There is a scene early in the Downton Abbey series when one of the daughters of the Crawley family is talking about some issue of the time. The Dowager Countess, played by the inimitable Dame Maggie Smith, objects, and the daughter says she is entitled to her opinion. The Dowager answers, “Women like us don’t have opinions until they are married, and then their husbands will tell them what their opinions are.”
I thought of that scene when I read an article in New York Magazine about the emerging importance of the demographic group unmarried women and the role that they, and their opinions, may play in the coming election. It seems never-married women under 35 are a quickly rising — and liberal — demographic.
That article is by Rebecca Traister, who is the author of a book (reviewed here) called All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.
Which is why the death of Justice Anthony Scalia, and the ageing of the Supreme Court in general should be a major issue in the presidential election. I’ve been phone-banking for one of the Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination, and I talk to other volunteers and to people on the phone who say they will not vote for the other candidate if that candidate gets the nomination, and this goes both ways. We cannot afford the luxury of such petty purity. Remember, this is one of the "moderate" Republicans seeking their party’s nomination. The next president will possibly appoint two or more Justices, and possibly also Scalia’s replacement if the Republican leadership gets its way. If we just look at the current Court, the four who are most reliably on the people’s side in social policy decisions were appointed by President Clinton (Ginsburg and Breyer) and President Obama (Sotomayor and Kagan). In between we have the Bush appointments of Roberts and Alito. So yes, let’s fight for our candidates in the primaries, but let’s not forget that the Democratic nominee will need us all if he or she is to win — and that it matters.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s look at the news from the front.