While U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has espoused progressive ideals for decades, she has nonetheless regularly been involved in reported conflicts with some of her party’s more radical leftists.
That division was on full display this week in the backlash she received after announcing her endorsement of Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), who is currently running to unseat incumbent Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), as reported by Breitbart.
“No one gets to complain”
Some critics within the Democratic Party felt that the veteran California lawmaker was being hypocritical considering her prior opposition to primary challenges.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has reportedly been involved in previous squabbles with Pelosi, was among those who sounded off on Twiter.
“No one gets to complain about primary challenges again,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, going on to note that her party’s leaders were apparently not concerned about a Democratic challenger against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a fellow member of a progressive group of freshmen lawmakers known as “the squad.”
The apparent bad blood between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez was the subject of significant media attention last summer.
At that time, the junior New York congresswoman implied that Pelosi’s disapproval of the squad was motivated by racism, given that those associated with the group are all women of color.
“Entirely different standard”
Of course, she was not alone in calling out Pelosi for her perceived hypocrisy. Rachael Rollins, the progressive district attorney for Boston, Massachusetts, issued a similar statement on the matter.
Wondering why Pelosi “can insert herself” in the Massachusetts race while Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) was not given a platform to address the Democratic National Convention this week, Rollins went on to question the substance of the speaker’s endorsement.
“Nancy, the future of the Democratic Party is NOT a privileged, legacy candidate,” she tweeted before giving Markey her endorsement.
Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the political action committee Justice Democrats, tweeted that Pelosi’s “move reeks of hypocrisy: the party is setting one standard for progressives and one entirely different standard for the establishment.”
Even as a convention played out with the intent of unifying the party, it is clear that Democrats are far from finding common ground between its warring factions.
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