It was fairly pathetic to see Mitch McConnell stand up in the well of the Senate to invoke an obscure rule to silence Elizabeth Warren for reading into the record relevant materials on why Jeff Sessions should not be Attorney General. The move was so intellectually dishonest, so sexist, and so hypocritical that it immediately backfired — drawing attention to what Warren was trying to say about the nominee (which is not pretty, but well documented). #neverthelessshepersisted went viral right away.
McConnell of Kentucky is one of the least principled people in all of American politics, unless the principle is tribal loyalty. Just ask Merrick Garland, who should be on the Supreme Court by now. Or remember that at the outset of the Obama Administration, McConnell proclaimed that his most important job as Minority Leader of the Senate was to make sure that President Obama was a one term President. Really? Before you know even what he’s going to propose? It was a display of pure partisanship that made it clear to the world that the Republicans are much more about winning and maintaining power than they are about serving the public interest. True to his word, he spent the next eight years saying no to whatever President Obama proposed, even ideas that Republicans had previously championed. (In what other job can one get a fat salary, perks, and a pension just for gumming up the works of the enterprise? Good work if you can get it, I guess. But you and I get the bill.)
Now that McConnell has a President of his own party, he seems more than willing to cut the unhinged chief executive some slack. Friends with benefits of the doubt, we’ll call it. No matter how erratically the President behaves, all is just fine. No matter that he’s the last one the Southern Boys Club would have as a member, with his New York ego, as long as he gives them what they want …
It would be too much to ask of McConnell that he not support his fellow Southerner and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama for Attorney General. They’re of the same tribe. Sessions, who was deemed too racist to be appointed to the federal bench a couple of decades ago, has now amassed a clear enough record to be — still — a legitimately objectionable nominee to the position of the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. (He was nominated as a return favor for the fact that he was an early supporter of Trump’s candidacy, when other Republicans shunned him.) Sure people can change over time. But is there any evidence of that in Sessions’ case? (No is the short answer. See https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/the-fiction-of-jeff-sessions-civil-rights-champion/516237/.)
African Americans can be forgiven for expecting very little love to be coming from a Sessions-led Justice Department. The Attorney General, after all, supervises the Civil Rights Division of the Department, which enforces the Voting Rights Act and other federal civil rights statutes. Sessions has a track record in such matters, a very ugly one, which was the exact point being made by Coretta Scott King in the letter Elizabeth Warren was trying to read. Expect zero enforcement in the next four years against voter suppression laws in red states seeking to limit the African American vote. THAT, Mr. President is the voter fraud that should be investigated, not HRC’s 2.9 million popular vote margin.
So you can dress him up all you want, but sometimes a good ol’ boy is just a good ol’ boy. We know what will be happening at DOJ in the next four years, and what won’t be happening. We’ll be relying on the State Attorney’s General and groups like the ACLU to sue the feds for their failures to do what the law and the Constitution require. And DOJ, instead of being on offense against the bad guys, will be the defendant in these cases, trying to explain to the courts why their non-enforcement policies are legal.
Elizabeth Warren is no dummie. Yes, she’s way too feisty for the good ol’ boys. But she speaks her truth with passion, clarity, courage, and facts to support what she’s saying. Why won’t she behave? Why won’t she sit down and shut up? Why is she so … uppity?
Which is just why she bothers them so much. It’s embarrassing to be exposed, to be hoisted by one’s own petard, to have someone — some woman — explain with such clarity how unqualified really does mean unqualified. It was so much easier when it was just us boys, and there wasn’t so much … light.
Whether the Trump era, with its unmistakeable preference for White Male Supremacy, lasts four years or four decades, it represents the last gasp of an old era when white men were not to be questioned. No, women are not going to sit down quietly any more. Neither are people of color. Neither are white men who believe in a fair and just society. The future is female. And nevertheless, we’ll persist.
So fellas, take your Senate Rule 19 and head on down the road aways. We’ll see you in just a bit. The people are coming, and we’re takin’ names, as you good ol’ boys like to say.
Even We Here 