She “stepped down” as Speaker of the House after the 2022 midterms, and was set to retire shortly thereafter. So, why is Nancy Pelosi still in Congress? More than that, why is she running for reelection in 2024?
There are a lot of people who overstay their welcomes, and there are a lot of famous people who stay on the national stage longer than they should. In sports, there are countless examples of star athletes who refused to retire when their team watched their skill deteriorate and had to move on past the glory days of old. Brett Favre should never have been a Viking, Patrick Ewing should never have been a Sonic, Emmit Smith shouldn’t have been a Cardinal, and the list goes on and on.
Why’d they do it? I honestly don’t know. Did they not like their families? Did their families not like them? Did they really think they were that important to a team or the game? Or were they simply unwilling to accept that age got them too?
In politics, the same thing happens. Dianne Feinstein stayed in the US Senate into her 90th year, dying in office rather than retiring a decade or two earlier and living her remaining years surrounded by family and friends.
You could name dozens of people who simply won’t go away, won’t retire, even though it’s painfully obvious to everyone not them that it’s well past time.
Joe Biden is another example. He’s 80, and while a lot of 80-year-olds are quite capable and “on the ball” people, the President is not one of them. He has not only “lost a step,” he’s lost several flights of steps. Granted, Joe Biden was never anyone’s choice for IQ Test Team Captain, but he was able to string together coherent sentences. Being wrong all the time was just a sign of his poor judgment, not one that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Not so much anymore.
But Pelosi was going to be different. She announced she was stepping down, even though it came about as part of a deal with the progressive wing of the party that kept her in the Speaker’s office longer than they wanted her there, she was content to hand over power to Hakeem Jeffries, we were told.
Clearly, that is not the case.
Democrats celebrated just how “progressive” they were by having the first black leader in the history of the House. It was a new day! But is Hakeem Jeffries really a leader of anything?
Nancy took the title “Speaker Emerita,” which they claim to have made up as a show of respect. Realistically, they gave her the title because she demanded it – being the first and only to ever hold it, it seems almost anti-Constitutional, which forbids titles of nobility. While not technically a noble title, it’s as meaningless as one.
Whatever the case, what is she doing in the House? Her husband was nearly killed last year, you’d think she’d want to spend time with him. Nope. She wants to stay in the House.
Nancy has no committee assignments, which means she can’t really do anything legislatively. She can vote on final passage of bills, but those are usually forgone conclusions, so what is she bringing to the table?
The answer is nothing. On the surface, anyway. But realistically, she’s still the leader of House Democrats. The press is more interested in her than Jeffries; what she says makes news, what he says…does he say anything? He gives nasally speeches and snarky, left-wing little statements, but nothing he does or says matters. It’s Nancy in wings calling the shots.
Maybe Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to retire because she prefers being 3,000 miles away from her family. Maybe her family doesn’t want her to retire because they prefer her 3,000 miles away from them. Whatever the case, the end result is someone approaching the end of their life spending more time with staffers than grandkids. This arrangement must not bother either of them since no one is complaining.
But you’d think Hakeem Jeffries would. He, in the grand scheme of the House, is irrelevant. He’s a figurehead; a dog with no teeth. Pelosi either thinks so highly of herself that she can’t leave the stage because no one can do as well as she has, or she thinks so little of Hakeem Jeffries that she refuses out of fear he’ll screw things up.
If these were Republicans, Democrats and the media would be screaming about how the rich, white Republican won’t get out of the way so the black man can do his job. Since they’re Democrats, and every Democrat knows their place, there won’t be a peep in the press.
Still, it makes you wonder why Nancy Pelosi remains in Congress. It’s not like her district will elect a Republican if she leaves. She has more money than God, she doesn’t need to trade more. It’s either her not wanting to spend time with family, them not wanting to spend time with her, or she has no faith in Hakeem Jeffries to do the job. Maybe it’s a combination of all three.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.