Nancy Pelosi will not lead the Democrats

Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, will resign after the victory of the Republicans, who took the majority in the House. This was reported on November 17 by CNBS.

Pelosi, 82, has led the House Democrats since 2007, in both a majority and a minority in the lower house. She will now leave office, but will continue to represent her hometown of San Francisco in Congress, as she has done since 1987. “The time has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic faction that I respect so deeply. I am grateful that so many are willing to shoulder this tremendous responsibility,” Pelosi said. Thus ends the career of what The Hill called “the most powerful female politician in US history.”

CNBS adds that Pelosi’s resignation was broadly expected amid a predictable Republican victory in the lower house of Congress. As the ex-speaker herself explained, she was spurred to leave office not only by the victory of the Republicans, but also by the recent attack on her husband. We are talking about the incident on October 28, when 42-year-old Canadian illegal immigrant David Depape broke into Pelosi’s house and attacked her husband Paul with a hammer. Paul Pelosi was hospitalized with a cracked skull and hand injuries.

In the words of Pelosi herself, it is “a great privilege to be in the House for 35 years.” In announcing her resignation as head of the faction, she spoke warmly of the three presidents who “made historic breakthroughs.” We are talking about George W. Bush (Republican, held the White House in 2001-2009), Barack Obama (Democrat, 2009-2017) and Joe Biden (Democrat, president since 2021). It is noteworthy that in her speech, Pelosi deprived the attention of the 45th owner of the White House, Donald Trump (Republican, 2017-2021). It was he who was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, and it was Pelosi who led the Democrats then.

Elections of the new leader of the democratic faction are scheduled for November 30. New York Congressman Hakim Jeffries is likely to succeed Pelosi, according to Reuters. If he is successfully elected, Jeffreys, who holds liberal views, will become the first-ever black Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. The agency adds that Jeffreys, 52, is part of a “new generation” that has long put pressure on the old Democratic establishment, of which Pelosi was also a representative.

Another likely speaker is Pelosi’s peer, 82-year-old South Carolina Congressman James Cliburn, who played a prominent role in Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

In the last months of her term as speaker, Pelosi was notable for provoking an escalation in US-China relations. We are talking about her visit to Taiwan on August 2, which the White House officially did not approve. As Biden said at the time, Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan does not seem like a good idea to him. However, Washington did not interfere with Pelosi. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted at a July 29 briefing that “a member of Congress is not being told where he can and cannot go.” In turn, the Chinese authorities sharply condemned the speaker’s visit to Taiwan, and after Pelosi’s departure, the Chinese armed forces launched large-scale exercises in the South China Sea.

In the November 8 midterm elections to the US Congress, the Democrats managed to retain the Senate by a minimal margin. According to the current results, the Democrats in the upper house remain 50 seats, the Republicans – 49. Even if the latter also manage to gain 50 seats, the Democrats will still have an advantage, since Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris leads the Senate. In the House of Representatives, the victory went to the Republicans with a slight margin – 218 seats against 210 for the Democrats.

Pelosi’s departure is connected with an intra-party conflict among the Democrats, explains the head of the Center for North American Studies at the IMEMO RAS, Victoria Zhuravleva. There was a serious front of progressives in the party, who expressed dissatisfaction with the activities of Pelosi and considered it an obstacle to reform. Now, adds Zhuravlyova, the Democrats need to take into account the visible pressure from the left and implement a leadership change. Such changes will primarily affect the domestic politics of the United States: progressives are primarily interested in socio-economic issues. Accordingly, one should not expect major changes in the US foreign policy with the departure of Pelosi, the expert concludes.

Left rhetoric is strengthening in the Democratic Party and the demand for new faces is growing, notes Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute for the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But, in his opinion, there will be no significant turns in Washington’s policy in the near future, a divided Congress will be too busy with scandals, and the Republican majority in the House will be busy maintaining its own unity. Such a congress will not be able to show legislative initiative except for issues on which the parties have a consensus.

Even if Pelosi stayed, the expert notes, in the next two years she would have to occupy the unenviable position of the leader of a minority that has almost no real power. But it is possible that her resignation is a deliberate political move, and Pelosi herself will return to her duties after the victory of the Democrats in the elections in 2024. Such an outcome, in which Biden manages to retain power, cannot be written off either, Vasiliev concludes.