Jeffries’ first speech as House Democratic Leader was pure poetry. My favorite part: “House Democrats 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’t do it, and zealous representation over zero sum confrontation.”
This was delivered so naturally and eloquently that I didn’t even notice the alphabeticality of it all until midway through. I could just just feel the energy in the audience building as they shared my experience of realizing what was happening, the anticipation of wondering how he would find relevant words for the rarely used letters at the end, and the explosion of applause and laughter as he came up with awesomely appropriate alliterations for X, Y, and Z! (I wonder how many House Reps were googling “xenial” as I did—Google searches for “xenial” really took off after Jeffries’ speech, LOL!)
I am loving Jeffries’ substance and style! Earlier, he characterized the GOP Speaker nomination/terrorist negotiations as “Chaos, crisis confusion, and craziness.” And during Trump’s impeachment, in response to Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow’s question, “Why are we here?", Jeffries spontaneously dropped a quote from rapper The Notorious B.I.G. that hilariously rhymed with “Sekulow”: "“We are here, sir, because President Trump corruptly abused his power and then he tried to cover it up…. That is why we are here, Mr. Sekulow. And if you don't know, now you know."
Jeffries’ wonderful warmth, wit, and wisdom are just what we need to keep Democrats united while possibly getting some tiebreaker votes from some moderate Republicans who get fed up with the MAGA terrorists’ bullying, plan to retire soon anyway and want to go out in a blaze of glory, or barely won their primaries and general elections in tight swing districts and might have a better chance if they run as Democrats or Independents next time. I’m looking forward to many more years of linguistically lit leadership from Jeffries!