Members stevenkesslar Posted November 7 Members Posted November 7 She has been one of the best political leaders of my lifetime. Her values and determination are awesome. I'll miss you, Nancy. The Democrats will too. Books have been and will be written about her. But these are a few paragraphs that get to the heart of it. Democrats can’t fill the Nancy Pelosi void Quote Pelosi "muscled Obamacare through and knew it would cost Dems politically. And it did. They lost the House. But she was clear-eyed that the short-term cost was worth the long-term gain — Republicans would never be able to undo it, and they would have permanently restructured the economy. And she was right.” In sum, she was “just pure mission focus and ruthless execution”. Quote This is the mystery and the genius of Nancy Pelosi. It recalls a question the former speaker reportedly levelled at Rahm Emanuel during the Obamacare battle: “Does the President not understand the way this game works? He wants to get it done and be beloved, and you can’t have both — which does he want?” Quote It was never unclear where Pelosi landed on that question. In time, though, Democrats may actually grant her both: getting it done and being revered. Call me liberal. But to me, she is both amazingly effective, and beloved. 💕 Pete1111 and lookin 2 Quote
Members Pete1111 Posted November 7 Members Posted November 7 She stuck to her values and communicated them well. lookin and stevenkesslar 2 Quote
RockyRoadTravel Posted November 8 Posted November 8 Ripping up that hateful speech of the Incompetent-in-Chief was a master class of non-violent political protest. stevenkesslar 1 Quote
RockyRoadTravel Posted November 12 Posted November 12 On 11/6/2025 at 8:06 PM, stevenkesslar said: She has been one of the best political leaders of my lifetime. Her values and determination are awesome. I'll miss you, Nancy. The Democrats will too. Books have been and will be written about her. But these are a few paragraphs that get to the heart of it. Democrats can’t fill the Nancy Pelosi void Call me liberal. But to me, she is both amazingly effective, and beloved. 💕 I hope she's working on an autobiography. It'd be required reading for anyone interested in American politics, and how to work within a system of power. It'd be so interesting, I expect that she'd name names, and I want to know why a public option never made it into the Affordable Care Act. lookin and stevenkesslar 2 Quote
Members stevenkesslar Posted November 13 Author Members Posted November 13 11 hours ago, RockyRoadTravel said: I hope she's working on an autobiography. It'd be required reading for anyone interested in American politics, and how to work within a system of power. It'd be so interesting, I expect that she'd name names, and I want to know why a public option never made it into the Affordable Care Act. I'll take it in a different (rambling) direction and bring Chuck Schumer along for the ride. We could have and perhaps should have had a "the torch has passed" moment around 2023 or so. Smart pundits were thinking there could be a fight to replace Pelosi. And certainly there would be a big fight for the Democratic POTUS nomination. Pelosi, no surprise, organized quiet institutional change among insider institutionalists like Jeffries. Biden just hung on. Oh well. In hindsight, it's easy to argue that too many old people holding on to power for too long cost Democrats the election in 2024. The irony is that Trump is hardly young and fresh. And electing a Black Asian American woman POTUS would have been a fresh idea. Nevertheless, I say this for two reasons. A lot of Zoomers had a deep distaste for Biden that rubbed off on Harris. And many of these newer folks, even if they are not young, are the vanguard for a Sandernista/AOC/Mamdani style economic populism on the left. Less ICE, more child tax credits and ACA subsidies. We'll never know what would have happened if the torch had passed. But we do know it would have matched Trump's right-wing economic populism with some kind of left-wing economic populism that at least knew what it stood for. Our version of Mexico's AMLO. My simple mind keeps thing anything good Hecho en Mexico can work here. It seems clear this is the direction the Democratic Party is going. And wants to go. The action is in the reaction. After eight years of Trump "fight like hell" will be in the Democratic DNA in 2028. Just like eight years of Obama led the GOP to Trump. Mamdani is a big canary in a big apple mine. Slaughtered the metaphor. But you know what I mean. So my point is that this moment right now may be as close as we get to a "the torch has passed" moment. Pelosi is exiting. And there was just a long and good article in Politico about how Schumer is fading, perhaps not by choice. There is speculation that he may not even run again. And if he does AOC may kick his ass. The days when Schumer was the young dynamo who took out two decades of Al D'Amato seem to have ended. Long ago. Pelosi was a fighter, for sure. But she was as much of an institutionalist as you can get. As is Schumer. As was Biden. As was Harris. Although she was in the junior leagues and couldn't quite make the step up. This does not mean that it is inevitable that Democrats will nominate a died in the wool economic populist in 2028. But I do think whoever we do nominate will run as a fighter. And they will have to at least embrace economic populism. Quote
