should instead create industrial bridge or ladies’ clubs, drove the most ex-

18 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 pensive cars, and lived in the big houses. Gowaty, like so many Republicans, solidified by 2016. Mellon money has directly influenced bought into Reagan’s fallacy about poor John Boyle, a Democratic attorney born political attitudes in Westmoreland people, especially African Americans, and raised in Westmoreland County, ran County for the last half-century. In 1969 and welfare. Reagan famously created, for Pennsylvania State Representative Richard Mellon Scaife, a major right-wing then denounced, the mythical “Welfare in 2008. During the primaries, while financier of conservative think tanks and Queen”: a Black woman from knocking on the doors of loyal Demo- organizations, purchased the Greens- who drove a Cadillac and paid for her gro- crats, he remembers that many constitu- burg Tribune-Review and other smaller ceries with food stamps. Reagan and his ents asked whether he supported Hillary papers in the area. He also launched the party further proclaimed that Democrats Clinton, or “that n****r.”9 Obama won Pittsburgh Tribune-Review to counter the sponsor programs for lazy chiselers, the primaries nationally but lost to Clin- pro-Democratic Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. which hard-working White taxpayers ton in Westmoreland County. And in No- Between 1992 and 2012, Mellon Scaife end up funding. In fact, more Whites re- vember 2008, John McCain received 57.8 poured $312 million into the two papers, ceive welfare than any other racial group. percent of the county vote to Obama’s using them as a bully pulpit from which Many of those who receive welfare work, 41.1 percent. Many Democratic candi- to relentlessly attack Democrats and usually in low-paying jobs with no ben- dates, including John Boyle, also lost— any progressive program with which he efits, and live in households with other due, many surmise, to their membership disagreed. This bombardment of reac- employed people. However, this calcu- in the party that supported a Black man tionary propaganda contributed to the lated lie—that welfare recipients equals for president. rightward shift that has occurred in the welfare cheats—persists because it plays Outraged at the idea of a Black presi- county. well in many parts of the United States. dent, right-wing forces quickly mobi- Mellon Scaife, who died in 2014, had It resonates particularly well in West- lized. Among them was the Tea Party, direct, personal ties with Republicans in moreland County. The children and which became particularly strong in Westmoreland County who told me how grandchildren of the immigrants who Westmoreland County and exerted a he helped finance the party’s infrastruc- inhabit the county assert they, unlike huge influence on the Republican Party, ture, paid for its office, and purchased its the “welfare cheats,” inherited a strong pushing it further Right. Melinda Don- first computer in the early 1990s. work ethic from their parents and grand- nelly, a chiropractor, formed Westmore- Although upper-class elements and parents. Although many of their fami- land’s Tea Party in 2009, along with her wealthy donors still populate the Repub- lies benefitted from New Deal programs, husband. They and other Tea Party activ- lican Party, both the party’s public face they largely attribute their success to ists organized large rallies three times a and voting base have changed in the last their own efforts. They were the “entitled year across the county. By 2012 they’d 20 years. Today, a significant propor- poor,” as their current success proves, held 12 rallies and were going strong. tion of party officials are the children and they are determined to deny the The Tea Party in Westmoreland County or grandchildren of coal workers. Paul benefits their parents and grandparents (TPWC) both reflected and accentuated Verostko grew up in a Democratic fam- received to those who they consider the conservative attitudes in the area. Don- ily. His father was a tool and dye worker, “undeserving poor.” Karen Kiefer, then nelly told me that candidates seeking a solid union man, and an active Demo- treasurer (and current chair) of West- their endorsement had to submit to an crat. He broke politically with his fam- moreland’s District 7 Republican Party, interview with TPWC leadership and ily to vote for Richard Nixon, “a brilliant evoked this idea to explain White work- give the “correct” answers to a number candidate,” in 1972. He became active in ers’ increased preference for Republi- of questions, including: “Do you believe the Republican Party in 2012 or 2013. To- cans. Newly registered Republicans, she there is such a thing as a moderate Mus- day, he leads one of the most active dis- wrote on the District 7 Facebook page, lim?” (No!) “Do you believe in traditional tricts in Westmoreland County. “said they joined the Republican party marriage?” (Yes!) “Would you support the Elaine Gowaty, the former party head because it now represented the working building of a mosque in [Greensburg] city of Westmoreland and current head of the man, whereas the Democrats represent- limits?” (No!) “When do you think life be- Westmoreland Federation of Republi- ed those on welfare, the looters.”8 gins?” (At conception!) “Do you believe can Women, also embodies the political Although few Democrats would ac- Mexico is a threat?” (Yes!) changes the children of working-class cept that characterization of their party, When I asked Donnelly if she meant families have undergone. Her coal-min- there is one thing on which both they and “illegal aliens” coming into the United er father was a member of the United Republicans agree. People in Westmore- States or Mexico itself, she replied, Mine Workers, and a loyal Democrat, as land County are socially conservative, “Both!”10 was the rest of her family. In 1980, she pro-gun rights, and anti-abortion—poli- decided she liked , be- cies that nearly all Republicans, but also 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION cause, Gowaty asserts, he, along with the many local Democrats, uphold. And The depth of Westmoreland County’s Republican Party, supported hard work, many of them are openly racist. The 2008 support for Donald Trump in the months unlike the Democrats, who, she believes, presidential elections demonstrated the leading up to the 2016 presidential support people who don’t work. power of these positions, which further election was so unmistakable that Rush

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 19 Limbaugh remarked upon it, referring they believed would benefit from and despite his obvious misogyny and the ac- listeners to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review be empowered by these policies. Fear of cusations and evidence that he abused article noting the numerous Trump signs the threatening “Other” permeates these women. Penny Young Nance, presi- across the county and the enthusiasm of Republicans’ political and emotional dent of Concerned Women for America, its residents. imaginations, as demonstrated by the succinctly sums up their sentiments The wave of pro-Trump sentiment questions the local Tea Party put to can- about Trump. “We weren’t looking for sweeping Westmoreland County was didates seeking its support. For many a husband. We were looking for a body- stoked by the determination of Repub- Republicans in Westmoreland County, guard.”15 lican Party activists. Paul Verostko re- the frightful Other comes in the form of Their vote for Trump was driven by members that the demand for Trump people of color: Black people, non-White fear: of the non-White Other’s growing signs was so high he had a hard time immigrants, and Muslims, despite, or demographic and political strength; eco- getting enough of them. At the county’s perhaps precisely because of, the fact nomic challenges; and the undermin- annual August fair—a sprawling mixture that Westmoreland County is over- ing of what they believe has been, is, of rides, agricultural contests, food, and whelmingly White. Many Republicans in and always should be a White, Christian political campaigning—Verostko distrib- the county not only want to keep it that nation. They elected Trump to protect uted signs and literature from the Repub- way, they want their region to serve as a what they consider their birthright from lican Party booth. model for the entire country. any and all domestic and international One local Republican designed a A story Karen Kiefer told me exempli- threats. To ensure this, they are willing “Trump mobile,” publishing flyers -an fies the perceived interrelation between to overlook his abuse of women, boorish nouncing the date, time, and location status and economics. Kiefer recounted language and attitudes, and unpresiden- when the car would visit towns in West- how, one day, several Latino men were tial behavior. moreland and the adjoining Fayette working in her yard when she took them The Republican women I spoke with County. The flyer encouraged support- sandwiches and water. To her aggrava- in Westmoreland County echoed this ers to “Get your picture taken with the tion, they didn’t seem to know enough perspective. Until recently, Robin Sav- Trump mobile, get Trump signs, hats, English to thank her. When she subse- age was chair of the county Republican shirts, stickers, flags & buttons!” as part quently heard that her neighbor’s daugh- Committee. She stepped down from that of the effort to “Make America Great ter had applied to the same landscaping position in early 2018 to join Americans Again!”11 Another ardent Trump advo- company the men worked for but did not for Prosperity. As a Trump enthusiast, cate organized a skydiving “Jump for get the job, Kiefer said she felt so mad she she opposes immigrants coming across Trump” event. As she excitedly told me, vowed to go right down to the border and the southern border. “They are just com- “I jumped out of an airplane for Trump.” help build that wall. (Later, reflecting on ing and no one does anything. Where are She and a group of like-minded friends, her lack of construction skills, Kiefer said they going?” she asks. She also seeks for she explained, had “faith in him, [so] we she decided she would make sandwiches the country to once again rule the world, took a leap of faith.”12 (Their faith ap- for the wall builders instead.)14 which is how she remembers things used pears to have had some limits, however, For Keifer, these Latino men had no to be. “I remember growing up and think- since they all wore parachutes.) right to be in the United States. Their ing America was the powerhouse and no Trump would win Westmoreland failure to speak English or follow what one wanted to mess with us. We have County by a landslide, obtaining nearly she considered proper codes of behavior lost our position as the world player and 63.5 percent of the vote. violated her definition of who belongs in that bothers me.” Trump, she believes, A recent article in The New York Times this country and who does not. She was will restore the United States’ leadership challenges the idea that economic fears outraged because their very presence de- role in the world since, “You know what, explain the large number of votes for filed her sense of what the United States this president is not going to bow down Trump—across the country and in places is and should remain: a White nation in- and apologize for anything in the past.”16 like Westmoreland County.13 Instead, it habited by people who know the correct (How right she was! Speaking to the U.S. argues, Trump voters feared losing their way to behave. In addition, she viewed Naval Academy in May 2018, Trump an- social status. My interviews with Repub- these workers as threats to her neighbor’s nounced, “They’ve forgotten that our licans in Westmoreland County both daughter’s economic well-being, and, by ancestors trounced an empire, tamed a confirm and complicate this perspective. extension, that of other deserving White continent, and triumphed over the worst Rather than differentiating between the people. Needless to say, it is unlikely that evils in history…We are not going to apol- two, they reveal the close correlation the neighbor’s daughter, like so many ogize for America. We are going to stand between people’s perceived sense of eco- others who complain about immigrants up for America.”) nomic and social standing. taking their jobs, would accept the condi- I asked her if Trump represents her Many Republicans transmuted their tions or pay the men working in Kiefer’s interests as a woman, and her answer dread of what Obama government pro- yard did. encapsulates why many women accept grams would mean for the United States One issue that has confounded many Trump. She is ready to overlook his scan- into a visceral horror of those groups is why so many women voted for Trump, dalous behavior toward women because

20 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 she agrees with his political stance of marital affair with to have an abortion. with two local historians. Since the par- “making America great again” and his Trump, who had swept the district with ticipants loved the Roosevelts, particu- economic policies, which she believes fa- a 20-point lead over Clinton in 2016, larly Eleanor, and partially attributed vor people like her. (She and her husband pulled out a number of stops to ensure their parents’ and grandparents’ success own a business.) “I have to divide myself the victory of Republican Rick Saccone, to the New Deal, I suggested we invite as a mother and as a woman. As a Mom, who had proclaimed he was “Trump be- Michelle Obama to attend the upcom- yes, he does [represent my needs and in- fore Trump was Trump,” over Democrat ing celebration. The response was dead terests] because he is going after what I . He visited the area to rally silence, broken only when someone sug- want. He will protect us, make the mili- the troops, as did several members of gested other people to invite. It was only tary stronger, build that wall, not let peo- his administration and his son Donald later, in talking with one of my coauthors ple scare us. As a woman, what he has Trump, Jr. He even announced a tariff on who also attended the meeting, that I re- said, he’s not a trained politician, some of steel and aluminum imports to win over alized most people in Norvelt, like the the things that come out of his mouth.” or retain the votes of workers in the re- rest of Westmoreland County, had voted Although Savage wouldn’t accept his be- gion. But Lamb ended up winning with not for Obama but McCain. havior if she were married to him—were a few hundred votes more than Saccone, The realization piqued my curiosity: Trump her husband, she said, she would confounding Republicans who saw the When had my home county changed its “smack him”—she defends his treatment region as a lock. longstanding political affiliation? It was of women in general, particularly what Although he won overall, Lamb lost a transformation I hadn’t been aware of, she describes as his promotion of wom- Westmoreland County, where Saccone having left the area for college at 17. To en in the business and political worlds. garnered 57 percent of the vote—a small- explain the generational shifts in party “Look at his cabinet,” she said, “he has er percentage of the votes than Trump affiliation, I can point to the economic a lot of women.” She further considers had, but still a strong majority. Shortly changes in the county, the closing of him a successful and non-sexist busi- after the election, I spoke with Paul industry and mines, the demise of the nessman. He has “a lot of overachieving Verostko and Mike Ward, whose moth- unions, and their replacement with new women [who have worked for him], he’s er, , is the district’s Republi- affective communities such as the mega- given them opportunities. It’s not like he can State Senator. They remarked that churches. But when it comes right down has all men in the business.”17 Saccone was anti-union, a stance they to it, I believe the most significant factors Tricia Cunningham, the woman who disagreed with, and had Kim Ward run, are White supremacy and conservative organized the Jump for Trump—and who they were certain she would have won.19 social values, which many in the area boasts that neither she nor any of her Mike Ward had previously told the press, equate with being American and what children has ever received any economic “My mother was the most qualified can- they will fight to preserve or reinstate. assistance from the government because didate. She was the most prepared and, As a girl growing up in Westmoreland “they work their butts off”—echoes as a female candidate in this climate, County with a Republican mother, those Savage’s beliefs. “Trump has put more that’s an add-on, too.” He went on to say, are the values I was taught, and they’re women in superior positions in politics “Rick is a friend and I don’t want to beat the ones I now see being brandished by and business than anyone. He chooses up on him...but if you didn’t have four a dismayingly large number of people in talent.” It’s worth noting that Savage’s party bosses picking your candidate and the area. and Cunningham’s assessment isn’t ac- the people were able to vote, he never But a key question remains unan- tually correct: The number of women in would have run.”20 What’s important to swered: Can they change? I don’t know. I Trump’s cabinet is in fact fewer than in note here is that both men come from do know that I did, and that I did because Obama’s and similar to previous Repub- traditionally pro-union families, as does I was challenged to learn about other lican administrations.18 Nonetheless, much of the county’s Republican leader- people’s lives and realities. I think that Cunningham feels a deep, personal loy- ship, and far from abandoning that posi- is our primary task: determining how to alty for Trump, who she claims to have tion, they believe it’s still essential to Re- cultivate an awareness of and identifica- met at a luncheon in his hotel in Atlantic publicans’ success, there and elsewhere. tion with people of radically different ra- City 23 years ago. “I would take a bullet The irony, of course, is they both support cial, sexual, and national groups. So that for that man,” she said, “for anyone in his a pro-corporate, anti-worker president instead of seeing the “Other” as a threat, family, and for the grandchildren.” whose program includes the elimination people like those I grew up with can see of working people’s rights and the up- them as a resource to work alongside to THE 2018 SPECIAL ELECTION ward redistribution of wealth. build a better and safer world. In March 2018, a special election was GOING HOME Margaret Power is a professor of history held in the 18th district of Pennsylvania. at Tech. She has published on the The seat had been held by Republican In 2008 I attended a meeting of the Right in Latin America and the United Tim Murphy, who was forced to resign Norvelt Historical Society to plan the States. Her current work focuses on the when news broke that he had encour- New Deal community’s 75th anniver- Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. aged a woman he was having an extra- sary. I was co-writing a book on Norvelt

SUMMER 2018 Political Research Associates • 21 endnotes

Blurring the Border, p. 3 March 22, 2018. news/articles/2018-06-25/-metoo-snares- 1994). 16. Spencer Sunshine, “The Future of the more-than-400-high-profile-people-as- 22. Carol E. Lee, Courtney Kube, Kris- 1. John Minchillo and Elliot Spagat, “Im- U.S. ‘Populist Radical Right’ and White firings-rise. ten Welker and Stephanie Ruhle, “Kelly migration agents arrest 114 at Ohio land- Nationalism: Looking at Cas Mudde’s The 4. Angela Wright-Shannon, “Clar- thinks he’s saving U.S. from disaster, calls scaper,” AP News, June 5, 2018, https:// Far Right in America,” Political Research ence Thomas Sexually Harassed Me. Trump ‘idiot,’ say White House staffers,” www.apnews.com/07256633165d48c2aa Associates, March 27, 2018, https://www. Yes, He Should Be Impeached,” Huff- NBC News, May 1, 2018, https://www. 28af3366008ae3. politicalresearch.org/2018/03/27/the-fu- ington Post, February 19, 2018. https:// nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/ 2. Kristine Phillips, “ICE arrests nearly ture-of-the-u-s-populist-radical-right-and- www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opin- kelly-thinks-he-s-saving-u-s-disaster-calls- 150 meat plant workers in latest immigra- white-nationalism-looking-at-cas-muddes- ion-wright-shannon-clarence-thomas_ trump-n868961. tion raid in Ohio,” The Washington Post, June the-far-right-in-america/. us_5a8b4b2ae4b0a1d0e12c3095. 23. David Brock, Blinded by the Right. 20, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost. 17. Mathew Coleman and Austin Kocher, 5. National Journal, “Washington Up- 24. David Brock, Blinded by the Right. com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/20/ “Detention, Deportation, Devolution and date—They’re Bashing Libs for Fun and 25. Jane Mayer, “True Confessions,” ice-arrests-nearly-150-meat-plant- Immigrant Incapacitation in the U.S., Post Profit,” September 18, 1993. https:// The New York Review of Books, June 27, workers-in-latest-immigration-raid-in- 9/11,” The Geographical Journal, 177(3), www.nationaljournal.com/s/328193/ 2002, http://www.nybooks.com/arti- ohio/?utm_term=.df2ffd94270f. 228-237. washington-update-theyre-bashing-libs- cles/2002/06/27/true-confessions/. 3. Kevin R. Johnson, “How Racial Pro- 18. Derek Steyer, “Union for Fresh Mark fun-profit?mref=search-result. 26. Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the filing in America Became the Law of the employees offering to help detained work- 6. Alex DiBranco, “Who Speaks For Con- Right: Conservative Media Activism and the Land: United States v. Brignoni-Ponce and ers,” WFMJ, June 20, 2018, http://www. servative Women,” The Public Eye, Spring Transformation of American Politics (Phila- Whren v. United States and the Need for wfmj.com/story/38472741/union-for- 2015, http://www.politicalresearch. delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Truly Rebellious Lawyering,” Georgetown fresh-mark-employees-offering-to-help- org/2015/06/09/who-speaks-for-conser- 2016). Law Journal, Vol. 98: 1005, 2010, http:// detained-workers. vative-women/ 27. Daniel Spillman, The Conservative Baby georgetown.lawreviewnetwork.com/files/ 19. “Immigration Raids, Family Separa- 7. Heather Hendershot, Open to Debate: Boomers’ Magazine: A History of The Ameri- pdf/98-4/Johnson.PDF. tions Spark Unprecedented Level of Ac- How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America can Spectator and the Conservative Intellec- 4. Geoffrey Boyce, Sarah Launius, and tivism in Ohio,” America’s Voice, June 25, on the Firing Line (New York: Broadside tual Movement, 1967-2001 (Dissertation: Adam Aguirre, “Drawing the Line: Spatial 2018, https://americasvoice.org/press_re- Books, 2016). Emory University, 2013). Strategies of Community and Resistance in leases/immigration-raids-family-separa- 8. Paula Chin, “A Texas Massacre,” 28. Daniel Spillman, The Conservative Baby Post-SB1070 ,” ACME: An Interna- tions-spark-unprecedented-level-of-activ- People, November 4, 1991, http://people. Boomers’ Magazine: A History of The Ameri- tional Journal for Critical Geographies, May ism-in-ohio/. com/archive/a-texas-massacre-vol- can Spectator and the Conservative Intellec- 2017, https://www.acme-journal.org/in- 20. “Protesters temporarily shut down 36-no-17/. tual Movement, 1967-2001. dex.php/acme/article/view/1328. ICE office,” WXYZ , June 25, 2018, 9. Paula Chin, “A Texas Massacre.” 29. Byron York, “The Life and Death of 5. TheTrueClassChannel, “‘No Thanks’ https://www.wxyz.com/news/protesters- 10. William Booth, “Texas Killer Said To The American Spectator,” The Atlantic, DHS Checkpoint Refusals Compila- temporarily-shut-down-ice-office. Have ‘Problem with Women’,” The Wash- November 2001 Issue, https://www.the- tion,” YouTube Video, October 27, 21. Holly Zachariah, “Thousands raise ington Post, October 18, 1991, https:// atlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/11/ 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ voices at Columbus immigration rally,” The www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ the-life-and-death-of-the-american-specta- watch?v=6_3dDNPwJTU. Columbus Dispatch, June 30, 2018, http:// politics/1991/10/18/texas-killer-said-to- tor/302343/. 6. Jeremy Slack, Daniel Martínez, Ali- www.dispatch.com/news/20180630/ have-problem-with-women/. 30. “Washington Update—They’re Bash- son Lee, and Scott Whiteford, “The Geog- thousands-raise-voices-at-columbus-im- 11. Ford Fessenden, “They Threaten, ing Libs for Fun and Profit,” National Jour- raphy of Border Militarization: Violence, migration-rally. Seethe and Unhinge, Then Kill in Quan- nal, September 18, 1993, https://www. Death and Health in Mexico and the United 22. Lauren Sega, “Life as an Undocument- tity,” The New York Times, April 9, 2000, nationaljournal.com/s/328193/wash- States,” Journal of Latin American Geogra- ed Immigrant in Columbus,” Columbus Un- https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/09/ ington-update-theyre-bashing-libs-fun- phy, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 2016, 7-32. derground, April 17, 2018, https://www. us/they-threaten-seethe-and-unhinge- profit?mref=search-result. 7. Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal columbusunderground.com/stuck-in- then-kill-in-quantity.html. 31. “Washington Update—They’re Bash- Aliens and the Making of Modern America sanctuary-edith-espinal-columbus-ohio- 12. Pam Chamberlain and Jean Hard- ing Libs for Fun and Profit,” National Jour- (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, ls1. isty, “Reproducing : Repro- nal. 2004). 23. Danae King, “Second Columbus ductive Rights Under Siege,” Political 32. David Brock, Blinded by the Right. 8. Ingrid Eagly, “Criminal Justice for woman facing deportation seeks sanctu- Research Associates, April 2000, https:// 33. Dinitia Smith, “Spectator Sport; R. Noncitizens: An Analysis of Variation in ary at church,” The Columbus Dispatch, www.politicalresearch.org/2000/04/01/ Emmett Tyrrell Jr.,” The New York Times, Local Enforcement,” July 1, 2018, http://www.dispatch.com/ reproductive-patriarchy-reproductive- July 3, 1994, https://www.nytimes. Law Review, October 2013, http://www. news/20180701/second-columbus-wom- rights-under-siege/. com/1994/07/03/magazine/spectator- nyulawreview.org/sites/default/files/pdf/ an-facing-deportation-seeks-sanctuary-at- 13. Michael Kimmel, “The Aggrieved sport-r-emmett-tyrrell-jr.html. NYULawReview-88-4-Eagly.pdf. church. Entitlement of Elliot Rodger,” The Shriver 34. Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Pow- 9. Leo R. Chavez, The Latino Threat: Con- 24. Tracy Lee, “College Hosts Deportation Report, June 2, 2014, http://shriverreport. er: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex (Warren structing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Na- Defense Training to Help Undocumented org/the-aggrieved-entitlement-of-elliot- Farrell: 1993, 2014 ebook edition). tion (Stanford, : Stanford Univer- Immigrants ‘Resist ICE’,” , April rodger/. 35. Pamela Warrick, “A New Role for Men,” sity Press, 2008). 27, 2018, http://www.newsweek.com/ 14. Byron York, “The Life and Death of Times, August 9, 1993, http:// 10. Amanda Armenta, Protect, Serve, and deportation-defense-training-workshops- The American Spectator,” The Atlantic, No- articles.latimes.com/1993-08-09/news/ Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration have-been-underway-central-ohio-904405. vember 2001, https://www.theatlantic. vw-22148_1_feminist-warren-farrell. Enforcement (Oakland, California: Univer- 25. Danae King, “Immigrants in central com/magazine/archive/2001/11/the- 36. Camille Paglia, “Challenging the sity of California Press, 2017). Ohio facing deportation can get help navi- life-and-death-of-the-american-specta- Male Mystique,” The Washington Post, 11. Keith BieryGolick, “Sheriff Rick Jones: gating process,” The Columbus Dispatch, tor/302343/. July 25, 1993, https://www.washing- The making of Ohio’s mini-Trump,” The September 25, 2017, http://www.dispatch. 15. David Brock, “CNN wheels out Bork, tonpost.com/archive/entertainment/ Enquirer, January 6, 2018, https://www. com/news/20170925/immigrants-in-cen- unchallenged, to discuss ‘Borking,’” Me- books/1993/07/25/challenging-the-male- cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/01/06/ tral-ohio-facing-deportation-can-get-help- dia Matters, July 3, 2005, https://www. mystique/. sheriff-rick-jones-making-greater-cincinn- navigating-process. mediamatters.org/research/2005/07/03/ 37. “The Myth of Male Power: Why Men atis-mini-trump/947844001/. -wheels-out-bork-unchallenged-to- Are the Disposable Sex,” Publishers Weekly, 12. Monte Mayer, “Sheriff Sends Letter Before the Alt Right, p. 5 discuss-bor/133443. August 2, 1993. https://www.publisher- to Mexican Authorities,” Butler County 16. Nina Totenberg, “Robert Bork’s Su- sweekly.com/978-0-671-79349-4. Sheriff’s Office, July 29, 2014, http://www. 1. Marcia D. Greenberger, “What Anita preme Court Nomination ‘Changed Every- 38. Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole butlersheriff.org/2014/07/29/letter-to- Hill did for America,” CNN, October, 22, thing, Maybe Forever,’” NPR, December Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Wom- mexican-authorities/. 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPIN- 19, 2012, https://www.npr.org/sections/ en (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995). 13. “Private Prison in Ohio Makes Room ION/10/21/greenberger.anita.hill/index. itsallpolitics/2012/12/19/167645600/ 39. Alex DiBranco, “Who Speaks For Con- for 2000 ICE Detainees,” CrImmigration, html; Isabel Wilkerson, “The 1992 Cam- robert-borks-supreme-court-nomination- servative Women,” The Public Eye, Spring December 15, 2016, http://crimmigration. paign: Senate Race; Where Anita Hill Is changed-everything-maybe-forever. 2015, http://www.politicalresearch. com/2016/12/15/private-prison-in-ohio- the Silent Third Candidate,” The New York 17. David Brock, Blinded by the Right: The org/2015/06/09/who-speaks-for-conser- makes-room-for-2000-ice-detainees/. Times, August 31, 1992, https://www.ny- Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (New York: vative-women/. 14. Henry Giroux, “White Nationalism, times.com/1992/08/31/us/the-1992-cam- Broadway Books, 2003). 40. Liz Goodwin, “The ‘men’s rights’ pio- Armed Culture and State Violence in the paign-senate-race-where-anita-hill-is-the- 18. David Brock, Blinded by the Right. neer who backs Hillary Clinton,” Yahoo Age of Donald Trump,” Philosophy & Social silent-third-candidate.html. 19. Emmett R. Tyrrell, Jr., “Call It Wom- News, May 18, 2016, https://www.yahoo. Criticism, 43(9), 887-910. 2. In 2006, Tarana Burke founded the Me en’s Glib,” The New York Times, April 16, com/news/men-rights-pioneer-backs-hill- 15. Immigration and Customs Enforce- Too movement, which went viral via the 1979, A17. ary-000000407.html. ment, Fiscal Year 2017 ICE Enforcement Twitter hashtag in 2017: https://metoom- 20. Byron York, “The Life and Death of 41. “Male Supremacy,” Southern Poverty and Removal Operations Report, 2017. vmt.org/. The American Spectator.” Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/ Retrieved from https://www.ice.gov/sites/ 3. Jeff Green, “#MeToo Snares More Than 21. David Brock, The Real Anita Hill: fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/ default/files/documents/Report/2017/ 400 High-Profile People,” Bloomberg, June The Untold Story (New York: Touchstone, male-supremacy. iceEndOfYearFY2017.pdf. Last accessed on 27, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/

22 • The Public Eye SUMMER 2018 endnotes

42. Roosh Valizadeh, “No One Would 14. Hanna Rosin and Steven Mufson, “Bit- 28. Melissa Ditmore, “New U.S. Funding on What It Means to Lose Backpage,” The Have Died if PUAHATE Killer Elliot Rod- ter Issue in Crime Treaty Debate: What Is Policies on Trafficking Affect Sex Work Cut, April 10, 2018, https://www.thecut. ger Learned Game,” Return of Kings, May Prostitution?” The Washington Post, Janu- HIV-Prevention Efforts World Wide,” com/2018/04/7-sex-workers-on-what-it- 25, 2014, http://www.returnofkings. ary 15, 2000, https://www.washington- SIECUS Report 33, no. 2 (Spring 2005): 26- means-to-lose-backpage.html. com/36135/no-one-would-have-died- post.com/archive/politics/2000/01/15/ 29. if-pua-hate-killer-elliot-rodger-learned- bitter-issue-in-crime-treaty-debate- 29. Tara McKelvey, “Of Human Bondage,” game. what-is-prostitution/3e73f021-af1a- The American Prospect, October 17, 2004, Trump, the Republican Party, and 43. Alex DiBranco, “’The Incel Rebellion’: 4202-98c9-9d1f938b99ec/?utm_ http://prospect.org/article/human-bond- Westmoreland County, p. 17 Movement Misogyny Delivers Another term=.26c450999ae9. age. 1. Paul Verostko, phone conversation Massacre,” The Public Eye, Spring 2018, 15. Brian Blomquist “’Hooker’ Panel 30. Christopher H. Smith, “Organizational with author, October 9, 2017. http://feature.politicalresearch.org/the- Puts First Lady On The Spot,” New York Integrity of Entities that are Implementing 2. Leslie Baum Rossi, Facebook post, May incel-rebellion. Post, January 8, 2000, https://nypost. Programs and Activities under the Leader- 28, 2016, https://www.facebook.com/ 44. Lauren Camera, “Trump Administra- com/2000/01/08/hooker-panel-puts-first- ship Act” (statement, May 13, 2010), The photo.php?fbid=10209339945033460. tion Rescinds Obama-Era Campus Sexual lady-on-the-spot/. Nation, https://www.thenation.com/wp- 3. Paul Verostko, interview with author, Assault Guidance,” U.S. News & World Re- 16. Alicia W. Peters, Responding to Human content/uploads/2015/04/hhs_rule_state- March 23, 2018. port, September 22, 2017, https://www. Trafficking: Sex, Gender, and Culture in the ment_at_press_conf_5-13-2010.pdf. 4. Official Election Results for - West usnews.com/news/education-news/ar- Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylva- 31. Melissa Gira Grant, “Supreme Court moreland County General Election, ticles/2017-09-22/trump-administration- nia Press, 2015). Strikes Down Anti-Prostitution Pledge for November 8, 2016, https://www. rescinds-obama-era-campus-sexual-as- 17. 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Joe Sisley, WCDIC Marketing Director, White House, September 2003, https:// trafficking to enslavement—was becoming 33. Mark Bergin, “Shame of the cities,” interview with author, May 9, 2018. georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ conventional among many anti-trafficking World Magazine, February 28, 2009, http:// 7. Westmoreland County Comprehen- news/releases/2003/09/text/20030923-4. advocates. “There are more slaves alive to- www.worldmag.com/2009/02/shame_of_ sive Plan, January 2005, https://www. html. day than all the people stolen from Africa in the_cities. co.westmoreland.pa.us/654/Comprehen- 2. “Transcript of President’s Ad- the time of the transatlantic slave trade,” as 34. Jean Godden, “Linda Smith Farthest of sive-Plan, p. 76. dress to Nation,” ABC News, Septem- international anti-slavery group “Free the the Far Right,” The Seattle Times, September 8. 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The Art of Activism Spotlighting the efforts of artists and organizations who are engaged in the struggle for social justice and are helping to build the movement through their work.

Rae Senarighi is a painter, designer, resent trans people space in and muralist based in Portland, Ore- direct response to oppression. Being gon. The front cover of this issue of The transgender is “not just about one ex- Public Eye features a piece from “The perience, not linear and not simple,” Love Series,” which he conceptualized Senarighi said. “Each transgender per- after recieving a cancer diagnosis. Se- son is unique with incredibly diverse narighi decided that all of his future experiences yet we are united in a com- artwork would come from a place of mon struggle.” love. “I essentially spent a year medi- As a transgender non-binary artist, tating on love and painting abstract Senarighi is personally driven to com- color fields,” he said. “It was a wonder- bat the misunderstanding and mar- ful and healing experience for me.” ginalization of the trans community His previous years of work in scientific through art, which he says is “the way I illustration furthered his understand- know how to communicate best.” ing of “how interconnected we all are, “Portrait galleries worldwide are and how much we all have in common filled with White, presumably cisgen- with the natural world and with each der men and women, and it is my per- other.” sonal passion to help change that.” He His TRANSCEND series is currently Rae Senarighi, “Ceraun,” 2017, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”. explains that this goal is “larger than See more at: www.raesenarighi.com/. touring art galleries and community me or any single election cycle” and is spaces in several U.S. cities as well as London. It features portrai- inspired by the work of artists such as Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sher- ture of transgender and non-binary individuals from all over the ald, Kadir Nelson, and Harmonia Rosales. world “who are living their lives out in the open, and choosing Senarighi hopes that trans youth will be able to see themselves integrity over safety.” Senarighi paints each individual with skin in the fine art world and experience the power of seeing beautiful tones made up of a rainbow pallet to bring the viewer’s focus on and revered images of their own community. “By elevating our the “vibrant living breathing souls” depicted and elicit a sense of stories, our community will be empowered.” pride and unity. The larger-than-life portraits in this series rep- -Gabriel Joffe

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