It's hardly surprising to see something thoughtless and outrageous from Greenwald & Dore, but I want to discuss one particular undercurrent of misogyny here, because it's widespread.

That is: if a woman is impolite to a man, the man is absolved of all responsibility.

/1 https://twitter.com/im_PULSE/status/1356621858599301125
Let's assume Ted Cruz, a champion of deregulation who voted to rollback much of Dodd-Frank and is married to a managing director at Goldman Sachs, was sincere. 🙄

Is there a valid reason why Cruz's support for an investigation should depend on AOC's response? Of course not.

/2
For comparison, many members of the Obama admin had a hostile relationship with Warren over the CFPB's formation.

It would've been weird, gross, and pathetic if Obama had withdrawn support over that. But he's a grown man, so the work continued.

/3 https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1230330983955615746
Greenwald claims this stopped a "moment" for financial reform.

Assume Cruz was sincere (no) and it was improper for AOC to tweet this (it wasn't). Why would these tweets absolve Cruz from doing his job?

The answer is misogyny. The premise is she owed him polite recognition.

/4
Greenwald & Dore are one-note losers doing their shtick. I don't raise this to discuss them. I raise weaponized civility because, once you look for it, you'll see it in a lot of places, in government, courtrooms, boardrooms, academia, and elsewhere.

We need to work on that.
/end
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