Kyrsten Sinema: Squelching Democracy With Snottiness

Since when did the women’s public restroom become such a sacrosanct refuge for mandatory silence and solitude?

Ever since Kyrsten, her grace, The Grand Duchess of Arizona, tacitly decreed that she must not be spoken to — ever — and any attempt by the commoners from this American colony to do so would be met with icy silence from the Duchess.

Indeed.

Too bad so many Americans — especially her constituents — didn’t get her unspoken memo.

Of course, this ersatz royal is none other than Kyrsten Sinema, U.S. Senator from Arizona. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. She’s been in the news a lot these days because she’s one of the 2 Democrats in The Senate(the other is Senator Joe Manchin,WV) holding up passage of the Build Back Better bill that President Biden(also a Democrat) wants to enact. She refuses to sign on to the bill. Why is that so newsworthy?

Because she also has refused to negotiate, compromise, even discuss or explain her position. She’s been mysteriously silent to reporters and other elected officials about it. More puzzling, though, is her dedicated refusal to fully communicate with her own constituents about it — along with any other political issues of concern to them.

Just when electing a Democrat to be Senator from a die-hard red state seemed like a great idea, Sinema got all snotty about public service. What’s worse, no one really saw it coming. Despite her self-professed political conservatism, she appeared to be a trailblazer of sorts. She was the first woman from Arizona to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She was also the first openly bisexual and second openly LGBT woman(after Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin) to be elected to The House of Representatives(in 2012) and The Senate (2018). Certainly, with her background as lawyer and social worker, and interest in LGBT rights, and experience in politics, she seemed destined to follow a Democratic agenda and uphold her party’s ideals…That didn’t happen, though.

And yet, Sinema’s managed to do something that very few elected officials could pull off. She’s not only adamantly refusing to interact and make contact with her constituents, she’s also maintaining an autocratic silence — one that now seems deliberately designed to get citizens into trouble while generating sympathy for herself as a “victim.”

If that M.O. sounds strangely warped to you, dear readers, that’s because it is.

Sinema is knowingly employing a form of passive-aggressive behavior that screams Unamerican and Unconstitutional. As an elected official, she knows she was voted to serve the public, not entrap them. But that’s exactly what this elitist pulled on activists who tried in vain, once more, to make contact with her on Sunday, October 3rd, at Arizona State University.

By now, you’ve probably heard the homogenized version of how poor Kyrsten was accosted by mean activists in the Ladies Room. OMG! The way she and the media carried on, you’d swear gnarly rioters burst into her stall and caught her in mid-loaf with her pants down…That never happened. Although audio and visual images of what actually took place at a public restroom on the Arizona State University campus were posted online, the media at large bought into Sinema’s version about being ambushed by angry protesters because they didn’t like her politics. Again, not true. I might also add an ironic “boo-hoo” here.

Sinema has no one to blame but herself for this scenario. She herself created this untenable situation by deliberately making herself inaccessible to her constituents. What really happened was that pro-active citizens were trying to get answers and information from her after she’d repeatedly discounted them with her inaction and silence, and after she’d broken important campaign promises but then refused to engage in meaningful dialogue with them about it.

In fact, Sinema could have easily averted any misgivings or diffused any confrontation by merely communicating with these citizens. She could have looked directly at them and talked to them. She didn’t do that. In the Restroomgate incident(that was recorded and posted) she could have acknowledged the frustration:

I appreciate your interest, but I have to use the restroom now. Give me another 5-10 minutes, then we can discuss this further at a better location.

Or she could have asserted her boundaries with humor:

Do you mind? Before we talk about the people’s business, I have my own business to wipe up. Talk to ya later.

At any point during her so-called “Sunday Ambush,” Sinema could have requested her own needs for propriety. When some group members of LUCHA(Living United for Change in Arizona) came into that classroom, she could have stood her ground while also showing respect for the needs of her constituents:

I can’t meet with you now, I’m teaching a class. If you remain quiet, you can stay here and sit as class observers. Or, you can go outside and wait. It’s your choice.

Sinema chose instead to play the victim card. She completely disregarded the rights of these activists. Then she tried to build a case against them. Her mean tweet accused them of unforgivable, unlawful behavior by elaborating on the outrageous violation of her privacy in the public restroom. But what could be more private than the inherent privacy of a locked stall in the women’s public restroom?

Oddly enough, the innate privacy of the restroom stall itself was repeatedly ignored by Sinema and overlooked by her supportive media. There was no invasion of privacy because no one entered the locked stall Sinema occupied. No one filmed her inside said stall, either. FUN FACT: Both men and women can talk, think, and sing show tunes when they’re taking a whiz and/or dump. If Sinema did not wish to engage with the public at that public site, she could have easily communicated her refusal. As usual, she didn’t.

Sinema also ordered her staff not to respond about this incident. When “The Arizona Republic” contacted Sinema’s office for verification, her spokesperson responded with another non-response: “We are not dignifying this behavior with a response.”

Yet suddenly, after her latest snub became news, the once-silent Duchess magically found her voice…just long enough to fire off that mean tweet that proclaimed LUCHA’s activists as criminals who victimized both her and her students. An exaggeration at best, but enough that might get some protesters in serious legal trouble — even deportation. How so?

In the news story from “The Arizona Republic” written by Julie Luchetta, the woman called Blanca who followed Sinema into the restroom admitted she was brought to the United States when she was three. She wasn’t born in the USA, in other words. I don’t know what Blanca’s immigration status is now. But you can bet the ASU police and federal authorities will be investigating her and everyone else from LUCHA who came to talk to Sinema that day.

Furthermore, Sinema’s rhetoric could elevate the confrontation into a serious misdemeanor or felony that might ruin chances of U.S. citizenship and residency for any of the activists who dared to speak to her in person. Amazing!

No wonder LUCHA-ites had to record you, Kyrsten. If they hadn’t documented your responses no one would have believed that you were actually acting that way and getting away with it. Even now, after what happened went viral, people still can’t believe you’re playing the victim card AND making 174K a year for not doing your job.

Well played, Duchess, well played.