The first woman Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi was the perfect Speaker of the House for the 45th President, the Grifter. And also, the perfect Speaker of the House for the 44th President, Barack Obama, the Great Pragmatist.
She was, most of all, the first woman Speaker, and that is monumental for a country that is in desperate need of more women voices and players.
Nancy Pelosi is easing out of politics now. I suspect this term will be her last. That is not bad or good. It just is. Nancy, on the other hand, was mostly good at her gig no matter how one feels about her actual politics. She was smart at the game of politics, too smart much of the time for her opponents.
When she first became Speaker back in 2006, it was the perfect moment for her to rise and then for a woman to rise. I do not agree with all of her political positions but I do agree with some of them, and that is likely enough.
‘Bal-mer’ (Baltimore)
Like my father and much of my paternal family, Nancy Pelosi is a Baltimore girl. African Americans call the city “B-more” as in B-more careful. Baltimore is a tough city with tough politics.
I once sat at my grandmother’s window and watched as two gangs fought out on the streets with tools. Threw wrenches, hammers, and other metal objects at one another before they got to the hand-to-hand scraping. Then they dispersed to live to fight another day.
Nancy, an Italian-American, grew up in “Little Italy” which is still there in the city today. Just off from Little Italy were some of the worst and most dangerous public housing projects in America. They are all gone now. Torn down as urban failure and obvious evidence of institutional racism.
Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., was mayor of Baltimore once. And that is how Nancy honed her political chops. Mr. Allesandro was mayor from 1947 to 1959. It was in 1947 that my father left Baltimore to join the army.
The Nancy Era
But back to Presidents #44 and #45. The reason Pelosi worked perfectly as Speaker under them is that she was the counter to them. Both of them are “politically” to the right of her and both of them are (were) inexperienced compared to her.
Mr. Obama needed to be pushed back to people issues from his pragmatic sellouts he loved to execute; #45 needed to be controlled in every respect and confronted on all issues all the time. Nancy did both with great success.
But for Nancy Pelosi, no Affordable Care Act. That’s just a fact. The fact that pushing to pass the law cost her the Speaker post in 2010 says a lot about her integrity as a human being.
But for Pelosi, George W. Bush probably tries to drop dynamite on the Social Security program. Pelosi kept the Democrats united on the issue and it is only recently that talk from the GOP of blowing it up has come up.
Under #45, Pelosi held the line as well. The Trump/Republican shutdown of the government was politically disastrous. Again, she held her caucus in line.
Nancy Pelosi impeached #45 twice and that, in hindsight, was a good thing. The second impeachment was especially the right thing to do.
Pelosi’s views differ from many of her Democratic colleagues. And to her credit, she has not generally allowed those differences to hurt her strategies.
Yep, most of all, I respect Nancy Pelosi because she said she would step aside in 2022 and she has done so. She has also done so for the right reason — it’s clearly time for new leadership and for her family. My favorite Pelosi moment was when she tore up one of #45’s speeches on national television:
Here is it and the LINK here:
Few people in Washington D.C. know when it is time to go. They stay until the undertakers are building their coffins. Nancy, I do hope, will retire soon, and have herself a good time writing that biography and hanging with her grandchildren.
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This post was previously published on Bumpyjonas – he/him.
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