The Piranhas Come for Kyrsten Sinema

By Jim Geraghty

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

 

Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema is the new Howard Schultz. Stay with me here.

 

In one of the true afterthoughts of the 2020 presidential-election cycle, former Starbucks CEO Schultz explored a “centrist independent” bid for the presidency, for what seemed like ten minutes. It was always the longest of longshots. Unless you followed the coffee chain or the business world, Schultz was not a particularly well-known figure. He was amiable, but not particularly charismatic. His rags-to-riches life story and worldview were interesting, but hardly slam-dunk presidential material.

 

But something odd happened almost immediately after Schultz announced his interest in an independent bid. Lots of big cultural figures who had never had a second thought about Schultz suddenly had extremely strong opinions about him and concluded that he was terrible and that his company was terrible. Stephen Colbert joked, “Who hasn’t been in a Starbucks bathroom and thought, “The guy in charge of this should be in charge of everything”?

 

Now, if Colbert had told the same joke a month earlier, no one would have understood it. Was there a widespread perception that Starbucks was a dump? The company sells about 4 million cups of coffee per day; whether or not you like its coffee, clearly lots of people all around the world like the place. Was there a prevalent belief that Starbucks was a particularly badly run company and that the CEO of that company had to be stupefyingly incompetent? Was Starbucks the kind of notorious, seedy eyesore no respectable person would want to be caught dead in?

 

But as I noted at the time, almost instantly, Starbucks became a cultural villain — never mind that the chain’s ubiquitousness had become something of a joke; as Dennis Miller cracked, “In my neighborhood, they’re opening up a new Starbucks . . . in another Starbucks.”

 

The Daily Beast suddenly discovered that the music selection at Starbucks featured too many white artists. Think Progress editor Ian Millhiser called for a boycott of Starbucks even though Schultz has left the company. Mika Brzezinski demanded of Schultz in his Morning Joe interview, ‘How much does an 18-ounce box of Cheerios cost?’ (He didn’t know.) A week ago, none of these people had any gripe with Schultz or Starbucks. He hasn’t officially announced a bid yet, and no polling has hinted at his level of support. But overnight, the well-regarded liberal former CEO became progressives’ enemy No. 1. Dozens of left-leaning public voices took to print, social media, and the airwaves to destroy him, like a shoal of piranhas.

 

The only thing Howard Schultz had done wrong was to represent a minuscule potential threat to either complicate or derail the Democrats’ effort to defeat Donald Trump. And for that, he had to be metaphorically destroyed. Overnight, lots of big cultural figures sent the clear signal: You are not supposed to like Howard Schultz. He is bad. Not only are you a bad person if you even consider voting for him, you are a bad person for not instantly hating him the way we do.

 

The progressive Left — represented not just by Democratic politicians but by activists, aligned groups, institutions, cultural figures, and certain journalists — operates on the mentality that anyone who stands in the way of it getting what it wants must be destroyed.

 

Joe the Plumber. Brett Kavanaugh. The Little Sisters of the Poor. Brendan Eich.

 

And right now, Kyrsten Sinema — who has never voted against the Biden administration’s position in the Senate — is the target of the progressive Left’s wrath. On Sunday morning Politico’s Playbook newsletter thought the biggest story of the day was that Saturday Night Live was making fun of Sinema:

 

— After everybody else is on board with investing in roads, Sinema: “I want no roads.” Biden: “Why?” Sinema: “Chaos.” [In reality, roads are one of the few things Sinema has made clear she wants.]

 

— After Sinema is asked what she actually likes: “Yellow Starbursts, the film ‘The Polar Express’ and when someone eats fish on an airplane. . . . As a wine-drinking, bisexual triathlete, I know what the average American wants.”

 

Politico seemed convinced that this impression will shape how Americans feel about what’s going on in Washington. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg cites the sketch this morning and fumes, “It sometimes seems as if what Sinema wants is for people to sit around wondering what Sinema wants.” Oh, those silly women, never knowing what they want! Even Freud was baffled by it! Goldberg wishes Sinema were more like John McCain and concludes that, “There’s a difference, it turns out, between being a maverick and being a narcissist.”

 

Most of us can see the dynamic at work here. Liberals loved John McCain because he deviated from the Republican Party line and intermittently sided with Democrats. Liberals currently loathe Sinema because she is deviating from the Democratic Party line and, for now, positioning herself with Republicans. Being a “maverick” is only good if you are helping the party that Michelle Goldberg likes.

 

You noticed it is suddenly okay to paint Sinema as a silly and shallow airhead who is obsessed with fashion, right?

 

“I think those negotiations have started now, so . . . this has probably helped some things move loose,” Representative Mark Pocan (D., Wis.), another leader of the Progressive Caucus, said of Manchin’s proposal. He also needled Sinema for not putting out her own proposal, telling Forbes that, “Half of Manchinema has now shown us something. Waiting for the other half to show us something other than a designer purse.”

 

Oh, those silly women and their obsession with designer purses! Good thing he’s a leader of the Progressive Caucus, otherwise that remark might be considered sexist!

 

Writing of the activists who yelled at Sinema from outside the stall as she attempted to use a public toilet, Kirsten Powers, who once seemed quite sane, now insists that, “People weaponize grace (and ‘manners’ etc) to tone police and silence people who are being harmed. It’s not ‘toxic’ to confront a politician who supports policies that are harmful.”

 

Boy, if there’s any problem that the United States of 2021 has in abundance, it’s “weaponized grace and manners,” isn’t it? Our society is just too darn polite, respectful, kind, and generous, and our biggest challenge is that we just don’t have enough angry activists who are willing to confront politicians. Oddly, I don’t remember this assessment being prevalent during the days of the Tea Party protests or the former president’s MAGA rallies.