An oligarch steps aside, while still clinging to power

Pelosi’s announcement leaves her in place to continue impeding progressive policy goals in the future

Yesterday’s announcement by Nancy Pelosi was as significant for its omissions as it was for what she said. While resigning the Speaker’s Gavel as she had previously promised to do, she also indicated her plans to retain her seat in Congress, and to support a new generation of Democratic House leaders ultimately poised to continue her dedication to Wall Street and the Pentagon.

Journalists predictably launched into fawning reviews of Pelosi’s career in Washington, overlooking her policy legacy, documented corruption, and renowned record of ducking debates since winning her congressional seat in 1987. From continuing to place her stock portfolio before the public interest, to her longstanding aspiration to install her daughter in her seat when she finally retires, too many narratives remain unnoticed in the aftermath of yesterday’s announcement.

What this means

Democrats have conclusively lost the House, ensuring GOP control of the lower chamber of Congress for the remainder of Biden’s presidency. Pelosi’s decision to retain her seat—and likely, most of her influence, given her role as the party’s leading fundraiser—ensures that Democratic opposition to the Republican House majority will continue to prioritize Wall Street’s interests before the needs of working Americans.

Even while Democrats held the House, under Pelosi’s leadership, it made little progress on establishing the basic human right to healthcare long enjoyed in more generous (even far less wealthy) countries. While her sycophants are quick to cite the 2010 passage of the so-called “Affordable Care Act” as a moment defining Pelosi’s legislative legacy, its results have proven nuanced. It did expand coverage and remove pre-existing conditions as a pretext for insurance companies to deny coverage, but ultimately held working Americans hostage to arbitrary and predatory pricing by insurance companies, whose premiums continue to escalate even after dramatic expansion (at times as much as nearly 30% per year) in the years since it was passed.

Even while Democrats held the House, under Pelosi’s leadership, Congress made little progress on advancing climate justice despite the acceleration of the global climate catastrophe. The Bipartisan Infrastructure package passed in 2021 included the largest investments in climate resiliency that Washington has ever made, but it does not adequately respond to the need and ultimately remains a drop in the bucket.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure package also prioritized corporate profits as much as climate justice objectives, and left in place billions of dollars in public subsidies for an ultimately predatory industry. It damns the future to mounting degrees of inevitable misery.

That is Pelosi’s legacy.

Even while Democrats held the House, under Pelosi’s leadership, Congress made no progress on restricting the open and unapologetic corruption of insider trading by policymakers, their families, and their staff. The handful of bills introduced to curtail parts of the problem all invite continuing conflicts of interest through less visible and transparent alternatives to public equities—and in any case, have remained the subjects of hearings rather than votes.

Now that Democrats have lost the House to impending GOP control, expect not only partisan gridlock going forward, but also potentially new rounds of debate—and dysfunction—surrounding the federal debt ceiling and risks to the global economy should the U.S. fail to pay its substantial debts.

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How we got here

Pelosi’s governance has been defined more by self-protection and self-promotion than by public service. Her tenure—as well as the remarkable performance of her family’s stock portfolio—in office could not have been possible without the complicity of press outlets that have placed access (essentially, the business of) journalism before their professional ethical commitments to transparency and accountability. 

Editorial voices from across the political continuum—ranging from CBS and the Wall Street Journal to even Mother Jones—continue to fawn over Nancy Pelosi, creating a cult of personality by emphasizing her power while downplaying the many communities marginalized by her so-called “leadership.” Who could ever imagine that a media landscape so dominated by corporate conglomerates could prove so deferential to a figure whose policy legacy has been defined by fealty to her stock portfolio?

The unwillingness among journalists to acknowledge her corruption is remarkable because Pelosi’s profound influence over federal policy should invite more—rather than less—scrutiny from the press. For better or worse, the examples extend well beyond the mere broken promises for which politicians have grown renowned.

The most glaring example might be Pelosi’s history of insider trading and prioritizing public policy supporting the enterprises in which she has invested. That issue at least prompted long overdue press attention in 2022 after decades of the press ignoring it altogether.

Pelosi punching down at Ilhan Omar for supporting international human rights, however, might be even worse. Pelosi is a wealthy white woman tone policing the perspectives of a Somali-American colleague informed by her experience as a refugee. It’s even worse than that: should the U.S. ever accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, as Ilhan has urged, Pelosi herself could potentially face criminal liability since she reportedly knew at the time about CIA torture under the Bush administration and failed to do anything to inform the public as required under international law. In other words, every time Pelosi has punched down at Ilhan, she may have done so in order to protect herself.

A true public servant would show up for debates (and an independent press would require them to), but since winning her seat in a 1987 Special Election with the support of a political insider, Pelosi has never once debated an opponent while growing fantastically wealthy in the ensuing 35 years.

The corruption indicated by Pelosi’s pattern and practice of insider trading is even more offensive when considering its various costs. Most bemoan the subversion of the marketplace, overlooking the subversion of policymaking by policymakers filling their pockets through legislation favoring enterprises in which they share ownership.

Congressional insider trading also introduces conflicts of interest that infect the policymaking process. For instance, many voices have criticized Pelosi for failing to ever hold a vote on the universal healthcare vision that she once claimed to support. Beyond shielding her colleagues from democratic accountability, she has also taken action in the shadows to kneecap proposals to expand healthcare, offering assurances to corporate supports that she will guard their interests first.

Similarly, Pelosi’s recurring support for increases in military spending and belligerent foreign policy has enabled wars that have left millions dead and many more maimed, including tens of thousands of Americans.

To what extent have those choices personally enriched her over time? And at what costs to the public? 

Beyond the policy implications of allowing policymakers to wield conflicts of interest are political implications for particular figures emboldened and enabled by Pelosi’s positions, including former president Trump. Neither of his impeachments included charges addressing his misappropriation of public funds—likely because Trump’s counter-attack would have emphasized the complicity of Democrats in similar offenses, particularly Pelosi’s trading.

Even while Pelosi enabled Trump—first, by supporting his policies, then by delaying impeachment, and then by showing up for it like a boxer throwing a fight—the American press establishment refused to report on the facts, preferring to fawn over images of theatrical so-called “resistance.” Rather than promote accountability based on documented facts, journalists & editors opted to construct an ultimately false partisan narrative based on images reinforcing tribal divisions among Americans subjected to bipartisan corruption.

In the time since she announced her plans to remain in Congress, how many American journalists have referred to Pelosi’s tone-deaf response to Dream Act activists driven in 2017 to interrupt her in order to observe her hypocrisy? How many referenced the Sunrise Movement marching from Paradise, CA to dump wildfire ash on her front lawn to thank her for her role in engineering global climate chaos?

How many American journalists ever observed that Pelosi faced challengers in 2022? Outlets from the San Francisco Examiner to the LA Times raced to publish stories prematurely prognosticating about her eventual replacement, ultimately undermining accountability, enabling Pelosi’s corruption, and indulging the nepotism implicit in her reported goals of eventually installing her daughter, Christine, in her seat.

I’ve written elsewhere about how institutional failures by journalists that undermine accountability sadly encourage—and ultimately invite—the kinds of political violence that has emerged in our country. Because the media bias insulating Pelosi and other Washington figures from accountability remains unaddressed (and widely unacknowledged), I fear we can expect only more.

Paid subscribers can access a personal reflection below explaining how I feel about all this from the perspective of someone who offered an alternative.