“We will never compromise our principles. 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…..”
—-New Democrat Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries following Republican Kevin McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the House
Is this the greatest gaslighting speech of all time? I can’t imagine a more blatant one. Let’s see:
- “American values over autocracy”…from the party that inflicted autocratic mask mandates and restrictions on travel, ans well as mandatory vaccination orders on the American public
- “Benevolence over bigotry”…from the party that champions the rejection of qualified white and Asian college applicants because of their skin color.
- “The Constitution over the cult”…from the party that wants to gut the Second Amendment over its anti-gun cultism, cripple the First Amendment to prevent “hate speech,” and invent rights, like the right to kill the unborn, that would have horrified the Constitution’s authors.
- “Democracy over demagogue”…from the party whose President delivered a speech pronouncing opposition to his policies as evidence of fascism.
- “Economic opportunity over extremism”….from a party that demonizes the wealthy and productive while seeking reparations for slavery taken from those who never owned slaves and transferred to those who have never been slaves.
- “Freedom over fascism”.…from a party whose members and supporters seek to silence dissent at universities, in the media and in the public square, while manipulating the news and social media to suppress public knowledge of inconvenient events.
- “Governing over gaslighting”….thus showing complete contempt for the perceptiveness and intelligence of the public the Democratic Party is trying to con.
- “Hopefulness over hatred”.…from the party that brands its opposition as racists, xenophobes, sexists and fascists.
- “Inclusion over isolation”.…from the party that demands 100% lockstep obeisance from its members
- “Justice over judicial overreach”.…from the party that supported harassment of Supreme court Justices that ruled against the judicial over-reach of Roe v. Wade/
- “Knowledge over Kangaroo courts”….Wow. From the party that has staged the January 6 hearings after packing the committee with only anti-Trump fanatics!
- “Liberty over limitation”.…from the party that is working to force Americans to accept life-altering limits on how they live, move and eat.
I find Jeffries’ confidence that the American public will fail to see the astounding hypocrisy and cynicism in these assertions and will not resent that Democrats think they are gullible fools most troubling of all.
Especially since he may be right.
Ethics Alarms 
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries just proved that he is a blatant liar.
But seriously, what if it were true.
The lame stream media is celebrating his “alphabet” speech. Yuk!
The speech certainly leads the league in alliteration. Some speech writers have really outdone themselves. Ridiculous.
I’m not sure whether the donkey reminds me more of a kangaroo or Jerry Nadler.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/07/katie-porter-reads-the-subtle-art-of-not-giving-a-f-k-during-speaker-vote/
Note the matching house dress. Nice look, Katie. Is this governing over gaslighting or is it hopefulness over hatred. Maybe serious over sophomoric?
This is Nancy Pelosi level peevishness.
Jeffries was just channeling his inner DeSantis. He simply forgot who he was and was fantasizing being someone else for whom all those things might have actually been true.
Who knows? Perhaps he really does aspire to one of them? Not sure which one, though.
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It is interesting that, when I tell someone (very small sample size, to be sure, so far) that I am proud to belong to a party that values people for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, I seem to get little reaction.
I mean, these folks know I’m a Republican, but maybe they just see it as being so true it is no longer ironic.
If the speech were intended as an admission that the Democratic party has been engaging in (or hyperfocusing on) all of the latter concepts and as a vow to do better in the future, I’d appreciate his cute alphabet list a lot more. As it stands, it’s nothing but claptrap.
For an audience that doesn’t know how to build or maintain a healthy civilization, the only way to tell if someone is “good” is if they defeat an evil villain. The more evil the villain, the more “good” the good person is. Therefore, politicians cast segments of the population as evil villains because they don’t know how to do anything constructive. The average human, being criminally undereducated in abstract reasoning, completely fails to see through this ploy.
This ties in with my earlier articles “Politician Noises” and “Democracy is in Danger, but Not for the Reasons You Think” (featured here on Ethics Alarms; thanks again, Jack!) and my latest one, a satirical poem called “Your Party is Not Your Friend”.
https://ginnungagapfoundation.wordpress.com/2022/12/11/your-party-is-not-your-friend-or-the-new-library-and-the-old-baseball-diamond/
A brilliant piece of poetry, that!!
Well done.
Thanks, Joel! It was fun to write. I’m hoping it will jolt people into realizing that seeking win-win outcomes is everyone’s responsibility.
This coming from the party that requires its members to vote lockstep with party directives and punishes dissent. As evidence, every Democrat representative voted for Jefferies. 212 Democrats voted the same way 15 times. I guess we should admire their leadership’s enforcement of conformity to party mandates.
jvb