January 6, 2019
In the 72 hours since the 116th Congress was sworn in, a Google search reveals at least sixteen stories covering freshman Representative Rashida Tlaib’s declaration that the House was going to “impeach that motherf—ker,” compared to a mere three covering the much more consequential news that the Trump administration was set to overturn disparate impact regulations, (Source: “Trump administration considers rollback of anti-discrimination rules,” by Laura Meckler and Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post, 1/3/19). That decision, which was barely covered, has the potential to have a devastating effect on the ability to fight systemic discrimination in housing, banking and insurance.
Meanwhile, on social media, everyone from David Axelrod to Richard Painter decried Rep. Tlaib’s use of an expletive, pearl clutching at a rate completely out of proportion to its impact or import. The reaction suggests that this was a serious transgression, a viewpoint made all the more absurd in light of Trump’s profanity laced tirade in his meeting with legislative leaders the very next day.
In this very same 72 hours, Trump has proudly threatened a shutdown that could last for “months or even years,” if he doesn’t get his wall (Source: “Trump Suggests Government Shutdown Could Last for ‘Months or Even Years,’” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Michael Tackett, The New York Times, 1/4/19). Yet we have learned that the “wall” was nothing more than a racist rhetorical dog whistle dreamed up by crackpot advisors, Sam Nunberg and Roger Stone, for a candidate to appeal to his xenophobic base, ( Source: “The Border Wall: How a Potent Symbol is Now Boxing Trump In,” by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Peter Baker, The New York Times, 1/5/19). The fact is that our federal government is shut down because the doddering racist in the Oval Office was incapable of memorizing a stump speech and is too stubbornly narcissistic to admit any error. Under the circumstances, calling Trump a “motherf—ker” is the least intemperate thing Rep. Tlaib could have said.
If anything, she has done us a favor, by putting impeachment squarely on the table. Just as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done by suggesting a 70% marginal tax rate to pay for progressive policies, the progressive women of the 116th Congress are re-framing the terms of the debate. They don’t care if you don’t like them because many of them, as women of color, are used to not being liked by crusty old white men with power.
Concern trolling over Rashida Tlaib’s use of an epithet is decidedly beside the point. It is both a vain effort to revert to the preferred Beltway narrative of “Democrats in disarray,” and to hold women in the new Congress to an outmoded double standard, where they can’t swear, but a sitting Vice President can tell a senior senator “Go f—k yourself,” on the Senate floor without consequence.
The truth is, in the best of times, this distorted coverage would be maddenly sexist. In a time like this, with our country roiled by crises caused by a dangerously unfit, racist authoritarian in The White House, it suggests that some people are more invested in undermining and delegitimizing women with power, than in rescuing our democracy from a corrupt cabal of Russian puppets.
The situation is deadly serious and three days in, it is clear that the women of the 116th Congress did not come to play. We had better not either.
#IMPEACHTHEMOTHERF—ER