At a January 16, Senate Judiciary committee hearing, Senator Cory Booker informally announced he’s running for president in 2020 by bullying Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump’s DHS Secretary. With eyes and neck veins popping, Booker pounded his fists, pointed his finger, yelled accusations of racism, and further accused the Secretary of lying. She, in turn, could do nothing but sit in dignified silence as this went on. His posture was threatening, even scary.
Consider this behavior in a normal professional setting. If a colleague at your work acted like Booker, someone would likely step in and ask him to calm down. (He might even get fired.) If a police officer witnessed a man yelling at a woman in public, pounding his fists, using menacing body language, the officer would walk over to ask if there was a problem. And if a Republican senator had accused a female Obama official of lying without any proof, shamed her as a racist, cut her off when she tried to defend herself, another senator would have interrupted him immediately.
There is no professional environment—indeed, no public space—where Booker’s conduct would be tolerated. So how is it that he not only got away with it, but is now lauded as a hero for this highly unprofessional and embarrassing display? Because attacks against women on the Right—particularly those who support or serve in the Trump administration—are considered completely acceptable on the Left, especially in the Trump era. And on the Right there remains an unwillingness to fight on equal terms.
Booker’s 10-minute unhinged obloquy is a fitting crescendo to the yearlong mugging of Right-leaning women. Angered by President Trump’s alleged comment describing some African countries as “shitholes,” tough guy Booker decided not to take it up with Trump himself, but instead direct his rage at Nielsen. Quoting Martin Luther King Jr, Booker accused Nielsen of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” When he misrepresented what she said, and Nielsen tried to defend herself, he cut her off, yelling, “let me finish!” His voice rising, spit flying, Booker pounded on the dais, pointed at Nielsen, and essentially accused her of being a liar and a racist: “Your silence and your amnesia is [sic] complicity.” He ended his tirade by mocking her recollection of the meeting: “You don’t remember. You can’t remember the words of your commander-in-chief. I find that unacceptable.”