Hakeem Jeffries, Do Better

If you're watching this, then I'm pretty certain that you already saw the terrible answer that House Minority Leader Joaquin Jeffries gave on Meet the Press on Sunday when he was asked if Democratic Socialists belong in the Democratic Party. Here is his answer. Do Democratic Socialists belong in the Democratic Party, Leader Jeffries? Well, what I can say is that I do not support defunding the police. I do not support open borders. I do not support abolishing the Senate. We're focused on actually solving problems that hardworking American taxpayers want us to solve, which is to lower the high cost of living in a situation where life is far too expensive in this country. That's the Democratic agenda. That's what House Democrats are fighting to achieve. I've talked on this channel about the problems of factionalism, of being more concerned with winning political battles for your particular faction within the Democratic Party than defending the interests of the party at large, at least in an election year. Save the factional fighting for afterwards. Save it for the primaries. But when it's time to win elections, you should probably put a handle on the factional fighting. And this is a great example of a corollary to this, which is that of all the players within the party that should display factional allegiances, the one who really should not, the ones who really should not, are leadership. I think it's important to be clear here that Joaquin Jeffries is the leader of the Democratic minority in the House, but he's not like the national leader of the Democratic Party. That doesn't quite exist. That's the president when there is a president. Jeffries is a legislative leader. Schumer is a legislative leader. And as legislative leaders, their job is very internal to the chambers in which they operate. Schumer and Jeffries are very skilled legislative maneuvers. They're skilled at keeping a caucus together, and that's primarily their job. They are less skilled, as Pelosi was for that matter, as being representatives of the party at large. And yet, and yet, it's unavoidable that they're going to be on national media. It's unavoidable that people are going to understand them as being leaders of the party at large. They have leader in their name. And so because of that, I do think that they maintain an obligation to at least not try to be too divisive, to stay out of the factional battles as much as possible. And Jeffries' answer, the extent to which it represents his own factional battles with DSA candidates in New York, is the kind of thing that engenders distrust and mistrust and anger. It makes people feel that Democrats don't care about their interests. What's frustrating is that there was an easily available answer for Jeffries right there, if he were just a little more deft as a politician. You get asked, does DSA belong to the Democratic Party? And you can say pretty easily something like this. The Democratic Party welcomes everyone who wants to fight for the interests of ordinary Americans. And while I don't agree with everything my DSA brothers and sisters may believe, we all share a commitment to making sure that ordinary Americans get health care, get education, get the help that they deserve. And we all stand opposed to President Trump's agenda of giveaways and handouts to the ultra-wealthy at the expense of those ordinary Americans. Something like that. I'm not a politician. But something like that evades the question, right? But it doesn't write people out. And it focuses the attention back on the common ground you share with your factional opponents and emphasizes that whatever your perspective, we're all united in something like a common goal. Whether that's literally, accurately true, you know, it is what it is. But is it useful to say in the context of a national media hit? I think so. Is it more useful than to hold out these other people as somehow opponents of the Yes. That is harmful. That kind of making distinctions is harmful. It does not work. That's what I need moderate and establishment Democrats to understand. This really is a situation where everyone either rises together or sinks together. There isn't going to be a situation where moderate Democrats can successfully say, oh, these people aren't us, but vote for us anyway. Voters aren't going to make those kinds of distinctions. And so from the perspective of someone like Jeffries, rather than emphasize disagreements or places where you think they're wrong, emphasize commonalities. Emphasize the places where you're in it together. It's not just good leadership. I think it's good politics as well, if nothing else, because it avoids fracturing the entire coalition. And this really is a situation where as much as possible, you do not want to fracture the coalition. There are real challenges ahead, and they do not involve this petty factional infighting. Hopefully next time, Jeffries can do better.