 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently spoke at the Aspen ideas climate conference in Miami, Florida And she had a message to the Republican Party, which was um a wee bit tone-deaf given everything that's happening currently in the country Take a look. I mean the fossil fuel industry is They weigh in so significantly I mean how could it be That nobody on the Senate side cares and the Senate cares about Climate Some of them do and they talk about it when it comes to the votes. It just isn't there They're just aren't there. So rather than saying well, we have to defeat them. No, let's just try to persuade them. I Want the Republican Party to take back the party take it back to where you were where you cared about a woman's right to choose You care about the environment I am Nancy Pelosi saying this country needs a strong Republican Party and we do not a cult but a strong Counterpoint know it does not we do not need a strong Republican Party We have a very very strong Republican Party so strong that they are now imposing their Theocratic beliefs on all of the country and they're not currently even in power. You know what we need You know, it would be really nice Nancy Pelosi is if we had a strong Democratic Party an Opposition to fight against these fascists who are ruining this country destroying democracy stripping away voting rights Attacking marginalized people day after day after day in state legislatures across the country if we had a strong Opposition to the Republican Party, then we'd be in better shape I don't know what she expects the Republican Party to be stronger than it is currently what because they have a bunch of Psychopaths that have taken over their party that they need to be strong and take it back from them This is who they are Nancy Pelosi. You just don't want to accept it. This is who they've always been This is the Republican Party It's not as if you know, they used to be good as she suggests and they just turned bad They've always been this way. Have you not been around? I mean she's existed much longer than me Does she not remember all of the things that happened throughout the Reagan era the way that Republicans have? Consistently targeted our social safety and that stripped away the new deal benefits that our previous generations have benefited from I mean, it's preposterous that the Speaker of the House that the leader of the Democratic Party would say we need a strong Republican Party when they are Absolutely strong. They're stronger than the Democratic Party. That's why we're in this predicament currently So she says a rather than saying we have to defeat them. No, let's just try to persuade them Let's just try to persuade them. This is what you've all been doing for a very long time Nancy and how's that paying off? They just voted to overturn Roe v Wade and they're going to go even further. They're essentially criminalizing trans existence in certain states They will continue to strip away LGBTQ plus rights women's rights. So how are you going to persuade them? They've already made up their minds. You're not going to persuade them to do jack fucking shit You can't even persuade people in your own party to go along with your agenda. So how are you going to get Republicans to go along with it? I mean, how many times are they going to? Suggest that they can work with Republicans and convince them and then have Republicans spit in their faces and then turn around and say Well, we should try that one more time at least how about you actually fight as a Democrat She's currently campaigning for Henry Kwayar an anti-abortion Democrat And this anti-abortion Democrat is running against the progressive woman who Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Party leadership refused to endorse And this supposedly pro-life individual denied maternity leave to one of his staffers And then she ended up having a stillborn a child as a result of this supposed pro-life individual who she's campaigning for Why don't you worry about the Democratic Party and how you all only fight when it's against the left and Stop worrying about the Republican Party. They are psychopaths. They are extremists and this is who they've always been but they She doesn't understand like she actually thinks that they were good before she says I want the Republican Party to take back the party where you were when you cared about a woman's right to choose When the fuck was that Nancy Pelosi? When was that was there ever a point in history where the Republican Party was actually pro-choice? When was that? When you cared about the environment again, when did Republicans care about the environment Nancy Pelosi? I mean the most that you can say is that Richard Nixon created the environmental protection agency But that is the sole thing that Republicans have ever done with regard to protecting the environment and when they're in power They fuck up the EPA they install fossil fuel shills into that position to make sure that the environment isn't actually being protected So in what deluded world is she living in to think that in the past Republicans weren't that bad They've always been bad Nancy Pelosi. It's just that you're a Republican yourself in actuality like you're conservative You used to be progressive. There was a world where Nancy Pelosi was very progressive before where she supported single-payer healthcare But now she sees that you know, well, I'm a conservative and Republicans are to my right So it must be that they were good before no, that's not actually the case They were never good. They were always demons They were always ghouls and you enabled them you were complicit in all of their attacks on us by not fucking Fighting by saying things like this to legitimize them. They should never be legitimized These are fascists and trying to persuade fascists isn't going to go very well for you Nancy Pelosi It's not going well currently and because we don't have a strong Democratic party We're in this situation where our democracy is essentially dying in front of us And there's almost nothing that we can do at this point And this was all explained in a brilliant Twitter thread by Bryn Tannehill who writes just a reminder because of non-proportional Representation and demographics in order to break the filibuster and overcome the r plus six to seven bias in the Senate Democrats would need to win three straight elections by 19 points to make abortion legal Nationally they need to win the national vote several times in a row by five plus points to have a shot at breaking even most Forecasters look at the 2024 landscape and don't think there's much of a chance for Democrats to hold the Senate past the 2024 election Mitch McConnell has promised that if Republicans regain control of the Senate in 2022 that he will not let Biden put any more Supreme Court justices on the bench You would keep seats open for up to six years if he had to starting in January of 2023 There is probably no meaningful hope of changing the composition of the court It is estimated that the US is already sky-high maternal mortality rate will rise by 21% as a result of Dobbs v. Jackson This is the current case about the Mississippi law where the Supreme Court will be overturning Roe v. Wade by the way Most states are so gerrymandered that changing the composition of the state legislature is effectively impossible The GOP has been able to maintain super majorities in the Wisconsin legislature despite losing elections by up to 10 points Because SCOTUS has approved political gerrymanders in most states that ban abortion There is no realistic hope of reversing these bands by voting out the incumbents who put the bands in place only 8% of US House seats are competitive due to gerrymandering a few states allow voter initiated ballot initiatives or state constitutional amendments However, SCOTUS has allowed state legislatures to effectively overturn them Example Floridians voted to restore the voting rights of felons overwhelmingly the gerrymandered state legislature turned around and passed the law Requiring felons to prove they have paid all court fees before rights can be restored problem is records in Florida are so sloppy that it is Effectively impossible to do so this requirement is as fair as a 1950s literacy test to vote and thus the ballot initiative was thwarted by politicians who cannot be voted out of office Aided and abetted by a SCOTUS put in place by presidents who lost the popular vote There are very few good options for bringing back abortion rights after Dobbs v. Jackson The US political and legal system is so broken that it is completely immune to the will of the people a lot of legal-minded folks Can see the writing on the wall and the thread goes on she explains how essentially Republicans have taken this already flawed system, which Disproportionally favors them and they've molded it even more in their image They've made it so that way if you're dissatisfied with government you really don't have a good way of Affecting change in the United States, which is supposed to be a democracy So our voting powers have diminished substantially even though You know if you look at demographics if you look at the population of the US and what we believe Well, it should be the case that Republicans never get elected But they've broken our system and they've molded it in their favor and Nancy Pelosi is saying we need a strong Republican Party as if we don't already have a very strong Republican Party and The response from Democrats is we'll vote harder Well, you didn't pass voting rights the house might have passed voting rights So Nancy Pelosi gets a pass here, but she can actually put pressure on Biden I'm sure she has his ear as the speaker of the house to say hey Maybe you should try fighting once again to get rid of the filibuster Maybe put more pressure on mansion and cinema because we're not going to have another opportunity to pass voting rights Once we lose the House or Senate if we lose the House or Senate this fall. That's it It's over They secure power at least one branch of government for the foreseeable future and then what you're just gonna keep telling us to vote harder We can't keep voting harder You can't beat fascists by voting them out of office when they've rigged the fucking system in their favor So no, we don't need a strong Republican Party. Having a strong Republican Party is what we have now and it's been catastrophic They're so strong that they're imposing their will on everyone We need a strong opposition party to protect us from the breakdown of democracy and not fundraise off of it Not see the overturning of Roe v. Wade as an opportunity to raise money off of your constituents who are scared right now We need you to fight right now We need you to stop talking about their what the Republicans were or should be and Actually lead your fucking party Do you enjoy watching independent news shows like the humanist report the rational national and the majority report but often times YouTube doesn't deliver our Videos to your subscription box. Well, I've got a solution for you It's called the opt-out app available right now in the iOS app store coming soon to Android Opt-out is an app made by and for progressives where they take all of the most popular independent news shows and they put them in one Convenient location you'll find all your favorites on there like the humanist report the rational national the majority report and the app is updated multiple times per Day so your news feed is constantly up to date if you enjoy watching independent media This is the app to get downloaded today