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Hakeem Jeffries just laid out Democrats' pitch to retake the House in 2024. It's killer
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/26/2149449/-Hakeem-Jeffries-makes-one-thing-clear-Winning-the-House-was-the-worst-thing-ever-for-RepublicansHakeem Jeffries just laid out Democrats' pitch to retake the House in 2024. It's killer
Kerry Eleveld
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday January 26, 2023 · 3:55 PM EST
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When House Democrats' newly elected Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York sat down with Pod Save America this week to discuss his party’s approach to being in the minority, one thing became pointedly clear: House Republicans are already laying the groundwork for a Democratic takeover in 2024.
House Republicans—replete with juvenile, self-consumed bomb-throwers—are just wholly unequipped to lead the country in any “reasonable” fashion that can benefit the American people. But Jeffries’ reflections on trying to govern alongside a party full of nihilists was perhaps more telling about campaigning in 2024 than legislating in 2023. First and foremost, Republicans are extreme. They’re also a threat to America as we know it. Locating just five sane and sober House Republicans is the key to averting disaster, but even that’s a tall order. Finally, Democrats are committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare—programs that Americans have paid into and deserve.
Here’s a brief overview of themes Jeffries hit that are also sure to show up on the campaign trail next year:
1. Social Security and Medicare are non-negotiable for Democrats
Jeffries: “The first issue that's going to be in front of us is to make sure we don't default on our nation's debt for the first time in American history. ... There are Republicans that want to essentially hijack that debt ceiling issue in order to extract painful cuts to Social Security and Medicare—we're going to draw a line in the sand. Social Security's not negotiable. Medicare's not negotiable. And we are not going to negotiate with hostage takers.”
2. Every single Democrat wants to avert a global economic meltdown; all they need is five reasonable Republicans to join them
Jeffries: “I think the most important thing should be done is Kevin McCarthy should just bring a straight, clean debt ceiling bill to the floor of the House of Representatives, confident that every single member of the House Democratic caucus vote would support it. But we would need five, six—a handful—of reasonable Republicans to do what has been consistently been done for approximately 100 years on the debt ceiling issue.”
3. Americans have earned Social Security and Medicare
Jeffries: “I think the most important thing is that the American people have earned Social Security and Medicare, paid into it their entire lives, worked to get to a point where they can retire with grace and dignity, and there's just no circumstance where we should be even having a discussion, particularly as it relates to the full faith and credit of the United States of America.”
4. McCarthy's a lying liar and a squish, which might be the nation’s only hope
Jeffries (responding to McCarthy’s pledge to hold the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for making budget cuts): “Kevin McCarthy says a lot of things and then does something else. So the reality is, on this issue perhaps, the business community has consistently weighed in and suggested that a default on our debt would be catastrophic, highly problematic, unprecedented, and could collapse the economy, send it into a tail spin, a deep recession if not worse—not just the U.S. economy but across the world.
My suggestion is, he's not going to necessarily do the right thing as it relates to preserving Social Security and Medicare. But there are other reasons why people come to a conclusion and, in this instance, the business community can prevail upon my friends on the other side of the aisle.”
5. Republicans are extremists
Jeffries: “We've been very clear on a variety of issues: We believe in a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. They're extreme on abortion care—they want to criminalize abortion, impose a nationwide ban.
We believe in Social Security and Medicare—they're extreme on it. They want to blow it up
We believe in democracy—apparently many of them don't. They coddle insurrectionists, perpetrate the Big Lie.
The reality is, in my view what best captures the moment that we're in is a level of extremism that the vast majority of the American people are not comfortable with. And our job moving forward is to continue to contrast that with who we are as Democrats—people who are committed actually to making a difference in the lives of everyday Americans on issue after issue after issue.”
6. Again, all it would take is a handful of reasonable Republicans
Jeffries: “At the end of the day, the reality is we can either figure out a way on issues like the debt ceiling, on government spending, avoiding a shutdown, the farm bill, reauthorizing the FAA—these are things that we have to do this term. And we've got to find a way to find a reasonable group of Republicans interested in governing, not burning down the house, so that we an advance the ball for the American people.”
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When do we hang that label on them in front of the whole world? Maybe A warning of a dictatorship and the end of democracy if the Repugs take power on 2024. Need to shake the tree of the voter hard and early, I wouldn't wait till a week before the election to start. 
Leader Jeffries, don't play nice with these fuckers.
Hakeem Jeffries gets it. He walks the walk and he talks the talk.
Something that we Democrats should capitalize on is that older Republican voters are just as invested in the Social Security and Medicare benefits as the Democrats are. Older Americans (regardless of party affiliation) do not want to lose the benefits that they paid into for their entire working lives. That's Kevin McCarthy's big mistake, he's turning his back on the retired people in his own Party. They aren't gonna sit still for it.
It's our biggest opportunity to pick up many additional votes in 2024, when these older Americans wake up and realize what the Repuke Party is going to do. Maybe they don't like Joe Biden as their President, but they SURE AS HELL don't want to lose their monthly government checks and their Medicare. That will be the deciding factor for many of them.
he truly gets it
