Unfortunately, your typical Democratic official—whether it’s Biden or Schumer or Jeffries or House Oversight Committee ranking member Gerry Connolly or the recently elected DNC chair Ken Martin—didn’t get into politics to defeat the Republican Party, to zealously advance the interests of ordinary people, or to protect democracy. They didn’t rise within the party ranks because of their talent for public service. In a functioning democracy, that wouldn’t matter as much. Nobody really cares if a politician’s inner life is absorbed in personal ambition. But at this moment of national and planetary emergency, pathological careerism is unacceptable. People should either step up or, if they don’t fancy the fray, follow the example of Senator Gary Peters, who recently announced, like a normal person in his late sixties, that he’ll retire in 2026.
The sorry truth is that without enormous pressure from the party base, a significant number of senators and representatives won’t have it in them to oppose Trump. We, the concerned citizens, will have to force them to do their duty. We’ll also have to march, sooner rather than later. But that’s a separate topic. For now, these are our guys. We go with what we’ve got. And let’s not forget: Republicans can’t govern, they’re unpopular, and they’re led by the most idiotic president in living memory. They are beatable.
Archived at https://archive.is/xbQp6
Guessing you have “receipts” for this. The only destruction she’s responsible for is what’s happening right now. She helped turn liberalism into the new conservatism. Maybe if she actually led the fight for working families we’d have a Harris presidency or at least control of one chamber.
What’s happening right now isn’t enough? That’s been a long term project for her. It wasn’t easy steering the country away from every opportunity to avoid it.
There is her decades of shilling for big oil.
She continued to support the Pied Piper strategies that promote far right candidates in Republican primaries so that Democrats can campaign on how bad Republicans are instead of actually delivering.
She was one of the loudest (and most effective) voices in the deregulation push that culminated in the 2008 mortgage crisis.
Then there all the many instances where Pelosi campaigned against progressives in Democratic primaries, both when the progressive was an incumbent and a challenger.