Pelosi: What, Me Worry?

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Rep. Nancy Pelosi was just reelected to her 20th term in office, so she had a good Tuesday night even if her party did not. Pelosi gave her first post-election interview to the NY Times and it’s frustrating to read. This is clearly someone who has spent so many decades spouting talking points for the party that it’s not clear if there’s anything else to her at this point. Reading the interview, you get the impression that she’s just trying to deny there is any bad news to worry about after the loss of the White House and the Senate. As for the House, she was still claiming Democrats might win that.

I understand that it looked like a very red outcome yesterday, but we are on the verge of perhaps winning the House and making Hakeem Jeffries the speaker of the House. There are votes to be counted in Arizona, Oregon and California, and we’re optimistic that we can win.

You might win the House, but you definitely lost the presidency, you lost the Senate and there is a good chance that the G.O.P. remains in control in the House. There has already been a lot of parsing of what happened, and I know that there’s going to be a lot to come. But what is your main takeaway from that terrible night for the Democrats? 

Well, it was not a good night for the Democrats, but as I say, I don’t accept right now, and we won’t even know by the time this goes to print, what the outcome is of the House races. But understand this: The big assault that was made, this big red map across America — we lost two of our incumbents, maybe three. We’re still waiting to hear from one in Alaska. But that was a big save. I mean, what we call our frontline candidates, by and large, won in places where the Republicans were raging with their vote for the president and the Senate. The House members did very well. As I say, it’s still a possibility that we can win, but just that it’s a possibility tells you that the House ran against the tide. Already we have started our organizing for the future. We don’t agonize over what happened. We organize about what comes next.

Just to be clear, it’s not impossible for Democrats to win the House but it’s also no very likely. As of this moment, Republicans only need six more wins to retain control and they are currently leading in 12 races with the majority of the vote counted. It’s going to be a narrow win either way but at this moment the GOP has the advantage.

As for the choices made by Biden to run again and by the party not to hold an open convention for who should succeed him, Pelosi mostly sidestepped all of those issues. She said, “we’re not here to agonize.”

Should there have been an open primary, though? Well, see, we thought that there would be. The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different. But that’s not, we’re not here to agonize. We’re here, again, to organize on how we go forward. 

Pelosi also denied that voters had rejected the Democratic party, though she did allow that “cultural issues” had an impact on the race. As she put it, “guns, God and gays.”

Well, there are cultural issues involved in elections as well. Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it.

Perhaps the height of Pelosi’s denialism came during a question about immigration.

People felt quite strongly that they didn’t want to see immigrants sleeping in police stations, at airports. 

I don’t think we were clear enough by saying fewer people came in under President Biden than came under Donald Trump. It’s clarity of the message…

This just sounds delusional. What she’s probably referring to is that in the past few months the number of border encounters has dropped below the peak level at the very end of Trump’s term. But if you step back and look at the overall numbers it’s not even close. Border encounters for most of Biden’s term were running close to 2 million per year, not including millions more “gotaways” who crossed without being stopped. My point is, if voters saw this comparison with clarity it would not help Harris or the Democrats.

Finally, Pelosi said she wasn’t worried about the big shift to the right in some blue parts of the country.

Trump performed 20 percentage points better in the Bronx and Queens than he did in 2020. So I guess my question is: Is this the Trump effect — that he is just a uniquely popular person — or is this something that the Democrats aren’t doing right?

No, we did it right. We won four seats in New York. You need to focus where you need to focus to win.

So there you have it. Pelosi seems to believe all is well and Democrats are still winners who haven’t been rejected in any significant way. The tone of the entire interview seems borrowed from Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman: What, me worry?

But NY Times readers aren’t feeling as sanguine about the election and feel like Pelosi is not really dealing with reality. Here’s the top comment.

With all due respect to Congresswoman Pelosi’s extensive career, listening and hearing her discuss this matter makes me realise she’s part of the problem. She’s 84 years old, has been in Washington 4 decades, and is a multimillionaire (with some very interesting trading habits). What does she know about the working class? How can she take this country forward when she will be nearly 90 by 2028?

Her denial:

Nancy Pelosi appears to be in complete denial about what happened in this election and the ways Democrats have alienated various constituents in every demographic, myself included. Unless leadership within the party does some actual soul searching and reconfiguring based on the very clear message sent last week we will continue to lose over and over and over again.

This reader says Pelosi is personally to blame as perhaps the only Democrat who could have interceded earlier.

Kudos to Lulu Garcia-Navarro for her persistent questioning of Nancy Pelosi, who repeatedly refuses to give a straight answer about President Biden’s terrible decision to seek re-election. Pelosi is perhaps the one person who possessed the influence to rally the Democratic “establishment” in 2022 or 2023 and tell Biden not to run in 2024. But she didn’t, and she is now trying to whitewash her mistake to protect her reputation. Pelosi has remarkable political skills, but she and her party committed an inexcusable blunder that disserved their supporters and the entire country, and she should own up to it.

She sounds out of touch.

Pelosi’s comments demonstrate why Democrats have, and will continue to, lost touch with the electorate. The institutional leadership is more concerned with keeping their own place in the structure than recognizing that the rest of the country has come to ignore them. Dems lost on messaging and for failing to turn out their own base in this last election. That fact cannot be overlooked. So tired of the Dems giving out participation trophies to one another rather than recognizing that a loss is a loss and that something needs to change.

Ouch, this one stings.

I am compelled to emphasize two crucial issues: the necessity for term limits and the importance of retirement.

Why can’t she just own it?

That was a hard interview to even get through listening. Her avoidance tactics just didn’t land well on this one. Accept the loss, own up to the mistakes made and make a plan for voters to believe in your party for the future.

From New Jersey, where they don’t hold back.

No, Nancy.

From this interview you seem to exemplify what everyday Americans mean when they describe urban, elite Democrats as being “out of touch.” Right or wrong, they’re referring to you.

You have served your country well, and thank you. You have not served your movement well.

It matters little that House Dems lost only a handful of seats. Congratulations are *not* in order just because your team lost a close series 4 to 3, instead of in a four game sweep in other races.

Ms. Pelosi is insufficiently ashamed and cowed by the broader strategic decimation of the liberal agenda. She has not learned anything. Is she capable of learning? The hubris may be too great.

Lest you think I’m cherry-picking these, look for yourself. These are the top comments (meaning they were upvoted by other readers) and I didn’t skip any positive ones. No one is buying Pelosi’s desperate spin that all is well with the Democratic Party.