Thread by @rmc031

Okay I’ve finally been able to articulate what has bugged me about the Amy Klobuchar discussion, which is that I don’t think people are being completely forthright about the alleged problem (thread). /1

The real undercurrent from all the stories we’ve seen is not actually “tyrant with an anger problem.” What comes through from the stories, and what I’ve also personally heard, is that she very, very emotionally erratic. /2

That she cries, screams, and just freaks out often. Gets super stressed, and upset. And clearly takes that all out on her staff sometimes. /3 See:

Everyone reporting this out is clearly aware of being charged with sexism, of double standards. It’s genuinely difficult, especially for lefty outlets, to suggest something like “Amy Klobuchar, this respected long-term female senator, is said to be a managerial basket case” /4

To be clear, I’m not excusing her behavior. She sounds very hard to work for. But I’m saying many of the actual complaints are also extremely hard to talk about without sounding gendered and sexist. I dismissed them myself when I first heard precisely for those reasons /5

And so the result, as we’ve seen, is that people are latching on to this somewhat more kosher narrative of “anger management” problems. That staffers are “terrified of her wrath.” We get stuff like this:

There is definitely evidence of her being a hostile, demeaning boss (like the AFCSME letter) but I think most people would say that’s not really what makes Klobuchar’s purported behavior distinctive in Washington /7

The real consistent narrative around Klobuchar is not that actually that she’s too mean. It’s that she’ll snap easily and is highly emotional to a degree that is unbearable to work for. /8

And there’s a real difference between “Amy got really upset, threw a binder in frustration, and it accidentally hit someone” and “Amy hurled a binder at her staff member out of rage.” The former raises very concerning issues, too! But of a different kind. /9

Some people would certainly feel too uncomfortable supporting a cruel and hard-driving boss with a tendency to lash out at staffers. But others would say, “So what, I frankly don’t care about campaign/congressional staff, I care if she gets the job done.” /10

And one of the things you’ll definitely hear often from a Klobuchar 2020 campaign is that she holds records for passing the most bills in the Senate klobuchar.senate.gov/public/2016/12… /11

But if the problem is something where her staff leaves in droves and say “we found her really unstable, in a way I've never experienced before in a workplace” — that gets at a different kind of issue, and one that actually matters to learn more about. /12

Anyway one last thing is you might be wondering -- if this really were true for so long, then why has the local MN political press never reported on it before? Where are they now? /13

Here it’s a little personal for me. I spent the summer in Minneapolis and while there broke stories about their three-term attorney general Lori Swanson, reporting things that had apparently been “open secrets” in local politics for more than a decade? /14

So I’ve got to say, it sadly doesn’t surprise me that the Minnesota political press hasn’t touched this, they don’t report super aggressively on their electeds. But it would certainly be welcome if they wanted to help report this one out /end