By Matthew Continetti
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Not so long ago — as recently as the cover of the March
2019 Rolling Stone, in fact — they
seemed like the best of friends. I’m referring to Nancy Pelosi and the members
of “The Squad”: Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and (not pictured)
Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. They shared some good times.
It was the dawn of a new era. House Democrats had
returned to power after eight years. And these Democrats were remarkably
diverse in age, ethnicity, race, and gender. Ideology, too: Ocasio-Cortez and
Tlaib belong to the Democratic Socialists of America. “Our nation is at an
historic moment,” Pelosi said in January. “Two months ago, the American people
spoke, and demanded a new dawn.”
Well, the sun has set. And fast. Whatever Pelosi’s plans
might have been, they’ve been lost in a fog of anti-Semitism and left-wing
radicalism. If Ilhan Omar isn’t causing Pelosi trouble, Ocasio-Cortez is. And
vice versa. One day the speaker has to respond to the charge that Jewish money
controls American foreign policy. The next she has to downplay flatulent cows.
It’s enough to make one pity her. Almost.
Pelosi’s bind began on election night. As Republicans
learned from 2011-2015, holding one chamber of Congress isn’t worth that much.
The president and the upper chamber block legislation. Frustrated by inaction,
the majority turns inward. Divisions grow. The more extreme members target
leadership. The speaker spends more time negotiating with her own party than
with the president and Senate majority leader.
Recently it seemed as though the major divide would be
over impeachment. Pelosi’s terrified by the prospect. The idea isn’t popular,
especially with voters in battleground districts. And Mueller’s report didn’t
give her much to work with. She would have been in a better position had the
special counsel actually said that he thought President Trump obstructed
justice. But he copped out, leaving people confused and Pelosi forlorn. She’s
let Nadler, Schiff, and Cummings fire their subpoena cannons at will. But this
war of attrition favors the president. And deepens the frustration of Democrats
who wish Trump had been impeached on inauguration day.
The crisis at the border revealed another division.
Shouldn’t have been much of a surprise: Immigration is the defining issue of
our time, its tendrils entangling themselves in the politics of democracies
around the world.
Democrats, and many Republicans, object to the conditions
facing detained asylum-seekers. What separates the Democrats is what to do
about it. The majority, including representatives from Trump districts, takes
the classic approach: throw money at the problem. The Squad has a different
idea. It voted against border funds to “make a point.” And strike a pose.
Ocasio-Cortez’s outlandish rhetoric isn’t helping. She’s
described the detention centers as “concentration camps.” Already in favor of
abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this week she said she’s open
to shutting down the entire Department of Homeland Security. Why stop there?
I’m guessing she doesn’t like the Department of Defense, either. Karl Rove, who
in 2002 won a midterm election over DHS, said Ocasio-Cortez’s comments were
“moronic, stupid, naïve, and dumb.” That was an understatement.
She’s something, Ocasio-Cortez. At 29 years old, she
perfectly embodies her generation’s uniquely irritating combo of
self-righteousness and cluelessness. Passionate and charming at first blush,
her appeal quickly wears off. In a March Quinnipiac poll, her favorability was
underwater by 13 points.
What Ocasio-Cortez understands is that, in the culture of
social-media celebrity, the worst possible thing to do is back down. So, when
Pelosi stated the obvious to Maureen Dowd — that for all the attention The
Squad receives from the media it is, in the end, four votes — Ocasio-Cortez
insinuated the speaker is a racist. And they say liberals oppose nuclear war.
If Pelosi’s racist, then America is in serious trouble.
The absurdity of the claim was best expressed by Congressman Lacy-Clay, who is
black. “You’re getting pushback so you resort to using the race card?” he
asked. “Unbelievable.” But the very absurdity highlights the position in which
the Democratic leadership finds itself. An aging elite must contend with a
vocal, far-left cadre of social-justice warriors, even as the majority depends
on legislators who don’t frighten moderates. The differences between the
contestants in this liberal Thunderdome are generational, ideological,
methodological, and demographic. How Pelosi escapes is a mystery.
Maybe she can’t. Maybe The Squad really is the future of
the Democratic party. After all, Jeremy Corbyn moved from the fringe to the
leadership of the Labour Party in the U.K. And the trend of the Democrats has
been leftward for a while. If that’s the case, then Pelosi faces a grim future.
And maybe the Democrats do, too. Even if you assume that
Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter and Instagram following counts for something in the
real world, she’s not about to help Democrats win Senate races in red states.
President Trump and the Republican party want nothing more than to define the
choice in 2020 as between socialism and Americanism, socialism and prosperity,
socialism and security. And for whatever reason, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is
eager to help him.
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