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By Katherine Donlevy

March 17, 2023 | 12:29am

The underground feminist voting group that urged Hillary Clinton supporters to storm the 2016 polls in pantsuits abruptly announced it is disbanding Thursday, leaving its 2.8 million supporters blindsided.

Pantsuit Nation, a Facebook-born movement supporting the first female Democratic presidential nominee, told its online community it would be defunct before the end of the weekend, The Post has learned.

The group made headlines during the 2016 election for empowering Clinton lovers to pull on a power suit to cast their vote.

I stepped away from my day-to-day involvement in this community last year, but I have stayed here reading your stories, appreciating what you have built and maintained against all odds, founder Libby Chamberlain wrote in a post breaking the news to the groups millions of members.

Earlier today, the organization that now manages the group announced that Pantsuit Nation will be shut down within the next two days.

Supermajority a feminist political organization took over Pantsuit Nation in 2019, three years after Chamberlain had created the members-only Facebook group.

At its height, the Pantsuit group flaunted 4 million followers, which has since dwindled to a modest 2.8 million.

The shrinking membership could be to blame for the sudden dismantling Supermajoritys interim executive director said they were dropping the Facebook page in order to focus on other avenues to increase female voter turnout.

Over the past several weeks and months, we have taken stock of our work, particularly focusing on our success in 2022, and developed a strategic approach to best position Supermajority to build womens political power in 2023, Taylor Saditch told the group in a statement.

The announcement comes less than six months after Supermajority touted major success at the 2022 midterms. The group took credit for helping to usher in a record number of women voter registrations, a November press release shows.

The exact reason for abandoning the page is unknown even the moderators were left in the dark until the announcement was made.

I do not have the details as of why? wrote moderator Itale Watie. As all of us moderators logged on and found out today that we were being let go.tomorrow.

None of us could ever imagine our exit like this, when we worked so hard to build a platform of truth and transparency. I know yall (sic)want answers but as it is, none of us have them and we are doing our best to receive answers from the powers that be.

Supermajority promised users it would preserve the seven-year-old group but would be pausing new posts, comments and reactions on the page starting March 18.

But the organization has allegedly already made moves to silence its outraged audience.

Several users called out Supermajority employees for allegedly deleting posts speaking out against the decision posts that were only allowed onto the site after approval by moderators they appointed and refusing to approve more than 400 member-made posts to the feed.

Many questioned why Supermajority couldnt hand the reigns over to the millions of followers so the members who have carved deep friendships with one another over the years via the page could continue to enjoy the online community.

This community has been pivotal in amplifying voices that I would have never heard elsewhere, one member wrote. To hear that Supermajority is shuttering the group not only isnt in keeping with the principles they espouse but is yet another occasion when marginalized voices are once again silenced.

They drop Pantsuit Nation, I drop Supermajority, a member said. I joined PN community very early on and it saved my sanity after Trump was elected. I am not interested in Supermajority, which has always struck me as more of a lobbying group than a community.

Members complained Supermajority was ignoring their pleas and turned to the organizations main Facebook page which boasts less than a third of Pantsuit Nations followers to unleash their ire.

Supermajority, Chamberlain and several group moderators did not immediately respond to The Posts request for the comment.

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Hillary Clinton-loving Facebook group Pantsuit Nation abruptly disbands, enraging members - New York Post

Two weeks before podcaster Anna Stoecklein was set to interview Cherie Blair, international human rights lawyer and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, she made a bold request.

Stoecklein asked if Blair would text one of her close friends to see if she would do the interview along with her.

The gamble paid off: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be joining Blair on Stoeckleins podcast, The Story of Woman.

Stoecklein had never done an in-person interview before. Her podcast about womens long march to equality, how we got here and what still needs to be changed was barely a year old with fewer than a hundred subscribers on YouTube. So, how did this former ER nurse from St. Charles nab an exclusive interview with two of the worlds most influential women?

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Stoecklein, 32, has been remaking her own life in recent years. She was born and raised in St. Charles, graduated with a nursing degree from the University of West Florida, came back to work in St. Louis and, within a year, moved to New York City with her boyfriend. They married a year later.

She worked as an ER nurse in Manhattan for a few years overworked and burned out until she realized her job had become untenable and dangerous.

I spent all my days off Googling nonclinical nursing jobs, she said. She landed a position in the medical device sales industry. A few years later, her husband was offered a job opportunity in London, and the couple jumped at the chance to live abroad. Stoecklein found another position in medical device sales, then moved to a health tech startup.

During the pandemic, she started reading nonfiction books centered around gender and feminism. She said she had never really thought about how the world was designed by and for men.

It was the first time I was exposed to some of these ideas, she said. Reading these types of books really blew my mind.

This new knowledge gave her the words to understand her own experiences and ideas. She felt compelled to share what she was learning with others. Around the same time, she was realizing that her marriage was no longer working, despite the couple still loving and supporting each other. She quit her job to start her podcast, moved out a few months later and took on freelancing work to pay the bills.

When something doesnt feel right, I feel like I have to change, even when I dont know exactly where Im going, she said.

But wasnt it daunting to tackle so much life-altering change at once?

My parents instilled in me a belief and confidence in myself, she said. They taught her that she could figure things out on her own. She credits that with her ability to adapt and thrive in the midst of uncertainty.

So when her podcast caught the ear of a friend who worked at Blairs foundation, Stoecklein put together a proposal for an interview and persisted for months to lock it down.

Once she nabbed her high-profile guests, she reread their autobiographies, watched Clintons documentary and prepared for the interview around the clock. The day of the interview, she was full of emotions.

I felt the enormity of the weight of history in the room, she said. Clintons warmth and kindness put her immediately at ease. The conversation between Blair and Clinton flowed like banter between good friends.

They had this incredibly beautiful energy, Stoecklein said.

She used the moment to launch a series of woman changemakers on her show. In addition to world leaders, shes interviewed Nobel Laureate and Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman, Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, and several bestselling authors, CEOs and global activists.

Stoeckleins passion for her work is evident when she talks about her own journey.

Shes living proof that big ideas can transform lives.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Aisha Sultan discusses how readers influence her work.

Stay up to date on the best of STL Life: parenting, home fashion, travel, restaurant reviews, recipes and more.

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Sultan: St. Charles native lands exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Donald Trump needs to grow his support, not merely rev up people who already care deeply about his every utterance and obsession. | Ron Johnson/AP Photo

AlexanderBurnsis an associate editor for global politics at POLITICO. His Tomorrow column explores the future of politics and policy debates that cross national lines.

The widely expected indictment of Donald Trump in Manhattan has all the makings of a political disaster for him. It should be the climactic event in a yearslong saga involving marital infidelity, sleazy financial dealings and now the first-ever criminal charge against a former American president.

Naturally, the question arises: Could this actually be good for Trump?

That thought generates itself by reflex in Americas political brain. It is a habit forged in 2016, when Trump defied countless terminal prognoses to defeat Hillary Clinton.

It is not irrational speculation. Americans have a history of sticking with flamboyant politicians with more than a passing relationship with the criminal justice system, from Marion Barry in Washington, D.C., to Edwin Edwards in Louisiana. Trump is a character from a similar mold, with an even tighter grip on his followers that verges at times on the quasi-mystical. At another point in his political life, perhaps Trump might have turned this case into rich fodder for a comeback.

Not now. For all his unusual strengths, Trump is defined these days more by his weaknesses personal and political deficiencies that have grown with time and now figure to undermine any attempt to exploit the criminal case against him.

His base of support is too small, his political imagination too depleted and his instinct for self-absorption too overwhelming for him to marshal a broad, lasting backlash. His determination to look inward and backward has been a problem for his campaign even without the indictment. It will be a bigger one if and when hes indicted.

Tracking Trump investigations

Trump has been unusually resilient against scandal over the years thanks to the unbreakable loyalty of voters who see him as their champion in the arena. My colleagues David Siders and Adam Wren reported that Republicans expect Trump to get a short-term boost from the indictment because it will energize his core supporters. That is probably true.

But those supporters are a minority of the country, as Republicans have learned the hard way several times over. Stimulating Trumps personal following was not enough to save the House for his party in 2018 or to defend the White House and the Senate in 2020, or to summon a red wave in 2022.

Trump needs to grow his support, not merely rev up people who already care deeply about his every utterance and obsession. It is not likely that many Americans who are not already part of Trumps base will be inspired to join it because they feel he is being mistreated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Personality-cult politics, on its own, has never really been a winning model for Trump. At his strongest moments, he has convinced voters that Trumpism is about far more than Trump that it is not merely a jumble of racist and sexist outbursts and weird grudges against the likes of Rosie ODonnell and Megyn Kelly, but a worldview that might transform America. Trumps great success in 2016 was his ability to persuade tens of millions of Americans to see him as a stand-in for their own grievances and yearnings.

The most memorable moment in his convention speech that year was when he declared the United States was horrifically broken and I alone can fix it. His critics rightly saw it as a telling display of a narcissistic and authoritarian mindset.

But the bit in that speech that best conveyed Trumps appeal was one taking aim at the Clinton catch phrase, Im With Her. Trumps rejoinder: I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads: Im With You.

Suddenly Clinton was the self-absorbed one and he was the tribune of plebs.

It is hard for a candidate to tell voters Im with you when he is mainly consumed with narrow, personal complaints and crackpot conspiracy theories. Plenty of Americans can see themselves in an older white man scorned by liberals and the media for his crude manner and bigoted ideas. Fewer are likely to see themselves in a wealthy husband paying hush money to conceal his debauched sex life and whining about the unfairness of his circumstances in every public outing.

What is the great cause of Trumps 2024 campaign, aside from Trump himself?

The politicians who best weather scandal are the ones who tell and show voters that they are doing the peoples business while opponents stew in lurid trivia.

Bill Clinton survived impeachment and finished his second term as a popular president by persuading voters that he was balancing budgets and keeping them safe while Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr pilfered his underwear drawer. More recently, Ralph Northam overcame a blackface scandal and completed his term as governor of Virginia by promising to devote himself to fighting racial inequality. (One civil rights leader in Richmond captured the appeal of this approach, telling the Christian Science Monitor of Northams critics: People can continue to talk about yesterday. I want to talk about tomorrow.)

Abroad, Benjamin Netanyahu endured as the leader of Israels political right while fighting corruption charges, and returned in December to serve as prime minister, by arguing to voters that he was his countrys only true steward of national security and the allegations against him were a left-wing plot a distraction from things that really matter.

Trump does not have much to say about things that really matter.

Unlike the Trump of 2016, who shattered the policy orthodoxy of the GOP establishment and reshaped the partys ideology in his own image, the Trump of today contributes nothing new to the Republican agenda.

He has fallen behind the times even compared to his current and former allies. In South Carolina, he ridiculed electric cars standing beside Gov. Henry McMaster, a 75-year-old loyalist who like other Republican governors has promoted his state as a hub for EV manufacturing. When the Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion, Trump largely declined to address the most significant consequence of his own judicial appointments. It was Mike Pence, his excommunicated vice president, who hailed the decision as a transcendent victory for the right to life and vowed to carry forward the battle against abortion.

On the war in Ukraine, Trump speaks for a faction of the GOP when he derides it as a waste of money that is not Americas problem to solve. He is alone among Republican candidates in threading that view with admiring commentary about Vladimir Putin. His hostile view of China a subject on which he reshaped American political discourse remains compromised by his tendency to talk about Xi Jinping like a golfing buddy.

None of this is to say that Trump cannot win the Republican nomination, or even the presidency. Elections are unpredictable. But it is past time to give up the idea that stoking the anger of Trumps diehard fans is a victory unto itself.

If each scandal or blunder binds 99 percent of his base closer to him and unsettles 1 percent, that is still a losing formula for a politician whose base is an electoral minority. Trump cannot shed fractional support with every controversy but make it up on volume.

The question before Republicans is whether they need another lesson from the electorate in the perils of running on a version of Trumpism that is all about Trump. A campaign about Jan. 6 and Stormy Daniels is not one that is likely to end well for Republicans.

That is a mortal problem for Trumps candidacy.

He alone can fix it.

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Stop Overthinking It: An Indictment Would Be Bad For Trump - POLITICO

[Source]

Republican primary voters of color are boosting former President Donald Trump's very early lead in the 2024 Republican primary race, recent polls suggest.

Based on the average of CNN/SSRS and Quinnipiac University poll results released this week, Trumps apparent appeal to non-white voters has allowed him to hold a double-digit lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not declared his candidacy but is widely expected to.

Trump, who is facing legal woes over his role in a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, has the support of 55% of potential Republican voters of color to DeSantis' 26%. Meanwhile, 38% of white Republican voters signaled their support for Trump, compared to 37% for DeSantis.

Trump also notably led among Republicans whose households generate less than $50,000 a year by 22 points, with 45% of that group supporting him to DeSantis 26% in the CNN poll.

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Among voters making at least $50,000 a year, Trump lagged behind the governor by 13 points, accounting for an approximately 35-point swing between the income ranges.

The poll also highlighted that 45% of Republican voters of color have a household income of less than $50,000 a year compared to just 28% of white Republicans.

The significant discrepancy in support comes as Republican voters of color have generally grown more than in previous primary seasons, from just 13% in 2016 to closer to 18% this year.

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As a party, the GOP improved in support from voters of color, with just a 38-point loss among that bloc for the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms compared to a 43-point loss in 2020.

It should also be noted that despite losing to President Joe Biden, Trump had significantly gained support from all voters of color during the 2020 general election, when there was a 45-percentage point difference in support from voters of color in favor of Biden, compared to his 2016 election win over Hillary Clinton, when there was 53-point difference in support from voters of color in favor of Clinton.

Story continues

In addition to Trump and DeSantis, other potential 2024 Republican presidential contenders who are vying for the 2024 GOP primary nomination include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

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Voters of color heavily favor Trump over DeSantis for president in 2024, polls suggest - Yahoo News

Tulane senior Jay Hartley is the first non-binary National President of College Democrats and Co-Chair of the Tulane Undergraduate Assembly. (Courtesy of Jay Hartley)

By their own initiative, 7-year-old Jay Hartley was door-to-door canvassing for Hillary Clinton in Iowa. More than a decade later, they are the first nonbinary president of College Democrats of America and co-chair of the Tulane Undergraduate Assembly.

Hartley was born outside of Chicago to Jamaican immigrants. A political TV ad for Clinton sparked a desire in the young child to get involved, which meant begging their parents to drive to Iowa to campaign for the Democratic primary candidate in 2008.

I completely fell in love with her, Hartley said. I cried when she lost pretty much both times in the primary and then again when Barack Obama won [the primary].

In high school, Hartley continued issue-based organizing. They worked to pass a bill in the Illinois legislature to guarantee LGBTQ+ education in all public schools. Despite evolving political views, Hartley returned to support Clinton in the 2016 election cycle.

Hartley chose Tulane University for its engaged political community. They joined the chapter of CDA, rising through the ranks to president of the Louisiana chapter and, as of last Septembers election, national president of CDA.

I get to do a lot of really interesting things, Hartley said. Everything from signwave behind Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, get to talk with some pretty high level people at the Democratic National Committee and also just help young people all across the country organize in their communities, be grassroots organizers and create the change that they want to see.

Hartley also became involved with Undergraduate Student Government when they arrived at Tulane, working on fellow delegate DaSean Spencers campaigns for senator and vice president of student life. After seeing discrimination firsthand on the campaign trail, Hartley was first to call for the abolition and reworking of student government.

During that election cycle, we experienced, primarily [Spencer] as the candidate, anti-Blackness on this campus, Hartley said. It was really a wake up call.

Hartley sat on the Evolution Committee this past summer and met with consultants and community groups on campus to completely rebuild student government. The inaugural body of TUA rolled out this semester with 21 elected delegates and co-chairs Hartley and Spencer.

We frame ourselves as an explicitly anti-racist student advocacy organization, Hartley said. Were at the cutting edge of what student government and SGAs across the country can look like.

Hartley said college students are uniquely suited to drive social change because they can break down issues piece by piece. They encouraged students to find a group on campus that speaks to their interests and get involved.

We understand how essential these issues are and the radical change that we want to see in the country and in the world overall, Hartley said. The first thing I would suggest to a Tulane student is to find your political home and get to work.

After graduating this spring, Hartley will be moving to Washington D.C.

So a couple more weeks, a couple more months in New Orleans, which Im really sad about, Hartley said. But also very excited for what comes next.

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Jay Hartley: College politician The Tulane Hullabaloo - Tulane Hullabaloo