In 2017 Arizona Senator John McCain famously gave the thumbs down to the GOP attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act with the “skinny repeal”—one of the late Senator’s last acts, which most progressives and people with any heart applauded and today remember warmly.
Arizona’s current senior Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, tried to bask in a bit of the McCain legacy with her own thumbs down display today, except it wasn’t to help millions of people, as McCain did. Quite the opposite. With a theatrical flourish she said no to Sen. Sanders’ $15 minimum wage amendment. This is infuriating—not just her no vote but her little Marie Antoinette curtsey as she pisses all over the hopes of millions of workers:
Years ago I donated to every one of Sinema’s legislative campaigns; she was a progressive state official who took on Sheriff Arpaio, homophobia, and the racist legislature. Then she went to Congress and got less blue with each election, to the point she’s in the purple zone, leaning toward red, even voting to confirm two of Trump’s worst appointments—Barr as AG and Bernhardt at Interior. How’d they work out?
The pisser is that Arizona already has a $12.15 minimum wage. It’s not like she’s risking votes to add a few more bucks, an increase most Arizonans support, something new Democratic Senator Mark Kelly understands. And with Arizona’s changing demographics—Biden won here and AZ’s Congress is 5-4 Dem—she doesn’t have to play Joe Manchin’s centrist game.
Methinks her little stunt will end up in a primary challenger’s ad. As the tweeter RootsAction says, she seems a little too happy to maintain poverty wages.
Since publishing, the dancing Sinema GIF has popped up everywhere, like the big-font headline at HuffPo, which calls it “glib,” and cable news, where she’s “insulting.” Not good optics, as they say, a couple seconds in Cancún.