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Democrats, led by Kennedy, respond to Trump’s State of the Union

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Led by Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., at least eight current and former Democratic legislators took on one of the stiffest challenges in politics: responding to a State of the Union in a time of strong economic growth.

Kennedy spoke from a technical school in his coastal Massachusetts district, facing a small crowd, framed by an antique car. His colleagues, from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., spread out across TV studios and press clubs to deliver a message that, perhaps, some of the president’s critics would hear.

For Kennedy, that message was that President Donald Trump and Republicans had offered “one false choice after another” to Americans, “turning American life into a zero-sum game” with the wealthiest picking up the most wins.

In calling on Americans to reject the “chaos” of the Trump era, Kennedy also outlined a Democratic vision that promises a “better deal for all who call this country home.”

Democrats support a higher minimum wage, paid leave for employees and affordable child care, among other priorities, Kennedy said.

“We choose pensions that are solvent, trade pacts that are fair, roads and bridges that won’t rust away, and good education you can afford,” he said in a speech from a vocational high school in Fall River, Massachusetts, a onetime manufacturing hub now struggling with high unemployment and other problems.

Kennedy, 37, a three-term congressman and grandson of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, has argued that Democrats should focus on the economic concerns of working-class voters who bolted the party in the 2016 elections.

Fall River, home to many blue-collar workers, “has faced its share of storms,” Kennedy said. “But people here are tough. They fight for each other. They pull for their city.”

In an apparent reference to Trump, Kennedy said that “bullies may land a punch” and leave a mark but that they have “never managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future.”

In a hard-hitting speech for a political newcomer, Kennedy decried a rollback of civil rights protections, noting proposals that target Muslims, transgender people and others.

The Trump administration “isn’t just targeting the laws that protect us — they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection,” Kennedy said.

Trump’s record is “a rebuke of our highest American ideal: the belief that we are all worthy, we are all equal and we all count — in the eyes of our law and our leaders, our God and our government,” Kennedy said.

The red-haired Kennedy was elected to the House in 2012, returning the family to Congress two years after the retirement of Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the son of Joe Kennedy III’s great-uncle Ted.

In a nod to “Dreamers,” the 700,000 young immigrants brought here as children and now here illegally, Kennedy spoke in Spanish as he said Dreamers are a part of America’s story and promised that Democrats will not walk away from them.

Kennedy said Trump and his administration were breaking a core promise of America — that everyone will be treated equally under the law. He accused the administration of “callously” appraising Americans’ worth and deciding “who makes the cut and who can be bargained away.”

Under the leadership of Trump and congressional Republicans, Americans are “bombarded with one false choice after another,” Kennedy said. “Coal miners or single moms. Rural communities or inner cities. The coast or the heartland.”

Democrats “choose both,” Kennedy said.

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Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., delivering a speech on behalf of the moderate New Democrats, was largely in sync with Kennedy, noting that most economic indicators had been strong “for eight years,” adding the benefits were being delivered to a lucky few.

“The fact is that the economy still isn’t good enough for too many people,” said Himes. “Not everyone has opportunity to earn a good life for them and their family. And policies which put health insurance out of reach, or which deliver huge tax relief to families that can afford to pass $20 million to their children, make things worse, not better.”

Sanders, who also delivered a rebuttal to Trump last year, went further by saying that the president was papering over the real problems with the economy.

“Over the last year, after adjusting for inflation, the average worker in America saw a wage increase of – are you ready for this? – 4 cents an hour, or 0.17 percent,” he said from a studio in the Capitol. “To put it in a different way, that worker received a raise of a little more than $1.60 a week. And, as is often the case, that tiny wage increase disappeared as a result of soaring health care costs.”

In 2014, the last year the opposition party had to rebut a rosy State of the Union in a strong economy, Republicans swung a similar rhetorical club. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wa., warned that the facts about the post-recession economy were worse than Barack Obama let on. “The real gap we face today is one of opportunity inequality,” she said, invoking “neighbors who are struggling to find jobs” and “a child who drops out of college because she can’t afford tuition.”

The Democrats of 2018, with their own version of the “bad news” speeches, went further by attacking the president’s immigration and social policies. The debate about “identity politics” that briefly distracted Democrats after 2016 was long forgotten, as Democrats in the Capitol brought immigrants as their special guests, and Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman warned that Trump threatened “to drag our nation back to a shameful past.

“Immigrant families – who have given new life to the American Dream through their arduous work and trust in American values – are facing uncertainty, anxiety and terror under President Trump,” said Guzman. “He has replaced equality with intolerance, replaced mutual respect with racism.”

The litany grew at “The State of Our Union,” an event at the National Press Club that gathered progressive organizations from Planned Parenthood to Moms Rising to Women’s March. Three House Democrats, who boycotted the presidential address, shared a stage with activists as they promised to keep standing up to Trump.

“I am proud to be an immigrant,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “We are going to fight for the diversity that makes our country great.”

On Facebook, former Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards delivered a speech on behalf of the left-wing Working Families Party. She offered the night’s lengthiest policy agenda, calling on Democrats to “make elections at every level publicly financed” and “cut the cord with developers, banks, big pharma, oil and gas companies, and all the interests that control public policy in states, cities, counties and Congress.”

Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, Kennedy was aligning his party as strongly as ever with the protest movements that had grown before and after Trump took office.

“You proudly marched together last weekend – thousands deep – in the streets of Las Vegas and Philadelphia and Nashville,” said Kennedy. “You bravely say, me too. You steadfastly say, black lives matter.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.