Mrs NoCo is watching the Hulu series "Mrs. America" about the struggle to ratify the ERA. Oddly, this history was touched on in the movie I just watched, called "Crip Camp," about the equal rights fight for disabled Americans and the ADA. In the latter case Joseph Califano in the Nixon Administration was instrumental in defeating it for a long long time. In the former, 35 of the 38 states required, ratified the constitutional amendment, but thanks to Phyllis Schlafly some of them have since changed their votes and the damn thing remains shamefully unratified.
Anyway, one of the figures shown in the series is Shirley Chisholm, who lost the 1972 Democratic candidacy to McGovern, one of the weakest candidates ever put forth by a major party. I can't help wondering if Nixon's dirty tricks brigade, helmed by Roger Stone, didn't somehow engineer McGovern's win as the easiest candidate to beat, much as the GOP is doing now with Joe Fucking Biden.
I can't help fantasizing about how different the world would be today if Shirley had been allowed to whup Nixon's ass in 1972.
If somebody were to write a book about that, I'd read it.
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