Molineaux is the co-founder and executive director of Bridge Alliance, a coalition of more than 90 civic reform groups. (Disclosure: The Bridge Alliance Education Fund is a funder of The Fulcrum.)
This is the third in a series of opinion pieces we are publishing during Women's History Month to recognize the contributions of women to the democracy reform movement.
Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. While disparaged and trivialized at the time, she was relentless in pursuing equal rights and labor reforms. Many advances made in the early 20th century can be traced back to Woodhull's "radical ideas" from the 19th century.
Our lesson: Never underestimate the ability of women to transform our culture. One of the greatest strengths of women is transmuting their experience into something for the good of our larger human family.
There are many women who inspire with their courage, tenacity and intelligence. Here are four of them.
As she says in the preface of her book, "Independents Rising," politics is in Salit's blood. Her career as an independent began before it was cool in the 1970s. In fact, it was not talked about in polite company, but she did anyway. She has campaigned for independent candidates and fought for ballot access, voting rights and redistricting in more places than people can imagine. And now with 42 percent of registered voters not affiliated with a party, Salit leads Independent Voting with strategic vision and tactical street smarts that is bringing about a better America where we are all authentically empowered to be citizens, regardless of our party or lack of one.
Zaneeta Daver
Now the COO of Civic Nation, Daver is an educator, systems analyst and thinker with a side of curriculum development. In other words, she likes to be in the background, contributing with her entrepreneurial style and whole-human approach. Her career spans higher education and consulting, thinking about how we can become the multicultural society we claim to be. Daver has been a thinking partner in creating our shared future, influencing the work of Bridge Alliance (and therefore 100 organizations) in an understated or subtle way. Daver is an example of a powerful woman who doesn't need the spotlight to make a difference.
Gehl was CEO of her family's Gehl Foods Inc. when she became concerned about the state of our country and used her business expertise to analyze what was wrong and how our politics could be better. This led to her researching and writing the 2017 report"Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America" with Michael Porter. This historic look at politics through a business lens is the undergirding to many of the democratic reforms being advanced today — including single-ballot, top-five primaries with ranked-choice voting general elections. Her insight into politics as an industry with unhealthy competition is a new way of viewing our system with a plan to transform it.
Mary Stanley
Stanley was a mentor and often gruff friend to many women who ran for office for 47 years. She was a relentless supporter and helped get dozens of women elected. In 1971, she participated as a Republican in the formation of National Women's Political Caucus along with Gloria Steinheim, Bella Abzug and others. She changed parties after the GOP failed to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and removed reproductive rights from its platform, two issues she saw as essential for women's equality. Stanley was in constant contact with her elected representatives, building a relationship with each, one postcard, letter, phone call and visit at a time. She ran fundraisers, offered endorsements and was relentless in her advocacy for more women in elected office. The many she met selling buttons and bumper stickers at political events did not know she donated all profits to female candidates. She held fundraisers for Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein (who sent her birthday presents each year) and Karen Humphrey, the first female mayor of Fresno, Calif. Many women in office today owe their start to Stanley. She would be so proud of them.
What is the legacy we would leave for our descendants? Let's map the path and start. Together and with perseverance, we can create the future our children and grandchildren will inherit and write about.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."