No, Trump's Cabinet Is Not A "Distraction"
They're cabinet secretaries, ffs!
When Nancy Pelosi named Hakeem Jeffries as her heir two years ago, it raised an enticing prospect—that Democrats might actually meet Republicans under their rules of play.
No Pelosi understudy would be too different from her, and few would match her legislative prowess. But Jeffries is both a more effective communicator than Pelosi, and more open about his contempt for the modern GOP. It seemed we might move past the days of somberly lamenting Republican degeneracy into a new era of confronting it directly.
And not a moment too soon. In the Trump era—in divided government or in the minority—pugilism is a more valuable skill than internal consensus building. Now, with Joe Biden on his way out, and Donald Trump on his way back in, the question of whether defeated Democrats will become fighting Democrats is ripe again. The answer at the outset appears to be…not really.
At his first press conference since Trump won the election, shortly after we learned Democrats wouldn’t retake the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries fielded a question about one of Donald Trump’s disturbing national security nominees.
“Here’s what I’m not going to do for the next two years and the next four years,” Jeffries said. “I’m not going to deal with, it’s Tulsi Gabbard one day, then an hour later it’s Matt Gaetz, then the next day it’s Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., then he says something on X on Truth Social and then the people connected to him are doing something outra[geous]—No! That I’m not doing. Because that’s all a distraction.”
On the high road in Jeffries mind, he’s cruising past nonsense and pettiness with his eyes trained diligently on the horizon. That’s where the real business of politics lies—where Republicans take aim at health care and Democrats assemble to block them.
But notice the sheer scope of activity Jeffries has walled off as unimportant or beneath him. Matt Gaetz isn’t just a degenerate backbench MAGA loyalist, he’s credibly accused of child-sex trafficking, and may soon carry out vendettas against his accusers and others as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer. Tulsi Gabbard isn’t just a wild-eyed reactionary who makes bonkers claims on foreign propaganda networks, she’s in line to lead the United States’s intelligence community. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. isn’t just a brain-wormed sex pest, he wants to mainstream an anti-vaccine culture that has left a trail of dead children in its wake.
Much of what Trump says on Truth Social or Twitter is indeed deflective, but the outrageous things he and the people around him do are often plainly corrupt.
And so the publicly held position of the House Democratic leader that opining on matters like these—about a coming political crackdown, the self-enrichment of Trump’s allies, the compromising of the country’s intelligence capabilities, the safety of children—isn’t his job.
I beg to differ.
‘KEEM OF THE CROP
Whenever I write about this topic, the Democratic wallflower problem, the party’s staunchest defenders line up to put flattering spin on whatever course the party has chosen.