{"id":2745,"date":"2020-12-17T17:11:39","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T17:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=140517"},"modified":"2020-12-17T17:11:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T17:11:39","slug":"aoc-is-right-about-pelosi-and-schumer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/17\/aoc-is-right-about-pelosi-and-schumer\/","title":{"rendered":"AOC Is Right About Pelosi and Schumer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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House Democrats will almost certainly reelect<\/a> Nancy Pelosi to a fourth<\/a> term as Speaker on January 3.<\/a> She easily survived a caucus vote in November and the full floor vote ought to be just as simple. Although Pelosi\u2019s tenure made her a \u201cslay, queen\u201d heroine to some very online #resistance activists, she has plenty of critics in her own party. If Pelosi\u2019s next term is truly her last, as she\u2019s pledged it will be, it means her legacy is currently at stake. And her record will likely age poorly, for reasons recently articulated by one of her party\u2019s rising stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Opposing Pelosi\u2019s reelection as Speaker really only makes sense if they have the numbers and influence to replace her with an ally, and right now, they don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a new interview, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told<\/a> The Intercept\u2019s Jeremy Scahill that Democrats need fresh leadership. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should go, she said. The two Democratic leaders and their allies have neglected any \u201creal grooming of a next generation of leadership,\u201d she continued, and the party is now weaker than it should be. \u201cA lot of this is not just about [Pelosi and Schumer], but also about the structural shifts that these two personalities have led in their time in leadership,\u201d she added. With power concentrated in the leadership classes of both parties, she said, individual members have less influence, and less incentive to stay in Congress.<\/p>\n

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Ocasio-Cortez is without question one of the most left-wing Democrats in national office: She\u2019s frequently at odds<\/a> with senior Democrats on major issues like Medicare for All, a policy that Pelosi doesn\u2019t support.<\/a> But even within this context, her remarks are notable. When a number of House Democrats said they\u2019d vote against Pelosi in 2019, the newly elected Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that party members must \u201cevolve our leadership\u201d before voting for Pelosi. Her new comments are much blunter, though she made it clear that she intends to vote for Pelosi a second time.<\/p>\n

While it may be tempting for some to fit Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s condemnation of Pelosi and Schumer into the party\u2019s ongoing civil war, that analysis is somewhat inaccurate. Under Pelosi and Schumer, the party has catered to conservative and moderate members while alienating its rising progressive flank, and Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s specific criticisms of Pelosi are certainly informed by ideology. But hostility to Pelosi doesn\u2019t just come from the left. In 2018, opposition to her reelection looked strongest<\/a> on the party\u2019s right. Two years earlier, moderate Tim Ryan challenged her for Speaker, only to lose<\/a>. For Pelosi\u2019s progressive critics, this is a problem. Opposing Pelosi\u2019s reelection as Speaker really only makes sense if they have the numbers and influence to replace her with an ally, and right now, they don\u2019t. Ocasio-Cortez recognizes this. \u201cIf you create that vacuum, there are so many nefarious forces at play to fill that vacuum with something even worse,\u201d she told Scahill. As long as Pelosi remains to the left of her most organized critics, left-wing Democrats have little choice but to vote for her. <\/p>\n

House progressives may agree with their moderate colleagues about the state of the party\u2019s leadership class. It has become sclerotic, and ought to be replaced. But generational change isn\u2019t always the same thing as a major ideological shift. If left-wing Democrats<\/a> such as Ocasio-Cortez want to plot a new direction for the party, they don\u2019t have much time left to build the power it will take to replace Pelosi with one of their own.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Democrats will almost certainly reelect Nancy Pelosi to a fourth term as Speaker on January 3. She easily survived a caucus vote in November and the full\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2746,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions\/2746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}