Don't You Dare F*cking Silence Elizabeth Goddamn Warren

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Last night, Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced while trying to read an objection to the nomination of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must have thought he was giving a valid reason to stop Warren from speaking. Instead, he handed fed-up women everywhere a new anthem, by saying:

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

This has 2020 campaign slogan written all over it, so thanks for that. But we’re going to have to ask you to take several seats. Maybe you missed the memo, but you don’t ever fucking silence Elizabeth goddamn Warren.

Warren was reading a letter the civil rights activist and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s wife, Coretta Scott King, had written in opposition to Sessions’ 1986 nomination to a federal judgeship. Claims of racism have been swirling around Sessions since his nomination was announced — so the letter of objection definitely had a context for being introduced. Sessions has a history of opposing civil and voting rights legislation. His nomination to head the Department of Justice — which enforces civil rights — is a nightmare.

Instead of allowing the senator to speak, McConnell silenced her, charging that she had violated the rules against impugning another senator. The other Republicans in the room upheld the decision. Only, she wasn’t impugning another senator, they weren’t even her words. If an objection by the wife of Martin Luther King Jr isn’t relevant in such an important nomination for the future of civil rights in this country, what is? This was mansplaining at it’s finest. Thankfully, they’re not getting the last word. What they did, the equivalent of “hush, hush little lady, you can’t speak like that” is backfiring spectacularly. And McConnell inadvertently gave women everywhere a new battle cry.

She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.

#ShePersisted immediately started trending on Twitter, as women and men stood up for women’s voices and celebrated not only Warren, but all women who… persist.

Warren went on to read the entire letter via Facebook live last night, outside the Senate.

Since her silencing, four other male Senators have gone on to read the letter on the floor, including Bernie Sanders.

Without objection, of course.