Bluesky

On Thursday morning we got to see the worst and the best of the House Democratic caucus. I won’t soon forget either.

First, the worst: Ten Democrats voted with all House Republicans to censure their colleague, Representative Al Green of Texas, for disrupting President Donald Trump’s barrage of lies Tuesday night. Brandishing his cane, the disabled 77-year-old rose when Trump touted his supposed electoral mandate (he doesn’t have one, but that’s another story.) “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!” Green called out. When he continued to protest, House Speaker Mike Johnson had him removed from the chamber. Progressive colleagues, including Representatives Maxwell Frost and Jasmine Crockett, followed.

House Republicans quickly retaliated by drafting a resolution to censure Green.

“He chose to deliberately violate House rules in a manner that we think is probably unprecedented in history—interrupting a message of a president of the United States, who is an honored guest,” Johnson explained ahead of the vote.

Wait, Mike, you don’t remember Tea Party GOP Representative Joe Wilson screaming “You lie!” at President Obama during an address to both houses of Congress in 2010? You don’t remember your caucus colleagues Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert interrupting President Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address, looking like poo-flinging baboons? Or Greene doing it to Biden again in 2024?

Mike, you mocked Democrats for having “a 77-year-old congressman [as] the face of their resistance.” But ditch the ageism, because at 53, you seem to be already losing your memory.

Unfortunately, 10 Democrats sided with the ludicrous Johnson. They are Representatives Ami Bera of California, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Laura Gillen of New York, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Tom Suozzi of New York.

Kaptur and Himes were the big disappointments; the rest were to be expected.

When the vote was done, Johnson summoned Green to the well of the House chamber, where tradition holds the censured must stand to listen to the censure resolution. I felt the hair stand up on my arms as I saw a distinguished older Black congressman summoned to his humiliation by a white congressman. History doesn’t repeat itself, as Seamus Heaney told us, but it often rhymes. I usually quote that in good times; I’m quoting it now as a warning.

But here was the best of the House Democrats’ moves today: Green moved into the well. So did more than a dozen of his House progressive colleagues, including Rashida Tlaib, Maxine Waters, Ayanna Pressley, and Gwen Moore. They began to sing “We Shall Overcome.” And what began as an act of white GOP humiliation became a symbol of multiracial resistance instead. It can’t remove the stain from the 10 Dems who also voted to humiliate Green, but it was thrilling to those of us despairing over the censure move.

“Congressman Al Green’s protest is not just an act of defiance—it is an act of patriotism,” Rep. Lateefah Simon texted me Thursday afternoon. “His righteous stand against the President’s cruel attempt to dismantle healthcare for our poorest, our elders, and people with disabilities should be celebrated.

“I stand with Congressman Green. I stand with every American who refuses to let this country slide into a system that values profit over people. This is our country. This is our fight. And we will not back down.”

I can’t be the only one reminded of another time a cane was brandished in the Capitol: In May 1856, when pro-slavery Representative Preston Brooks almost beat to death abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner during a debate over whether to expand slavery’s deadly reach into new states and territories. This time, though, it was a Black man brandishing a cane, using it not as a weapon but as a rod of righteousness. We shall overcome, eventually.

Before Trump’s Tuesday address, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries walked a tightrope about how to best respond. Jeffries had told his colleagues that they should do what they thought was best for their constituents. But he also exhorted members who did attend “to stay on message and keep the spotlight focused on the people affected by Trump’s policies,” NBC News reported, and “not make the story about themselves.”

With all due respect, Leader Jeffries, you are the story, as Democrats wait for brave leadership to stop Trump and copresident Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of government, and sadly don’t see it coming. Exhorting people to observe “decorum” and to “honor the office of the presidency” is at best gaslighting Democrats, and at worst unconditional surrender to Trump and Musk. Do better, sir. Or else you’ll never, ever get the speaker’s gavel.