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Nancy Pelosi reinforces democracy fears ahead of election

The former speaker said Trump was unlike any former GOP leader. Credit: Chatham House / YouTube

October 14, 2024 - 4:00pm

Nancy Pelosi has said that the upcoming election is unique in its threat to American democracy.

Speaking at Chatham House in central London, the Democratic former speaker said that Americans had a grave choice to make at the ballot box on 5 November. “What’s on the ballot is nothing less than democracy,” said Pelosi. “Democracy in our own country, democracy writ large among our allies and alliances around the world.”

“In our own country, the issue is about honouring our oath of office to the constitution, to protect and defend the constitution of the United States — that is very much at risk in this election,” she added. Citing women’s rights and the Republican stance on abortion, the former House Speaker previously said that “freedom” was on the ballot. On another occasion, she said “everything we love” rests on the outcome of the election.

The 84-year-old went on to outline why Trump is different from other GOP leaders and why this election was particularly fraught. “Common ground; that is what we always have to strive for,” she said.  “That is our responsibility but we cannot shirk our responsibility as well — this has never been the case in an election before with John McCain, or Bob Dole, George Bush, George H.W. Bush, Mitt Romney. That hasn’t been the kind of election we’ve had, but it is with the current nominee of the Republican party.”

The former speaker’s comments come just a day after a man was arrested near Trump’s rally in California with loaded guns, thwarting what many are suggesting could have been a third assassination attempt on the Republican nominee in a little over three months. Republicans have accused the Democrats of using dangerous rhetoric which led to the political violence. After the second assassination attempt, Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance said: “You know the difference between conservatives and liberals? No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months”. He added: “The Left needs to tone down its rhetoric.”

Political violence was a topic that cropped up often in Pelosi’s conversation with Chatham House director Bronwen Maddox. She said that there was no place for violence in politics, referring to the almost-fatal assault on her husband at their home in San Francisco and the 6 January Capitol riots when her office was broken into. New footage from the day of the riots unearthed in August this year showed Pelosi calling Trump a “domestic enemy”.

Throughout the conversation, Pelosi attempted to not call Trump by his name, instead referring to him as the “other guy” or the “former president”. Maddox joked that she “respect[ed] this principle of never uttering his name”. Having previously mentioned a Gandhi quote about bridging political divides, Pelosi responded: “I’m sorry Gandhi, I’m not there yet.”


Max Mitchell is UnHerd’s Assistant Editor, Newsroom.

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Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
1 month ago

The fact that she was able to utter all of this without being struck down by a bolt of lightning for the sheer enormity of her hypocrisy is the clearest evidence there is no God.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago

Maybe God is a Democrat.

Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Vanbarner
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Doubt it. God assumes you have free will.

Tom Philokalia
Tom Philokalia
1 month ago

Judgement will come for Nancy. In this world she will be remembered as an empty political crony. In the next her fate is in God’s hands. May He have mercy on her.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago

If Trump does win the election, what are the chances he finishes out his term? I’d say 50-50 he’s assassinated before it ends. 28% of Democrats would approve a Trump assassination.

Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
1 month ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Probably some Republicans too…

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago

Nancy Pelosi was one of the main players in the coup d’etat that ousted Joe Biden in favor of Kamala Harris. She has no basis for claiming to be on the side of democracy in this election.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

She was also part of the machinery that kept Biden in office, telling the world that he was absolutely fit for office, no problem at all and woe betide you if you point out the glaringly obvious truth that he was not.
No credibility. None at all.

Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
1 month ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Ironically, since there’s a possibility that an entirely untested candidate elected by precisely no delegates, about whose policies and inclinations we have been told very little and who was put in place by shadowy power brokers in an internal coup within her Party may become president, Pelosi is actually right that democracy is under threat.

James Westby
James Westby
1 month ago

The Dems have turned gaslighting into an art form

Essais Online
Essais Online
1 month ago

“What’s on the ballot is nothing less than democracy,” indeed. If the filibuster is eliminated, then the Supreme Court will be subverted, DC and PR given Democrat senators, migrants given mass amnesty, and federal voting laws opened to benefit the Left. Democracy is indeed on the ballot. Vote Republican, and help others to do so also.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
1 month ago

You know the difference between conservatives and liberals? No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months

The reason for that is obvious. Who would bother killing Kamala Harris? What difference would it make? Biden left, and there is Kamala. If Kamala left, there would be Walz. This is normal for a democracy – the competition is between movements, not individuals, and killing a single person does not change the winning movement all that much.

Dictatorships and one-man autocracies are a different matter. Mussolini, Ghaddafi, Tito, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Ceausescu – all were unique individuals who completely defined their regime, and their removal changed everything. Trump may not be a dictator, but he, too, is a unique individual who completely defines his regime. His assassination would be both antidemocratic and unacceptable, of course, but (unlike Kamala) it would at least make a difference.

Courtney Maloney
Courtney Maloney
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

“Make a difference,” indeed. Careful what you wish for; the current desperation of the US military and the sneeze of a civil war would undeniably unleash all the bureaucratic promises COVID failed to deliver on the rest of the planet.

T Bone
T Bone
1 month ago

Just an extremist, conspiracy theorist spreading harmful Misinformation that weakens trust in the institutions that support our Democracy! Nothing to see here!

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 month ago

They really do believe their own BS don’t they.
I just don’t have time right now to go into the reasons why this is rank hypocrisy, so I’ll let my fellow forists complete the task.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 month ago

In ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ Gulliver discovers the Struldbruggs – the immortal men who cannot die. How ever their society removes the threat of increasingly powerful but increasing self-interested immortals by declaring them officially dead at 80 and their heirs immediately succeed to their estates. The Struldbruggs live on but on a small pension.
I wonder if we should be thinking of doing this for our elders, particularly elder statesmen?
Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro was born on March 26, 1940, making her 84.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 month ago

“What’s on the ballot is nothing less than democracy,” said Pelosi. 

She speaks truly, but it is the Democratic political machine that threatens democracy.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
1 month ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Just out of curiosity: Threatens how?

Brett H
Brett H
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Lies to the public, backed up by those in positions of power and therefore influence, claiming the opposition/Trump colludes with Putin, the often named global enemy of democracy, just for starters.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
1 month ago
Reply to  Brett H

You are telling me that politicians telling lies is a threat to democracy? Really?? Is that all you have got?

Politicians have *always* told lies, from ancient Greece onwards. And (maybe more to the point) politicians have always claimed that any piece of information they did not like was a dirty lie. As long as you can hear both versions, make up your mind, vote, and have your vote counted, democracy is perfectly safe. I do not even have to start talking about how many lies Trump has told – because whatever it says about him – or the people who believe him – Democracy is safe enough how matter how many lies people tell.

Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Vanbarner
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The US is a free Republic. We are not ruled by pitchfork mobs.
We do have democratic elections, but our rights to free speech, due process, and self defense can’t be voted away, unless of course people like Nancy Pelosi ignore our laws.

John Huddart
John Huddart
1 month ago

‘Pitchfork mobs’ like 6 Jan ?

Gorka Sillero
Gorka Sillero
1 month ago
Reply to  John Huddart

Like the BLM riots

Brett H
Brett H
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Well they did try and impeach him over the accusations. But good for you feeling comfortable about this.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The Democratic political machine threatens democracy this election for, among others, two reasons:
First, the Democratic political machine picked Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee. Not a single voter cast a vote for her. Polling showed that most Democrats wanted someone else. They got Kamala Harris instead. That backroom dealing threatens democracy.
Second, the Democratic political machine interfered in this election by using lawfare in banana republic fashion, not seen in democracies.
The machine brought four criminal lawsuits against its political opponent in the heat of an election season. In the one case that went to trial the judge and jury were influenced by politics — the verdict was unsupported by law and fact. The other three cases are similarly trumped up against Donald Trump. They have no merit, but the purpose of the lawsuits is not to put Donald Trump in jail. The purpose is to influence the election, which they have done.
The machine brought countless civil lawsuits against its political opponent as well. A civil fraud case that even the New York appeals court seems to think is bogus. A rape and defamation case that was a joke. Lawsuits to remove Donald Trump from the ballot for “insurrection”. The purpose of the lawsuits is not to win a judgment against Donald Trump. The purpose is to influence the election, which they have done.
Using the criminal and civil justice system as a political weapon threatens democracy. No political party has done that in a presidential election before. The threat Donald Trump poses to democracy is nebulous, even imaginary. He will not uphold the Constitution? What does she mean by that? The threats by the Democratic political machine, by contrast, are very real.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Controlling Free Speech by requiring social media to follow government dictats is already happening. Talk of ‘packing the Supreme Court’ is an indication that the next Presidency will be free of that annoying accountability, and, of course, the persecution of opponents by ill-formed lawfare is a feature, not a bug.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 month ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

By allowing illegal immigrants to vote. By using lawfare to attack political opponents. By using their allies in big tech, the regime media and NGOs to throttle free speech? By using the FBI and CIA to investigate political opponents.

Peter B
Peter B
1 month ago

She’s correct. Freedom and democracy are at stake. Just not in the way she claims.
Funny how when it comes to the crunch, people like Pelosi don’t really believe in people making up their own minds after all. This is becoming a recurring theme across most Western countries. It’s tempting to ask “when will they ever learn ?” and stop making this mistake of distrusting and patronising voters. But I think we know now that the answer to that is never.

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 month ago

What the Left accuses you of, they’re already doing. It’s a law of nature.

Ned Costello
Ned Costello
1 month ago

Pelosi is a senior Democrat who knowingly stood by as a clearly unfit President was sworn into office and was also complicit in the selection of the utterly useless and Completely unsuitable Kamala Harris eas selected as vice president on the basis of nothing more than her colour and her sex. In the event, Harris is the next president Pelosi Obama and the Clintons will be the unelected cabal that issues Harris her orders, directions and policies without the knowledge and mandate of the American people. To have Pelosi lecturing people on democracy is frankly nauseating.

Chipoko
Chipoko
1 month ago

Why/how is Trump a threat to democracy? This accusation is bellowed by the media and his opponents, like Pelosi; but they never provide concrete evidence to support their assertions.
The real threat to democracy is not from Trump but from the Woking Class elites who have destroyed the foundations of western democracies and who are committed to authoritarian policies to control the electorate at every level and obliterate the opposition.