Nancy Pelosi Can't Mask Her Contempt for Progressives
Norman Solomon
Nancy Pelosi Can't Mask Her Contempt for Progressives
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. (AFGE / Flickr)
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine that a letter from the billionaire
real-estate broker George M. Marcus was hand-delivered to the office of
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking to meet with her. What are the chances
that Pelosi would find time on her calendar?
Hint: Marcus gave $4.5 million to Pelosi's House Majority PAC during the
2018 election cycle.
Or, if the letter had come from the hedge-fund billionaire James H. Simons -
who gave $10 million to that PAC during the last election cycle - would his
request for a meeting with Speaker Pelosi be granted?
In contrast, we don't need to speculate about what would happen if Pelosi
received a letter from seven progressive organizations "urgently" requesting
a meeting to discuss her recent dismissive comments about four progressive
congresswomen - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and
Rashida Tlaib.
That's what happened on July 17, when a letter was hand-delivered to
Pelosi's office in Washington. It was signed by progressive groups with
millions of active supporters - Demand Progress, Democracy for America, Just
Foreign Policy, Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America, and
RootsAction (where I'm national coordinator). It was also signed by the
largest caucus of the biggest state party, the Progressive Caucus of the
California Democratic Party.
After a delay of more than two weeks, Pelosi's office replied on August 2:
"Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi is unable to meet at this time. We will be
sure to let you know if anything changes in her schedule."
Pelosi has earned a reputation as a highly skilled legislative manager and a
prodigious fundraiser. But her solicitous skills at cultivating wealthy
patrons (the top 15 donors gave a total of $37 million to her House Majority
PAC during the 2018 cycle) are matched with her rather contemptuous attitude
toward progressives who don't fit into the equations that compute for her on
Capitol Hill.
Our letter pointed out that "the ultimate fate of legislative and electoral
efforts will depend on active support from millions of people at the
grassroots." But inside the Capitol bubble, Democratic leadership seems to
see progressive grassroots energy as more of a threat than an asset.
A month ago, Pelosi went out of her way to disparage Ocasio-Cortez, Omar,
Pressley and Tlaib for voting against a bill that lacked adequate refugee
protections at the U.S.-Mexico border. Pelosi told The New York Times: "All
these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they
didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes
they got."
Pelosi later met with Ocasio-Cortez, but that did little to repair the
damage. Lost in the media hubbub was the reality that Pelosi didn't only
express thinly veiled contempt toward four deeply progressive congresswomen;
she was also conveying a similar attitude toward millions of Americans who
share their political outlooks, while many have been drawn into political
engagement due to their achievements. As our letter put it, "Dismissive
comments about new progressive members of Congress have given the impression
of a disdainful attitude toward like-minded progressives and Democratic
activists across the country."
Nor have Trump's racist tweets about the four congresswomen changed the
realities of how destructive it is for Speaker Pelosi to disparage those
emerging leaders and their truly national grassroots constituencies. If
Pelosi is supposed to strive for evenly piloting the Democratic aircraft as
House speaker, why is she periodically throwing smoke bombs at its left
wing?
The party should be called to account when its leaders let their ostensible
principles slide. Pelosi's ire at the four dissenting Democratic
congresswomen was triggered by their strong opposition to inadequate
protection for refugees. As our letter to Pelosi said: "At a time when
flagrant institutionalized cruelty, racism, xenophobia, misogyny and other
forms of bigotry have reached new depths from Republican leaders, we can ill
afford the slightest wavering from unequivocal opposition to such extremism.
Efforts to strengthen our resolve should be welcomed."
At the same time, a key underlying reality is Pelosi's alignment with
corporate Democrats who worry about being primaried in 2020. Two of the four
congresswomen in "The Squad" - Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley - won their seats
by defeating incumbents in Democratic primaries last year. They've set a
good example for progressives while making many House Democrats nervous.
This week, several thousand constituents have used a RootsAction webpage to
send individual emails to House Democrats, telling their representative: "I
realize that the Speaker is powerful on Capitol Hill, but I ask you to
summon the courage to speak up and push her to permanently stop taking sides
against progressive lawmakers."
As I wrote nine months ago, "progressives should recognize the longstanding
House Democratic leader as a symptom of a calcified party hierarchy that has
worn out its grassroots welcome and is beginning to lose its grip.
Increasingly at odds with the Democratic Party's mobilized base, that grip
has held on with gobs of money from centralized, deep-pocket sources -
endlessly reinforcing continual deference to corporate power and an ongoing
embrace of massively profitable militarism."
At a time when the virulent racism of the Trump regime is becoming more
flagrant, it might seem a divergence to challenge the Democratic Party's
leadership. On the contrary. The imperative of preventing Trump's
re-election will require massive engagement and huge turnout of the
Democratic base - exactly what doesn't happen when party leaders are aloof,
elitist, enthralled with Wall Street and dismissive of genuinely progressive
principles.
Norman S
