It's time for Nancy Pelosi to go. We need someone else to lead the Democratic Party in Congress. She's part of a status quo-- like Hillary-- that voters are not happy about. IT IS TIME FOR HER TO MOVE ON and make way for someone who comes from a different, more up-to-date personal and political context. Pelosi's priorities are no longer in synch with the priorities of the Democratic base. But that does not mean throwing her out and replacing her with a cabal of Wall Street and Big PhRMA-backed corporate shills. God forbid! And the Seth Moulton #5WhiteGuys coup is exactly that. The Congressional Progressive Caucus wants nothing to do with it-- nor do the vast majority of House Democrats. Blue Dogs, New Dems and other reactionaries from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party are all that this coup is about.
Alan Grayson left his House seat to run, alas unsuccessfully, for the U.S. Senate. But when he was in the House he was a great admirerer of Pelosi. He still is and when i asked him how he feels about the current leadership battle, he told me that personally, he "found that she was the only leader in the House-- on either side-- committed to the fundamental ethic that our job was to pass good legislation that would make the world a better place, and that electoral success would (and should) follow only from that."
Keep in mind that Pelosi strongly backed Ocasio's opponent while the DCCC and her House Majority PAC spent $5 million electing Anthony Brindisi (NY), Ben McAdams (UT), Max Rose (NY) and Jeff Van Drew (NJ), the dishonorable and corrupt Blue Dogs who have foolishly signed on as members of Moulton's disintegrating coup.
Prodded by Hayes to define how she sees the coup, Ocasio aded that "if anything, I think that what it does is create a window where we could potentially get more conservative leadership. When you actually look at the signatories, it is not necessarily reflective of the diversity of the party. We have about 16 signatories. 14 of them are male. There are very few people of color. There's very little ideological diversity; it's not like there are progressives signing on. It's not like you have a broad-based coalition."
Since he's always so sensible, I asked Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who currently has the single best voting record, according to ProgressivePunch, of anyone in Congress. "Practically speaking," he told me yesterday, "the alternative to Pelosi right now is chaos. But chaos is not a progressive value-- it’s the classic opportunity for opportunism and right-wing politics. Pelosi has been an historic figure who has engineered major legislative advances on everything from Dodd-Frank to the ACA. When it’s time for a change in leadership, progressive forces within Congress and across America will be ready."
UPDATE: One Less Coup Plotter
Brian Higgins is neither a Blue Dog nor a New Dem. He's an ordinary congressional Democrat and never appeared to me to be someone who belonged on Seth Moulton's list of coup plotters. And early yesterday his hometown paper, the Buffalo News, reported that he reversed course and will back Pelosi for speaker. He told the paper that he "decided to support Pelosi after she agreed to rank two of his top priorities among the new Democratic House's priorities. He said Pelosi agreed that Democrats will advance a major infrastructure bill early in the next Congress, and that Higgins will be able to take the lead as House Democrats work to pass his proposal to allow people to buy in to Medicare at the age of 50." The paper suggested that Higgins' withdrawal from Moulton's scheming "could take the steam out of the effort to replace Pelosi."
The battle is simply different factions of the big money opportunistically seeking power in a time when Pelosi's hold on it is seen as tenuous. It's different capitalist corporatist vultures hovering hoping Pelosi drops dead soon.
ReplyDeleteYou did not do Grayson any service with his quote: "found that she was the only leader in the House-- on either side-- committed to the fundamental ethic that our job was to pass good legislation that would make the world a better place, and that electoral success would (and should) follow only from that."
Pelosi has not ACTED in this manner in decades, since she decided that she wanted that gavel.
Anyone who raises money (read: whores) so prodigiously... you MUST also know that she owes each and every one of her johns for the billions they leave on her pillow.
You must also keep track of each and every time she does their bidding -- distorting bills to their benefit; failing/refusing to allow bills/ideas anathema to corporate interests to see committees and the floor for votes; vowing to fail to do her job by spiking any and all articles of impeachment for anyone; so on and so forth.
Grayson was there for a lot of her previous time with the gavel. He should know.
Either Grayson is blind, deaf and stupid... or he's lying his ass off. Either way, my opinion of him plummeted.
I'm beginning to wonder if there even CAN be a democrap that is even a little worthwhile.
Even Jayapal, who sponsored a bill to eliminate ICE, had to vote against her own bill when the Nazis cleverly allowed it to come up for a vote.
The plan here for progressives, which AOC seems to get, is to play the longer game. This upcoming congressional term is going to be gridlock. Hell, the 2020 version maybe the same with the Senate turning into a largely unrepresentative House of Lords. Let Pelosi be the target of the GOP and let progressives get plum positions on the right committees and second level leadership positions.
ReplyDeleteAOC smartly wants to pick off DINO incumbents holding seats in districts that shouldn't have DINOs. Flipping strong red seats isn't likely to offer any lasting help to progressives. The red-to-blue flips this session are likely to get replaced in the next election. The crappy DINOs Pelosi's team has picked for these seats won't get right-leaning independents and even Republicans that went anti-Trump this time around or just sat out. These voters will show out in 2020, many will split their ticket to vote out Trump but vote in a true Republican for their congressional district.
If progressives make gains in 2020 by removing incumbent DINOs, they position themselves as the single most powerful caucus and will have the largest say in leadership. Though even if they do take control of the House, I am not sure how they navigate a broken Senate.
"...Pelosi strongly backed Ocasio's opponent while the DCCC and her House Majority PAC spent $5 million electing...dishonorable and corrupt Blue Dogs..."
ReplyDeleteThis indicates that Pelosi herself is motivated to support ONLY those whose loyalty to corporatism matches hers. Such people would tell her anything (as corporate types tell all of us daily) as they plot to manipulate her to do their bidding instead of the other way around.
It no longer matters to the much younger members of the Party that she pushed hundreds of doomed pieces of legislation through the House which would never see action in the Senate during her tenure as Speaker (the strategy the democraps won't follow during the next Congress) which should have been used against the Republicans during their majority. Results are what these plotters desire, for when their "working across the aisle" inspires the voters to again abandon the democraps in 2020, they will be primed for fat lobbyist jobs. Once again, the corrupt corporatists will get theirs, and the rest of us can go to hell.
And so can Nancy.
6:38, your faith in AOC seems to be misplaced. She just "proudly" endorsed Pelosi.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that Pelosi's money will buy her the gavel once again.
And if you think Pelosi's money will stand for AOC's plan to primary shitty democraps, you really need to wake the fuck up.