In his speech on Friday after Republican Kevin McCarthy of California finally won the Speaker of the House vote in the United States House of Representatives, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York who has replaced California Representative Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the House Democratic caucus, turned to an ancient rhetorical and poetic form: the abecedarian. In 26 statements, Jeffries ran through the alphabet to summarize the House Democratic caucus's goals, with a few digs against Republicans along the way: from "American values over autocracy" to "freedom over fascism", "maturity over Mar-A-Lago", and "quality of life over Q-Anon", and finally to "zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 8 January 2023)

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The abecedarian in Hakeem Jeffries's speech on Friday, 6 January 2023