February 8, 2019

John Dingell Told Us That Yes, He Was Responsible for His Savage Twitter Feed

Here are some of the late congressman’s best.

Rep. John Dingell on March 10, 2011.Alex Brandon/AP

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John Dingell, the Democrat who represented Michigan for 59 years and was the longest-serving member of Congress, died Thursday at his home in Dearborn, Michigan. He was 92. Over his long tenure, he shaped environmental policy, supported civil rights legislation, and criticized the growth of partisanship within Congress—and also clashed with Democrats by supporting the Vietnam War and gun rights and failing to support abortion rights.

But after his retirement, he’s also become known as a witty and merciless Twitter antagonist of President Donald Trump.

When I interviewed Dingell in December for a story I was writing on the 45th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, which Dingell sponsored back in 1973, I couldn’t resist asking him about his savage Twitter feed. So before he hopped off the phone to get to a doctor’s appointment, I asked if he was the person who was actually tweeting from the account, knowing that some people doubted it was true. “I am, yes,” he said, adding, “I have great fun.” 

Here are some of his all-time greatest tweets, bringing heat even in his last few days:

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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