The faction of anti-Trump Republicans in Congress, along with their outmoded friends in some conservative media, are completely impotent in convincing GOP voters they should dump the president and what he represents.
But there is someone with incredibly cunning political skill heading into 2018, and she may succeed in shutting down Trump and his agenda for the rest of his term.
In contrast to Republicans like Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who is retiring and thus a nonfactor, and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who parts his hair down the middle, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., didn’t watch the 2016 election and decide to spend the next two years depressed her candidate failed to win the White House.
And her plan now isn’t to cross the country making useless calls for impeachment or hugging minorities who think Trump is mean in hopes that now enough people might hate him in order to flip the House.
Pelosi knows that’s not how Democrats are going to win. And her plan is to actually win. You know, the opposite of what congressional Republicans have been doing since 2016.
Speaking with reporters Tuesday in Washington, Pelosi called dreams of impeachment a “distraction” that shouldn’t dominate the Democrats’ national message.
“Impeachment, to me, is a divisive issue, unless there’s something as conclusive as what we saw in Watergate,” she said. “That was inevitable. That was bipartisan. You can talk about it in your districts. In my district, it’s a very popular issue. But it takes attention away from the connection we need to make to people about their economic security.”
And she said she doesn’t care if Democrats in toss-up states and districts distance themselves from her as the GOP readies once again to position her as the wretch of everything wrong in life.
“Just win, baby,” she said. “I have made some very powerful enemies. They don’t say we’re against her because she passed healthcare reform, or because she took on Wall Street. They say she’s San Francisco. Yes. She’s liberal. Yes. She’s pro-LGBT. Yes. You will be, too. It’s just a matter of time.”
No matter what Republicans and talk radio say about Pelosi, she was right when in June last year she described herself as a “master legislator” and a “politically astute leader.”
She was critical in passing massive portions of President Barack Obama’s agenda when she was speaker of the House. And unlike the Never Trump geeks, she understands nothing matters if your party loses elections.
She knows that you win elections by communicating popular ideas to the people who are going to vote. (It turns out it’s not much of a campaign issue to go on TV and say how affronted you are by Trump’s tweets.)
Flake, Sasse, and others in the hopeless Never Trump crowd should quickly figure out that Pelosi, not them, has become the president and his supporters’ most fearsome opponent.
Flake and Sasse suck up to the media by tweeting about Trump behaving “beneath” his office and comparing him to Stalin.
Please just stop. This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) June 29, 2017
Pelosi instead stands up to the media when baited into their pathetic games.
In an edition of the national media’s never-ending quest to find something medically wrong with Trump, MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle in June of last year asked Pelosi, “Are you concerned about the president’s health?”
After a three-second blank stare that should have made Barnicle’s life flash before his own eyes, Pelosi replied, “It’s about the facts and the law and there’s nothing else.”
Unsatisfied with what was a clear choice by Pelosi to avoid a mindless question, the journalist, Mark Halperin, now in purgatory following allegations of sexual harassment, asked her, “Are you concerned about his health or not?”
Pelosi only offered that she was “concerned about [Trump’s] fitness for office.”
She should get a medal for upstanding sanity in the face of that brand of stupidity. And unlike the anti-Trump Republicans, she should be taken seriously.
