The real extreme leftists at the Jacobin reminds everyone crying about rampant extreme leftism that down-stepping Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has produced nothing like real leftist results:
Was Pelosi really “the most consequential” speaker in the history of Congress? It’s a hard claim to make considering her latest stint was better defined by what didn’t pass than what did. The past nearly two years of Democratic control of Congress has led to virtually none of the big-ticket items promised in the 2020 Democratic platform: no $15 minimum wage, no public health insurance option, no universal pre-K or affordable child care program, and no expansion of Medicare, to name just a few. Even the Democrats’ major new anti-poverty program, the child tax credit, failed to be renewed. This was largely because of the splitting of Biden’s massive infrastructure bill into separate centrist and progressive legislation, and their eventual de-coupling ― something Pelosi broke a promise by reportedly pushing for even before the White House was ready to fully give up on the latter.
What did pass? A bill that’s part infrastructure spending, part privatization giveaway to Wall Street that was originally Trump policy; a so-so climate bill that doubles as a dangerous fossil fuel giveaway; the limited authority for Medicare to negotiate some drug prices, tied to the latter; and a massive stimulus bill that re-energized the economy and poured money into state and local governments, the most unambiguously good of all of these pieces of legislation. One can’t dump all this on Pelosi, given the various players and machinations involved. But it’s hard, then, to say her record outweighs that of even, say, Newt Gingrich in the ’90s, whose radical, right-wing “Contract With America” accompanied a historic House victory for his party, before heavily shaping the agenda of a president from the opposite party [Brando Marcetic, “Nancy Pelosi Delivered Little for the Left, But We Might Miss Her Anyway,” Jacobin, 2022.11.21].
The Republican spin machine depends on distracting voters from the GOP’s radical agenda by portraying the Democratic Party as radical leftists. But real radical leftists make clear that Pelosi Democrats are really the party of centrist sensibility and compromise.
Yup. Pelosi is a vote counter. She takes what she can get with the majority she has in the House, and the Senate agrees to. She is able to work with her members, something Republican leaders haven’t done.
Kevin McCarthy said American’s fired Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi received over 70,000 more votes than Kevin McCarthy. Nancy Pelosi is hated by the Republican party and even more by the Chinese government. She picks her enemies well.
Nancy Pelosi publicly and embarrassingly initiated successful impeachment of the worst President in American history, twice. (i.e. Donald Trump)
The legacies of number two (Richard Nixon) and number three (George W. Bush) worst Presidents in American history are somewhat salved.
During covid-19’s infancy days in the US, the stark difference between then-president Trump and Mrs. Pelosi revealed a lot. Trump was playing golf and talking trash about China to the paparazzi. Mrs. Pelosi was running ragged. She had no voice left, just a forced crackle from all the organizing she was frantically putting in place to do her job for her people. I respect her hard work. She was demonized for being a badass woman, like all badass women are by the misogynistic good ol boys who can’t stand a woman getting stuff done.
Republicans didn’t say word one publicly about the Covid-19 stimulus checks that were made possible by Nancy Pelosi. Now that all the dough has been baked, they claim she was responsible for this dreadful inflation. That’s BS piled higher than the Reagan library. Inflation is being caused by Republican support for non-regulated business practices.
Inflation has flattened somewhat because savvy business leaders know they can only gouge for so long before “We the People” demand curbs on cost increases. When we put maybe a half percent increase on any product per year that will stop inflation in its tracks. CEO’s are truly afraid of that type of regulation because it wouldn’t be lifted until several years after inflation has stopped.
The “Free Market”, when unregulated is more dangerous than Covid-19. One political party turned a blind eye to both.
Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House. She zero control over the doddering old fools in the Senate or the orange pumpkin in the white house. She kept good clean house, mustered the votes needed when necessary and admonished those when needed .She was a wife, mother and grandmother, and Speaker who out shined all her male counterparts. Give credit where credit is due
P. Aitch – you need to move all three of those down a notch as to the worst ever. IMO, your list is of the greatest dolts – not the worst presidents. Reagan did far, far more damage to the US populace and culture than did those three. He had the same evil political ideological goals and was cleverer and more effective implementing it.
Mr. Schriever is, of course, entitled to his opinion. Whereas being contrary is the unofficial state hobby of Lennox and South Dakota.
However, in terms of dangerous Presidents causing damage, 21,041 Americans died in Vietnam during Nixon. Over two million civilians died as well as over a million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters died.
Bush was responsible for over 7000 dead Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trump empowered Putin to believe The West would not intervene when Putin invaded Ukraine and thousands have died already.
Reagan’s only war was the flaccid victory over Russia in the Cold War. Oh, yeah. And the war in Granada. Big Whoop!
No comparison, in my statistically based opinion, Mr. Schriever.
Never really got why the Republicans were demonizing Nancy Pelosi. She is a very wealthy woman (she and her husband have much more money than Trump, which accounts for his vicious disdain of her), who very ably represents the views of the people residing in her San Francisco district. She is a very decent person, with good instincts, who wears her heart on her sleeve. Republicans can’t stand upfront guilelessness. I’m sure Ms. Pelosi has her days when she schemes and gets out the long knives, but overall I feel she has been very humane, and a legislative leader who served her country well.
I agree with Arlo as I too never saw any reason why Republicans were demonizing Nancy Pelosi. The same is true about the irrational Republican demonizing of Hillary Clinton. Sure, party hot shots and political operatives may have concluded that such demonization would garner votes, but why? What did either Pelosi or Clinton ever do or support that did not actually help people, including most Republicans, beyond perhaps the one percent of the richest folks who feel compelled to hoard rather than share their good fortune and abhor progressive taxation?
Richard Schriever had written:
The commenter formerly known as Porter Lansing responds:
Hey Richard, how closely were you related to Lee Schriever?
Magats have been demonizing William J and HRC for nearly 50 years, since WJC was guv of Arkansas, if not sooner. This book,
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391225/ (“The hunting Of The president”) details, with copious footnotes, magats hell bent on destroying Bill Clinton because Lee Atwater ws afraid Clinton could beat Hitler Weasel Bush for the presidency in 1992.
e playpus onion, thanks for the book reference – although it looks like it deals with Bill Clinton, rather than Hillary or Pelosi, it looks interesting and will be one of my next library book checkouts. I think I understand the motives of those that orchestrated the attacks on Pelosi and Clinton, but I simply don’t get why these deceptive attacks were so effective in convincing otherwise smart and reasonable people to hate these bright caring women in the face of an easily available reality.
bcb, I believe they went after HRC because she was seen as an equal partner to her hubby and also because she was a feminist lawyer who wouldn’t divorce Bill for all the affairs he was alleged to have had. She was absolutely correct about the vast right wing conspiracy against her and Bill, imho.
On the HRC topic, when the Republicans did there Benghazi investigation, Clinton showed up and answered their questions. When Republicans are investigated, they ignore even subpoenas — they are no-shows. So who is really respecting the investigation process?
It is the blatant yet ignored rampant misogyny that causes women to be the easy scapegoat and brunt of hatred and violence in the world. Women are conditioned to be the easy target because it is normal. Gun violence, mass shootings, and white supremacist militia groups all cut their teeth on misogyny. Women who leave their place in the home to positions of power are called witches and treated with contempt. It really sucks. Just highlights which men are good and which ones are insecure and inadequate.