Democrats (at last) in Array
Speaker Nancy Pelosi steps down, and the Democratic Party steps up, in a critical show of unity.
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At this point in 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just defended control of the House despite a net loss of 11 seats, giving Democrats a slim four-seat majority. Pundits openly fretted that Pelosi would find her narrow majority ungovernable. In the Senate, all eyes were on Georgia, where Democrats hoped to wrest control of the Senate from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Cable news outlets were already dusting off their “Democrats in Disarray” chyrons.
The press wasn’t shy about keeping the country updated on Democrats’ internal troubles. In the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus was already organizing to force a controversial floor vote on Medicare for All. The Washington Post reported with barely-hidden satisfaction that a divided CPC was riven with infighting about how to deploy their political influence in the newly-Democratic chamber. President-elect Biden was already drawing headlines about the clashes between progressives and centrists over the makeup of his economic team. And rising star Conor Lamb was holding forth to the New York Times about how the party needed to shift quickly back to the holy church of centrism if it wanted to survive.
What a difference two years makes.
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