Only days after scampering off to hide in the men’s room at National Airport after being questioned by victims of sexual assault over his support of Brett Kavanaugh, on Saturday Georgia Senator David Perdue once again demonstrated his contempt for the voters he supposedly was hired to represent.
An attempted conversation between a Georgia Tech student and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) ended abruptly with the lawmaker snatching the student’s cellphone away while he was being asked about possible voter suppression in the state.
Perdue was visiting Georgia Tech to campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, Georgia’s current Secretary of State. As most are aware, Kemp is currently under fire for allegedly attempting to disqualify the voter registration of thousands of people of color in the state, a tactic designed to suppress votes that would otherwise likely be cast for Democrat Stacey Abrams.
So it was perfectly legitimate for one of Perdue’s constituents to ask him why he would support someone like Kemp. But Perdue evidently thought otherwise, and decided to assault the student before he could even ask a question (and yes, this is an assault, as any law school student will tell you):
“Hey, so, uh, how can you endorse a candidate — ”
That was as far into the question as the student got. Before he could continue, Perdue snatched the phone out of the student’s hands, as evidence shows in a video suddenly turned erratic.
In the ordinary course of their days, most people don’t go around grabbing things out of other people’s hands. To do so risks retaliation which can often escalate. That is why this type of conduct is defined as an assault (if not battery).
The video of the Senator’s thug-like behavior is below:
“No, I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that,” the senator can be heard saying in the cellphone recording.
“You stole my property,” the student tells Perdue. “You stole my property.”
“All right, you wanted a picture?” the senator replies.
“Give me my phone back, senator,” the student says.
“You wanted a picture? I’m going to give it to you,” the senator continues, ignoring the student’s request. “You wanted a picture?”
“Give me my phone back, senator,” the student repeats.
The student, who has remained unnamed out of concern for his physical safety in this age of Trump-supporting Brownshirts, was a member of the college’s Young Democratic Socialists of America. The group put out a statement that fairly explains the import of this incident:
“Had the situation today been the other way around, and if the Georgia Tech student had snatched a sitting U.S. senator’s phone, the student would likely have been arrested on the spot,” the group stated. “This behavior is shocking, appalling, and totally unbecoming of the supposedly hallowed office of U.S. senator.”
Perdue’s behavior here is just another example of a Republican feeling entitled to employ violence or force against an American citizen who dares to ask him uncomfortable questions, and yet another symptom of the wholesale rot that has spread through the Republican Party under Donald Trump.