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Last week, my colleague Elizabeth Dias was trawling through the New York Times archives for a story we’re working on and came up with a gem of a report about the Republican sweep of 1980.

One quote, in particular, jumped off the page. It was from Senator George McGovern, describing how Democrats, including him, were routed that year:

“People were reluctant to come right out and admit they wanted to put women in their place, but there was a strong current of that running through much of what happened,” he said. “There’s a lot of fear of changing sex roles, of new pressures on the family, and men and women alike were threatened by it.”

Anyone hearing an echo here?

Gender isn’t a subtext in this election: It’s woven into the fabric of this race. The gender gap between the parties in Congress is one of the biggest on record, as Republicans try to boost the number of women in their ranks. A historic number of Democratic women are running for president. And any Democrat — man or woman — who wins the party’s nomination will be forced to grapple with President Trump’s denigration of women.

Nearly weekly, some controversy about sexual assault, pay equity or abortion riles up both sides of the political spectrum.

On Sunday, new reporting that corroborated an allegation of sexual assault against Justice Brett Kavanaugh prompted several of the Democratic presidential candidates to call for his impeachment. Republicans said the reporting, which appeared in The Times, was a smear.