Nancy Pelosi Claims Pro-Palestinian Protesters Are Putin’s Stooges

By Luther Ray Abel

Sunday, January 28, 2024

 

One of the problems with a gerontocracy, besides the overuse of medication in the White House, is that long-tenured politicians become out of touch. They can become so disconnected from their base that they utter some of the looniest theories imaginable rather than accept that activists on their side can be truly nasty pieces of work. The New York Times reports that Pelosi wants the FBI to investigate pro-Palestinian protesters — Hamas sympathizers might be the more accurate term — who are harassing leading left-wing lawmakers such as Joe Manchin, Chuck Schumer, and Pelosi.

 

Kayla Guo writes for the Times:

 

Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the former House speaker, on Sunday called for the F.B.I. to investigate protesters demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, suggesting without evidence that some activists may have ties to Russia and President Vladimir V. Putin.

 

“For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message,” Ms. Pelosi said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.”

 

When pressed on whether she believed some of the demonstrators were “Russian plants,” Ms. Pelosi said: “Seeds or plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the F.B.I. to investigate that.”

 

Pelosi wants to believe — or wishes the public to believe that she believes — that Russians have infiltrated otherwise good-hearted leftists. The former House speaker provided no evidence for this. This is unfortunate for two reasons. First, there are certainly influence campaigns afoot on the American Left and, more broadly, in American cities. National Review’s Jimmy Quinn has done manful work exposing CCP efforts from San Francisco to New York and every U.S. state in between. For Pelosi, with no evidence, to sic the federal prosecutors on Americans makes it that much harder for serious investigations to take place. The excesses of McCarthyism became a tool of Communist sympathizers to delegitimize accusers. By mouthing off similarly, Pelosi kneecaps endeavors she ostensibly supports.

 

Second, the young Left is anti-Israel, and even that’s a generous characterization of their dislike for our ally. Walk through the literary dorms of progressives and one will find claims that “Israel Is a Top Student of U.S. Imperialism” from InTheseTimes; that “Joe Biden Isn’t Rescuing Hostages — He’s Enabling War Crimes” in Jacobin; and “Israel Commits Suicide of Biblical Proportions, and America Is There to Assist” from the New Republic. (I pick these three publications because I find them most representative of the views of under-30 leftists). Pelosi can either accept that her party isn’t what it was, or she can relax in delusion. She’s certainly wealthy enough to separate herself from street demonstrations, and, after all, she has spent the past eight years blaming Russia for Trump’s presidency, also with no evidence. So the precedent is there.

 

It may appear that the Democrats are ascendant as the GOP devolves further into a personality cult, but the next few years could prove more difficult for the Left than they imagine, as the old guard will more frequently have to confront the militant leftism of their younger cohort.