Don’t let impeachment make you think the Democrats all stand united behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
A controversial progressive running for congress accused the party boss of complicity in the deaths of thousands of Americans, the Blaze reported. Cenk Uygur, the far-left host of The Young Turks and current candidate for the House of Representatives, made the strange claim in a tweet bashing Pelosi’s lack of support for Medicare for All.
Matt Bevin appears to have taken a bribe to release a murderer. But I don’t know why the FBI is investigating. These bribes are perfectly legal in America. They’re called campaign contributions. When Nancy Pelosi took bribes from insurance companies and 45,000 people died …
— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) December 27, 2019
Uygur slams Pelosi
Pelosi played a major role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), paving the way for Obamacare to take root. But alas, many progressives, including Uygur, have challenged her leadership has insufficiently progressive.
In a fresh salvo against her supposed moderate-ness, Uygur — known for his hard-left positions — attacked Pelosi for failing to back universal health care. The progressive host suggested that Pelosi was somehow complicit in the deaths of 45,000 people every year.
Uygur was comparing Pelosi with former Republican Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, who is facing an investigation for controversial pardons of a killer and a child rapist. Many commentators blasted Uygur in the replies to the initial tweet, pointing out Pelosi’s role in passing the ACA and criticizing him for comparing the Democrat leader with Bevin.
“Yes. Enacting the biggest expansion in health coverage since Medicare is exactly like pardoning a murderer. Get professional help,” said one critic.
But Uygur didn’t back down: “I don’t know why you guys are in the Pelosi Protection Racket. Fact: Anything outside of #MedicareForAll is not Universal Health Care Coverage. Fact: 45,000 people a year die because we don’t have universal health care. Fact: Pelosi is fundamentally opposed to #MedicareForAll.”
Abandoned by Bernie
The row underscores a divide between the party establishment and hard-left progressives like Uygur, who has repeatedly attacked Pelosi as being too cozy with the system. The rift effectively prevented Democrats from putting on a united front for most of 2019, before impeachment rallied them together.
But the gulf remains, and it has continued to play out in the Democratic primary, with Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) carrying the torch for Medicare for All (in Warren’s case, pseudo-Medicare for All) against moderates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. The healthcare debate has exposed a chasm within the party, but most Democrats agree that Obamacare was a positive change, even if they say it didn’t go far enough.
But Ugyur, who is running for the California House seat recently vacated due to the resignation of Katie Hill, doesn’t seem to think so. And despite holding fervently hard-left views, he has not been able to win the sanction of progressive patriarch Bernie Sanders.
Sanders retracted his endorsement of Uygur amid controversy over deleted blog posts for which he has apologized, which critics said were indicative of misogyny and homophobia. Uygur, who said he made the comments when he was a conservative, has also faced controversy in the past for denying the reality of the Armenian genocide, a position he later reversed.
With this kind of infighting on the left, who needs Donald Trump?
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