Day of the Thigh Whip, 6th of Hagwinter, 526 M.E. (Electra): This week's elections were about a lot of things, but one thing they weren't about was a wistful nostalgia for Biden-Era politics or a return to milquetoast, laissez-faire, middle-of-the-road governance. To answer my own rhetorical question form two days ago, "How will the Democrats blow it this time?,"  Hakeem Jeffries and Chick Schumer think they may have an answer. Reinstating them as Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader would, IMHO, put this country right back into the position it was in that allowed the Stable Genius to get elected to a second term. 

The public relations campaigns have already begun. New York Magazine is currently running an article headlined, "How Hakeem Jeffries Engineered the Democratic Rout." The talking points and keywords are already spreading - this morning, I saw Al Sharpton on MS NOW saying that Jeffries "engineered" the seismic Democratic landslide by handpicking the best, most electable candidates.

"I'm about to get sick from watching my T.V." - Frank Zappa (1966) 

Let's be perfectly clear here. More credit, exponentially more credit, goes to the grass-roots organizing of Stacy Abrams and others, mostly women and mostly Black, over the past 10 years. The landslide was the result of a long-game, grass-roots, bottom-up effort, not a top-down campaign "engineered" in the last 12 months by the House and Senate Minority Leaders. Their claiming credit is just another patriarchal example of men trying to take credit for the hard work of women. I heard one person on Reddit compare it to that person who contributed nothing to the school project insisting they be the one to present it to the class. 

The DNC was slow to recognize and often failed to endorse several progressive candidates, and even those that did manage to win their primaries despite lack of support were chronically underfunded by the DNC, leaving them to scrape together campaign finances as best they could alone. 

Schumer's age, low energy, and lack of comfort with Democratic Socialist candidates disqualifies him from leadership in these new times. I like Jeffries - he's younger, than Schumer at least, and has more energy - but like old Chuck, his acceptance of large AIPAC campaign contributions and his recent, closed-door meeting with Jared Kushner disqualifies him from leadership.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that there's good reasons to continue to support Israel's military. They're not apparent to me, but the last persons I would trust to make those arguments is someone who is in office and power because of his acceptance of AIPAC campaign contributions and who has secretly met with the pro-Zionist Kushner. 

I also can't trust prosecution of fair and independent investigations of the Stable Genius' administration to someone who just met with a member of the Short-Fingered Vulgarian's family. While I understand the importance of inter-party cooperation and meetings during political transitions, you're kidding yourself if you believe that was what the meeting was about. The Stable Genius famously resisted transition meetings the two times he took office and even fired his transition team before taking office, so excuse me while I scoff at the idea that he suddenly embraced the concept in this mid-term election.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm suspicious that the sudden media campaign to present Jeffries as the de facto new Speaker may be part of the backroom deal between him and Kushner. The deal may have been something along the lines of don't investigate my Saudi dealings or the President's business ventures, and in return we'll give up, say, Hegseth and Patel, or don't cut off aid to Israel and we'll get the tech bros to popularize the idea of you being the next Speaker in the media. The word "may" is doing a lot of work in the sentence above, but do you honestly believe the Kushner took time off from the on-going negotiations with Iran and between Ukraine and Russia to merely ask, "how can we best assist Congress in the coming years?" 

The hoary old precedent of congressional leadership being based on seniority is a relic of the politics of the past. The people voted for change, real change, and we need new leadership and fresh voices to bring that change about. Not old Schumer and Jeffries.

Anybody but Schumer and Jeffries.