Wednesday morning, House Minority Leader and presumptive Speaker Hakeem Jeffries told Joe Scarborough “the American people don’t want us to get even” because Democrats “won on affordability.”
Around the same time, JD Vance posted a tweet openly breaking with Trump which can be summarized by the line: “The reason we lost is the war.”
Both of these statements are equally wrong, and equally disingenuous. Each seeks to evade responsibility and redirect focus.
Jeffries is trying to tamp down expectations that Democrats will take an aggressive posture constraining the regime over the next two years, because according to him, Democrats were elected to ”govern on affordability” instead.
The reality is that the number one issue across all voters was corruption. The historic blue tsunami in the midterms was not explainable by economics alone. It was a repudiation of the regime’s greed, cruelty, and crime. Minimizing that is a deliberate strategy.
It is wrong to chastise voters or politicians who want to see justice and accountability for what they have personally experienced. It is wrong to put words in the mouth of citizens—many of whom actually do want to get even.
“Getting even” does not mean overreacting. It is not a synonym for doing something illegal or immoral. It means that people who have been hurt want to feel that those who hurt them won’t get away with it—again. It speaks to a basic sense of justice.
The same goes for the refrain “we’re not looking for revenge.”
Um, actually yes, I am looking for revenge.
I have spent every day since 2020 trying to warn about the catastrophic damage we see all around us. It has cost me nearly everything. I got sued by Mike Flynn and Kash Patel for telling the truth about them, putting me hundreds of thousands in debt. You’re damn right I want revenge—and I am not alone.