Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y) is from the AOC/Democratic Socialists of America wing of the Democratic Party, and along with that comes the responsibility of being as shriekingly bombastic and obnoxious and woke as possible, all of which Bowman has demonstrated on more than one occasion that he knows how to do very well.
When last we left you with Bowman, he was having an uproarious meltdown over Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) presence in New York City in April during the formal indictment of former President Donald Trump, stirring mobs of radical leftists into a frenzy as Greene was led away from the chaotic scene after exercising her First Amendment rights.
Fast forward a few weeks later, and Bowman was at it again, this time on the Capitol steps. Bowman and AOC had been heckling an “I won’t resign” gaggle last Wednesday featuring embattled New York Republican Rep. George Santos. Bowman in particular had reportedly become so obnoxious that Santos abandoned the apparently hastily arranged presser, saying he couldn’t hear the questions from reporters because of all the “screaming here” and “because there’s a deranged member here.”
As Greene, who was nearby, began calling for “impeaching Biden” instead of kicking out Santos, Bowman took the opportunity to confront her again, where the following fruitless back and forth ensued:
Two days later, Greene complained about Bowman to reporters, suggesting that the sum total of his aggressive and boisterous interactions with various GOP members of Congress including one where he got chest to chest with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) made her feel “threatened” by him:
Not surprisingly, Bowman treated Greene’s remarks as “racism” and milked them for all they were worth, saying the criticism boiled down to the fact that he was black (“that’s the stuff that got Trayvon Martin killed…we’re in a dangerous space”) and that they “put a target on” his back. He then proceeded to fundraise off of them.
“White supremacists like Marjorie Taylor Greene use racist dogs whistles to characterize outspoken, passionate Black men like me as threatening. But I won’t stop speaking truth to power. Join us so I can keep standing up against right-wing extremists,” he tweeted along with a link to an Act Blue fundraising page.
Ever the shameless political opportunist, California Gov. Gavin Newsom did as Bowman did, and compared her attack on him to the murder of Emmett Till.
“This is the kind of dangerous rhetoric that led to Emmett Till’s death,” Newsom tweeted. “Everyone should call this out for what it is: blatant racism.”
Greene, however, did not back down in the face of their predictable race-baiting, giving an interview describing Bowman’s notorious history of Antifa/BLM/OWS-like shouting down of GOP lawmakers he disagrees with, and reminding people of his irresponsible actions from back when she was in New York City:
In response, Bowman told the New Yorker that his “next move is to stay as far away from her as possible,” effectively meaning that MTG had finally managed to get him to back off, something no other Republican on Capitol Hill has been able to successfully do – though who knows how long it will last?
This is so nauseatingly classic from “Squad” Democrats, though, as we saw repeatedly during AOC’s first term whenever she and her fellow Squad members like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were attacked. It was always because they were “brown women speaking truth to power,” and they’d always accuse the people criticizing them of putting targets on their backs.
I was a form of shutuppery then, and it is now. Good on Greene for speaking her mind on this despite all the accusations.
I mean, think about it – does anyone believe that if the roles were reversed, and a female Democratic member of Congress complained about how a male Republican lawmaker spoke to her, that she would be treated with the contempt and scorn that Greene has? Of course, she wouldn’t be (see the AOC/Ted Yoho incident for more), because we’re living in a world gone cray cray and with no end in sight.