Wanted: 'A very nasty and very public civil war' among Democrats

I think I am done with Nancy Pelosi. I think I am done with the rest of the senior leadership of the Democratic Party, too. They had a good run. Indeed, I have called Pelosi the greatest House speaker of the 21st century. In 2022, I celebrated the transformational productivity of the so-called “gerontocracy.” That was then, though. This is now.

I am done.

Pelosi is no longer the speaker, but she’s still acting like it. She advocated openly for Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly, 74, to be the next ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, after Maryland’s Jamie Raskin left it. She and other “veteran lawmakers,” according toAxios, chose Connolly because he was next in line.

They could have picked New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, who would have come to the leadership with her “far-reaching public platform, her ability to communicate and her energetic support for colleagues in recent congressional elections,” Axiosreported.

In other words, they could have chosen a Democrat capable of leading the opposition against the incoming obscenities of Donald Trump.

Instead, they chose an elderly (and sick!) Democrat who is, according to Missouri’s Emanuel Cleaver, 80, a “ranking member-in-waiting.” (Ocasio-Cortez also lost a vote to be on the Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee, a vital arm of the party’s House leadership.)

The news is an example of the depth of institutional decay within the Democrats. They said Trump was a menace to democracy and the rule of law. They said his victory would corrupt society and profane norms. But with this vote, they are suggesting that they didn’t really mean it. They are suggesting that the most important thing is making sure the guy who’s been waiting in line gets his turn. (They actually comforted Ocasio-Cortez, telling her don’t worry, your turn will come soon.)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to hear this. In the teeth of what will be the most criminal and corrupt administration of our lifetimes, I don’t want to hear about how Connolly is, on the merits, the best person for the job, about his loyalty or his fundraising prowess. I don’t want to hear some bullshit about how he kept Virginia blue.

I don’t want to hear about the importance of internal group cohesion, because the Democrats lost, they lost everything, and they lost everything because they didn’t take the Republicans’ information warfare seriously enough. If there were ever a time for “Democrats in disarray,” as Stephen Robinson wrote this morning, now is that time.

This week, the Democrats had a chance to elevate one of the foremost minds in information warfare – to bring forward a practitioner who could bring them all into 21st-century communications strategy. As AOC’s ally, Vermont Congresswoman Becca Balint, told Axios: “I know Gerry will do a great job. But there's no substitute for having someone in that position that literally has millions of Americans following her.”

Indeed, there is no substitute for an institutional shake-up.

Unless you’re a “veteran lawmaker” in that institution.

In which case, the substitute is the status quo.

No one would accept this in any other field of serious competition. If the football team continued losing, game after game, no one would say the head coach should keep his job. No one would say he’s dedicated his life to the team, so firing him wouldn’t be fair. No one would accept that, because no one would put the interests of one man above victory. Somebody must be held responsible. Somebody’s head must roll.

Not so for the Democrats. There has been no accountability as far as I can tell. There has been no punishment for losing the presidency, the Senate and the House. Instead, they decided to keep New York’s Chuck Schumer, 74, as the Senate’s minority leader. They decided to let Nancy Pelosi, 84, influence their choice of who to put on the House Oversight Committee. With outcomes like this, what’s the incentive for success?

There should be, as Alternet’s Carl Gibson said recently, “a very nasty and very public civil war between the young fighters and the old and tired [Pelosi-Schumer] wing.” Carl went on to say: “They got us into this mess and it's time for them to go.” But apparently, the institution’s hierarchy is so strong it can withstand, or even suppress, an uprising.

When the former House speaker threw her weight behind Gerry Connolly, it was widely seen as a counteroffensive against a nascent “generational revolt that saw several of Democrats' septuagenarian committee leaders pushed out of their roles.” Evidently, after seeing that a rank-in-file rebellion was brewing, Pelosi moved to crush it.

(You could say accountability came for New York’s Jerry Nadler, 77. He was the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. He stepped aside for Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, 61. While Raskin is a fighter, Connolly is replacing him on the Oversight Committee. Is that a shake-up or a reestablishment of the status quo? The latter, I think.)

News broke yesterday of House Speaker Mike Johnson being once again in the position of balancing the demands of leadership with the demands of the base. Trump, by way of Elon Musk, wants Johnson to scrap a funding bill at the risk of shutting down the government on Christmas week. While it’s fun to watch Johnson beclown himself, there’s one thing you can say. His party never lets institutional inertia get in the way of achieving its goals, however harmful they may be.

The Democrats, meanwhile, do not have anything outside the party (namely, a media apparatus of their own to match the Republicans’) that’s constantly menacing them, keeping them on their toes every day, and providing the ever-present incentive to continually innovate, even at the expense of the party. The Democrats do not have such a thing, perhaps because they do not want it. The status quo is easier.

Since 2016, I have defended Pelosi and the party’s senior leadership against allegations of elitism and being out of touch. I have defended them, because I believed, and still believe, that the policies offered and enacted by the Democrats, especially after Joe Biden’s election, are the best thing to have happened to ordinary Americans since the 1960s.

But the way things are going in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory, I have to admit the allegations are not without merit. Who else but political elites are immune from the outcomes of politics? Who else but elites have no fear of being held accountable for failure? Who else but elites can play their fiddles while the rest of Rome burns?

I defended the Democrats because I believed defending them was the part I could play in the larger defense of democracy. I don’t see any point, however, in defending a party that cannot change – that didn’t really believe it when it said Donald Trump was an existential threat.

Pelosi had a good run. I honor her past achievements.

That was then, though.

I am done.