A new Democratic congresswoman just called Donald Trump a “motherfucker”. The reaction? Predictable outrage from Trump and Republicans – delight from women all over the US.
Rashida Tlaib is the first Palestinian American to be elected to Congress. At an event for her supporters on 3 January, she recounted a conversation with her young son:
When your son looks at you and said ‘Mamma, look, you won — bullies don’t win.’ And I said, ‘Baby they don’t, because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker!
The idea went down well:
Congresswoman @RashidaTlaib tells cheering crowd that Trump impeachment coming
“We’re going to go in and impeach the motherfucker” pic.twitter.com/oQJYqR78IA
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 4, 2019
Trump attempts to take the moral high ground…
Predictably, Trump himself was less impressed. At a news conference, he said:
I thought her comments were disgraceful. I think she dishonored herself, and I think she dishonored her family.
He added that her comments were “disrespectful to the United States of America.”
…but fails
Trump himself is notorious not just for using bad language but language and gestures that are misogynistic, racist, and ableist. In 2005, he was recorded saying that when he sees beautiful women he likes to “grab them by the pussy”. He later described this comment as just “locker-room banter”.
Trump may not have liked Tlaib’s comments, but women all over the US took to Twitter in delight:
Impossible to know if vow to impeach the motherfucker will turn out to factually correct, but it's certainly imaginatively correct. I therefore give it zero Pinocchios & a million dancing-women emojis on my scale of hilariously true things that women are finally saying out loud.
— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) January 4, 2019
I thought her comments were disgraceful; she dishonored herself and dishonored her family; it was highly disrespectful to the United States says the man who said 'grab em by the p___'
cc @RashidaTlaib— Nida Khan (@NidaKhanNY) January 4, 2019
If it walks like a motherfucker and talks like a motherfucker and commits treason then #ImpeachTheMotherFucker #MorningJoe
— LoriRN0901 (@LoriRN0901) January 4, 2019
https://twitter.com/_ElizabethMay/status/1081227171568353280
So we can "grab them [women] by the pussies", but we can't "impeach the motherfucker?"
America can fuck right off.
— Devin Lytle (she/her) (@devdevnumnums) January 4, 2019
https://twitter.com/Shakestweetz/status/1081229665048686592
I’m apalled Rashida Tlaib said “motherfucker.”
She should’ve said “grab them by the pussy.” Or perhaps “moved on her like a bitch.”
You know—civil language befitting the solemnity of the office.
— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) January 4, 2019
Trump’s outrage failed to move Tlaib. Her office said:
Congresswoman Tlaib was elected to shake up Washington, not continue the status quo. Donald Trump is completely unfit to serve as President.
Most diverse Congress in history
The most recently elected Congress, while still having a majority of white men, is the most diverse in history. There are a record number of women, the first Muslim American congresswomen, and the first Native American congresswomen.
Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American congresswoman, who arrived in the US as a refugee, tweeted:
The #116thCongress has SO much to be proud of:
✅1st Somali-American + Refugee
✅1st Muslim women (@RashidaTlaib & I)
✅1st Indigenous women
✅1st Palestinian-American
✅Youngest (28) @AOC
✅Record 100+ women
✅Largest ever Black (55), Hispanic (37), & Progressive (98) caucuses— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 3, 2019
Trump had better watch out. There are a lot of women in congress now, and elsewhere, who are not afraid to speak out.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab/Gage Skidmore flickr
