The Impenetrable Armor of Elise Stefanik

Ruby Cramer: “It is true that Elise Stefanik has changed. She set aside the posture of a moderate politician and pursued new ambitions inside Trump’s world. She set aside some of her optimism about the potential of politics and replaced it with the language of a hardened partisan warrior. In the halls of Congress, where she was once celebrated in magazines as the face of a more transparent, collaborative government, she now operates from a place of distrust, poised for a fight with the reporters she believes have or will attack her ‘in vicious, vicious ways.'”

“The change, and her path to ‘this chapter,’ is what put her at the top of Republican leadership in Congress, where she will serve a second term as House conference chair, the No. 4 role in the GOP majority, climbing where others couldn’t survive in a party defined by its loyalty to one man. In January, when Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) steps down as speaker, Stefanik will become the most powerful woman in the nation’s legislative branch.”

“It is also true that the change has come at a personal cost. Behind the ‘moderate to MAGA’ shorthand, a human transformation has taken place, too. Stefanik has lost friendships. She has lost ties to institutions that once mattered dearly to her. And she has responded in kind by making her world smaller and more insulated.”