Fight the Matriarchy!

So many progressives want to do away with patriarchy.  Why not do away with matriarchy as well?

We can start with Nancy Pelosi.

As the Democrats, once again as in 2016 faced with the spectre of Donald Trump when they thought they were going to see one of their own become the first female President in history, Pelosi, Capitol Hill's dowager empress, continues to throw sand in in the gears while the House Democratic caucus tries to find a way forward.  

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tried for a bid to become the ranking minority member on the House Oversight Committee, which would have allowed her to stick it to Trump's cronies in hearings and garner a lot of positive attention for the party.   Pelosi, still in Germany while recovering from a fall she sustained in Luxembourg,  put her thumb on the scales was able to get House Democrats instead to elect Representative Gerry Connelly of Virginia to assume the position instead.  Connolly is 74 and dealing with esophageal cancer.

Now, I've had my disagreements and issues with AOC in the past, but no one can deny that she is an inspiring leader with excellent communication skills and an ability to make Republicans squirm.  The only trouble is, she's able to make Democrats squirm as well.  In addition to having threatened to have moderate House Democrats in other districts primaried, she offended Pelosi first by defeating Joseph Crowley, whom Pelosi was grooming for leadership in the House, for his House seat and then second by camping out in front of her office door.  At 84, Nancy Pelosi appears to suffer from a uniquely Italian strain of Alzheimer's disease; she remembers only vendettas. 

It's more than personal slights Pelosi punishes Democrats for, however.  She is committed to an increasingly outdated seniority system that rewards old folks like Connolly for time well-served and keeps young'uns like AOC patiently and interminably waiting their turn at leadership posts.  Pelosi has famously trusted the counsel of only her generational peers, and she has long frozen out younger members who seek positions of greater power and responsibility; those who actually make a grab for such positions ultimately commit political suicide.  Ask Tim Ryan.  

To respond to the inevitable point that there is new leadership in the House Democratic caucus, ask yourself this - why is Pelosi, not House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, calling the shots on ranking committee memberships?  Why does she hold the title of "Speaker Emerita," when no former Speaker of the House ever before held a title like "Speaker Emeritus" after stepping down from party leadership while retaining his House seat?  Why was she still strategizing House elections in the 2024 cycle and proclaiming that Democrats would retake the House based on her own count?  Why did people take Pelosi seriously about that?  Why do I have a feeling that she shared a beer and a chuckle with Peter Thiel, the maliciously craven Geppetto behind James David Vance, when Vance defeated Tim Ryan for a Senate seat?  I think you know the answer. 

Nancy Pelosi is still, in the wake of Kamala Harris's defeat, the most powerful woman in Washington, and she intends to keep it that way through her influence over Jeffries and his team even if it means shunning newer voices over people who, like Pelosi, have been in Congress too long.  It leaves the party run by a gerontocracy that refuses to acknowledge the younger generation and preserves the status quo even as the Democrats need fresh ideas for taking on Trump.  And Trump is a problem Pelosi is partially responsible for.  Not only did she use her influence to knock President Biden back down when he was still trying to pick himself up after his debate with Trump, she advocated for an open convention because she did not like Harris.  She lost that fight, but Harris's loss has returned Pelosi to the catbird seat.  She is trying to be the power behind the throne on Capitol Hill.  Except that the Democrats have no power to speak of and may not have any recourse if the Democratic old guard sticks around.

AOC hugged Connolly and congratulated him after losing her bid for ranking minority member on the House Oversight Committee, and she will still serve on that committee in the new Congress, where she still promises to be an effective anti-Trump firebrand.  But a party's younger members are only as strong as its leadership allows them to be, and if Pelosi doesn't get out of the way and let the new House Democratic leadership team actually, well, lead, she's going to get the Democrats - and the country - in big trouble.