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Among the muddled results of this year’s elections there were a few clear messages. Voters tended not to support candidates who had refused to accept the results of legitimate elections. And in New York state specifically, a very liberal electorate registered its displeasure with the party in power by handing four Democratic seats in the U.S. House over to the GOP. This Empire State realignment has helped create a new Republican House majority. So it may seem a little odd that House Democrats now appear set to choose as their new chief a New York Democrat who was a 2016 election denier, to use the popular media phrase. But it also represents an opportunity for expected House Minority Leader Rep.
Hakeem Jeffries
to chart a new course toward a healthier and less divisive politics.
Some readers don’t like use of the term “election denier“—even when it’s used to note the hypocrisy of some of those who most loudly oppose denialism—because as Americans we are free to question everything about our government. This is true but the November results suggest that if a candidate has a history of questioning election results long after any reasonable challenges have been exhausted, voters are inclined to select somebody else. Americans enjoy that right, too.
Unfortunately the losers of our last two presidential elections have made repeated claims suggesting that the winners were not legitimate. For this reason this column is skeptical that either
Hillary Clinton
or
Donald Trump
could win an election in the future. It’s also unfortunate that Rep. Jeffries chose to embrace the Clinton denialism and then stuck with it for years. “The more we learn about 2016 election the more ILLEGITIMATE it becomes,” Mr. Jeffries tweeted in 2018.
At a House Oversight Committee hearing that year, the New York lawmaker continued to promote the Russia collusion hoax. Rep. Jeffries said:
For the last few hours, we’ve sat in this hearing, and some of my colleagues, part of the cover-up caucus, have attempted to peddle conspiracy theories that the investigation into the Trump campaign’s potential criminality, where we were attacked by a hostile foreign power, is a witch hunt.
There is not a scintilla of evidence that a witch hunt exists right now. In fact, if any individual connected to the 2016 presidential campaign was victimized by prosecutorial misconduct, her name was Hillary Clinton.
In fact it was the Clinton campaign’s bogus Steele dossier that fueled the abuse of the national security apparatus directed at Trump associates.
In December of 2017, Mr. Jeffries had appeared on CNN, the network that ran with the uncorroborated Steele dossier, and spun a new bogus theory of government collusion on top of the bogus claim of campaign collusion. He told the network’s Wolf Blitzer that “the entire sordid episode involving Russia and the Trump campaign seems to have bled into Russian involvement in some way, shape or form during the transition and perhaps even Russian attempts to continue to influence the administration once President Donald Trump was sworn in.”
Days before Mr. Trump took office as the nation’s 45th president, Mr. Jeffries explained on MSNBC why he thought it would be appropriate for members of Congress to skip the inauguration, saying “there’s a cloud of illegitimacy around the election of Donald Trump.” Mr. Jeffries cited Russian interference and “fake news” among other factors.
To his credit, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked the obvious question, according to the transcript:
HAYES: Why is that different than just whining because you lost?
JEFFRIES: Because, you know, the notion that a foreign power could have interfered with American democracy in a way that could have altered the results is a unique threat to the Republic and that’s a serious thing for each member to have to consider and to weigh.
Less whining after losses seems like a nice contribution politicians could make toward the cause of public comity.
As the leader of House Democrats, Mr. Jeffries will surely be making speeches condemning Donald Trump—it’s almost part of the job description. Wouldn’t it be a refreshing change in our polarized politics for Mr. Jeffries to couple his denunciations of the former president’s reaction to the 2020 Biden victory with a rejection of Mrs. Clinton’s reaction to the 2016 Trump victory? Ideally Mr. Jeffries would also condemn her campaign’s promotion of the Russia collusion hoax, a historic pollution of our politics, and express regret for helping to spread the poison.
Let the healing begin. It’s hard to think of a more compelling way for the new House minority leader to introduce himself to independent voters nationwide.
***
Speaking of healing in New York, so many recent incidents on the city’s subway system have been unspeakable or unprintable that it’s a pleasure to share news of a different sort. Olivia Land reports in the New York Post:
’Tis the season of giving — and a Brooklyn catering service stepped up to bring commuters a free Thanksgiving meal.
Passengers on a stalled L train at the Bedford Avenue station on Tuesday night were treated to an elaborate Turkey Day spread — complete with a long table of turkey and sides with a gingham table cloth.
Jada Yuan, a reporter for The Washington Post, shared a video of commuters helping themselves to the meal on Instagram.
The Post quotes Ms. Yuan:
“I was in a different car and when I stepped onto the platform there were all these happy, laughing people scarfing down [mac] and cheese!”
Kudos to catering service Chef Bea Kitchen, which has a history of initiating such happy incidents.
***
James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”
***
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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web.)
***
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