I don't think I'm saying anything out of line or grievously partisan when I acknowledge that through the years, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had her fair share of awkward, embarrassing moments in the national spotlight.
Remember just months ago, while the president spoke of burn pits, Pelosi inexplicably rose to her feet and rubbed her hands together like she was the Hamburgler ready to carry out some devious heist.
Not long before that, in the midst of some fairly benign questions from former (and current) Democrat operative George Stephanopoulos, Pelosi experienced a television meltdown that launched a thousand memes:
So again, I think it's fair to say that while her on-camera performances have been a gift that keeps on giving to the Right, it's been a fairly regular cringe-inducing embarrassment for the Left. This should leave anyone curious: How has she maintained her stranglehold on power through it all?
Keep in mind that a few years ago her chosen political movement veered sharply into woke politics, focusing on identity groups, marginalization, and advancement through victimhood. That decision should have made someone like Pelosi, the very epitome of privilege, a true liability.
If "white privilege" really is the scourge of Western civilization, as progressivism makes it out to be these days, it becomes a really difficult case for them to prosecute when one of their highest profile leaders is its living embodiment.
How precisely do progressives rage against elitism when the only thing larger than Pelosi's fat stock portfolio is her hoard of artisan gelato, housed in her mansion's state-of-the-art freezer whenever talk of pandemic is in the air?
And speaking of pandemics, remember it was Pelosi who brazenly flouted the rules of strict isolation in order to get a personal hair blowout inside a shuttered salon.
That privileged "rules-for-thee-not-for-me" approach has served Pelosi well repeatedly, including her routine public lecture that God has given us a "moral obligation" to reduce carbon emissions, all while herself spending over half a million dollars last year on private jet travel.
Her record on so-called "racial justice" matters is no better. When then-candidate Joe Biden made light of racist white men referring to black men as "boy," Pelosi rushed to his defense even over the objections of her minority colleagues in Congress. That kind of wagon-circling by wealthy white politicians usually taints and tarnishes their reputation permanently. But not Nancy.
Around the same time, she dialed up her racial insensitivity to a new level, using the trial of Derek Chauvin to publicly thank George Floyd for "sacrificing his life for justice," as though Floyd consciously chose to die so that others would rally for the greater good. In the eyes of many, her premeditated, pre-planned comments were tone-deaf and exploitative. Yet somehow, she lived to slur another day.
That other day was just last week when she expressed her concern over a lack of crop-picking immigrants in the South.
So how does someone like this, in an era like this, still have her job? The only way to answer that is to evaluate the three entities who possess the power to remove her.
- The district that Pelosi represents is one of the most blindly partisan districts in the country. They don't care if she's a privileged elitist with a concerning history of racial insensitivity as long as she supports a progressive agenda.
- Her congressional colleagues are concerned primarily with power and know full well what it would reveal about their caucus to a watching electorate if their chosen leader was ousted for racism. They'll accept the status quo as long as their claims on power remain safe.
- The media has willfully abandoned their pretended commitment to "speak truth to power" and is utterly disinterested in acting as accountability watchdogs for the people. They have become propagandists at best, and will shamelessly promote anyone who plays on their team. That's why rather than being embroiled in yet another racism scandal this week, Pelosi is booked to appear on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
As pathetic as it may be, the answer to why someone who has violated the rules of wokeness, whiteness, and political correctness as often and as flagrantly as Nancy Pelosi still has a job isn't too difficult. She remains employed for one reason alone: because she's a Democrat.
Seems like all of us should be willing to expect better.
