Truthdig
The 'Pelosi Problem' Runs Deep
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California speaking in Des Moines,
Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall / AP)
Nancy Pelosi will probably be the next House speaker, a prospect that fills
most alert progressives with disquiet, if not dread. But instead of fixating
on her as a villain, progressives should recognize the long-standing 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.
Pelosi has earned a reputation as an excellent manager, and she has
certainly managed to keep herself in power atop Democrats in the House.
She's a deft expert on how Congress works, but she seems out of
touch-intentionally or not-with the millions of grassroots progressives who
are fed up with her kind of leadership.
Those progressives should not reconcile with Pelosi, any more than they
should demonize her. The best course will involve strategic
confrontations-nonviolent, emphatic, civilly disobedient-mobilizing the
power of protest as well as electoral activism within Democratic primaries.
Such well-planned actions as Tuesday's "Green New Deal" sit-in at Pelosi's
Capitol office serve many valuable purposes. (Along the way, they help
undermine the absurd right-wing Fox News trope that portrays her as some
kind of leftist.) Insistently advocating for strong progressive programs and
calling Pelosi out on her actual positions despite nice-sounding rhetoric
can effectively widen the range of public debate. Over time, the process
creates more space and momentum for a resurgent left.
There is much to counter at the top of the party. Pelosi still refuses to
support single-payer enhanced "Medicare for all." As on many other issues,
she-and others, such as the more corporate-friendly House Democratic Whip
Steny Hoyer-are clinging to timeworn, Wall Street-friendly positions against
powerful political winds generated by years of grassroots activism.
Increasingly, such leadership is isolated from the party it claims to lead.
Yet the progressive base is having more and more impact. As a Vox headline
proclaimed, more than a year ago, "The stunning Democratic shift on
single-payer: In 2008, no leading Democratic presidential candidate backed
single-payer. In 2020, all of them might." The Medicare for All Caucus now
lists 76 House members.
Any progressive should emphatically reject Pelosi's current embrace of a
"pay-go" rule that would straitjacket spending for new social programs by
requiring offset tax hikes or budget cuts. Her position is even more
outrageous in view of her fervent support for astronomical military
spending. Like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (who was just re-elected
to his post), Pelosi went out of her way last winter to proclaim avid
support for President Trump's major increase in the already-bloated Pentagon
budget, boasting: "In our negotiations, congressional Democrats have been
fighting for increases in funding for defense."
Whether our concerns involve militarism, social equity, economic justice,
civil liberties, climate change or the overarching necessity of a Green New
Deal, the Democratic Party must change from the bottom up. That means
progressives across the country should run candidates from precinct levels
upward and maintain pressure on all elected officials, including the
congressional Democrats with progressive records.
Newly elected House members will raise the total membership of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus to about 90. A dozen caucus members are in
line to chair House committees in the new Congress; another 30 are set to
chair subcommittees. The Progressive Caucus is now co-chaired by Raul
Grijalva of Arizona and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, two of the strongest
progressive lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The contrasts between their advocacy
and the meanderings of the caucus's more tepid members are sometimes
striking.
During the Obama years, by deferring to top-tier party leaders, many in the
Progressive Caucus showed themselves to be unreliable advocates for
progressive causes when push came to shove-during the 2009 health care
debate, for example. Yet the left-leaning tendencies in the caucus can now
be strengthened and reinforced-if constituent pressure is insistent. When
necessary, that insistence should include credible threats of launching
primary challenges.
While the governing body of the party, the Democratic National Committee,
gave ground this year on such matters as internal party democracy
(disempowering superdelegates in the process), senior Democrats have
retained a firm hold on such powerful mechanisms as the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). It is emblematic of a larger
problem that in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, an unrelenting
series of DCCC emails to millions of recipients featured appeals from such
standard party figures as James Carville, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe
Biden, Adam Schiff, Madeleine Albright, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi
and Barbara Boxer-none of whom supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016
presidential primaries. The emails reflect how lopsided and corporate the
power structures of the DCCC and top-ranking Democrats in Congress remain.
In sync with such corporate sensibilities, some of the party's big mainline
names are now mobilizing to pressure incoming Democrats to support Pelosi
for speaker. "Democratic Party luminaries are calling members-elect on
Pelosi's behalf," Politico reported this week; they include New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo, former Vice President Al Gore and former Secretary of State
John Kerry.
This year, many progressive individuals and organizations have moved beyond
the false choice of either building movements or seriously trying to win
elections. We can and must do both-simultaneously, not sequentially-to the
benefit of both parallel tasks. The Republican Party's loss of the House was
largely due to decisions by substantial numbers of people on the left to
engage with the electoral process as never before. Moving forward, we need
to strengthen social movements, as well as electoral capacities, so we can
end Republican rule and replace it with genuinely progressive governance.
Norman Solomon