Among such a crowded field of Democratic candidate hopefuls for 2020, it can be hard to define oneself. Some have already chosen to identify themselves by their policies, others by what they can accomplish by winning or how favorable they are to do so, and still others have made no choice of their own. They have instead had their identities thrust upon them.
Enter Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). Comb in one hand, salad in the other.
If you have the privilege or willpower necessary to remain blissfully unaware of the unrelenting news cycle, you may have missed this New York Times article, which details the surreal scene in which Klobuchar berates a staff member for forgetting to bring utensils onto a flight. She then begins withdrawing a comb and eating her salad with it. I hesitate from calling it pure comedy – though it has assuredly been mocked thousands and thousands of times over on social media already – only because it demonstrates what is the tragic truth behind Klobuchar’s campaign. Klobuchar is abusive.
A Brief History
Ashley Reese at Jezebel looked into this phenomenon of the abuse itself as well as the fact that Klobuchar continues to own the steady stream of stories from current and former staffers about their experience in an “abusive workplace.” The collection of stories in one place makes clear that this campaign is no aberration from Klobuchar’s typical behavior either. She’s had the highest rate of turnover from 2001 to 2016 of any senator. Three potential candidates to lead the campaign withdrew their offers after learning of the extent of her misbehavior. Former staffers observed she made a point to berate aides in full view of others and – prior to the fork incident becoming public record – had a nasty habit of flinging things around the office, infamously hitting a staffer with an errant binder.
As this BuzzFeed News report details, employees asked to remain anonymous because of fear of retribution. Others defended Klobuchar’s behavior, using terms like “strong woman” and “leader.” Which, to me, registers as rather funny, because as a former victim of abuse, I have never felt as though it reflects any strength on part of the abuser. Perhaps this is why I am writing this article about how actually unfunny the image of Amy Klobuchar eating a salad with a comb is.
The most surreal aspect of the, admittedly, bizarre image of a sitting senator eating a salad with a comb is that she did not sneer, “look what you made me do” before demanding her aide clean said comb. The pattern of conspicuous self-flagellation after excessive reaction to perceived slights is as familiar as the vocal cue anyway. Like a whistle pitched high enough that it goes completely unheard by people like Jonathan Chait and Hilary Rosen.
It Takes a Village
Chait, being motivated mostly by contrarianism rather than any actual ideological commitment perhaps doomed him into writing such a remarkably stupid tweet, claiming that Klobuchar telling staffers, “I would trade three of you for a bottle of water,” actually made him want to vote for her! Well Jon, given Klobuchar’s office turnover rate and the now reported trend of people recusing themselves from once offering to staff her campaign, maybe she should have made those trades when she had the chance. At least now she’d have some bottles of water.
Rosen’s response on the other hand, simply embodies the position Klobuchar herself has staked out on the issue: that it’s actually a good thing and that coverage of her abuse is primarily motivated by sexist double standards. She suggests that the coverage on the issue, from no less than four distinct news outlets citing dozens of current and former employees, are “hit pieces.” Rosen then brags that she has never respected an “easy” boss, before calling Klobuchar “smart, hardworking, and dedicated.” I don’t know how smart it is that Klobuchar has steadily alienated the people who once wanted to work for her, but Rosen goes even further to suggest that her former staffers are neither smart nor hard-working nor dedicated.
I really do not have anything kind to say about Rosen’s perspective here, but it should suffice to observe that is nearly sociopathic to suggest her staffers are anything shy of dedicated and hard-working when they showed up day after day to cater to someone who brags of how awfully she treats them. Rosen is engaging in what anyone would describe as victim-blaming. She means to say, as Chait does much more crassly, that it is a good thing Klobuchar is an abuser, and it is the fault of her former staffers for not appreciating the abuse and wishing to emulate it themselves.
A Class of Clowns
Worse still is that Chait and Rosen are merely the latest representatives of the trend that Ashley Reese’s piece delves into, the pinkwashing of abuse because it is a powerful woman doing it. Conservative commentator George Will, CNN commentator Bakari Sellers, the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board, a twitter account with almost 200,000 followers and – no joke – the handle @girlsreallyrule, and a Harvard Business School professor who wrote for The Washington Post are just some of the people who have elected to defend, deflect from, and apologize for Klobuchar’s behavior. The Wall Street Journal even suggested that Klobuchar is simply “less tolerant of millennial demands.”
Really? The 58-year old senator throwing temper tantrums and publicly denigrating her staff, both in the office and through mass email chains, is somehow the adult in the room?
You do not need my experience as someone who has been abused to know that this is what is called, “telling on yourself.”
Context is Key
This also is not meant to deny that there is a double standard for women, who are unjustly expected to be more “likable” and professionally amiable. But anyone familiar with the theoretical underpinnings of intersectional feminism also knows that when it comes to issues of abuse, the essentialized gender narratives can obscure the agency of female abusers. This outdated dependence on stereotypes has real costs like the relative invisibility of women abused by other women, or children abused by women.
In the case of the deflections on Klobuchar’s behalf, the defenses mostly fall flat. Just see this thread by fact-checker Tim Nicolai linked in Reese’s post, where he thoroughly debunks the notion that we do not hold men accountable for terrorizing their staffers. This Huffington Post article by Amanda Terkel similarly takes on the idea that critics of Klobuchar are merely sexist. These are not “hit pieces” put out to smear a “strong” woman. They’re the scrutiny commensurate with running a campaign for the presidency. Believing, as many major media outlets and figures have proclaimed they do, that there is nothing wrong with abuse – merely who is doing it – is morally repugnant, socially inadequate, and professionally ignorant.
First-hand Experience
Given my history, perhaps I am simply motivated to say that regardless of what the commentators are saying you should focus on the people who actually worked for Klobuchar and experienced firsthand what it was like. From an anonymous former aide quoted in the Feb. 9 BuzzFeed News article: “I knew her reputation going in, and I rationalized it, because I thought that was what was going on — I thought people were saying that because she was a woman,” said the first former staffer. “I regret that now.”
For what it’s worth, I also know from experience that people like Klobuchar’s interpersonal problems are inextricable from both the culture that supports her – pundits and managers from across the political spectrum mostly – and a professional ethos of exploitation. It is unfortunate that the surreality of her comb-assisted salad tale overshadowed the rest of the Times piece, where it is detailed that she openly suspected staffers of leaking information about her, or required those who took paid leave to return and remain with the office for three times as many weeks as they had been gone.
It also overshadowed Klobuchar haplessly mouthing another abuser canard, this time in an email to her staff, “How can you treat me like this time and time again?”
The Middle of Nowhere
For someone who has touted her electability despite coming out early against broadly popular programs such as free four-year college – supported by 60% of Americans – and Medicare-for-all – supported by 70% of Americans – perhaps the solidified identity as The Abuser candidate will help differentiate her from the field. It clearly has bipartisan support in the media, conservatives get to defend an abusive boss and liberals get to defend a female abusive boss, and there’s easy product tie-ins with Klobuchar branded salad combs and bottled water emblazoned with the names of staffers traded for it. Here’s to your 2020 campaign senator, let’s hope it’s a memorable one.
Kyle is a four-letter word 