"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

With those three short sentences, Sen. Mitch McConnell on Tuesday made Sen. Elizabeth Warren the undisputed front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, was explaining why he used an obscure senate rule to silence Warren, who was reading a 30-year-old letter from Coretta Scott King that criticized Jeff Sessions. In 1986, Sessions was up for appointment to the federal bench. Now a senator from Alabama, he is President Donald Trump's choice for U.S. attorney general.

Undeterred by McConnell's unsubtle parliamentary tactic, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley took up the challenge and finished reading the letter. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow wrote, in part:

"Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship."

Those are powerful words that Democrats opposed to Sessions' nomination believe needed to be said publicly all these years later. But along with making Sessions' almost-certain confirmation as attorney general all the more controversial, the manner in which Mrs. King's words reached the public has reignited Warren's reputation as the fighter progressives are looking for. The hashtag #ShePersisted immediately took off, and Warren is being presented by fans far and wide as a heroine who will not be stopped.

If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. #ShePersisted pic.twitter.com/f6SBpQ9XLf

"McConnell gagging Warren is one of the best gifts she could have received," The Washington Post wrote Wednesday, "and her birthday is not even until June. ... She was speaking to a nearly empty chamber against a nominee who, no matter what, is going to get confirmed later today. Very few people paid attention to similar floor speeches against [new Education secretary] Betsy DeVos the night before. Now millions of people will read the letter that King wrote."

Millions of people also have watched Warren reading it, which she did on Facebook Live (off the Senate floor) shortly after being stopped by McConnell. It seems the partisan battle lines are being drawn more starkly every day as the Trump administration gets down to the hard work of implementing its agenda. Democrats in Congress have been flailing since President Trump's shock election victory last November. But now progressive activists and voters across the country may have just unofficially chosen the woman who will unite and lead them for the next four years.

-- Douglas Perry 

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