*By Conor White*
Women on both sides of the aisle may be enraged, but that anger is still sharply divided. Women are running for office in record numbers this year ー yet the outcome hasn't been the same for Republicans and Democrats, said author and political columnist Rebecca Traister.
"Numbers of women running for Republican seats also went up ー\[but\] they didn't win their primaries at the rate that women and people of color on the Democratic side did," Traister said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar.
"Anger is very combustible force, it can kick political and social movements off the ground, but it can also blow up between allies," she said.
Party aside, the numbers are still striking.
476 women ran in Democratic and Republican primaries for Congress, and there are still 323 races in which at least one woman is running.
To Traister, the numbers are "unprecedented," but women's impulse to change their government has a historical basis.
"Women are activated as door knockers, registering voters, volunteers with campaigns, and again as candidates in ways that are pretty unprecedented in recent decades," Traister said.
But, she added, social movements "often started with women who were angry about injustice at the beginning and wanted to change something."
Traister has called women's anger both "catalytic and "problematic," but she said it's "mostly potent from a political perspective" as the midterms loom.
In the last month, women on the right have raised the decibel on their political voices, especially during Brett Kavanaugh's divisive Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Even in the face of Christine Blasey Ford's dramatic testimony, many Republican women believed the sexual assault allegations against the now-Justice were part of a political hit job ー and many among them expressed concerned that their husband or son could fall prey to similar and potentially unfounded claims.
"That was an instance of white conservative women's anger being used by the right to send a particular message to the electorate," Traister said of the conservative response to the hearings.
Traister, a National Magazine Award-winner, is the author of the new book "Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger," which examines progressive movements throughout history, from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage, that started with women getting mad.
The upcoming elections, at whatever level of government, are no different.
"Many of those candidacies started in the anger of post-Trump," Traister said.
"Women were so angry at Trump's presidential win that they were like, 'I'm going to go run for office,'" she said.
"Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger" is on sale now.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-power-of-womens-anger).
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
A new poll finds most U.S. adults are worried about health care becoming more expensive.
The White House budget office says mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
President Donald Trump says “there seems to be no reason” to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as part of an upcoming trip to South Korea after China restricted exports of rare earths needed for American industry. The Republican president suggested Friday he was looking at a “massive increase” of import taxes on Chinese products in response to Xi’s moves. Trump says one of the policies the U.S. is calculating is "a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States." A monthslong calm on Wall Street was shattered, with U.S. stocks falling on the news. The Chinese Embassy in Washington hasn't responded to an Associated Press request for comment.
Most members of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting committee supported further reductions to its key interest rate this year, minutes from last month’s meeting showed.
From Wall Street trading floors to the Federal Reserve to economists sipping coffee in their home offices, the first Friday morning of the month typically brings a quiet hush around 8:30 a.m. eastern, as everyone awaits the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report.
The Supreme Court is allowing Lisa Cook to remain as a Federal Reserve governor for now.
Rep. John Moolenaar has requested an urgent briefing from the White House after Trump supported a deal giving Americans a majority stake in TikTok.
A new report finds the Department of Government Efficiency’s remaking of the federal workforce has battered the Washington job market and put more households in the metropolitan area in financial distress.
A new poll finds U.S. adults are more likely than they were a year ago to think immigrants in the country legally benefit the economy. That comes as President Donald Trump's administration imposes new restrictions targeting legal pathways into the country. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey finds Americans are more likely than they were in March 2024 to say it’s a “major benefit” that people who come to the U.S. legally contribute to the economy and help American companies get the expertise of skilled workers. At the same time, perceptions of illegal immigration haven’t shifted meaningfully. Americans still see fewer benefits from people who come to the U.S. illegally.
