JB Pritzker gave a speech on Sunday in Manchester, New Hampshire, that was a call to arms. Republicans are not happy about it.
"It's time to fight everywhere and all at once. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now!"
It gets better.
"These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to know we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box!"
Democrats were also criticized for "flocking to podcasts and cable news shows to admonish fellow Democrats for not caring enough about the struggles of working families. Those same do nothing Democrats want to blame our losses on the defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants instead of their own lack of guts and gumption."
"Fellow Democrats, for far too long we've been listening to a bunch of do nothing political types who would tell us that America's house is not on fire, even as the flames are licking their faces. Today, as the blaze reaches the rafters, pundits and the politicians, whose simpering timidity served as a kindle for the arsonists, urge us now not to reach for a hose."
This, from the Governor of Illinois, who is worth $3.5 billion, being an heir to the Hyatt Hotel chain.
But his heritage is from Ukraine. His ancestors fled from a pogrom of the Jews in the Russian empire.
"We need to knock off the rust off of poll tested language, decades of stale decorum. It's obscured our better instincts. We have to get rid of the culture of incrementalism that has led us to swallow the cruelty and callousness with barely a cowardly croak."
"Today it's an immigrant with a tattoo, tomorrow it's a citizen whose facebook post annoys Donald Trump."
"As a Ukrainian American Jew, who built a holocaust museum, whose family emigrated here as refugees from the Russian pogrom, let me say this to Donald Trump. Stop tearing down the Constitution in the name of my ancestors." Extended applause after that statement.
"Don't claim that your authoritarian power grabs are about combating anti-semitism. Whrn you destroy social justice you are disparaging the whole foundation of Judaism."
"If the best and the brightest no longer flock to this shining city on a hill, then the US economy is likely to fail. The failure. It's starting to look like that's the point of all this, doesn't it?"
"We have a Secretary of Education who hates teachers and schools. We have a Secretary of Transportation who hates public transit. We have an Attorney General who hates the Constitution." His take aparts on Marco Rubio and Elon Musk are too long to transcribe. But you get the idea.
"We have a president who claims to love America but hates our military so much he calls them losers and suckers who can't be bothered to delay his golf game to meet the bodies of four fallen US soldiers."
"We will never join Republicans in that special place in hell for quislings and cowards...It's time to be done with optimism about their motives or their objectives. It's time to stop thinking about whether you can trust the nuclear codes to those who can't organize a group chat. Time to stop thinking we can reason or negotiate with a madman. Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong. Time to stop surrendering when we need to fight."
"We will relegate their portraits to the museum reserved for tyrants and traitors."
"Cowardice can be contagious. But so to can courage. Courage born during times when complacency beckons like a siren call, is the most important kind of all."
Here's Pritzker's 29 minute speech on YouTube.
Republicans and the White House were upset with JB's statement that Republicans "cannot know a moment of peace," as a call to violence, which Pritzker called absurd.
They know the jig is up when Democrats get their act together. Rachel Maddow asked Pritzker if he was going to run for president in 2028. Pritzker said he was concentrating on helping take Congress back in 2026.
He's got a good speech writer for it.
His speech writer is his chief of staff, Anne Caprara.
