Pelosi-AOC feud is exactly what the Dems need

First of all, this is a fight that Pelosi wanted.

"All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world," Pelosi told Dowd. "But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got."
That comment echoes what Pelosi said of AOC (and her closest allies, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts) in an April interview with USA Today. "While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what's important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House," Pelosi said.

Less than a week later, Pelosi was at it again. Asked by CBS' Lesley Stahl about AOC and her cadre, the speaker replied drolly: "That's like five people."

ocasio-cortez-pressley-tlaib-congress.jpg

Three times Pelosi taunted them. Eventually Omar, Tliab, Pressley, and AOC were going to respond.
Why did Pelosi want this fight? Political hack Jonathan Chait gives a pretty good reason why.

What struck me is that AOC’s squad is doing her a huge favor by criticizing her from the left and turning her into a centrist. Pelosi used to be THE symbol of out-of-touch coastal liberalism. Now that symbol is AOC, and Pelosi is an Italian grandmother again.
...
The conservative media has done more than any other force to elevate the AOC squad. So, from Pelosi’s perspective, continuously pointing out that they’re four people is fighting back against conservative propaganda.

I hate to say it, but Chait is right about this...from a certain short-term perspective.
If all that matters is between now and November 2020, Pelosi is making a shrewd decision.
But from any other perspective, Pelosi is making a huge mistake.

Ben: All I’m saying is that mocking members of your own caucus comes off as churlish and seems like poor long-term strategy. There are plenty of ways to separate yourself from these members, and progressives writ large, without actively antagonizing them like this. It’s pretty easy to make the Twitter argument Eric mentioned without resorting to insults.

All of the energy in the Democratic Party is on the progressive side. The corporate establishment has to go to ever more extreme levels to keep progressives at bay, and young people are increasingly leftist.
So directly mocking this wing of the party is clearly stupid from a long-term view.

On Saturday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that reads like an excerpt from The Great Gatsby reimagined for the 21st century...Pelosi has had a rough go of it lately, and the Dowd interview is the strongest evidence yet that the most powerful Democrat in America is losing touch with the country.
...
When conservative Democrats backed by Gottheimer challenged Pelosi from the right after the November elections, the lefty freshmen stuck with Pelosi and urged their supporters to do the same. Pelosi has rewarded them with persistent contempt.

It's been obvious for many decades that the Democratic Party has nothing but open contempt for anyone and everyone on the left. Pelosi and Biden are aging Clinton-era Democrats that never saw any consequences for their betrayal of the working class, and thus never learned any lessons from it.
But like wealthy, comfortable liberals everywhere, they think they've got it all figured out because they don't realize that their basic assumptions are wrong.

"I don't think Alexandria and her friends ... they haven't learned, they haven't been in Congress enough to understand that negotiations happen in Congress," Aristimuño said. "They don't happen on Twitter, they don't happen on Facebook. She doesn't seem to understand that yet. Maybe later on she will understand it."
He then praised Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, saying he believed she's done a "tremendous job." Aristimuño explained that he thinks Pelosi is "trying to understand the left [of her party]." He argued that the speaker recognizes that she must work with Republicans to get stuff done.

Everyone knows that "working with Republicans to get stuff done" means "capitulating to their demands." Also, 'Pelosi is "trying to understand the left"' speaks volumes.
It's not just corruption when it comes to corporate Democrats. They honestly have no idea what is going on with the working class of this country. Nor are they all that interested in knowing. This feud is helping to expose this gaping flaw in Dem leadership.

Also, it's not just the four that Pelosi targeted.

When Pelosi, facing no help from Senate Democrats and a revolt from moderates within her own conference, “reluctantly” agreed to put on the floor the $4.6 billion Senate bill—which didn’t include improved standards for treatment in migrant detention facilities, and appropriated more enforcement money to the Defense Department—she exposed the underlying tensions within her caucus. The co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Rep. Mark Pocan, asked on Twitter, “Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus”—the group of moderates who demanded a vote on the Senate bill to get a bipartisan accomplishment under their belts before the July Fourth recess—“become the Child Abuse Caucus?” The tweet prompted two freshmen Problem Solvers, Rep. Max Rose and Rep. Dean Phillips, to confront Pocan on the House floor.

“Mark’s tweet just speaks to why everyone hates this place,” Rose told Politico. “He’s just trying to get retweets. That’s all he cares about.”

Yeh. It's not like anyone cares about child abuse.
This is being exposed because of the growing progressive insurgency in the Democratic Party. The more victories the insurgents gain, the more the Democratic leadership will be exposed for their out-of-touch elitism and corruption.
The insurgency is only one and a half election cycles old, and already it's become a problem for the Old Guard. Imagine what it might be like in 2021.

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Alligator Ed's picture

Everyone knows that "working with Republicans to get stuff done" means "capitulating to their demands." Also, 'Pelosi is "trying to understand the left"' speaks volumes.
It's not just corruption when it comes to corporate Democrats. They honestly have no idea what is going on with the working class of this country. Nor are they all that interested in knowing. This feud is helping to expose this gaping flaw in Dem leadership.

Nervous Nancy is a pol who is past her political expiration date (about 30 years past, it seems to me). AOC is a stalking horse for pseudo-leftists representing the Establishment. She is as crooked as the Camel but without the necessary mileage to be obvious. Add a few wrinkles to her face and you'll see a deeply corrupt individual, no better than the old ones she and her ilk are replacing.

Every age has its peculiar vices and aberrations--always centering around money and power. The faces change. The game remains the same. The older players: Bernie, DiFi, Nancy, Chuckles, Steny, McTurtle, etc. are being slowly and dare I say, progressively being shunted off stage by the young's.

It will take a while for the covert money stream to be efficiently diverted from the current recipients to the latest band of grifters.

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@Alligator Ed

AOC is a stalking horse for pseudo-leftists representing the Establishment. She is as crooked as the Camel but without the necessary mileage to be obvious. Add a few wrinkles to her face and you'll see a deeply corrupt individual, no better than the old ones she and her ilk are replacing.

AOC may indeed be what you say, but she has had nowhere near the time and opportunity to produce a track-record to back up this claim. The evidence simply isn't there. It's not possible to prove this.
That's all I've got to say on this, and I'm not going to argue over it. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@gjohnsit Wonder whence AOC gets this mountain of free publicity? Would the MSM do this if some upper up wasn't promoting her? And what about the million bucks her erstwhile campaign manager and part-time boyfriend filched the "Justice Democraps"?

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@Alligator Ed
but as for media attention, it's not hard to explain.

1) anything shiny and new the media will cover no matter what it is (recall what V. Lenin said, “When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract.”). She's young, attractive, and twitter savvy.

2) most of the coverage is from the right-wing, which is doing its best to slander her.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@gjohnsit

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travelerxxx's picture

@gjohnsit

2) most of the coverage is from the right-wing, which is doing its best to slander her.

Basically, ALL the coverage of her is coming from right-wing media. Hell, they absolutely cannot stop covering her. It's non-stop, 24/7. This tells me they are genuinely afraid of her, and I believe they are. Meanwhile, the Democrat dinosaurs scratch their heads ... in between signing corporate donor mega-checks.

As bad as the Republicans are, and they are horrid, they have a much better handle on the pulse of their customers. They know that Trump got in via (phoney) populism, and they're gong to attack any semblence of the real thing with all the virtrol they can sling.

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Shahryar's picture

@gjohnsit

Dems: Trump was on Epstein's plane!
others: Bill Clinton was there, too, and a lot more often
Dems: (in response) Trump was on Epstein's plane!

and here...

some of us: AOC is a sheepdog, she voted for Pelosi for Speaker!
others: so did Tulsi Gabbard, so you must not like her, either
some of us: AOC voted for Pelosi!

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snoopydawg's picture

Everyone knows that "working with Republicans to get stuff done" means "capitulating to their demands." Also, 'Pelosi is "trying to understand the left"' speaks volumes.
It's not just corruption when it comes to corporate Democrats. They honestly have no idea what is going on with the working class of this country. Nor are they all that interested in knowing. This feud is helping to expose this gaping flaw in Dem leadership.

They have been in congress for so long they really aren't seeing both the ways society has changed for the better and especially the way it has changed to the worse. They get to fly over the country without seeing how decrepit it is getting. The many areas where houses are boarded over, the stinking roads filled with potholes or the piles of human poo on the streets of major cities because the rate of people becoming homeless is going up.
Watch this video of a biker on a bike trail that has countless homeless camps on it. When is the last time anyone from congress addressed the homeless situation?

The Homeless in America - Washington's Forgotten Ones

A recent report from Kaiser Health News shows us the real state of life in America for thousands of people who have not benefitted from the selective economic recovery since the Great Recession.

I was going to essay this but got distracted so I hope you don't mind if I post this here. How is it that congress doesn't see this? Oh I am sure they do see it, but until this affects their real base nothing will be done about it.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
That video just goes on and on and on.

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snoopydawg's picture

@gjohnsit

and amazingly sad. As it says, "is this any way to bring up your children?" Wonder how many homeless parents Kambama harassed as opposed to rich people's kids? She is still laughing about what she did during her days as attorney general.

Did you perchance see the article on her that I posted elsewhere here? She let the rich and the cops get away with everything while going after the lesser class.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Hawkfish's picture

@snoopydawg

Has some of this, but thankfully not as bad. But go out to Aberdeen on the coast and it's quite horrible. Plus the "decent people" of Aberdeen are criminalizing homelessness to a truly brutal degree. If you want to help defend them (as in lawsuits) or just support them, please consider supporting Chaplains on the Harbor.

I'm rather disappointed in the comments - there are nasty remarks about immigrants but most of the people I saw looked Anglo. And while it's true that the dims have not done much to deal with the root causes of inequality, the rethugs are even more merciless.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

The old Dem ploy of hippie punching to misdirect from Pelosi's own failure to stand up to the Goopers.

"If only those meddlesome kids would get on board with my wonderful leadership, we might have done something."

The good news is (except for Chait and his beltway consultant readership) fewer and fewer Dems are buying Pelosi's tired, old three card monty routine anymore.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Roy Blakeley's picture

What has Nancy done for the working people of this country? What greater good has resulted from her compromises? Piss all.

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did shit for the middle class. I remember vaguely the war on poverty. Looking around I'd say they lost. Then came Bubba, and it was a wholesale betrayal. Nothing has changed since.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

mhagle's picture

With Andrew's UBI. Affordable housing in a grow-your-own-food sharing community.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo