[Peace] Pelosi Should Retire Gracefully Like Lowey. Let’s Draft Karen Bass for Speaker of the House

[Robert Naiman]

Pelosi Should Retire Gracefully Like Lowey. Let’s Draft Karen Bass for
Speaker of the House

Looks like Joe Biden is going to be POTUS. The People Have Spoken. The
Lesser of Two Evils, Back By Popular Demand. As a woman in Massachusetts
put it: “I already voted for Biden. Do I still have to watch the debate?”

If we want to have a more just foreign policy in a Biden Administration, if
we want to have less war and more peace, less guns and more butter, our
next best opportunities for leverage are to stop Chris Coons from being
Anointed as Secretary of State and to stop Nancy Pelosi from being
re-Anointed as Speaker of the House. Biden has some good instincts. He was
against the Libya War. He was against the “surge” in Afghanistan. He hates
the Saudi regime. He promised repeatedly to end the Saudi war in Yemen and
agreed with Bernie to put that promise in the Democratic Platform. But if
we want Biden’s good instincts to flourish in a Biden Administration, we
have to block Chris Coons and retire Speaker Pelosi, who would try to
thwart Biden's good instincts.

I’ve been watching this front closely since 2006, ever since Nancy Pelosi
was anointed Speaker of the House the first time. Here is the pattern: as
Speaker, every time Nancy Pelosi has the opportunity to choose between more
war and more peace, Nancy Pelosi chooses more war. Every time she has the
opportunity to choose between more guns and more butter, Nancy Pelosi
chooses more guns.

A key factor in Nancy Pelosi’s rise to Speaker was her ability to raise
money from megadonor oligarchs and spread that money around. Some of the
megadonor oligarchs who fund Nancy Pelosi want more war and less peace,
more guns and less butter. That’s a key reason that Nancy Pelosi is like
this.

Nancy Pelosi was born in 1940. When she was twenty, trying to understand
the world, it was 1960. I strongly oppose the claim that anyone is too old
to serve, as I strongly oppose the claim that anyone is too young to serve.
But it’s good to have a mix. Our worldviews are strongly shaped by our life
experiences when we were young. I was born in 1965. When I was twenty, it
was 1985. I’ll always be strongly shaped by those experiences. I’ll always
see the world differently from people who didn’t have those experiences,
for both good and bad. Like many others of my generation, I was astonished
by how quickly the country flipped on gay marriage, after the gays in the
military thing took so long. That’s partly because I was born in 1965, and
was 20 in 1985, when then-President Ronald Reagan refused to acknowledge
the existence of his friend Rock Hudson as his friend Rock Hudson was dying
of AIDS. My mother was born in 1933. She grew up in the Depression. She
stood in soup lines. She never stopped being the person who had those
experiences. When she told me about the experience many decades later, you
could still taste the humiliation of the little girl who was forced to
stand in soup lines if she wanted to eat.

If we’re going to defeat Nancy Pelosi, if we’re going to push her into
graceful retirement like Nita Lowey, we need a good candidate. You can’t
defeat a candidate with nothing. You can only defeat a candidate with
another candidate.

I believe that the right candidate to defeat Nancy Pelosi is Karen Bass.

The people who want more peace and less war, more butter and less guns
can’t defeat Nancy Pelosi by ourselves. We don’t have that much leverage in
the Democratic Party. We need Allies in the Democratic Party to defeat
Nancy Pelosi. Labor, Black People, Women, Enviros, Liberal Jews.

Karen Bass is the right candidate to attract support from all these groups
of people. She’s a member in good standing of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus, which is close to labor. She’s chair of the Congressional Black
Caucus. She was vetted by Biden for VP. She was Speaker of the California
State Assembly. She got along well with Republicans in California, which
means she can get along well with the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats.
Karen Bass has Liberal Jews in her district in LA. Karen Bass gets along
with the Liberal Jews just fine. The Speaker in a Democratic controlled
House has to get along well with all House Democrats. Karen Bass can do
that. Karen Bass is the right candidate to defeat Nancy Pelosi. If Nancy
Pelosi believes that Karen Bass is running, maybe Nancy Pelosi will just
retire gracefully, just like Nita Lowey did.

If we play our cards right, we can split the megadonor oligarchs who fund
the Democratic Party. Not every megadonor oligarch who funds the Democratic
Party wants more war and less peace, more guns and less butter. Some
megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party want to address climate
change. Some megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party care about
democracy and human rights. Some megadonor oligarchs who fund the
Democratic Party want to get the illegal guns off our city streets. These
megadonor oligarchs who fund the Democratic Party can be recruited to
support Karen Bass for Speaker.

Some bad-faith Pelosi Apologists might try to concern-troll us by claiming
that Karen Bass has insurmountable South Florida-Cuba Dem problems now.
This is Donkey Doo. Look what just happened in Florida. The South
Florida-Cuba Dems went to the Dustbin of History. These people have no
juice in the Democratic Party now. To quote the Great Patriotic American
James Baker, “They don’t vote for us anyway.”

If past is prologue, Karen Bass will be a reluctant candidate for Speaker.
Some of the same qualities that make her a good candidate for Speaker are
likely to make her a reluctant candidate. Like Bernie, Karen Bass is an
institutionalist. She respects institutional precedents like seniority. She
wouldn’t run for chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when we
defeated Engel and blocked “inevitable” Deutch because Meeks, who has more
seniority on the committee and is also a member of the CBC, wanted to be
chair. So she deferred to Meeks.

Clyburn has made clear in the past his desire to be Speaker of the House
one day. To reach the Speaker’s gavel now, Karen Bass would have to walk
past Clyburn. There’s no way she’s going to walk past Clyburn without
Clyburn’s blessing. Clyburn has to voluntarily give up his place in history
to Karen Bass now for the good of humanity in order for Karen Bass to reach
the Speaker’s gavel now and walk on the stage of history.

That’s why we have to create a popular groundswell for Karen Bass as
Speaker now without her explicit consent. She can’t give her explicit
consent now because of Clyburn, so there’s no point in asking for it. We
have to show Clyburn that there’s a popular groundswell for Karen Bass in
order to move Clyburn. We have to tug at Clyburn’s heartstrings. We have to
prick Clyburn’s conscience. We have to appeal to Clyburn’s sense of
Patriotic Duty.

Pelosi should retire gracefully like Lowey. Let’s draft Karen Bass for
Speaker of the House.
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