electoralism

Fuck Pelosi for a thousand different reasons over the course of decades but she was far and away the person most vocally calling for him to step down.

To me, Pelosi's public statements mean very little. Pelosi is not an outside pressure-group begging for the party to take action. She is one of the apex shot-callers in the party, along with Schumer, the Clintons, and Obama. Although she passed the torch of House Speaker to Hakeem Jefferies, she remains a fixture of the House of Representatives, and surely had inside knowledge of Biden's condition.

Here's a vignette chronicled in WSJ (archive.ph) (July 21, 2024)

President Biden had just finished trying to persuade a group of congressional Democrats to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill when Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, took the microphone.

In 30 minutes of remarks on Capitol Hill, Biden had spoken disjointedly and failed to make a concrete ask of lawmakers, according to Democrats in the room. After he left, a visibly frustrated Pelosi told the group she would articulate what Biden had been trying to say, one lawmaker said.

“It was the first time I remember people pretty jarred by what they had seen,” recalled Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), who would go on to mount an unsuccessful primary challenge against the president.

That was October 2021. That month was the last time Biden met with the House Democratic caucus on the Hill regarding legislation.

They knew the man's brain was toast in 2021. On at least this one occasion, Pelosi was personally involved in performing Biden's duties after he had proven incapable. They waited two more years, until the "primary" was over, to get rid of him. I think this was a deliberate choice. She WOULD have used the 25th amendment process if she needed to, but there is a reason this showdown only came to a head within weeks of the convention. They DID NOT want to give their constituents any opportunity to re-popularize the social democratic policies which dominated the 2020 primary campaign, or turn it into a referendum on Israel. They DID NOT want to risk allowing a charismatic progressive to seize their party apparatus by the reigns the way Sanders almost had in 2020.

When the Democratic Party elects an insider, this is supposed to foreclose the possibility of any change for eight years. This is what would have happened if Kamala won. Like in 2024, there would be no primaries in 2028, because "you don't primary an incumbent." Then the VP is supposed to take over for another eight years. We are absolutely, positively not supposed to have the kind of influence over rhetoric that we had in 2016-2020. This only happens when the party finds itself absolutely leaderless, like it did in 2016 (Obama termed out, Clinton utterly discredited, Biden off being sad somewhere). Nothing gives them more heartburn than having to pretend that they give a shit about our health and well-being. They much prefer to say and promise nothing while they cut deals with the biggest fish in finance.