Why the GOP is Obsessed with Nancy Pelosi

An excellent piece by Jeet Heer at The New Republic explores House Minority Leader (and former-and perhaps future-Speaker) Nancy Pelosi as the main obsession of GOP candidates in Congressional races. Below my favorite quote of the article, which somehow mirrors some of my thoughts on Pelosi.

Thomas Mann, of the Brookings Institution, has hailed her as the “strongest and most effective speaker of modern times” because of her success in securing stimulus funding in 2009 and overseeing the passage of the Affordable Care Act the following year. As Peter Beinart pointed out in this month’s Atlantic,even after being relegated to minority leader when Republicans took the House in 2010, she kept winning legislative fights. In the summer of 2015, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Republican Party launched a mammoth lobbying campaign to kill Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Pelosi quickly secured the votes to prevent Republicans from overturning the agreement, thus checkmating the deal’s foes.”

That’s one of the reasons why Rep. Pelosi is so despised by the Right: she’s been quite good at her job if the job is defined by passing legislation. The article also touches on the fundamental misogyny of the GOP, not just in having the sexual harasser-in-chief as President, but as the Party that has very few women in their electeds’ ranks. But I will append that the Pelosi Derangement Syndrome is also the result of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton being out of the scene. There’s no other visible leader in the Democratic Party to try to hitch to the Party’s current crop of candidates.

Pelosi is a divisive figure even in the Democratic Party, where only half of voters have a favorable opinion of her and one-quarter have an unfavorable opinion, per the article. I personally think she should step down soon because the Democratic Party needs new blood. It doesn;t stop wih her, people ly Rep. Steny Hoyer should also get the boot sooner than later. However, I cringe when I hear a fellow Democrat, as some have told me recently, that Nancy Pelosi should retire “so the GOP has on one to attack.” Apparently the GOP attacks on Pelosi are all her fault, and the Republican Party will find no faults in whoever ends up succeeding her.

Why the GOP is Obsessed with Nancy Pelosi
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