“Don’t mess with me,” Nancy Pelosi warned reporter James Rosen last week when he asked the House speaker if she hated the president. “I don’t hate anybody,” Pelosi replied, explaining that she was a Catholic who prays for President Trump all the time.
The day before, Pelosi mounted the speaker’s balcony and announced: “Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders, and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.”
That followed a day of testimony from Noah Feldman of Harvard Law school, Michael Gerhardt of North Carolina University School of Law, and the understated Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School. Their testimony was a mini-Mueller hearing with only three angry Democrats. The Republicans’ only selection was Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but saw no grounds for impeaching President Trump.
Turley warned Democrats that if they move to impeach, “it’s your abuse of power.” Even so, Pelosi made the move to impeach she had telegraphed earlier in the week from a United Nations climate conference in Spain.
“By coming here, we want to say to everyone we are still in, the United States is still in,” Pelosi said. What the United States was “still in,” was the climate accord from which President Trump had withdrawn.
Pelosi’s presumption to speak for the United States foreshadowed her contention on Thursday that Trump was “once again” trying to corrupt the election. That restated the Democrats’ belief that Trump is an illegitimate president who stole the 2016 election and should therefore be removed from office. If that arrogance leaves anyone wondering where Pelosi is coming from, she dropped a hint in November.
“Thanksgiving is an all-American holiday,” Pelosi said in a statement, “when our country recognizes the great blessings that have been bestowed upon our nation.” The Bible’s wisdom in the Book of Ecclesiastes, Pelosi explains, “is echoed in the song ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ by Pete Seeger.” He is the only person named in her message, without any back story.
Seeger joined the Communist Party in 1942, after the Stalin-Hitler Pact and in 1945 became director of People’s Songs, Stalinist evangelism wrapped in populist pieties. Though not as talented as American Stalinists Paul Robeson and Lillian Hellman, Seeger never flagged in zeal. In his twilight years Seeger joined the campaign to “Free the Cuban Five,” operatives of the Communist Castro regime he admired. Still, the strumming Stalinist is not Pelosi’s only star.
“Harry Bridges was arguably the most significant labor leader of the twentieth century,” Pelosi stated in the Congressional Record in 2001, on the 100th anniversary of Bridges’ birth. Bridges was “beloved by the workers of this nation, and recognized as one of the most important labor leaders in the world” and his International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union was “the most progressive union of the time.”
In reality, Bridges was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party USA, directly approved by the Kremlin. Approximately a decade after that revelation, from Soviet archives, Pelosi praised Bridges as a good “progressive,” a term of great significance.
The Communist Party had been running candidates in American elections since the 1920s but in 1948 and 1952, the CPUSA backed the Progressive Party, which they controlled. Bay Area lawyer Vincent Hallinan was the Progressive Party candidate for president in 1952, and Nancy Pelosi is a veteran cheerleader for the Hallinan family.
By 1968, the Communist Party was again fielding candidates and in 1976 the Stalinist Gus Hall got a vote from college student John Brennan, a future CIA boss. As Yakov Smirnoff might say, what a country! In 1979, Angela Davis won the Lenin Peace Prize and in 1980 and 1984 Davis joined the Communist ticket as Gus Hall’s running mate. Ronald Reagan crushed them, and as Marxist.org notes, after that the CPUSA urged voters to support the Democratic Party. The influence still shows.
Like the Communists, the Democrats maintain a single party line on most issues and mouth the same slogans in unison. On the leadership side, Democrats ignore younger moderates and opt for Pelosi, in Congress since 1987. The longtime champion of Harry Bridges and Vincent Hallinan invokes Pete Seeger on Thanksgiving 2019. Such Stalinist signaling helps explain Pelosi’s pedigree, status and leadership style.
The soi-disant prayerful Catholic, 79, brooks no opposition. On every issue, in effect, Pelosi tells Democrats “don’t mess with me” and they usually fall in line without a whimper, let alone a bang. At her demand, they pass an atrocity like the Affordable Care Act, without knowing what’s in it. For this crowd, Nancy always knows best.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment jihad shapes up as her stiffest test. As President Trump says, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.