A vignette: President Obama, the most powerful man in the world, has gone to visit Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in her Congressional office. They are both Democrats, the young President and the veteran Congresswoman, so this is a friendly gesture. He sits in her chair — the one that has its back to the window, with the sweeping House of Cards view of the Washington Mall, down towards the Lincoln Memorial. She asks him — politely but firmly — to move. It’s her chair. Her position. He has to choose another place to sit.
This event is mentioned approvingly in Molly Ball’s new biography of Nancy Pelosi. We are meant to be impressed by the speaker’s sense of self and propriety — she is, after all, America’s most successful elected female politician and hey, Congress and the White House are co-equal under the Constitution.
But oh dear: where is the emotional intelligence here? Could she not have just plopped herself down on a sofa. On the floor, even? Did it really matter so much?
There is something about Nancy Pelosi that captures in vivid fashion the failure not just of the Democratic party but of many modern democratic politicians to realise the threat that — post Obama — populism posed. They thought they could carry on as normal. They thought they could keep the same rules, the same perks, the same dignity. And folks would go on voting for them. Getting out of their chairs.
Pelosi is not an interesting book in its own right because — as the author all but acknowledges — Nancy Pelosi is not a particularly interesting person. It is best read as a study in (unintentional) irony. Almost everything it wants us to admire leaves us less than admiring.
It is meant to be a success story — the battles of a woman who didn’t begin her career until she was 47 and eventually reached high office and national importance. It is actually a story of how a political movement went awry. How the US Democrats, at pivotal moments in their post-Clinton history, took themselves ever further into the wilderness, or the upper atmosphere — sometimes into outer space: enabling George W Bush via Gore’s vapidity, then losing Congress so that Obama couldn’t govern effectively, and finally allowing a man uniquely unqualified to be president to win because Hillary Clinton literally couldn’t be bothered to travel to the state of Wisconsin to campaign.
Molly Ball’s Pelosi spans all of this because Nancy does. Our eponymous heroine gets to Washington DC in 1987, with Reagan still in power. She is still there today. In spite of efforts by the Left of the party to topple her she was re-elected for this Congress as Speaker of the House of Representatives, which, as we are constantly reminded, makes her the most senior elected woman in the nation: occasional White House invitee, target of presidential ire and sexist unpleasantness. But above all… well, that’s kind of it.
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SubscribeIn the course of my lifetime I don’t think there has been a more repulsive politician than Pelosi. Not in the west, anyway. She does not appear to have a single redeeming feature, even if only in terms of a sense of humour or the ability to conjure a few effective words.
Two words, George Osborne!
Well said. quite agree
Fair point, and until recently I would have said that he was the worst. But i think she takes the prize, such as it is.
Very thoughtful analysis of a politician who is much too obsessed with her own cleverness – worryingly, as she is not clever. She loves the limelight and that combined with a ludicrous sense of her importance means she has done the Democrats no good at all.
Why is is it in such a huge nation full of talented people, the current crop of politicians are so useless? There’s a doctoral thesis there.
Absolutely. All that talent . I can only assume that talented people are weeded out of the process very early on by rich, self-entitled narcissists who won’t allow any real challenger.
“In our civilization, and under our form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.”
Ambrose Bierce
It seems to be a problem of the west. It’s not just an American problem.
Well done Mr Webb, you said it all she is a “freak”.
With Joe Biden, and more importantly with his vice president and with a new Congressional leadership coming from the younger generation, it is entirely possible that the Democratic party re-invigorates itself and re-establishes its place in the nation.
Haha…not a cat in hells chance. Trump might be Trump, but the Dems will bring worse, and the Trump voting electorate know this, and so do many of the rest of the electorate, they’re gonna have to choose and I think they will choose Trump over Biden (if he makes it).
When you have senators openly declaring that they don’t care if Biden eats babies they’ll still vote for him it’s really all just another piece of US election theatre that will, imo, return Trump to the White House
PS. I still suspect Biden will be subbed before we get the elections, he’s clearly suffering mental health issues. Mind you, so was Clinton in 2016, so…who knows…just wouldn’t surprise me.
Although the Democrats can be creative with rules when it serves them to do so, it would be unprecedented in America for a major political party’s insiders to jettison the candidate who has prevailed through the nominating process. Biden is going to be the nominee.
…and yet, i’m not convinced. Watch out for the great switcheroo
What with the main essay arguing that the USA is beginning to resemble a failed State and this throwing further light on its politics, you’ve got to worry about its future.
Which won’t be good for any of us.
I have a simple rule in life – never trust anyone who doesn’t drink coffee. Pelosi proves it!
Nor alcohol!
Ha! Ha!
And especially if they also then eat dark chocolate.
Clinton lost WI and MI and PA and OH for the same reason – she is a Dem and these are blue collar states. Blue collar voters are not Dems anymore. The ones in unions are, but normal non-union blue collar voters hate unions – they raise prices. WI in particular, in 2016, was R top to bottom. I knew that WI had a very good chance to go R in the POTUS election – I live there part time.
All true, but she never encountered an American voter who was not carefully prescreened throughout the entire campaign. She had armies of campaign staffers who had nothing better to do. I shudder to think what the cost was for one of her contrived, photo-op meetings with actual Americans. Like Pelosi, Hillary Clinton has lived in a bubble for nearly 30 years and has no earthly idea, except perhaps some memories from her young adulthood, how ordinary Americans live. She was an atrocious candidate who felt she was entitled to be President because it was her turn.
Good stuff She is also pro Irish extreme nationalists and supported Northern Ireland staying in the EU and all because of the IRA threats to return to violence (which comes naturally) if the border came back…she even threatened Britain if it restored a border. There is a border between Norway and Sweden and no violence. Trucks have to stop off the road and be checked. I would argue a spoilt extremist woman rather than ‘a freak’. She is a devout Roman Catholic so that might effect her support of Irish Catholic nationalists. Saying she would pray for Trump was ridiculously infantile.
Devout Roman Catholic who apparently has no concern with abortion up to the day of birth.
She is the furthest thing from a “devout Roman Catholic” as evidenced by her abortion extremism and cheerleading and her general hateful viciousness.
In which universe, Justin, did Obama “succeed”? Just because your employer never troubled itself with the innumerable scandals of the Obama years and its incredible corruption doesn’t mean that those things didn’t happen. Obama deliberately sowed the seeds for the mayhem occurring in the USA right now.
Obama was a disastrous President, in the same way that Justin Webb is a pathetic apology for a journalist.
Exactly. For most normal Americans – including black Americans – things continued to get worse under Obama. You know there would be no hope and no change from the moment he appointed Goldkan Sachs’ Geithner as his Treasury Secretary. Following this 5.1 million black Americans were thrown out of their home under Obama as the banks were rewarded and enlarged. And remember, Black Lives Matter started under Obama. The guy was a total fraud – he looked and sounded good but said nothing of substance and delivered even less.
Agree that Democrat women appear to have a sense of entitlement which doesn’t endear them to others, plus the party has become alarmingly anti-Semitic. End of.
The Democrats have really lost the common touch, with a Senior Democrat showing off her ice cream selection beautifully laid out in her freezer to James Corden on TV. Nancy you really have lost the plot!!
Is there any difference between Hilary C and Nancy P ?
Can’t see any…….
I was impressed by an earlier piece by Taki which highlighted the commonality between New Labour the Momentum Party and the Democrats.
The then Labour leader lived in a London property with two kitchens one with a cooker large enough to support a large foodbank..
Then we had Hilary with her basket of deplorables comment and the UK Tory Party suggesting UKIP were swivel eyed loons.
Then we had Momentum and the Picasso collector
Finally we had James Corden being given a tour of Nancy Pelosi’s luxury ice cream selection arranged as lovingly as an art collector might display their paintings.
What comes across is most of the so called liberal left live entitled lives.
Yes President Trump lives a spectacular existence, however he got out to walk the ground and appears to relate to people working damned hard.He does not delight in sharing
his culinary propensities.
Both liberal left parties and the national media appear infatuated by posturing of very rich politicians who have long ascended beyond us mere mortals
It is really absurd to say that Pelosi has “fallen into his trap….where everything is partisan”. She has always been a hateful partisan and a dirty street fighter, with no principles except power.
And she isn’t rich because of her husband’s business, she enriched her husband’s business with her power.
Ice-Queen sure is freaky.
could not disagree more with this article- contradicting itself throughout. I’d say you are the undisciplined freak.