Jamaal Bowman finds his voice. Some Republicans don’t like the noise.
Many of his colleagues had already left for the night, but when Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat, ascended the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday, he had something else to do: harass Republicans.
“Have Some Dignity!” he yelled at Representative George Santos, the New York freshman fighting federal fraud charges, and at a sea of TV cameras waiting below.
“Listen, no more QAnon, no more MAGA, no more debt ceiling bullshit,” he said as he turned to face another confrontation, this time with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was standing nearby.
The back-and-forth theater ended when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow leftist “Squad,” gave a light tug on Mr. Bowman’s arm and repeated, “She ain’t worth it, man” — but not before a handful of lawmakers whipped out mobile cameras to capture the upcoming viral spit.
In this hyper-partisan era, the country has no shortage of politicians willing to go at each other from a hearing room or on social media. But Mr. Bowman, a media-savvy Democratic socialist from the Bronx, quickly made a name for himself this spring by going where most of them aren’t: to the actual faces of his opponents.
Mr Bowman’s platform includes far-reaching leftist policies that divided his party. Still, his style—”high school chief energy,” he calls it—seems to have captured the identities of even more moderate Democrats and fueled partisan speculation about his ambition.
A video in which an AR-15-holding House Republican from Kentucky tells Mr. Bowman, 47, to “calm down” as they argue about how to stop gun violence has been viewed more than seven million times. A friendlier confrontation ensued with a conservative black colleague a full CNN debate.
“I mean no harm by it,” Mr. Bowman said in an interview. “I’m not trying to hurt anyone. But we need to take America to the next level, and we’re not rushing forward.”
The approach also carries risks, especially for a black man, some of which came into sharp focus on Thursday. That’s when Ms. Greene, a belligerent Georgian with a history of spouting conspiracy theories and direct confrontation with its own political opponentssaid she had felt threatened by Mr. Bowman, even though the video showed her smiling as they sparred.
Ms Greene said Mr Bowman had called her a white supremacist, an insult she said was “equivalent to” someone calling “a person of color the N word”.
She then said the congressman’s “physical mannerisms are aggressive” and accused him of leading a “mob” that targeted her when they both showed up outside a Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald J. Trump was being indicted — an obvious reference to a crowd consisting largely of members of the news media.
“I’m very concerned about Jamaal Bowman,” Ms Greene said, “and he’s someone people should look at.”
The comments left Mr. Bowman indignant, if not quite surprised.
“There’s a history of this, from Mike Brown to Emmett Till to every black man who is passionate, outspoken and intelligent and tries to stand his ground in the face of violence,” Mr Bowman said. “Her words today were violent and could cause violence if they land in the wrong ears.”
The exchange underlined how much is at stake in an approach that political rhetoric scholars have called a sharp departure from how members of Congress, and Black politicians more broadly, have combined policy and style for generations.
Prominent black politicians associated with the civil rights movement or its aftermath have achieved success by tailoring their speech to white audiences on the national stage. Barack Obama spent eight years as president subduing his emotions in order to radiate composure. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives whom Mr. Bowman considers a friend, is known for having a sharp tongue, but his criticisms of Republicans almost always come out in carefully worded paragraphs from behind a lectern.
Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of African-American studies at Vanderbilt University, said Mr. Bowman was part of a younger generation of black politicians shaped by hip-hop culture who have “unvarnished guts about American politics,” without the desire to coddle those who disagree with them.
“He’s not worried about moderating his speech or modulating his voice to please, protect or somehow appease the dominant white ear or culture,” Mr Dyson said. “It does not work.”
Mr. Bowman, who spent years as a teacher and administrator, won his Bronx and Westchester County seat in 2020, defeating a more moderate three-decade incumbent in a Democratic primary. He ran on a platform that included a wealth tax on the wealthy, national rent control, sweeping climate policies with a federal job guarantee, money transfer from police departments to social services, and a single-payer healthcare system.
But during his first term in Washington, Mr. Bowman kept a low profile and proved to be a trusted ally of House leaders. His tenure began just prior to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and was set as Congress struggled to get past the coronavirus pandemic.
That began to change this spring, after Mr. Bowman won re-election by a wide margin and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez pulled out of some of the fights she helped steer as a new member of Congress. He said he started a series of “passionate hookups” with Republican colleagues because he felt politicians often sounded “like the Charlie Brown” teacher in the “Peanuts” television specials whose words were rendered as incomprehensible noises.
“I’m not a career politician, I’m not a millionaire, I’m not a businessman,” Bowman said. “I’m an educator and I work differently, I think, than what the institution is used to.”
Mr Bowman, an avid user of TikTok, made waves this spring when he became the first and for some time the only lawmaker to defend the app, which is owned by a Chinese company, when President Biden and national security hawks threatened to ban it from being used in the United States. States to be active. Other progressives soon joined him in arguing that the pressure was rooted in “xenophobic anti-Chinese rhetoric”.
A brisk back-and-forth on the steps of the Capitol with Representative Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican with whom he enjoyed discussing sports, led CNN to host a debate between the two on race and education policy.
“CNN broadcast two different black men from two different parties in an intellectual conversation about our democracy for about 30 minutes,” Bowman said.
All the attention has fueled speculation that Mr. Bowman is considering a primary challenge against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat whose policing and social services policies he has sharply criticized. Mr Bowman denied that he was gearing up for a run.
“No, no, no, I’m chilling — I’m good, man,” he said. “I love being in Congress.”
Mr Bowman said he had no real relationship with Ms Greene when he approached her on Wednesday after such a vote, but was aware of the effect his presence could have. “I’m not stupid,” he said.
The exchange was pointed, but tame. “Do something about guns!” he said. “Invest in education.”
“Blame Biden,” Ms. Greene shot back, turning the exchange back to issues like immigration, blaming the Democrats for the influx of migrants crossing the southern border. She shook a fist at one point, but the scrum seemed to break up amicably.
Following Ms Greene’s comments on Thursday, Mr Bowman accused her of recklessly using “a megaphone for white nationalists”.
Nick Dyer, a spokesperson for Ms Greene, rejected Mr Bowman’s complaint, saying that Ms Greene received constant death threats.
“Mr. Bowman doesn’t have to play victim,” he said. “He needs to recognize that his attack on Congressman Greene will encourage this violence.”
Catie Edmondson contributed reporting from Washington.