Bernie Sanders stops fight between Sen. Markwayne Mullin and teamsters boss Sean O’Brien. Image: Video screengrab
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In 1867, President James Buchanan said that the Senate was the “world’s greatest deliberative body” because of its reputation for intelligent and impassioned debate. Alas, that is no longer the case.
Look at the pain etched on Senator Sanders’ face as a hearing in the United States Senate is desecrated by a thin-skinned bully from Oklahoma. The Oklahoma senator wanted to fight Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million workers across the country:
This disgraceful moment of disintegration is one more cut on the dignity of our most important institutions inflicted by a buffoonish elected official, who has climbed to a position of power with the proper alchemy of thuggery and self-pity. The hearing, as it turns out, wasn’t about the American worker, but rather the vanity of a Republican senator who proved once again that there is no flower in all the world more delicate than the male ego.
It’s all about Markwayne Mullin, who no doubt planned his desecration with purpose, premeditation and the joy of the aggrieved who find joy through vendettas and revenge. No doubt Mullin was auditioning for an audience of one at Mar-a-Lago. The VP sweepstakes is fully underway. Lauren Boebert may need to go to the theater again in order to keep up.
The look on Senator Sanders’ face is worth millions of words. It is not the face of the American left of democratic socialism. It is the face of dignity. It is the look of an anguished United States senator at a moment of indignity and madness. When Senator Sanders admonishes the child next to him, he uses his substantial moral authority to address Mullin’s total lack of comportment and his unbecoming behavior. Sanders voice rings out, “You are a United States senator!” as the MAGA fool from Oklahoma huffs and puffs, and threatens violence for the whole world to see.
Senator Sanders understands the moment at hand. With the idiot next to him, he mentioned that a fist fight might not help alleviate the contempt with which the American people hold the Congress. It almost equals the contempt with which most of the American media holds every day Americans.
Watch this appalling moment, and try to comprehend it. The violence is coming. It is too late to stop it now. It has been mainstreamed into our culture and politics. The fuse is lit, and the explosion is coming.
It is believed that, in 1867, President James Buchanan said that the Senate was the “world’s greatest deliberative body” because of its reputation for intelligent and impassioned debate. Alas, that is no longer the case, as evidenced yesterday.
Steve Schmidt
Steve Schmidt is a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. He served as a political strategist for George W. Bush and the John McCain presidential campaign. Schmidt is a founder of The Lincoln Project, a group founded to campaign against former President Trump. It became the most financially successful Super-PAC in American history, raising almost $100 million to campaign against Trump's failed 2020 re-election bid. He left the group in 2021.
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