Nancy Pelosi, current house majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, is in the running to succeed Paul Ryan to become the next Speaker of the House.
Before I go any further, I want to clarify that I am neither a democrat nor a republican. While I don’t associate with either party, every American citizen has a dog in this fight.
Pelosi or not, these are the people who will be dealing with policies that effect our lives.
But judging from what I have seen from the political sphere in the last couple of years, the Democrats should look for fresh leadership and move on from Pelosi if they want to maintain momentum.
There is no question that she is qualified to be speaker. Pelosi served as the 52nd Speaker of the House from 2007 to 2011 while also being the first woman to ever hold the position. She has been involved with politics from an early age, so I won’t discredit her experience in government. We’ll instead be focusing on how she portrays herself as a politician.
The political climate is rapidly evolving and the Democratic Party has not been able to adapt to this change.
The presidential election of 2016 really showed how aimless the Democratic Party has become. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were loathed in their own respective ways, but Trump managed to separate himself from Clinton and paint himself as someone who is more genuine and unfiltered than his competition.
Trump didn’t become president of the free world because all of his voters were racist or anything like that. Trump got to where he was because of the way he portrayed himself as a politician and his policy ideas.
How does all of this relate to Pelosi? Other than both being democrats, Pelosi and Clinton are both corporate politicians who are too cozy with big-money donors.
Unlike a grassroots politician like Bernie Sanders, who brags about raising money from small-dollar, grassroots donors, Pelosi raises a lot of money from big-money donors like corporations and special interest groups.
People are starting to get the message that today’s politicians listen to the people who line their pockets the most.
Corporations and large special interest groups are able to beat out normal, working-class Americans in terms of financial donations. This effectively takes power away from the people and allows a disingenuous, status quo establishment that doesn’t look out for the people.
Pelosi and Clinton perfectly represent a huge issue in the American political system.
I don’t agree with a decent amount of Sanders’ policy ideas, but his campaign tactics are more effective. Branding himself as a grassroots, progressive democratic socialist, Sanders managed to rally support from people all across the country and nearly defeated Clinton in the Democratic Primary when virtually nobody knew who he was prior to the election.
Regardless of whether I agree with their policy ideas, the Democratic Party should shift themselves in this direction if they want to actually gain more power. Status-quo politicians like Pelosi won’t make that shift.
What should really concern democrats is Trump’s support of Pelosi’s bid for the position.
According to Politico, Trump tweeted, “In all fairness, Nancy Pelosi deserves to be chosen Speaker of the House by the Democrats. If they give her a hard time, perhaps we will add some Republican votes. She has earned this great honor!”
Something is wrong with your nominee if they’re being endorsed by the biggest enemy to your party.
Looking at this situation as an observer, it is clear that the old guard of the democratic party needs to be less prevalent.
