Rep. Jasmine Crockett Is Making Merch Out of Her Celebrated Counterattack on Marjorie Taylor Greene

Late Thursday evening, members of the House Oversight Committee clashed over whether to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, for whatever delusional reason House Republicans cooked up this time around. But absolutely no one is talking about Garland or Republicans’ predictable conspiracy theorizing because all anyone cares about is what said clash entailed.

At one point, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) argued with Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and told the Black Congresswoman, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.” Greene’s racist comment set off quite the back-and-forth, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) coming to her colleague’s defense to ask Greene: “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?” Crockett then posed a hypothetical question to committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) that doubled as an unsubtle and frankly iconic attack on Greene. She asked Comer about what sort of comments are and aren’t appropriate for the hearing: “If someone on this committee starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

Jasmine Crockett on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “bleach blonde, bad built, butch body” during a House committee oversight hearing.

This started after MTG said her ‘fake eyelashes were messing up her reading’pic.twitter.com/kuPKMFAjFu

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 17, 2024

The clip has since gone viral, and a still of ranking Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland appearing to withhold a laugh has sparked plenty of mirth, too. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) can be heard telling Crockett to calm down, to which Crockett correctly replies, “Don’t tell me to calm down because y’all talk noise and then you can’t take it.” Ultimately, there was a vote on whether Greene should be removed from the hearing but Republicans declined to hold her accountable.

Since the exchange of words, Democrats and Republicans have battled on. Even Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) chimed in with a sexist asshole suggestion that the whole sequence of events was just ladies being petty and dramatic. But Crockett’s made it clear that she doesn’t regret her part in the fight at all. (Rightfully so!) In a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Crockett explained, “I signed up to be a member of Congress. That didn’t mean that I was supposed to walk into a position where I’m going to walk in and be disrespected.”

So we are going to drop “A Crockett Clapback Collection.” This collection will feature various swag that includes random things I’ve said. The money will go to ensuring that we have a Democratic House! Give me a little time to really get the swag online etc., but B6 will drop… pic.twitter.com/7RnPQ4jVHs

— Jasmine Crockett (@JasmineForUS) May 18, 2024

Over the weekend, Crockett shared plans to roll out merch and t-shirts with her memorable “bleach blonde, bad-built, butch body” line to fundraise toward a Democratic House majority. “So we are going to drop ‘A Crockett Clapback Collection.’ This collection will feature various swag that includes random things I’ve said,” Crockett said in a tweet. “The money will go to ensuring that we have a Democratic House! Give me a little time to really get the swag online etc., but B6 will drop first.”

I’ll never be a huge fan of the reality show-ification of American politics, but I can absolutely get behind Crockett, specifically, ditching civility and traditional decorum to put an unrepentant racist like Greene in her place. Also on State of the Union, Crockett further explained the problem with Greene’s comment: “MAGA has historically been on social media doing the things where they’re saying, ‘Oh, she’s Black with lashes and nails and hair, and so she’s ghetto. … It is buying into a racist trope.”

Surely there will be a lot of pearl-clutching over Crockett’s “bleach blonde” comment and her fundraising from both Republicans and the civility police writ large. But it’s really as simple as this: No one made Greene spew a racist attack that would have incurred some form of repercussions in any other workplace—if you ask me, Crockett simply said what needed to be said!