Some people think that to say anything positive about Nancy Pelosi sullies their radical credentials. Seems like the ghost of the “radical sixties” has a new lease on life. To paraphrase Marx, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.
To reduce the impeachment fight, as framed by Democratic Party leaders, to simply an intra class fight of competing elites is mistaken and could be dangerous if too many people swallowed this swill. But public opinion polls suggest that growing numbers of people understand the matter differently, as they should. Leave it to some on the left to think that their role is to up the ante at every turn in class and democratic struggles.
Samuel Moyn’s oped, “Impeachment isn’t the answer to America’s political crisis,” might seem radical at first glance, but on closer inspection, it’s a modernized version of leftist analysis that in its earlier iterations in the second half of the 20th century provided argument — the system is rigged and the two parties are corrupted and evil — to left and progressive minded people to sit, albeit righteously, on their electoral hands, while right wing extremists electorally ascended to power. This ascent, beginning in the late sixties and gaining momentum and scope with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, continues to this day, but in a far more dangerous form and with far more dangerous consequences for the country and world. Indeed, unless challenged by a diverse, multi-class, majoritarian coalition, a descent into a long era of right wing, white nationalist, anti-democratic rule is probable.
But, luckily, in the present impeachment battle that has taken a favorable turn in the past week and in the elections next year, the democratic minded majority has the opportunity, if seized, to deliver a body blow to the very heart of this existential threat to humanity. And in doing so, create the political space and conditions for a new march down Freedom Road.
And yet one would never know this from reading Moyn’s oped. He seems more preoccupied by the possibility of Democratic Party centrists and elites getting a free pass at this moment than seizing the moment, via the impeachment process and ballot box, to settle accounts with Trump and his fellow right wing authoritarians. No wonder I hear a remixing of an old, discredited song in the oped of the distinguished professor of law and history at Yale. To paraphrase Marx, first time it’s dangerous, later on it borders on idiocy.
Nancy Pelosi understands that politics is a complex process of building large political majorities. One aspect of that process is having a feel for the mood of millions as well as her own diverse caucus, while another is a sense of when to move and on what issue. Pelosi does all this well. Most of us could learn a thing or two from her.
Timing and public opinion matter a lot in politics. Nancy Pelosi understands this salient fact far better than many of her critics in progressive and left circles, who love to sit on their high (and very radical) horses and berate her.
The events of the last week, including her decision to proceed with an impeachment inquiry and the resulting sea change in public opinion on impeachment, cast her in a very favorable light, I would say. As for her critics, I hope they rethink their position a bit, but maybe that is too much to expect on a Sunday morning.
