Pelosi damn well better be Speaker.

[Are_grits_groceries]

She knows the House and Congress like the back of her hand. That knowledge will be crucial to trying to hold Trump and Company accountable.

Pelosi is not afraid of them and she willbe more than willing to go for it in hand-to-hand fighting. The last two years may seem like an interlude to what is coming.

Do you know who loves this protest? Trump and his minions and Berners. This plays right intothei4 hands. In addition, the bots will be out pushing for her ouster.

These next two years areas important as any I can remember. I have not worked my ass off, contributed money, and lost sleep for two years so those morons can bring everything down. And yes they are morons if they cannot see beyond their own agenda.

Pelosi knows she will not live forever so my bet is that she will try to prepare some to learn much of what she knows.

Am I mad? You damn well better believe it and those ‘protesters’ can get a lot more done in other ways. I do not normally feel so strongly about these kinds of things but too much is at stake. AND I am holding my tongue.

[Evergreen Emerald]

1. Agreed

Pelosi: A strong bad-ass leader who gets the job done. We have too much to do without wasting time on Pelosi bashing.

[shraby]

2. You're totally right!

[Mister Ed]

3. The only argument I've ever seen against her is...

...that she is a "divisive figure" - meaning the right has smeared her so thoroughly, and for so long, that the general public may have a vaguely negative view of her.
If we let right-wing propagandists effectely select our leaders for us in this manner, we are in deep, deep trouble.

[Mr.Bill]

9. And they won't treat the next Democratic speaker

any differently.

[workinclasszero]

18. "she is a "divisive figure" IOW republicans hate her because

she wins against them!

[flibbitygiblets]

21. Here's another opportunity to prove them wrong about her!

She's effective, smart and classy. Everything they're not.

[Hortensis]

56. :) Agree. We don't, of course. It's not our choice,

and most of this is just hostile noise from people who share Republican attitudes about our top female leaders.

A little indicator of bad faith is completely ignoring the reality that our caucuses choose their own leaders from among themselves. And what that says about those leaders.

[Guppy]

4. Look at the big picture

Yes, Nancy is effective but she should only stay one year. It is time to move on and let the younger generation take over. It is similar to Mitch McConnell. If we went to be viewed as the party for the future then we need to let the younger people take over. Nancy Pelosi is the symbol for old and in the way.
At this point 30% of millennials voted and mostly for us. We need to engage them and make them feel that they are part of something new. It is time to move on and let the youngun's take leadership.

[Little Star]

6. Engage them yes.....

let them take over leadership roles while still using training wheels? NO Way!

[Are_grits_groceries]

10. Take leadership?

Not now!
Teach them and bring them in but they do not get leadership just for being elected.
I guess that is a news flash.

[Guppy]

13. No more than one year for Nancy

She has really big negatives. Whether you like it or not she is reviled by many people and not only republicans. We have to be the party of the future and not like the republicans "Old and in the way"

We just moved the suburban people into the blue column. They have negative opinions of Nancy. If we want to make these people permanent then it is time to move on.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

16. Reviled mainly by people who are offended by aging women.

That’s the tacit statement underlying the anti-Pelosi backlash. Lord fatass himself has stated that ugly underlying misogynistic ageism often.

[Guppy]

19. Her negatives are right up there with Mitch McConnell and Trump

Would you say the same exact thing that you said people feel about Pelosi? That they are reviled by who are offended by aging men.

It is a ludicrous assumption. She can grate people. Remember this is a sales job. We got suburban people to cross once. We need to keep them. People buy from whom they like. People get emotionally attached. I'm in sales and that is how it works.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

26. If you're going to claim she's as bad as mcCONnell, I'm gonna need some sources.

Thanks.

[Guppy]

27. you can find them anywhere

House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
(YouTube)
(CNSNews.com) -- A new Gallup poll shows that among the four congressional leaders of both political parties, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has the highest "unfavorable" rating among Americans at 53%. The second most unfavorable leader is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at 50%.

[JHan]

37. it sure helps when you buy into anti pelosi memes, there's a reason she's been a target.

There is nothing comparable to the derangement Nancy receives. Nothing.

Gephardt didn't experience anything close to this and I can name others. Consistently, the negatives McConnell and Ryan and others receive are aligned with their party's negativity rating.

The situation with Nancy is a different kettle of fish and it IS fucking sexism.

And as a young woman, I am fed up of people trying to pass this off as some kind of normal shit rather than the stinkingly shitty dysfunctional crap it is ...

The first female speaker of the House has become the most effec­tive congressional leader of modern times—and, not coinciden­tally, the most vilified.

In 2009, Pelosi persuaded deficit-wary Blue Dog Democrats to back Barack Obama’s stimulus package, and it passed without a single Republican vote. The following year, when Rahm Emanuel, then the White House chief of staff, suggested scaling back health-care reform after the Democrats’ surprise Senate loss in Massachusetts, Pelosi insisted that Obama maintain his goal of universal coverage. She enraged her pro-choice allies by allowing a vote on an amendment prohibiting women insured through the law’s health-care exchanges from receiving government-subsidized abortions. But that gave antiabortion Democrats cover to support the bill, which passed with nary a Republican vote.

These victories led Thomas Mann, who studies Congress at the Brookings Institution, to call Pelosi the “strongest and most effective speaker of modern times.” And even after being relegated to minority leader when Republicans took the House in 2010, she kept winning legislative fights. In the summer of 2015, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Republican Party launched a mammoth lobbying campaign to kill Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Pelosi quickly secured the votes to prevent Republicans from overturning the agreement, thus checkmating the deal’s foes.

In addition to being a masterful legislative tactician, the 77-year-old Pelosi is, in Politico’s words, “the most successful nonpresidential political fundraiser in U.S. history.” Yet many of her colleagues want her gone. In November 2016, almost a third of House Democrats voted to depose her as leader. Another coup attempt erupted last summer. Why so much discontent with a woman who has proved so good at her job? Maybe because many Democrats think Pelosi’s unpopularity undermines their chances of winning back the House. Why is she so unpopular? Because powerful women politicians usually are. Therein lies the tragedy. Nancy Pelosi does her job about as well as anyone could. But because she’s a woman, she may not be doing it well enough.

So fuck all the noise.

[Guppy]

43. She just has high negatives

which does suck but that is reality. You can bitch about sexism and you are right. That being said the idea is to take those suburban votes and convert them for the long run. If they go back to the republicans after one election then we have gained nothing. We have to be a "new party" with new youthful leadership.

It is all sales.

[JHan]

44. I just posed this elsewhere,

I am glad you are seeing the sexism.

I am all for new blood, but I also can't take the bullshit, so I'll just repeat myself.

The people who want her removed don't actually want to do the hard work to remove her, they want her to remove herself, they want her to perform weakness, they want her to admit that she is unworthy to be speaker. Yes they want her gone, but they want her to amputate herself.

Note the arguments "It's time for her to go" Notably absent from these fucking jokers is any discussion on how to persuade their colleagues to not support her. Very little discussion about changing people's minds or challenging her in a fair fight and winning it. In other words, what is their strategy? Why has their strategy failed? It's not just down to Nancy. They have failed to make their case and they want her to pay for them failing to make their case.

And I am told that these are the sorts of people I should have confidence in to run Democrats in the House.

Furthermore, it's dismal that some Dems continue to reward the GOP for the framing of our leaders, when will we learn?

[Guppy]

47. She should be the speaker of the house for one year

and then bring in someone new. That would be the best of all worlds. It gives her dignity and it gives the party an avenue to the future.

[JHan]

49. She's admitted she won't be there long, as far as I recall..

but right now, she is what we need.

[Hortensis]

57. Guppy, I'd be ashamed to be lying with the kind of

dogs who have the views you feel we should pander to. Have you obligingly felt every Democratic leader they loathe and revile should be removed, or is it just our highest ranking and most powerful female politician in all of American history?

[Guppy]

58. I am not aligning myself with republicans

I believe I am being realistic in a business sense. I have sold for a long time and one of my skills is the ability to cold call people and strike up a relationship on the phone. I know most of those attorneys you see commenting on white collar crime on TV. One thing people underestimate is likeability in securing a sale. Even though Nancy Pelosi is effective in "small ball" . She is ineffective in a national forum for selling a new vision for governing. It was not her fault that she has this reputation but she has it. She is just to divisive at this point.
She is just not likeable enough to seal the sale at this point. We have a chance to convert those republicans in the suburbs to democrats. Nancy Pelosi is not the person to make that sale.

[Hamlette]

45. This. 1000 times, THIS.

[Wintryjade]

50. A year? Maybe, or maybe not. I think it is better to know what a year from now looks like

before making demands.

[pazzyanne]

17. Wrong!!!

Think of Nancy as the battle-wise General in charge of offensive operations. She is the one with the knowledge and expertise to plan the strategy and call the shots. A newbie is not going to be up to the challenge. As far as I know Steny Hoyer and Tim Ryan are the only two challenging her at this point. Neither one have the tools that Nancy has to meet the tRump challenge!

[Cheviteau]

31. Steny Hoyer...

...is playing the role of a stalking horse. At least that's my take on it. Pelosi will be our Speaker of the House.

[pnwmom]

23. This isn't about age or branding. It's about knowledge and experience

and as long as Trump/Pence are in office, that's more important than anything. If you think some young person should take over who doesn't understand House procedure, and who has no experiencing putting together House majorities, you're mistaken.

[LiberalLovinLug]

29. Some don't want to look at the big picture

I think for many its strictly an emotional response. They refuse to see or accept that she is politically damaged by the relentless fire storm of fake news and smears against her. And that wears on her political capital. And that hinders rather than helps us win seats. As like with Hillary, it is through no fault of her own, and its disgusting and deplorable. Add to that her and the senior Democratic pool's strategy of appeasement and olive branches just aren't working anymore, and haven't for the awhile now. And now we hear of rumblings about spending whatever political capital they gained from taking the House to use for immediate policy gains, like gun control, in exchange for snuffing out any plans about investigations or inquiries etc...Laying off Trump and other GOP members in order to get a few crumbs. "move forward" This strategy falls in line with previous history. But I think this would be a colossal mistake. We have to keep our foot on their throat this time. Save legislative victory for when we have even more branches of gov. We need less of a technocrat, no matter how brilliant of one, and more of a street fighter at this point.

I, and I'm sure you as well, are not saying Nancy is not qualified, is not a terrific person, has not achieved a monumental glass ceiling breakage in getting where she is. But surely we can leave the emotion behind, and can debate the issue on the pros and cons in a civilized, logical manner.

[redstatebluegirl]

5. This young woman needs to calm down before she destroys what we have done this fall.

[msongs]

7. nine out of ten trump supporters agree, nancy must go nt

[oasis]

11. Ten of ten Jill Stein/Sarandonuts are on board with that.

[tymorial]

8. I could not agree more.

This country is in crisis mode and we need effective leadership in the house. The Republicans and Trump want a divided Democrat Party. They will use any opportunity to exploit disagreement among Democrats to evoke an image of instability.

All that being said I also believe that future planning, political ambition, and strategy is extremely important. We need more diverse leadership within the party. Our leadership is aging and this must be a consideration moving forward. Immediately however I cannot think of anyone more effective as Speaker then Pelosi.

[BamaRefugee]

12. YES but get her a SPOKESPERSON!

Her political prowess would NOT be diminished by having one of the young guns who has great television presence come out every day to explain what's going on.
This would give great exposure to a new Democrat, while also STARVING THE RETHUGLICANS of ANY video or photos that they can twist and manipulate to use against Pelosi personally.

It seems like everybody else has a spokesperson, the President, Attorney General, on and on, why not the Speaker of the House???

[pnwmom]

24. There are plenty of other places in House leadership where a young person can have a public presence

But I for one am already sick of Alexandria, even though the media loves her.

[BamaRefugee]

34. So add this to the list of places it can happen! BLANKET COVERAGE featuring new faces, and Pelosi

keeps working in the background.

[Roy Rolling]

14. Making Groceries

I was uncommitted about the House leadership until the Republicans and right-wing propaganda machine so forcefully trashed Pelosi.

Now I'm sure she's the right person for the job.

[Texin]

15. What's this protest actually about? Is it just against Pelosi overall?

And I totally agree that this just plays right into the rethugs' strategy and will be used in all their 2020 reelection campaigns. If they want to vote for someone else, just vote and keep their damn mouths shut! Stupid.

[safeinOhio]

20. republican hate her

therefore I love her.

[Amimnoch]

22. Either way I will trust in our new House.

I imagine with everything going on with Trump and his administration, I've no doubt there's a LOT of considerations and discussions going on in the background on the best path forward with this new house.

Personally, I will trust in this new House to take the path that will get us the most victory against the fascist regime installed into our Whitehouse, and trust it's a plan that will give us the best chance in 2020 of ousting him, reclaiming the Senate, and holding/expanding our control of the House.

[sagetea]

25. I agree, grits...

The council of Grandmothers is the highest council in Matriarchal Societies. I'm all for progression, however, these younger women need to learn from her first. They are the future, but, first they need to learn.

sage

[PatSeg]

28. This all reminds me too much

of when newbie Tea Party people first got elected to congress. They showed up and made a lot of noise for the media, but didn't actually accomplish anything. I don't think any of our newly elected representatives are anything like Tea Party members for the most part, but the inexperience and impulsive behavior is similar and just as ineffective.

When you are the new person in an established environment, you usually sit back, ask questions, and observe. A little bit of respect would also go a long way.

[annabanana]

30. PLUS.. Third in like to the White House demands

experience and a real understanding of how things get done.

[jon k]

32. Yes

Reason 1: She's got more balls than all the men in the House combined!

[Firestorm49]

33. Well, maybe.

Yes, Pelosi does understand the system. However, the onslaught of tRump and the rapidly changing political environment in which we live has brought about the rise in power of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Beto O’Rourke and numerous young talented politicians who do not necessarily see her as the shining beacon of leadership. They want change on their terms and Pelosi may not be the one they need. How often have we as Democrats taken well deserved pot shots at the old white boy clan of the Republican Party? We as a nation have had the battle field changed by the Republican Party, and now may be the time for our new, younger, more aggressive newly elected to fight fire with fire.
Term limits are the answer.

[Eric J in MN]

36. Beto O'Rourke won't be in Congress next year. NT

NT

[Eric J in MN]

35. After there are candidates

.. I’ll decide whom to support.

Pelosi isn’t the only one in the House with experience. Maybe she’ll be the best candidate for Speaker. So far, she’s the only candidate for Speaker.

[Are_grits_groceries]

39. Name them. Nt

[Eric J in MN]

48. Barbara Lee has experience. NT

NT

[David__77]

54. I'd love her as speaker.

...

[FiveGoodMen]

38. ...or else Trump may actually have to put up a fight

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016219928

[lillypaddle]

40. K&R

Damn, straight!

[Nac Mac Feegle]

41. I wonder if some people are buying in to the GOP smear campaign.

That's the Modus Operandi of the Repukes when it comes to one of their enemies. Look at the 25+ year smear campaign against Hillary Clinton. There is no depth they will not sink to in smearing one of their victims. They just keep repeating ever more audacious lies ad nauseum. After the constant repetition, no matter how ludicrous the allegation, it starts to be believed.

Look at the facts: Nancy Pelosi was one of the most effective Speakers of the House. During the first two years of the Obama administration, she put through more legislation than nearly any other Speaker. Building consensus, shepherding bills through the process, getting the votes together is not an easy task, and she was spectacularly good at it. And was vilified by the GOP incessantly. They dug out the Smear Machine, calling her every name in the book, and adding a few, to boot.

Those bills died in the Senate; filibustered by Mitch McConnell and his co-conspirators.

When a lie is repeated enough, it becomes the truth.

When the GOP hates someone, they will not hesitate to try to turn them into a monster. That's what they do.

Don't buy into their narrative. Don't let the oppositions' smear campaign define our side.

Remember: They lie. Constantly and without shame.

They can't win on their positions, so they have to whip a fear of Scary "Others" in order to manipulate people into supporting them.

Don't swallow the bait.

[The Liberal Lion]

42. I was one for a change of ledership in the House.

I had two big problems with Nancy: 1) I didn't think she was standing her ground against trump enough. Seemed like she was searching for a middle ground with that Nazi fuck, and I found that unconscionable. Their can be no middle ground, no compromise with evil. trump and the gop are evil incarnate. It needs to be destroyed, not coddled. 2) My second reason was I was particularly pissed off when she decided to chastise Auntie Maxine. I didn't like that one bit. Seemed like she has trying to handicap a warrior in deference to that orange, Nazi pig.

Well now I see both the rationale and the brilliance in her behaviors thusfar. So as far as I am concerned Nancy led us to a House majority and the rebuilding of the blue wall. She deserves to continue to lead. She is proven, and I believe she is ready for war.
Let her lead!

[oldlibdem]

46. I would rather see a young person of color.

preferbly from the black caucus just to watch the deplorables wig out. But Rep. Pelosi is smart and hard working so don't take this as a dis on her.

[Wintryjade]

51. Pelosi knows what is up. I trust her and her leadership skills.

[NoMoreRepugs]

52. Anyone other than Pelosi is a cave to the Rethugs.

[apcalc]

53. Totally agree. We need the best and most knowledgeable to 'get it done' the next 2 yrs.

[Gothmog]

55. Pelosi is the Democrats most effective leader now and needs to be Speaker