Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in an upcoming interview with The New York Times, chimed in on the 2024 presidential race and expressed regrets on how Democrats handled the campaign.
Advertisement
During the conversation, Pelosi criticized the timing of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the Democratic primary race. She suggested that if he had exited the contest earlier, it would have allowed for a more competitive and open primary process to replace him. This would have provided Democratic voters with actual options to choose from.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said, also noting that “The anticipation was that if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”
Pelosi worked behind the scenes to persuade President Biden to drop out of the race after his dismal debate performance against President-elect Donald Trump. Biden’s poor showing made it impossible for Democrats and their allies in the establishment media to continue covering up for his apparent cognitive issues.
However, Pelosi suggested that Biden’s immediate endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris left little opportunity for an actual competition between Democratic candidates. “And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” the former House speaker said.
Advertisement
Indeed, the report notes that Biden publicly endorsed Harris within an hour after he bowed out. This could have actually sealed the Democrats’ fate, as its voters were never involved in the selection process. Instead, the party selected their candidate for them, and it happened to be the vice president with some of the lowest approval ratings in history.
Nevertheless, other Democrats still fought for a primary. But their efforts failed.
The conversation turned to the other reasons why Democrats were so handily defeated by Trump. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) indicated that their defeat stemmed from the hyperfocus on identity politics rather than honing in on the economy, a top priority for voters.
However, Pelosi rejected this assessment, saying that she does not “respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”
Instead, cultural issues were more to blame for Democrats’ losses among working-class voters, according to Pelosi. “Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it,” she said, “Guns, that’s an issue; gays, that’s an issue, and now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities; and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose.”
Advertisement
It is amazing that Pelosi, who has been in Congress since shortly after the Revolutionary War, still does not get it. She believes Democrats lost because of culture war issues, when this is clearly secondary.
Nobody is thinking about abortion, transgender individuals, and homosexuality when they are struggling to afford groceries and gas. Moreover, it is as if she doesn’t understand the impact that immigration, crime, education, inflation, and other problems have had on the populace.
Pelosi’s lack of insight actually illustrates why Harris lost. Democrats are clearly out of touch with average Americans. Until they realize this, they had better get used to losing.