Leader Jeffries: God Gave Us Free Will -- Use It

We have enough prayers. We need action.

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Dear Leader Jeffries:

I realize we are in a moment of unprecedented chaos for the health and stability of our democracy, and I can only imagine the anxiety felt by Democratic lawmakers facing an avalanche of hateful and destructive actions by the Trump Administration.

But Sir, with all due respect, imagine the anxiety of voters watching all this unfold, alongside startling inaction by Democrats in Congress, and then, in the midst of all of it, seeing the above tweet.

Mr. Leader, I cannot emphasize enough how much my heart sank when I saw you posted that. I cannot begin to describe how much it scared me.

I’m a religious person, and I agree with you that God is eternal. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s true, and fortunately, I have access to such an affirmation every Sunday when I attend service.

But Congress is not the Church and you were not elected to offer up a half-baked tweet sermon in lieu of a coherent political strategy anymore than I would sit in a pew at my church waiting for my priest to articulate an aggressive public policy vision.

This is “thoughts and prayers” with different wording. That’s how it comes across.

Since Inauguration, your office has put out four press releases with direct national relevance.

Last Tuesday, you released a short statement strongly condemning Trump’s mass pardon of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists. That’s great, but there was no plan offered on what’s next. It was a strong wagging of the finger and that was it. C’est la vie, I guess.

This past Thursday, you held a press conference “pushing back” against the House Republican budget plan, calling it “A Contract Against America.” That’s a nice starting point, but it remains unclear what you mean by “pushing back.”

From that same press conference, you put out a statement responding to Trump’s sweeping anti-DEI actions across government, which, respectfully, I must say was pretty damn weak in tone — completely incongruent in urgency with the relentless, unbridled bigotry of Trump’s actions.

Shockingly weak. A voter reading the excerpt posted on your website would not walk away understanding how shamelessly fascist Trump is acting on this front.

Finally, this morning, your office put out a statement on Trump’s illegal mass freeze of federal government funding — basically a shutdown. Here, at least, you did announce House Democrats would have an “emergency meeting” tomorrow to discuss a strategic response.

An “emergency meeting” tomorrow? Emergency meeting. Tomorrow.

I’m sorry, forgive me, what the hell else are y’all doing today?

You should have immediately announced a boycott—in partnership with Leader Schumer—of all legislation and nominations until all previously-approved federal funding by Congress is restored. At minimum. The bare minimum.

Got a hearing? Got meetings? Nothing is more important right now. Every Member should have walked out of official business and fanned out across media and repeated the same talking points: how vulnerable Americans in programs from Medicare to Head Start would be horribly affected.

How was there not immediately a press conference in front of the Capitol today?

You called it a “Republican Rip Off” — which, respectfully, would have been interesting framing for a budget bill about ten years ago.

This is not merely a “rip off” — this is outright theft carried out through fascist tactics by an aspiring dictator as part of a broad “flood the zone” strategy meant to intentionally sow chaos and confusion, and it will put tens of millions of American lives at risk in the short-term if it is not immediately addressed.

I don’t know how else to say this: with all due respect, Sir, the House Democratic Caucus is failing to meet this moment. By a lot.

There were ten weeks between Election Day and Inauguration, and it’s not as though y’all didn’t know in advance the rough sketch for what’s occurred over the past eight days.

Mr. Leader, we are all deeply worried—if not terrified—and we are wondering why Democratic lawmakers on the whole seem anemic and woefully unprepared.

And the last thing we need in this moment is a prayer tweet reminding us that the God that you and I worship is powerful enough to be eternally omniscient and omnipresent but somehow not enough to remind you of the Free Will with which you were gifted by God to act in this moment.

Sir, we are counting on you. I am genuinely praying you understand that.

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