President Barack Obama meets with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y. in the Oval Office, July 31, 2014. Kelly Ward, Executive Director of the DCCC, seated at right. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
At The American Conservative, James Pinkerton considers Nancy Pelosi’s legislative strategy, and who she may really be working for. He writes (abridged):
Nobody’s accusing Pelosi (Nancy) of being a conservative. Yet her legendary leftism does seem to be curiously concentrated in the lifestyle area—especially the San Francisco area.
For instance, there’s the Equality Act, which Pelosi identifies as a top legislative priority, even as Republicans have so far blocked it.
In the words of the Heritage Foundation’s Ryan T. Anderson, the bill would force employers to cover abortion, and medical professionals to perform or assist in performing abortions…force employers to pay for sex “reassignment” procedures in their health insurance plans, and require medical professionals to perform them. . . . force all schools and businesses to open their women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and sports teams to boys who “identify as” girls and to men who “identify as” women.
That’s a tall order of social liberalism, or, as some might prefer to describe it, left-wing hegemonism.
Indeed, bills such as the Equality Act are so egregious and extreme that one might begin to suspect that they serve a purpose beyond advancing the goals of Planned Parenthood and Drag Queen Story Hour.
And what purpose might that be? Perhaps Pelosi seeks to cloak her neoliberal economic agenda in the bright raiment of avant-garde sexual progressivism.
That would be sort of a neat trick, right? That is, Pelosi has carpentered a platform that includes planks favorable to both tycoons and transgenders—and yet the pro-trans plank is what generates the most headlines, pro and con.
To put it another way: the LGBTQ-friendly plank obscures the billionaire-friendly plank.
James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at The American Conservative.
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