The American political system as an all-encompassing enterprise essentially operates on two diametrically opposing speeds. Either change creeps along at a pace so agonizingly slow that it would bore a glacier to tears, or it rockets ahead so quickly that you’re left trying to catch your breath and figure out what the hell just happened.
Consider, for example, Democratic Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, co-chair of her party’s grotesquely selfish obstructionist caucus. In 2018, Sinema rode into the United States Senate as a rare Democrat-from-Arizona, thanks to a solid narrative of progressive bona fides and enormous financial backing from a host of left-leaning groups, the most generous of which (by a large margin) was women’s health care advocacy org Emily’s List. Fast forward to this week, and Sinema — just halfway through her first term — is no longer a progressive rabblerouser, but rather a cartoonish institutionalist, proudly blocking her own party’s make-or-break voting rights legislation. And Emily’s List, once her number-one source of campaign cash, is getting pretty sick of her shit.
