Some Advice For John Fetterman: Just Sit Down And Watch Jasmine Crockett Work

Try standing by women of color for once.

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett from Texas is a rising star. Possessing fiery wit, she’s masterfully defended President Joe Biden and his family against scurrilous right-wing attacks. One of my favorite comments from her is when she explained to House Republicans why Hunter Biden would wish to testify publicly but not privately.

“Let me tell you why nobody wants to talk to y’all behind closed doors — because y’all lie,” Crockett said. “I don’t know how y’all are still standing right now because you should be quite dizzy from all the spinning that you’re constantly doing when it comes to spinning the truth.”

Then she tore into Republicans who minimize January 6.

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Here she is breaking down Donald Trump’s fascist nightmare Project 2025. This is my newsletter, so I don’t have to choose between clips. I’ll post them both.

Last Thursday, during a GOP-led nonsense hearing about Attorney General Merrick Garland, the meth-addled hamster powering Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s brain wandered off toward an entirely different topic.

“Please tell me what that has to do with Merrick Garland,” Crockett demanded. “Do you know what we’re here for?”

“I don’t think you know what we’re here for,” Greene replied, adding, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.” As Carla Tortelli would say, she sounded like a lady who’d gotten tired of her teeth, but Crockett did not respond with violence. She raised a “point of order” about the House rule against personal attacks.

“I’m just trying to better understand your ruling,” Crockett told committee chair and national embarrassment James Comer. “If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blond, bad-built butch body, then that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended Crockett against Greene’s classless attack, Greene snapped, “Are your feelings hurt?”

“Oh girl, oh baby girl, don’t even play,” Ocasio-Cortez warned.

CNN’s Abby Phillips would later ask Crockett if she should’ve “gone high” after Greene went “low,” and Crockett replied with blunt elegance, “I don't know that we can even call this a low. I mean, she goes to hell and I do my best to remind her as to why she should not cross me.”

Look, Michelle Obama expressed those generous sentiments in 2016 before Donald Trump was elected and years prior to January 6. That offer has long since expired. Ocasio-Cortez is right: Play time is over.

John Fetterman, man of decorum and propriety

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman injected himself into this scrap, even though he doesn’t even go here. He posted the next day on social media: “In the past, I’ve described the U.S. House as The Jerry Springer Show. Today, I’m apologizing to The Jerry Springer Show.”

It’s disappointing but not surprising at this point that Fetterman wouldn’t actually defend Democratic women of color who stood up to Greene, a sick, twisted bigot. Instead, he seized on the situation as an opportunity to go viral and please people who delight whenever white men chastise women of any shade.

“I understand you likely would not have stood up for your colleague and seem to be confused about racism and misogyny being a ‘both sides’ issue,” Ocasio-Cortez responded. “But I stand up to bullies, instead of becoming one. And to the women of Pennsylvania: I’d stand up for you too. Enjoy your Friday.”

Fetterman doubled-down on the “both-sides” rhetoric during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union. He dismissed Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism as “absurd.”

He told Jake Tapper, “I was just simply responding to the kind of chaos and everything that Rep. Greene started as well.” As well? Not to get all schoolyard, but Greene started this all by herself, as she always does. She’s quick to go personal and constantly tramples over boundaries. No one should have to constantly take the “high road” and absorb her insults, most of which are racist.

Fetterman doesn’t really acknowledge Greene’s racist taunts. He shows no empathy for Crockett. In this moment, he is every hoodie-wearing tech bro executive who fails to support the few women of color at the firm and pretends not to notice when white employees are awful to them.

“And if everyone on the committee was proud of what they’ve produced, they’re entitled to their opinion,” Fetterman said with unjustified smugness. “Or if they feel that this is the kind of video that you want to send to a classroom of eighth grade civics kind of students across America, again, that’s their choice.”

He’s certainly big about appearances now. Few schools permit teachers to dress like Fetterman does on a regular Tuesday at the Senate. The hearing in general, even if conducted in the most sedate manner possible, would not have been worthwhile for any eighth grade civics class because it’s just Republican grandstanding and demagoguery on behalf of Trump.

Does Fetterman think children would learn anything about civics if they watched the Cameo video he commissioned expelled House member George Santos to record for indicted Sen. Bob Menendez? They could devote an entire class period to Fetterman’s epic trolls … or just have them watch old Schoolhouse Rock! episodes on YouTube. That’s probably more instructive.

Ocasio-Cortez offered a civics lesson of her own. “Here’s the problem with ‘both sidesing’ the chaos that was the Republican Oversight hearing,” she wrote. “Republicans VOTED in cmte to allow the rhetoric that was used against Ms. Crockett last night. Notice that when Dems have the majority, these things don’t happen. It also gets worse…”

She explained how the Comer and the Republican committee members “broke official House protocol to allow MTG’s horrific opening silo of rhetoric, they THEN made another change to dispense with the legislative process … They cut off the *rest of the amendment process,* end(ed) all legislative debate, and cut straight to a vote on their text without standard procedure. Needless to say, this is not normal at all.”

You see, this is the microcosm of what authoritarians do on a larger scale. ID a vulnerable person/community that’s easier to break the rules towards, normalize it (often w/ “both sides” rhetoric), and then use that rule-breaking to undermine deeper processes and rule of law.

Republican tactics evoke the famous Martin Niemöller statement “First they came …” After all, women of color were initially the most outspoken about the threat Trump posed. They were dismissed as hysterical. When Trump demonized women of color as president, there was mild rebuke but attempts to hold him accountable were seen as a distraction. Now, when women of color stand up to MAGA abuse, men like Fetterman don’t stand with them.

Fairweather Fetterman

You could imagine Joe Manchin shaking his head and making a somber statement about how Congress members should always “set an example,” but Fetterman doesn’t even do that. He just delivers a drive-by insult, which is as racially coded as Greene’s dig about Crockett’s eyelashes. It’s also incredibly sexist. Male House members have been crasser and far more aggressive. Republican Rep. Mike Rogers had to be physically restrained from assaulting Rep. Matt Gaetz on the House floor. Comer called Rep. Jared Moskowitz a “Smurf.”

Recently, in the Senate, Ted Cruz and Dick Durbin have had tense exchanges, but they were tame compared to the moment when Sen. Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma threatened Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters union.

“Sir, this is a time; this is a place,” Mullin said. “You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.”

“OK, that’s fine, perfect,” O’Brien replied.

“You want to do it now?” Mullin asked.

“I’d love to do it right now,” O’Brien said.

“Then stand your butt up then,” Mullin insisted.

“You stand your butt up,” O’Brien said.

This probably reads sexier than it actually played out. Bernie Sanders had to come in and tell everyone to stop, which is usually a mood killer in adult films.

Fetterman has openly distanced himself from the progressive Left, and it’s possible that he simply read the CNN headline that read “House committee meeting devolves into chaos as Greene and Ocasio-Cortez trade barbs.” He didn’t bother questioning the framing. He saw this a chance to punch the supposed extremists from “both sides.” Of course, AOC is a normal left-wing Democrat who’s proven a reliable messenger for the party. MTG is an unhinged fascist. But when you govern on social media, there’s no time for nuance.

I’ve noticed many progressives on social media lament the supposed “change” in Fetterman. They’ve compared him to the one-term wonder Kyrsten Sinema, and the hardly progressive Conor Lamb, who Fetterman defeated in the 2022 primary, seems to agree with them.

“The spirit of the person he campaigned as is very different,” Lamb said. “I don’t understand what’s driving it. If I was someone that voted for him — and I did in the general election — but if I was one of his original supporters, I’d be disappointed.”

I don’t think Fetterman presented himself as a progressive ideologically. He just co-opted an outsider image, a stark contrast to the more strait-laced, conservative Lamb. Fetterman and Sinema both seem to have a constituency of one, but Fetterman is more reliably Democratic for now. Perhaps, like Sinema, he’s trying to emulate the late “maverick” of the Senate, John McCain, who was often cranky himself on the Senate floor.

Fetterman wouldn’t defend Crockett against Greene’s bullying because he’s a bully himself. He just ran a faux-populist campaign as the people’s bully. He mercilessly trolled Mehmet Oz during the 2022 Senate campaign, often less about specific policy and more about how Oz wasn’t “one of us.” He hasn’t changed. It’s just his targets.

I don’t personally appreciate when politicians present themselves as “the only sensible person in the room, and everyone else is an idiot whose absurdity I’ll eagerly mock.” Chris Eigeman made it work in Whit Stillman movies but it’s too self-involved and cynical for Congress. Jasmine Crockett has a far more appealing brand.

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