Pelosi finally retires after forcing conservative politics on congressional Democrats for decades

I spent much of the last two days writing about Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York City mayor’s race and what it portends, but will have to return to that analysis in order to address an even bigger political earthquake: this morning’s announcement by former House speaker Nancy Pelosi that she will finally retire, after 38 years of relentless insider trading while serving as a critical enforcer of conservatism among Democrats in Congress.

“Journalism” gaslighting the public

Reading about Pelosi’s retirement announcement offered me a pleasant surprise this morning. As I dug through one after another hagiography published by news outlets across the political spectrum, however, I found myself first rolling my eyes, then gnashing my teeth, and eventually gaining a new level of disgust for whatever passes for “journalism” in this seemingly God forsaken country.

Professional writers are falling over each other heaping praise on Pelosi for being a trailblazing woman in Congress—ignoring her policy record, the ways she used her influence during her decades in Washington, and how she retained her seat the one time she faced a challenge from the Left.

To whatever vanishing extent they hadn’t already done so, journalists have shamelessly embraced the role of propagandists.

As long as they remain committed to covering up history, I’ll remain dedicated to exposing it.

The history that journalists cover up

As a matter of (unfortunate, but inescapable) fact, Nancy Pelosi is the particular reason why Congress has never held a hearing on any proposed universal healthcare program, even though the principle has been acknowledged as a basic human right everywhere around the world—except in the United States—for decades.

As the former Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Pelosi—as much as any single individual in the country—bears responsibility for insulating the bipartisan surveillance state from a transparent public debate that she, herself, has been ducking for nearly 40 years. The last time she defended her ideas against an informed opponent in public was in 1987.

When, as a young Muslim lawyer in the nation’s capital, I fought in the courts for marriage equality for LGBTQ couples starting in 2004, Pelosi was nowhere to be found. Despite representing the nation’s LGBTQ capital in Congress, she found it too risky to stick her neck out for her constituents. Nonetheless, LGBTQ organizations today treat her as if she’s the second coming of Christ.

It’s a bit like watching a pig being fed bacon.

That’s not the half of it. During an era when the global climate catastrophe grew to threaten—and possibly doom—life on Earth, Pelosi knelt on the neck of the future, refusing to consider adequate solutions and deriding the ideas of younger, more insightful legislators as a “Green New Dream.”

Meanwhile, she pocketed over $200 million accumulated by leveraging her office for inside information that would be illegal for anyone else to use as a basis for trading securities. Why is it legal for Members of Congress to do exactly what corporate executives are prohibited from? Because Members of Congress write the laws!

Pelosi enabled Trump while claiming to oppose him

Perhaps most revolting to me is how professional journalists continue to craft a false public narrative about Pelosi supposedly fighting Trump. In fact, she did everything possible to empower him, while embracing acts of meaningless political theater suggesting tension between them.

Pelosi tore up Trump’s State of the Union address! She sternly pointed at him across a table! She put on sunglasses while wearing a red coat while walking out of the White House!

None of that meant anything more than her donning kente cloth on the House floor after legislating policies for decades that filled America’s prisons with millions of men & women of color.

Every act that Donald Trump undertook in his first term was possible only because Pelosi chose to write the checks. As the Speaker of the House at a time when Democrats controlled it, she held the purse strings. Yet, despite her vaunted acts of theatrical “resistance,” she chose to fund every one of Trump’s programs, including the construction of ICE concentration camps, and the deployment of DHS goon squads to suppress constitutionally “protected” dissent in cities including Portland and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Trump did none of that alone. Each of those acts required Pelosi’s support, which she consistently offered as journalists looked the other way.

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The most compelling example of Pelosi’s supposed resistance to Trump was the pair of impeachment processes that she led late in his first term. But Pelosi stonewalled any attempt at impeachment until it became impossible for her to continue doing so—largely, I dare say, because I was facing her in a general election at the time and screaming bloody murder about the need for the president to be impeached.

When Pelosi changed her position on impeachment in the face of my critique, it was one of half a dozen issues on which she shifted positions during the three months between March 2020 (when I won the jungle primary on the eve of the COVID-19 outbreak) and July 2020 (when my public character assassination began on the eve of my birthday).

Impeachment might be the greatest legacy that Pelosi left—not because she allowed it to happen, but because she limited it, ensuring that the process would fail by blocking from it any consideration of the president’s notorious and expanding self-enrichment in public office. As I’ve written and said many times, Pelosi could not possibly enforce the Emoluments Clause, having violated it herself in broad daylight for several decades.

Bipartisan corruption in plain sight

How does a public figure go nearly 40 years without having to defend their ideas, or unrepentant continuing corruption?

It happens with the support of journalists ignorant about what white supremacy looks like in practice. In Pelosi’s case, they are ironically arrayed across the political spectrum.

Ultimately, political writers are as co-opted as the politicians around whom they cultivate cults of personality. Their project to falsely characterize partisan news grew most overt in 2024, when depicting Democrats as a supposed alternative to the right wing while a Democratic president actively enabled an ongoing genocide in Gaza.

I wrote about the revolting relationship between journalists and the genocidal corporate Democratic Party in the wake of the 2024 Democratic National Convention:

The tragedy of cults of personality

Shahid Buttar · August 25, 2024

In the wake of Joe Biden’s long overdue withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election race and his replacement by Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats celebrated themes at their national convention including unity, joy, and defending democracy. Buried under the enthusiasm, however, are some uncomfortable realities that most Democrats—and the journalists who enable them—have preferred to ignore.

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The co-optation of the press (and the courts) was made painfully clear to me years earlier, when I became the target of racist disinformation orchestrated to silence me after emerging as the only leftist to threaten Pelosi’s seat over the course of her entire 40-year career. Writers across the political spectrum published the various lies of politically motivated accusers, suppressed whistleblowers including women and women of color, ignored evidence of an orchestrated (and ultimately successful) attempt to rig an election by blocking a public debate, and ignored the conflicts of interests among figures who eventually reaped rewards from the Democratic establishment in exchange for their loyalty.

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Mutual support to & from the right wing

At the same time that centrist journalists contrive an artificial picture of Pelosi as a champion of the people, right wing journalists reciprocally demonize her as a leftist, even though she is the best thing that ever happened to the Republican party.

From one perspective, Pelosi’s leadership of Democrats over the last generation resembles a strategy not unlike that used by the Greeks in antiquity when infiltrating their enemies’ camp with the infamous Trojan horse. The Greeks had hidden their own troops inside what seemed like a gift, and then planned an attack on Troy from within, after the horse was brought inside the city walls.

Similarly, Pelosi led Democrats in Congress for years, all while supporting Republican policies, kneecapping leftists from me to Ilhan Omar, and controlling congressional procedure to block even the mere public consideration of progressive demands.

Don’t expect journalists to recognize any of this, however.

One might imagine that the principal source of disinformation in politics today is a maniacal president with no concern for the truth.

Unfortunately, the problem extends far beyond him, beyond his party, and even beyond politics to infect journalism itself.

Gratitude & Thanksgiving

What little hope I had for this country has faded every day for the past five years, especially when I reflect on what could have been possible if journalists embraced their stated values of transparency and accountability, rather than degrading those values by embracing white supremacy instead.

How much can change in just five years?

Shahid Buttar · November 11, 2024

Veterans Day is an apt day to recall not only the sacrifices made by veterans, but also the casual disregard with which Washington ignores their sacrifices, belittles their service, and even insults their memories even after they have secured military victories.

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Watching a country—and a political party, and a press establishment—so ignorant that they are willing to praise an unapologetically corrupt, dynastic authoritarian is enough to make me throw my hands in the air and wish upon this country everything that it unfortunately deserves.

I’m feeling more grateful than ever today for dodging the bullet of my aspiration to help defend democracy in Washington. Having done as much as anyone over the past two generations to hold accountable an oligarch who continues to enjoy the praise of a confused public, I find myself comforted by the prophetic words of Brother Malcolm X: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”