Melania Trump: Hero of the People?

Melania Trump: Hero of the People?

Amy Wilentz on the first lady, plus Katha Pollitt on the politics of motherhood, and Lee Saunders on unions after Janus.

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Amy Wilentz takes up the vital question, is Melania Trump a hero of the resistance—or an accomplice of evil? Is she edging “ever closer to open contempt for him,” as New York Times columnist Frank Bruni argues, and finding “increasingly clever ways to show it”? Or is she sticking with her role as wife to a racist tyrant with a clear history of infidelity—and lots of cash?

Also: Mothers and pregnant women are discriminated against, devalued, and punished—here at home, and around the world. Katha Pollitt talks about how that has happened—and why.

And as Labor Day approaches, we talk labor unions and politics with Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME. His union was the target of the Janus v. AFSCME decision by the Supreme Court in June, when it ruled, 5-4, that government workers who choose not to join unions may not be required to help pay for collective bargaining. Saunders explains what unions are doing to fight back—in the November election, and in the long run.

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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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