Democratic Women Persist in the Face of Attempts to Silence Them

A few months ago, Majority Leader McConnell tried to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren when she attempted to read a letter Coretta Scott King wrote about Jeff Sessions. His line became a battle cry for women involved in the resistance, “She was warned…nevertheless, she persisted.”

I was struck today by a few similar attempts to silence Democratic women—and their persistence. First of all, there was Senator Kamala Harris, who was questioning Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.

Mehera Bonner points out the double standard.

Senator Kamala Harris recently joined members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to chat about whether Donald Trump tried to obstruct the investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russia, and was cut-off mid-sentence and told to be “courteous” while questioning Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein…

We’re all about courtesy, but it should be noted that the men on this committee were just as fired up as Harris—and none of them were cut-off mid-musing. It should also be noted that Harris is one of only three women on this committee. Her expression says it all.

Next, there is Rep. Nancy Pelosi, someone who has seen this kind of thing before and wasn’t going to to take it for a minute.

Finally, watch Sen. Claire McCaskill make the case that all Democrats should be shouting about right now. She too persisted and seemed to have caught Sen. Hatch off guard in doing so.

I am sure there are things on which Warren, Harris, Pelosi and McCaskill don’t see eye to eye. It has become fashionable these days to critique Democrats and point out those divisions.

But it is also important to recognize that these women are in the trenches every day fighting off attempts to silence them and stand up for us. We should be just as vigilant in noting that and giving them our support for doing so.