Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:45 pm
Guys, this new strategy highlighted in Politico is going to blow your mind. Republicans don’t have any ideas to run on, so they’re going to vilify Pelosi! Oh, you’ve heard this one before. Like, every election cycle. OK. Well, Republicans are hoping their base will be stupid enough to buy it again.
The gist of the Republican strategy as reported in Politico is that Leader Pelosi is so strong that she is keeping those poor Republican boys in the House and Senate and White House from getting anything done.
House Republicans are turning to a reliable villain to rev up their listless base: Nancy Pelosi… It’s an old standby for Republicans, which they’re testing out again in special House elections in Montana and Georgia, where Democrats are running unexpectedly strong in GOP-friendly districts.”
“I think we’ll see if it works. I believe it still works,” Politico quotes National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers of Ohio saying of the very stale strategy.
The thing is, the House rules are set up so that the minority leader has very little power. It’s not Nancy Pelosi’s fault that Republicans can’t get things done. She used to spend her political capital bailing former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) out so he could get necessary, basic things done in the House. For this, Republicans vilified her.
Republicans have been running against cartoon images of Obama and Pelosi for so long they’ve forgotten how to govern, let alone have actual ideas and values.
We have come to expect this low level stale from Republicans. They still have faith in it because gerrymandering, the epistemic closure of conservative media, and of course Putin’s 2016 assist to their party.
But some Democrats are cited in the piece as “restless after years in the minority under her leadership… privately demanding change if Democrats don’t pick up one of the special election seats up for grabs.”
It’s normal for people to freak out when out of power, but to throw away the one person who actually got things done, the person who dished up President Obama’s agenda with a united caucus that shames the Republicans, that’s foolish beyond measure.
Democrats need to stay strong and stay committed to the values Leader Pelosi is committed to; that is, things that actually help the people. Backstabbing the Leader in hopes they can climb over her to claim the Leader’s power for their agenda is more befitting of the Freedom Caucus and just as dysfunctional. It will only lead to failure.
Whoever those Democrats are they should realize their star is tied to getting back in power, running an effective resistance when they are out of power, and being united against the unpatriotic stranglehold of the Trump presidency and Republican-led Congress. Inner party jostling for power is a distraction from the desperation of their constituents.
Republicans pick on Pelosi because she is so effective. They would give anything to have a Speaker who could deliver as Pelosi consistently did.
Democrats at least have an excuse for their behavior, whereas Republicans are in power and have no excuse. When Pelosi and Reid were in power, they were getting things done.
Republicans are busy passing the “UnAmerican” heath care act that would kill tens of thousands of Americans if enacted as written and now they’ve got Trump’s budget with a 2 trillion dollar double counting error which is basically tax cuts for the rich and devastation for the poor. It’s no wonder they want to vilify Pelosi.
For these flops and failures, Republicans who are in power in both chambers of Congress and the White House can do nothing but point at Leader Pelosi and wail like little lost boys blaming Mommy.
But the truth is, Republicans built this failure the hard way – through their years of headstrong dedication to obstruction no matter how they hurt their country.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
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