Rebecca Solnit on MAGA Wives, Protest Votes, and the Fate of the American Experiment

Rebecca Solnit has written forewords for two posthumous essay collections that grapple with climate, technology, democracy, and war.

Her runaway hit Men Explain Things to Me , published in 2012 , was a rallying cry in the leadup to that election.

Solnit: "I am terrified by one possibility, one outcome, of this election, but overall I'm not bad".

There are people who are angry about the American political system writ large.

Jill Stein was actually huge in 2016 , or had credibility with more people than she does now.

She's looking for that protest vote. A protest vote does n’t mean anything. There’s two possibilities of who will actually win, and you get to help one or the other.

There was a big move in the 19th century to make voting private and having that privacy allows you to vote your conscience without repercussions.

I found it really weird that videos got out assuring women that they can go to polling places and vote in secret, and their husband won’t know.

What’s emerged is there's a huge MAGA backlash, and there's lots of MAGA women getting on board saying, "I’m not afraid of my husband".