Imagine If Every Politician Was Like Rashida Tlaib

Once a fucking boss, always a fucking boss.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Late last year, less than a month into Israel’s full blown assault on Palestinians following the Oct 7th Hamas attacks, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib tweeted out a video naming the genocide for what it was, calling for a ceasefire, and demanding that Joe Biden stop actively enabling the slaughter of thousands of innocent people. It was a fucking boss move.

It is now nearly nine months later. Nine months of absolutely devastating violence and tens of thousands of civilian lives lost, with the true number of dead likely higher than what’s been reported. There has been progress: More people than ever support Palestine (and feel comfortable saying it!), and the campus protests this spring illustrated exactly how vocal and disruptive many of those people are willing to be. Some politicians are even taking tentative, but good, steps: just a few days ago, Senator Tim Kaine released a statement in favor of recognizing Palestinian statehood. 

These are important things! But they aren’t enough. Joe Biden isn’t seeking reelection, but he’s still president, and is still a steadfast supporter of this atrocity. Kamala Harris has secured the Democratic nomination, but we have yet to hear from her how her policies might diverge—or not—from her current boss. We don’t yet know whether her presence will make any meaningful difference in mitigating the situation in Gaza, and saving Palestinian lives. 

On Wednesday, Harris skipped an address from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress (as did Tim Kaine, Rep. Mark Pocan, and many other democrats) but she’s reportedly expected to meet with Netanyahu at a different time during his visit. 

You know who didn’t skip the address? Rashida Tlaib. She not only attended, she came with her own party favors: 

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Tlaib is the only Palestinian in Congress. It’s difficult to imagine what yesterday’s speech must have been like for her: to not only have to sit in the same room as the orchestrator of the attempted decimation of her people (whose presence there she rightly called “utterly disgraceful”), but to listen to him, and adhere to rules of governmental decorum, and to do so while her fellow members of Congress repeatedly clapped for him:

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My god. It’s a staggering display of fortitude. Tlaib has been vocal and unflinching since the very beginning of all this, but her continued bravery in the face of hatred and an unmoving U.S. government is heroic. This particular act also comes at a crucial moment as the new presumptive nominee is surely hard at work figuring out how to position herself on this issue (and many others), and choosing a running mate to complement those positions. The reported list of potential VP choices for Harris includes, for example, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, whose sympathetic stance toward Israel is considered either a liability and an asset, depending on who you ask. 

Harris might possibly be better than Biden on this issue (her talking points thus far have been more forceful, at any rate), but it remains to be seen whether she’ll go as far as she needs to. The insane fervor around her ascension since Sunday makes sense: we’ve spent the last month in a collective state of panic and insanity over the state of Biden, and the future of the election—on top of spending the last four years bracing for Trump 2.0. 

For so many of us though, this delight feels akin to the pre-2016 era of American politics…and I mean that in a bad way. 2016-2024 wasn’t great either for many reasons! But there’s something lowkey trauma-inducing about swaths of people snapping back into a time when the Democratic Party was coasting on Obama-era vibes and the potential of a girlboss future™. Harris taking Biden’s place is an objectively solid and meaningful improvement, but it’s just one step—one decent thing that emerged from a wildly untenable and extreme situation that frankly, is still hard to believe was able to transpire in the first place. 

The Democratic Party (and its followers) have swung wildly in the other direction since the optimism of the mid-aughts, but it’s weird how both self-assurance and optimism, and fear and desperation, can both lead to a kind of enthusiastic acceptance of the status quo and adherence to “norms”. Never forget the Democrats have been in power for the last four years. Would four more years of Trump have been worse? Without a doubt. But the goal—the arguably optimistic, radical, uncynical goal—is that we’d have a candidate who could bring progressive ideas and actual change with them, along with good vibes and memes.  

I’m glad Biden is gone and I’m listening to what Harris has to say over the next few months. I’m also deeply grateful to an increasingly small number of people like Tlaib, who aren’t backing down—who are showing up instead of skipping out, who are actively protesting an oppressor like Netanyahu right to his face. When meaningful action often feels slippery or nonexistent, it’s deeply heartening to see someone holding up a literal sign, full of rage, and boldly saying what so many others won’t.