Miss Rankin Votes "Present"

Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast · Dec 9, 2021 · 22m

Back in the 1870s Otto von Bismarck coined a term that still resonates today, despite the fact that purists on both political sides hate it: realpolitik

In December of 1941, a Congresswoman – the first ever – learned a lesson in realpolitik. In April of 1917 she had been among fifty US Representatives who felt that a US Declaration of War on Imperial Germany was a mistake and to be opposed. In retrospect and in the minds of many millions of Americans that day, she was right.

But twenty-four years later, she would find herself as the ONLY US Congressperson, House or Senate*, to vote against…