They went after her.
Following Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-AZ.) speech on the Senate floor on Thursday (January 13), in which she refused to toe party lines, instead, supporting the unchanged filibuster rule, has been met with severe backlash.
In the days after the speech, Sinema has been branded a “racist” and “bigot,” with some of her fellow Democrats calling her a traitor.
Many of her colleagues and fellow liberals took to Twitter to bash the Arizona Senator.
In a series of tweets that began with a quote tweet of Sinema’s, political consultant Tom Watson said that “I’m not kidding about @kyrstensinema – it’s all about race,” political consultant Tom Watson tweeted. “If you’re wondering what the “Sinema secret” is, that’s it. Black people. There’s no real mystery here. Plain old bigot. Occam’s razor. The mask is off.”
He continued his rant saying that Sinema “chose her side – and that side is white supremacy. That’s who she is. That’s what defines her now.”
Watson would also publish a quote attributed to Martin Luther King III, “She’s siding with the legacy of Bull Connor and George Wallace instead of the legacy of my father and all those who fought to make real our democracy.”
Watson wasn’t the only Democratic to take issue with Sinema’s stance; Senate candidate Michael Starr Hopkins tweeted, “Krysten Sinema is the co-worker that swears she’s an ally but always finds a way to chuckle when the racist jokes come out.”
Congressman Jamall Bowman added to the sentiment calling Sinema a “traitor” of John Lewis’s legacy.
On Thursday, Sinema announced she would not be voting to weaken the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, which has upended Democrats’ plans to pass voting rights legislation without any supports from Republicans.
In her speech, Sinema cited the need for bipartisanship, saying she would not “worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country” by changing the filibuster.
