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Nancy Pelosi stepped down from leadership after it became clear that Dems would lose the House. As always I try to dig beneath the surface and wonder why.
Despite the elegiac reporting of Nancy Pelosi that her stepping down has engendered, Pelosi was often an enemy of progressive goals. And while I condemn the violent attack on her husband and the rhetoric of the Right wing that predictably led to it, it doesn’t and shouldn’t make her immune to criticism and review of her actions as leader in the House for over two decades.
Nancy Pelosi promised Progressives that the two infrastructure bills were welded together and they could feel free to vote for one before the other, because the Senate could be trusted. None of this was true and of course the corporate infrastructure bill sailed through and the social infrastructure withered on the vine. It is beyond belief that Nancy Pelosi didn’t know what would happen if the corporate infrastructure bill was passed before the social infrastructure one.
Which leads to my argument that Nancy Pelosi stepped down as leader because she didn’t need to obstruct Progressive goals anymore. She didn’t need to stay in place to protect corporate donors, because with Republicans taking over the House they would have that role well in hand. Nancy Pelosi only needed to stay in her role to stop the new generation of Democrats from following through on their stated agenda if they had a majority and could theoretically make waves. Once they were comfortably in the safe harbor of Republican control, she was free to step down from leadership and rest on her laurels.
