How Biden and Jeffries’ 'full recitation of American values' contrasts with GOP 'thuggishness': conservative

09 January 2023

From January 3-6, it was up in the air whether or not Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California would be chosen as House speaker. A group of far-right MAGA Republicans rejected him in 14 roll-call votes before enough of them finally relented and helped McCarthy win the position on the 15th vote on Friday night, January 6.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, on the other hand, received unified support from fellow House Democrats from the get-go. Democrats were clearly behind Jeffries on all 15 of the roll-call votes that were held in the House. And when McCarthy was being rejected in one roll-call vote after another, Jeffries was being repeatedly confirmed.

Looking back on the events of January 3-6, Never Trump conservative Jennifer Rubin makes a Democrats/Republicans comparison in a January 9 opinion column for the Washington Post. And the contrasts between the two major parties, she emphasizes, weren’t hard to miss. While Jeffries and President Joe Biden were offering a “recitation of American values,” Rubin argues, Republicans were offering a large dose of “thuggishness and fury.”

During his first speech as House minority leader, Jeffries “set a tone for Democrats that was both contemporary and high-minded, fun and sophisticated.”

“With the cadence of a preacher and erudite vocabulary of a professor,” Rubin writes, “(Jeffries) perfectly encapsulated the difference between his party’s optimism and accomplishment and his opponents’ bitterness even in victory. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to whom Jeffries paid tribute — ‘a legendary legislator, a fabulous facilitator and a no-nonsense negotiator,’ he quipped — did not excel with stirring rhetoric. But in a Congress that is likely to see very little legislating thanks to an unhinged and chaotic majority, Jeffries fills the void with inspirational words and a values-based message for his party.”

Rubin adds, “President Biden is not acclaimed for his rhetoric, either. And with the most productive days of his first term likely behind him, he’ll be focused for the next two years on implementing his legislation and expressing what his foes totally lack: graciousness and empathy.”

The columnist notes that on January 6 — the second anniversary of the Capitol insurrection — Biden gave a speech remembering the dark events of that day.

“On January 6 of this year,” Rubin observes, “Biden showed a level of humanity entirely absent in the MAGA movement by honoring 12 heroic Americans who defended our democracy two years ago — a display of patriotism and courage Republicans are obliged to ignore or denigrate to sustain the Trumpian cult. After reciting the honorees’ courageous actions, Biden talked to the families…. From both Jeffries and Biden, then, we get a full recitation of American values: kindness, empathy, inclusion, generosity, decency and optimism.”

Rubin adds, “They echo the sensibility of the 20th-Century mourner who was asked whether he had known the just-deceased President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He famously replied, ‘I didn’t know him, but he knew me.’ The Democrats of this century know Americans, too. The gap between that humanistic vision and what we see from the Republican Party could not be more stark. Violence, whether inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, or inside the Capitol on January 6, 2023, and toxic masculinity seem to be endemic to a party that scorns the police who defended them two years ago and minimizes the brutality of the mob.”

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