Credit.Susan Walsh/Associated Press
When I was coming of age as a journalist, it was an article of faith and political science that female Republican politicians subdued their party’s excesses. It was a measurable phenomenon, even: Republican women voted to the left of their male counterparts in Congress.
But as the G.O.P. began to radicalize, becoming not just a small-government party but an anti-government party a government
delegitimization party this taming effect ceased to be. Moderates of both sexes cleared out of the building. A new swarm of firebrands rushed in. Not only did female Republican elected officials become every bit as conservative as their male counterparts; they began, in some cases, to personify the party’s most outlandish tendencies.