Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives gave a memorable speech in his first official speech a minority leader. He laid out the alphabet of Democratic Party Values as contrasted to those of the dysfunctional Republican Party. I honor it here:
“House Democrats,” he said, “will always put
American values over autocracy,
benevolence over bigotry, the
Constitution over the cult,
democracy over demagogues,
economic opportunity over extremism,
freedom over fascism,
governing over gaslighting,
hopefulness over hatred,
inclusion over isolation,
justice over judicial overreach,
knowledge over kangaroo courts,
liberty over limitation,
maturity over Mar-a-Lago,
normalcy over negativity,
opportunity over obstruction,
people over politics,
quality of life issues over QAnon,
reason over racism,
substance over slander,
triumph over tyranny,
understanding over ugliness,
voting rights over voter suppression,
working families over the well-connected,
xenial over xenophobia,
‘yes, we can’ over ‘you can do it,’ and
zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation.”
