“You’re a United States Senator, sit down!!” — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) in the midst of a Senate hearing, after Mullin challenged a witness to a fight.
This week, congressional Republicans decided to forgo their usual Dukes of Hazzard meets Handmaid's Tale histrionics and cosplay as every high school bully in a 1980s John Hughes film instead.
In a real departure from their usually strict adherence to decorum, the party of State of the Union-heckling, Hunter Biden dick pic-showing, catfighting, name calling, and fake baby carrying, has been anything but on their best behavior these days. Kidney punches and challenges for MMA throwdowns in the hallowed halls of Congress are the order of the day.
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Sen. Markwayne Mullin seems to have determined that what his constituents really want to see from their elected officials is an octagon matchup between their guy and a union boss—while on the clock, ostensibly doing the business of the people.
The Republican senator from Oklahoma and Sean O'Brien, the president of the Teamsters Union, very nearly got into fisticuffs Tuesday in the middle of a Senate committee hearing, because where else would two grown men charged with protecting the rights of American workers tussle? A bar? Someone’s backyard? Come on. If the world’s supposedly “greatest deliberative body” and our tax dollars aren’t meant for elbow strikes and wheel kicks, then what are we even doing here?
The drunken frat boy exchange began when Mullin read a trash talking tweet of O’Brien’s from June (yes, June).
“You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here," Mullin said.
"OK, that's fine, perfect," O'Brien replied. "I'd love to do it right now."
"Then stand your butt up then," Mullin said back.
"You stand your butt up," O'Brien said.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
Bill Clark/Getty ImagesAnd that’s exactly what Sen. Mullin did. He shot out of his seat, puffed out his chest, and began to remove his wedding ring, and things looked for a hot second there like shit was about to go down. The staffers were wide-eyed and people were gasping and chaos ensued, until Bernie Sanders, the 82-year-old senator from Vermont, banged his gavel, and admonished his colleague by saying, “Sit down, you’re a United States Senator! Sit down!”
And much like a toddler who’d just been scolded by his ornery yet charming grandpa, Mullin did what he was told, and sat down.
He’d later appear on numerous conservative “news” shows doubling down on how it was absolutely the “time and the place” for a fistfight and that it used to be a thing that people totally did until we went so “woke” that congressional cage matches became a no-no.
And what’s really crazy about Mullin nearly pommel-horsing the committee dais to square up to O’Brien is that it wasn’t even the most sophomoric bullying perpetrated by a member of the Republican Party that day.
That distinction belongs to the man formerly second in line to the presidency, who’s now a mere rank-and-file member thanks to making history as the first-ever Speaker of the House to be removed from his post by a House vote, Kevin McCarthy. (Perhaps he’s still stinging over the fact he was fired by his own party from a position he’d sold his soul in order to win.)
While one of the eight Republicans responsible for his ouster, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), was giving an interview to an NPR reporter, Burchett alleges McCarthy walked behind him and punched him in the kidney. This apparently is a real thing that real people do apparently, not just something a rich kid deprived of his father’s love would do to an awkward yet sweet band geek in the crowded high school stairwell of a 1980s teen rom-com.)
Burchett was so taken aback by what he later described to CNN as “a clean shot to the kidneys” that he yelled down the Capitol halls to a fleeing McCarthy, asking why he felt the need to assault him from behind. When dissatisfied with the former speaker’s non-answer, like a scene out of a Roadrunner episode of Looney Tunes, Burchett chased his alleged assailant down the hall until he got an answer, which Burchett said was a mumbled denial delivered with “that high pitched kind of thing.”
“Now he’s the type of guy that when you’re a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his mama’s skirt,” Rep. Burchett added.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
Alex Wong/Getty Images/Alex Wong/Getty ImagesFor his part, Rep. McCarthy told a hastily assembled gaggle of press, “I didn’t shove or elbow him. It’s a tight hallway. If I hit somebody, they would know it,” adding, “If I kidney punched someone, they would be on the ground.”
These are the people who make the laws in the richest nation on Earth, the shining beacon on a hill, the standard-bearer for the “free world.”
The GOP is a chaos conference that can’t agree on which day of the week it is, and they’re primed from both the nominal head of the party—the four-times criminally indicted Donald Trump—and the base up to prove their “masculinity” that they need to fend off all things “woke” with acts of violence, and if that means a violence in the middle of an interview or a hearing, then so be it.
These are the same people who needed a fainting couch when Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) came to work dressed in a hoodie and shorts. Fetterman’s getup may have been outwardly unprofessional, but you can say this for sure: He didn’t try to hurt anyone.
This is “Decorum 2.0,” per the Republican playbook. This is how you show your worth. It’s not the legislation you sponsor, or the reasonable questions you ask in a hearing, it’s “Were you willing to use violence to prove your mettle?”
That’s how you show respect for the institution and the office you hold.
But don’t you dare walk around peacefully in a hoodie and shorts. Because that’s a clear violation of decorum and very, very disrespectful to the institution, the office to which you’ve been elected, and most importantly—to the people.
