Nancy Pelosi Is Winning

Spectrum

Elite Poster
BGOL Investor
Nancy Pelosi Is Winning

She beat George W. Bush on Social Security privatization, and she’ll beat Trump on the wall.

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JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
Democrats sometimes portray themselves as high-minded and naive—unwilling to play as rough as the GOP. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is, once again, proving that self-image wrong. She’s not only refusing Donald Trump’s demand for a border wall. She’s trying to cripple his presidency. And she may well succeed.


Pelosi’s strategy resembles the one she employed to debilitate another Republican president: George W. Bush. Bush returned to Washington after his 2004 reelection victory determined to partially privatize Social Security. “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital,” he told the press, “and I intend to spend it.” Bush’s plan contained two main elements. The first was convincing the public that there was a crisis. Social Security, he declared in his 2005 State of the Union address, “is headed toward bankruptcy.” The second was persuading Democrats to offer their own proposals for changing it.


As the journalist Matthew Yglesias pointed out not long ago, a fallacy underlay Bush’s argument. Even if you believed Social Security was going bankrupt, diverting some of the tax money that funds it into private accounts wouldn’t solve the problem. It would make the problem worse. To mask that glitch, Bush needed to lure Democrats into offering proposals that actually shored up Social Security’s finances—by cutting benefits, raising taxes, or cutting other spending—but were highly unpopular. Americans would presumably prefer Bush’s cotton candy to the Democrats’ broccoli, and thus empower Bush to fulfill the decades-old conservative goal of ending Social Security as a program of social insurance.

Aiding Bush’s effort was the fact that prominent Democrats had proposed tinkering with Social Security in the past. In his State of the Union address, Bush observed, “During the 1990s, my predecessor, President Clinton, spoke of increasing the retirement age. Former [Democratic] Senator John Breaux suggested discouraging early collection of Social Security benefits. The late [Democratic] Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended changing the way benefits are calculated.” Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman had even toyed with private accounts.

But Pelosi, then House minority leader, wouldn’t take the bait. She denied that Social Security was in crisis. And she refused to offer a plan for changing it. When a member of Congress asked when Democrats would offer their own proposals, she replied, “Never. Is never good enough for you?”


Republicans called Democrats hypocrites for spurning proposals they had once supported. And centrist pundits, while admitting the problems with Bush’s proposal, criticized Democrats for not countering it. In a February 2005 editorial, The Washington Post slammed Democrats for their “silence about alternatives.” In a June editorial titled “Where Are the Democrats?” the Postacknowledged, “No doubt Democrats’ political instincts will be against engaging at this point: Why bail out Mr. Bush now, the strategists will argue, and let him claim that he led the way to putting Social Security on the path to solvency? … But there is also the little matter of what’s right for the country.”

Still, Pelosi, understanding that policy and politics are inseparable, did nothing. Irrespective of the merits of tweaking Social Security, she realized that offering Democratic proposals would divide her caucus and give Bush a political lifeline. Instead, she forced Americans to choose between Social Security as it was and Social Security privatization, maneuvering Bush into a battle that crippled his second term and laid the foundation for Democrats to retake the House in 2006. “The first thing we had to do in 2005 was take the president’s numbers down. Bush was 57 percent in early 2005,” Pelosi recently remarked to The New York Times’ Robert Draper. “His numbers came down to 38 in the fall, and that’s when the retirements [of congressional Republicans] started to happen.”


Pelosi is up to something similar today. Just as Republicans in 2005 reminded Democrats that they once supported altering Social Security, Republicans today keep reminding Democrats that they once supported a border wall. In his Oval Office address last week, Trump observed that “Senator Chuck Schumer … has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with many other Democrats.” The former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen titled a recent column “Democrats Were for a Wall Before They Were Against It.”

urged, “Democrats could use their leverage to achieve a truly moral purpose. In return for a few billion dollars for a segment of the president’s wall … Democrats might permanently shield from deportation well over 1 million ‘dreamers.’” A recent Bloomberg editorial scolded Democrats for wanting “to deny the other [side] anything that might be portrayed as a victory,” and warned that “the only alternative to compromise, now that power in Washington is more equally divided, is paralysis.”


But Pelosi knows that the alternative to Democratic compromise isn’t necessarily paralysis. It may be Democratic triumph. Trump, like Bush, has picked a fight that is popular with conservatives but unpopular with the public at large. Most Americans don’t think there’s a border crisis, don’t support a border wall, and blame Trump for the shutdown. As a result, Republican members of Congress are under more political pressure to back down than their Democratic counterparts, and the longer the shutdown continues, the more that pressure should grow. For the time being, at least, conservative opposition has forced Trump to shelve talk of declaring a national emergency. All of which means that the most likely outcome to the current standoff is that Trump caves. And since the wall was Trump’s signature campaign promise, such a retreat could depress conservative enthusiasm and impair his chances in 2020. “If he gives in,” Lindsey Graham recently warned, “that’s probably the end of his presidency.”

That’s what Pelosi is aiming for. In pure policy terms, there’s a case for compromise. Arguably, it’s worth wasting a few billion dollars on a border wall to safeguard the “Dreamers” who are stuck in an agonizing legal limbo. But Pelosi is focused on something bigger: the emasculation of the president. For years, Democrats have wondered when their leaders would start playing tough. Turns out Pelosi has been doing so all along.
 

kogalee muhammad

BANNED
Registered
Her uhh... "strategy" if you want to call call it that, is fucking up the economy, 800,000+ feds are furloughed or working without pay, the economy is teetering on disaster as a result. She may well be as disastrous to feds as Trump.
 

kogalee muhammad

BANNED
Registered
Ok the shutdown happened before the Dems took power in the house. There were 2 spending bills passed that Trump Vetoed while the GOP had complete control of Congress. She is showing a lot of resolve!

As a fed employee myself, I have taken a hit due tithes Bullshit. Thankfully I moonlight as a cyber Security professional with FedEx. If not for that? :smh:

And neither Pelosi or the demoncraps has brought an end to the shutdown. :smh: :crying:
 
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Famous1

Rising Star
Platinum Member
Her uhh... "strategy" if you want to call call it that, is fucking up the economy, 800,000+ feds are furloughed or working without pay, the economy is teetering on disaster as a result. She may well be as disastrous to feds as Trump.
Trump took credit for the shutdown.... remember?
Pelosi and Schumer initially offered 1.5bil for border security and the wall but trimp turned it down and said give me 5 bil or no deal. In years past this is where the blue dogs would step in and bail the Republicans out... but guess what.... they gone...:mike:
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
She’s a much better speaker now then 8
Years ago

I disagree. We wouldn't have the ACA without her. She had Obama's back and held the dems together. She still glows with admiration when she speaks of Obama.

Her mistake was letting the dems run from the accomplishment because they thought it would save them against the GOP messaging. I blame the party as a whole for not owning the ACA when it first passed.
 

easy_b

Look into my eyes you are getting sleepy!!!
BGOL Investor
I disagree. We wouldn't have the ACA without her. She had Obama's back and held the dems together. She still glows with admiration when she speaks of Obama.

Her mistake was letting the dems run from the accomplishment because they thought it would save them against the GOP messaging. I blame the party as a whole for not owning the ACA when it first passed.
Well I still stand by my original statement she’s a much better speaker now then eight years ago
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Well I still stand by my original statement she’s a much better speaker now then eight years ago

It just seems that way because her actions are more noticeable against an opponent and thanks to Trump this is being fought out in the open. She tried to keep that first meeting when he announced he would own the shutdown private. She would have probably been even more direct off camera. She has always been formidable.
 

kogalee muhammad

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Registered
Trump took credit for the shutdown.... remember?
Pelosi and Schumer initially offered 1.5bil for border security and the wall but trimp turned it down and said give me 5 bil or no deal. In years past this is where the blue dogs would step in and bail the Republicans out... but guess what.... they gone...:mike:

For Elijahs sake they need to offer him 6 billion! :crying: we feds are hurting out here, ! :crying: I am forced between paying my my mortgage or paying my hoes! It's down to a roof over my head or having to Jack off! :crying:
 

easy_b

Look into my eyes you are getting sleepy!!!
BGOL Investor
It just seems that way because her actions are more noticeable against an opponent and thanks to Trump this is being fought out in the open. She tried to keep that first meeting when he announced he would own the shutdown private. She would have probably been even more direct off camera. She has always been formidable.
Agreed
 

Spectrum

Elite Poster
BGOL Investor
It just seems that way because her actions are more noticeable against an opponent and thanks to Trump this is being fought out in the open. She tried to keep that first meeting when he announced he would own the shutdown private. She would have probably been even more direct off camera. She has always been formidable.

Anyone else being Speaker would have been a disaster. I was saying that she was uniquely qualified for this moment and that's why the GOP was working so hard to get someone else. She's been stomping on Trump from day fucking 1 after the Dems won the mid-terms. No one has been more effective in checking that orange idiot.
 

Mixd

Duppy Maker
BGOL Investor

Spectrum

Elite Poster
BGOL Investor
This is all theater...

5 days from now, we will be 30 days into the shutdown, guess what happens then?
Trump has the right to use what's called Government RIF, Reduction of Force, or layoffs...

Restructuring of the Govt
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force/

Many are now starting to say this will be the next move and will be mass chaos, all I can say is be prepared...


https://www.justsecurity.org/51958/president-trumps-four-pronged-war-administrative-state/
 

Famous1

Rising Star
Platinum Member
Anyone else being Speaker would have been a disaster. I was saying that she was uniquely qualified for this moment and that's why the GOP was working so hard to get someone else. She's been stomping on Trump from day fucking 1 after the Dems won the mid-terms. No one has been more effective in checking that orange idiot.
Bullshit... she aint stomping on trump any harder than anyone else would have. Listen man she's doing a good job on this issue but she's still doing some behind the scenes shit to keep the Democrats from landing on trumps ass with both feet.
 

deputy dawg

~wait a cotton pickin' minute...
BGOL Investor
This is all theater...

5 days from now, we will be 30 days into the shutdown, guess what happens then?
Trump has the right to use what's called Government RIF, Reduction of Force, or layoffs...

Restructuring of the Govt
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force/

Many are now starting to say this will be the next move and will be mass chaos, all I can say is be prepared...

I was ready to come in and say "Where in this OPM page does it say..." but-

A furlough of more than 30 calendar days, or of more than 22 discontinuous work days, is also a RIF action.
(A furlough of 30 or fewer calendar days, or of 22 or fewer discontinuous work days, is an adverse action.)

:eek2:

I always wonder what it would take to get Americans to take to the streets (Euro-style).
Maybe this would do it!


@kogalee muhammad
- you ready to PROTEST/RUMBLE/RIOT???!!! :gun01:
 

Spectrum

Elite Poster
BGOL Investor
Bullshit... she aint stomping on trump any harder than anyone else would have. Listen man she's doing a good job on this issue but she's still doing some behind the scenes shit to keep the Democrats from landing on trumps ass with both feet.

No one else would have even had the power to keep the caucus together. And no one else would even know the nuances of the job enough to walk into a fucking Shutdown shitstorm + Trump. Full stop... Pelosi was perfect for this moment. Dealing with Trump is bad enough... and most people don't know how to deal with him and get washed over... but dealing with him and walking into a gov't shutdown would have all but paralyzed 99.99% of the available options for Speaker.

She took the ball from Trump from their first oval oval meeting when they discussed a possible shutdown.

If not for Trump and a possible shutdown, I would have liked someone else to have the position...to move to new blood... but not with this fucking Tyrant running the show.
 

Mo-Better

The R&B Master
OG Investor
I disagree. We wouldn't have the ACA without her. She had Obama's back and held the dems together. She still glows with admiration when she speaks of Obama.

Her mistake was letting the dems run from the accomplishment because they thought it would save them against the GOP messaging. I blame the party as a whole for not owning the ACA when it first passed.

What your describing is typical behavior of young inexperienced people. Do one thing well and suddenly they know everything there is to know about anything.

Yeah I believe Pelosi was targeted with smear campaign, if something underhanded can be done republicans will find a way. IMO she's rock solid. I think people just pick up on anything negative they hear and run with it, regardless of the source.

Pelosi is smart and has years of experience. I love how she's forcing Trump to own "his shutdown" especially since Trump expressed such pride in shutting down the country. I don't think he even thought about the people the people he's hurting are primarily republican voters.
 

sharkbait28

Unionize & Prepare For Automation
International Member
Her uhh... "strategy" if you want to call call it that, is fucking up the economy, 800,000+ feds are furloughed or working without pay, the economy is teetering on disaster as a result. She may well be as disastrous to feds as Trump.

Too many of y'all engage in this dumb false equivalency shit. Republicans had two years to get their fantasy wall going while they had full control of all branches. Kicking this back to the Dems (after the Senate GOP signed off on the last bill in Dec which was vetoed by Trump after he watched Fox News lol) is incredibly retarded and unacceptable. Mitch has blocked two bills brought by Dems from even going to vote during this shutdown (where it has at least an outside chance if passing with support from the right Republicans). This is a Trump, McConnel and GOP shutdown. Sucks if you're actually affected by this and not trolling per usual but get your eyes fixed on those actually responsible for your troubles.

Laying this at Pelosi's feet is incredibly dishonest :smh:
 

sharkbait28

Unionize & Prepare For Automation
International Member
No one else would have even had the power to keep the caucus together. And no one else would even know the nuances of the job enough to walk into a fucking Shutdown shitstorm + Trump. Full stop... Pelosi was perfect for this moment. Dealing with Trump is bad enough... and most people don't know how to deal with him and get washed over... but dealing with him and walking into a gov't shutdown would have all but paralyzed 99.99% of the available options for Speaker.

She took the ball from Trump from their first oval oval meeting when they discussed a possible shutdown.

If not for Trump and a possible shutdown, I would have liked someone else to have the position...to move to new blood... but not with this fucking Tyrant running the show.

I've got some crow to eat for sure. Being honest I'm tired of the corporate Dems guarding their positions like some fucking pterodactyls but I've been impressed with Pelosi's handling of this insane bullshit. She got her caucus in line and has had Trump on defense throughout this whole fiasco. Would love to see some more dynamic and progressive Dems take leadership of the party in general but I was def wrong to be dismissive of her back in Nov.
 
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