Premium

Can 'Bitter, Desperate' Nancy Pelosi Retain Her Grip on the Democrat Party Despite Election Beatdown?

AP Photo/Erin Hooley

Nancy Pelosi.

Other than Presidential-elect Donald Trump, arguably no one elicits a more visceral response from politically engaged Americans than the former Speaker of the House. Merely hearing or reading her name is all it takes. (Vice President and 2024 Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris will ultimately be reduced to merely a "Don't" in the Democrat book of "Do's and Don'ts.")

Yet, even after the historic election beatdown suffered by Harris and multiple down-ballot Democrats, and even though Pelosi no longer holds the gavel, and even though she is widely "credited" with leading the coup that ousted President Joe Biden from the campaign -- yet was later blamed him for Harris' loss -- she appears to maintain her grip on a party desperately in need of deep reflection and serious redesign. 

And as everyone knows, Pelosi's stage-4 Trump Derangement Syndrome is legendary. She led two impeachments (political show trials) of Trump in the House during his first term, both of which failed conviction in the Senate, and the venomous bile she continues to spew against Trump, although ineffectual, continues.

Earlier in November, Pelosi filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission after winning a 20th term on November 5. A spokesperson for Pelosi declined to say whether she's running for reelection, but the paperwork is an early indication of her intentions -- or is it? 

Steve Maviglio, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist, told the Washington Examiner:

There were rumors that she would step aside if Harris won so then the Democrats could do their thing, and then stick around if Trump won because, you know, she believes she needs to lead the anti-Trump forces.

Pelosi can believe whatever she wants to believe, but she could not be more wrong. I'll explain, in a bit.


ALSO READ:

TDS-Riddled Pelosi Files for 2026 Reelection Bid, but Will the 84-Year-Old Trump Hater Really Run?

It's Time for Nancy Pelosi to Retire - And Some in Her Party Seem to Agree

Open Warfare! Pelosi Fires Back at Sanders for Blaming Harris' 'Disastrous' Campaign for Historic Loss


There are already telltale signs that Pelosi is at the center of what will likely be the sure-to-come Trump resistance in the House in the 119th Congress, and it's likely a safe bet that she'll remain at that center as long as she can.

Here's more:

On a House Democratic Caucus call following the election, Pelosi suggested Democrats replicate the work of a group created during the last Trump administration that focused on defending the Affordable Care Act, according to familiar sources.

Delusional? 

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. The Democrats claimed the ACA would improve access to affordable health insurance for all Americans and protect consumers from abusive insurance practices. Obama told us, "If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it." He told us the same thing about our doctors and hospitals. How did all that work work out? 

Yet 84-year-old Pelosi still vows to go the wall with soon-to-be President Trump over healthcare. A fool's game? Of course it would be, which the former Speaker doesn't get.

More:

[Pelosi] was elected Speaker of the House in 2007 and assumed the position for a second time in 2019. She stepped aside as the leader of House Democrats in 2022 after losing the House majority to allow a new generation of leaders to rise. 

She honored a pledge she made in 2018 to serve just four more years following pressure from Democrats who viewed her as a political liability in their swing districts. The former speaker, however, is still wielding power without a formal leadership title, while Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is taking a forward-facing role.

“I think you know her power has always been behind the scenes. She’s never been the headline grabber, the press conference queen,” Maviglio explained. “She makes her moves very subtly, knows what she has to support, and then is able to achieve victory.”

Fine, but come January 20, 2025, America will be a far different America than Pelosi has seen since at least 2006, which gets me to the point of explaining what I said I'd explain earlier in this article.

The Democrat Party has for decades thrived on identity politics. It has thrived on pitting various groups of Americans against other groups of Americans. It has thrived on class warfare and perpetuated an "us against them" strategy. If we learned anything on November 5 and the days that followed, we learned that those political strategies failed spectacularly. 

As I wrote earlier on Saturday in an article titled "The Democrats' Identity Politics Is Dead. Victor Davis Hanson Explains How Donald Trump Killed It.":

Given the multitude of pre-election poll results, which continually showed that everyday Americans were sick and tired of all things related to four miserable years of the Biden-Harris administration, principally Bidenomics and ever-increasing costs of groceries and other consumer goods, coupled with the intentionally created, never-ending illegal alien flow across the southern border, and most importantly, President-elect Donald Trump's blowout, coast to coast, swing state to swing state, "blue wall" state to blue wall state drubbing of Harris and her radical left-wing policies, it's a fair assumption that identity politics is indeed dead, and Donald Trump killed it.

Pelosi, Harris, and Biden -- along with the quasi-official Democrat media -- learned (or should have) that calling Trump "Hitler," "fascist," "racist," and worse, not only didn't work for them; it instead worked for Trump, as tens of millions of voters rejected both the strategy and the long four years of the Biden-Harris administration and its policies that devastated tens of millions of American families. 

So here's the thing. If Pelosi thinks that simply opposing Trump because he's Trump is going to work, she's going to be sadly mistaken. Then again, it didn't work the first time for Pelosi, which no doubt continues to fuel her rage-driven TDS.

Recommended

Trending on RedState Videos