Mitch McConnell can run, but he cannot hide. Tonight, women will gather outside his DC home to read Coretta Scott King's letter addressing Jefferson Beauregard Sessions' nomination as a federal judge and voter suppression.
The plan was hatched after lawyer Ruth Eisenberg saw McConnell shut Senator Elizabeth Warren down on the Senate floor last night as she read the letter.
McConnell scolded, "She was warned. She was given an explanation. She persisted."
"We felt he should have listened to it last night on the Senate floor, and since he wouldn't listen to it last night, we will read it to him tonight," says Eisenberg, a lawyer in her 60s whose practice represents non-profits. Though she's participated in protests before, including the Women's March and another recent rally, this is the first time Eisenberg is helping lead the charge.
It started with another friend's comment on Facebook, saying women should read King's letter to McConnell at his own abode. The conversation grew from there.
Eisenberg asked if anyone knew where the Senate majority leader lives. Somebody did. She asked if anyone had a bullhorn. Someone else had one.
"We're just regular D.C. people—parents, grandparents, regular citizens of the District of Columbia and Maryland," she says, adding that some are longtime activists and others have been more recently "activated by the president's policies and his general unfitness for office." They aren't planning any acts of civil disobedience outside McConnell's home and expect a small crowd.
"This protest is being led by women, but men and women oppose Jeff Sessions for attorney general and oppose the sexism of not allowing Senator Warren to speak," Eisenberg says.
This is how movements are born. One slimy moment after the next, with ordinary people rising up and saying that enough is enough. You go, Ruth Eisenberg!
