Rep. Jeffries’s letter to colleagues before the fascist rant that was the “state of the union address:”
“Given my responsibilities in the House, I plan to attend the speech, along with other members of the Democratic leadership, to make clear to the nation that there is a strong opposition party ready, willing and able to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the administration.
The decision to attend the Joint Session is a personal one and we understand that members will come to different conclusions. However, it is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber. The House as an institution belongs to the American people, and as their representatives we will not be run off the block or bullied.
Bolding mine.“Dignified” meant no disruptions. It meant be outwardly respectful of a fascist president and Republican party, when congressional Democrats were assembled in the same place with live national media attention fully upon the chamber as he used them to falsely legitimize himself.
Poor establishment Democrats. Rep. Green and rank-and-file Democrats flipped the table on their polite little imperial tea party with Republicans.
Moments after Trump began speaking, Texas Rep. Al Green rose and interrupted the president until he was ejected from the chamber. Other members held signs blasting Trump and his policies. Repeatedly they met Trump’s partisan provocations with chants and jeers. Many simply walked out of the chamber, leaving the Democratic section increasingly empty as the speech went on.
Even so, it wasn’t enough to meet the moment, because the Democratic caucus was not united in disrupting Trump’s bigoted bile in a sustained way or in at least walking out en masse. The time when the iron was hot, the fulcrum of leverage for public persuasion, went largely wasted.
After this intentional refusal to wield power (never mind after the 2024 election in which the public essentially rejected status quo Democratic politics), where is the accountability? It is establishment Democratic leadership holding the progressives who dared to object to account. (Keeping in mind while reading these excerpts Politico’s and Axios’s latent ulterior motives.)
Leadership is "very unhappy" with those who went beyond traditional protest tactics like outfit coordination and refusal to clap, a senior House Democrat told Axios.
- Roughly a dozen Democratic disruptors — including Reps. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) — were called into a "come to Jesus meeting" on Thursday morning, the senior Dem told Axios.
- The top three House Democratic leaders were present: Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.).
[...] Some Democrats said they expect leadership to take a harder tack going forward to prevent these moments of public disunity from happening ahead of time.
- [...] "Would they have done that to [Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi]? You know the answer: Never," the lawmaker said. "So you've got to put the hammer down."
Ah yes, bring the hammer down… on those who too strenuously disrespected a fascist. It would be different if there was a Democratic strategy worthy of the name, but what we have is not that.
When the Republican speaker of the House went to formally censure Green for truthfully saying that Trump had no mandate to revoke people’s Medicaid lifeline, a group of Democrats righteously stood with Green and sang “We Shall Overcome.”
When Republicans then started to call for ejecting those Democrats from committee seats, Jeffries did actually stand up for them(eX-Twitter video).
But what of the ten Democrats who sided with Republican fascists to vote to censure Green? It’s funny, you don’t see people running to Axios or Politico to gab about Democratic leadership calling for those Democrats to “come to Jesus.”
The real “come to Jesus” moment would be for the majority of the Democratic caucus to elect new leadership in order to assertively wield official and persuasive powers. That goes for the Senate, too. (We see you, Sen. Schumer, picking Rep. Slotkin to glorify “saint Ronnie” and W during the official Democratic response.)
We cannot afford Democratic congresspeople taking the 2024 election result to mean that it overrides their solemn oath of office.
But why would Democratic Party leadership intentionally refuse to aggressively use the powers available to them on the public’s behalf, against white supremacists and robber barons? Even when it could be to Democrats’ partisan advantage to do the right thing? Even to purposefully take up space so that progressives cannot advance, as with Rep. Connolly sitting where Rep. Ocasio-Cortez should be as ranking member on the Oversight Committee? Among other reasons, because then it would encourage the public to have expectations of Democrats to do more of that. If they did that, the top-dollar party funders would be angry at the public empowerment and withdraw their money streams. And that is something party leadership thinks they cannot allow, no matter the cost—even if the cost is losing elections to fascist ruin (and climate doom). So they think they must be anti-leaders, bureaucrats of empire. “Nothing will fundamentally change,” and the machine rolls on… even as it breaks down.
What we desperately need instead is a consequential opposition party that stages escalating confrontations, that demonstrates that fascist, illegal Republican rule is unacceptable, and that drives them from office. Every day that Democratic representatives aren’t introducing articles of impeachment for Trump regime hacks, every day that Democratic senators voluntarily give their unanimous consent for the body to proceed while the regime makes a mockery of laws already passed, Democrats are showing that though they strenuously object, fundamentally what is happening is acceptable to them. That dynamic is toxic.
Look, it’s not as though Green is a strategic genius with some magic formula for how the USA is guaranteed to escape fascism. But he does have moral clarity. What does it take to materially show that the lying, unjust Trump regime is unacceptable? Well… do that.
