What did you do to fight fascism, Nana?
No one is coming to save you.
Certainly not Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). The House minority leader appeared Monday night on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show. Maddow noted that people are desperate for Democrats to “fight harder, to not be nice, to break protocol,” get arrested even. To lead the resistance. She tried but couldn’t draw a flicker of passion from the technocratic Jeffries. Quizzed on what Democrats are doing to fight the Musk-Trump cabal, Jeffries presented as if guest-hosting “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
“It’s all hands on deck in the Congress. It’s all hands on deck in the courts. And it’s certainly all hands on deck in communities across the country,” Jeffries, 54, insisted in a tone that was anything but insistent.
Like many older Democrats in his caucus who learned their politics decades ago (and stopped learning), Jeffries brings the wrong skill set to the job of fighting Musk-Trump’s efforts to cut up the republic like a stolen car in a chop-shop.
The growing resistance is very grassroots, Maddow observed, very organic and bottom-up.
“But what they are trying to push up and push forward is you and your colleagues,” she prodded, “to try to further empower you and further inspire you … to find new tactics, to find new avenues, to find new leverage.” Jeffries’s reply was flatter than Peter Cook’s homily on “Mawwage.”
Jeffries posted the video to YouTube as though proud of it.
“Democrats in Congress are growing rattled by the historic flood of calls from their grassroots supporters demanding they do more to combat the Trump administration,” Axios reports:
What we’re hearing: At a closed-door meeting of House Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee on Monday, members voiced frustration with activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible that have facilitated thousands of calls to members’ offices, according to several lawmakers who were present.
- “There were a lot of people who were like, ‘We’ve got to stop the groups from doing this’ … people are concerned that they’re saying we’re not doing enough, but we’re not in the majority,” said one member.
- “People are pissed,” said a senior House Democrat who was also at the meeting, adding that Jeffries himself is “very frustrated.”
- A Jeffries spokesperson disputed that characterization and noted to Axios that their office regularly engages with dozens of stakeholder groups, including MoveOn and Indivisible, including as recently as Monday
No one is coming to save you.
Common Cause writes this morning that if you couldn’t get through to your representatives in Congress recently, it’s because the phone lines are jammed (that’s why my fallback is an efax). Common Cause has this ask:
Together, we’re asking our leaders: What are you going to do to stop Elon Musk and Donald Trump from stripping our government for parts?
Republicans are, unsurprisingly, going along with their heist – though if you ask them what they think when a camera isn’t rolling, many aren’t 100% bought in. But unfortunately, Democrats aren’t doing enough either – and while some are waking up, we’re in a full-blown crisis, and it’s time they started acting like it.
That’s why Common Cause has launched our Fire Elon Musk campaign – because every day lawmakers wait to act is another day these billionaires get closer to putting a “Going Out of Business” sign on our democracy so they can sell it off to the highest bidder.
And our pressure is clearly working. Earlier this month, you helped force the Trump Administration to walk back their draconian freeze on federal aid – Trump’s first major political defeat of his second term.
Make no mistake, Tom: Elon Musk failed. Donald Trump failed. And you won. Their tyrannical playbook is no match for YOU, and for the people powered movement we’re building together.
[…]
The first and most important thing to remember is that no matter how our opponents want to pretend they are kings, or corporate executives whose only duty is to increase their profits – we’re still a democracy, end of story.
So, we won’t accept Congress rubber stamping Trump’s nominees and his divisive agenda while he lets Elon Musk turn our federal government into his personal playground.
You can join the fight or be political roadkill.
No one is coming to save you.