If Vermont Congresswoman Becca Balint ever becomes president of the United States, historians will say it began with the phrase “Scrappy Little Dyke!’’

Today, Balint is a first-term member of Congress, a job that comes with a bunch of firsts. She is the first woman to represent Vermont in Congress, the first gay woman to represent Vermont in Congress, and probably the first gay woman to serve on the House Oversight committee. 

But the FIRST that struck me last week was the phrase Scrappy Little Dyke!

Yeah. She said that.

I haven’t had the chance to interview Balint about this quote but here is what I know, courtesy of some great journalism by Chelsea Edgar at Seven Days. 

In her first days in the US House of Representatives, a group of newly-elected House members attended a gathering at a D.C. restaurant and were asked to describe themselves in three words. When it came to Balint, “Scrappy Little Dyke!” popped out. 

 "I was like, OK, what can I say that will just be, like, totally me, irreverent, that will give everybody else permission to say whatever?" she said. "The haters are out there. But if I use their word, I take away its power." 

When I first saw Balint’s exclamation my communications consultant spidey sense kicked in. Is this smart politics? Does it isolate Balint in a corner or does it grow her brand as something fresh and new? What are the politics of this phrase? Have we at long last emerged into an open field where your sexuality is no longer a political negative?

But then I thought back to an interview I did with Balint months ago about a press conference she attended focusing on suicide and mental illness in Vermont families. 

There were other political leaders there as well, each issuing the usual bromides, but when it came to Balint, she had a decision to make. Say the safe thing or open up about herself. Balint battles depression and anxiety herself and up to that point had not discussed it openly as a politician. 

“I had to say something,’’ she told me, “those families deserved the truth.’’ 

So she volunteered her own struggles, telling the families they were not alone. It was not easy.

“I wanted to vomit,’’ she said.

That kind of truth-telling has become a mark of Becca Balint and it will serve her well in Congress.  

Will she make political compromises? Of course. That is the nature of Congress and all political life. But she is clearly experimenting with how real she can be in a business that has become tribal and hateful. Balint is the antidote to all that. She is happy, smiling, and friendly to all, including Republicans who don’t like her sexual orientation.

And she has doubled down on Scrappy Little Dyke!

“I’m using that word to reclaim it,’’ she said in a snowy Instagram video on Church St. in Burlington. “It’s a word that’s been used to keep down my community. And I’m saying “You don’t define me. I define myself.”

Oh, how the world has changed. Twenty years ago - or even just last year - smart political advisors would have told Balint to avoid discussing her mental health, not to mention her sexuality. The conventional wisdom being voters would be scared off by such sensitive subjects. 

“We did a lot of things people said we shouldn’t do,’’ said Natalie Silver, Balint’s campaign manager, and political advisor, “she is a living example of how being yourself is effective.’’

Silver said the Scrappy Little Dyke! phrase wasn’t poll-tested, discussed, or examined by their team for its political positives or negatives. It just happened. 

“There is no way that slogan gets through a normal DC political operative meeting,’’ she said.

Scrappy Little Dyke! now defines Vermont’s only member of the House of Representatives. It will animate her work on committees, on the House floor and be a prism through which her constituents can view her work.

Some won’t like it and she knows that. But to her it’s real. It’s the only way to do things. And those who respect her approach will far outnumber those who don’t.

As history moves ahead and the barriers to people of all kinds continue to fall, Becca Balint continues jumping off cliffs with little to no net.

And it’s working.