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By Sean Yoes
AFRO Baltimore Editor
[email protected]
When President Barack Obama moved to provide healthcare for tens of millions of Americans (an accomplishment that eluded several presidents for about a century) during his first term, he literally put his money on Baltimore native Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. And she delivered with toughness and unmatched political acuity.
Now, confronted with the most lawless, obtuse man ever to occupy the Oval Office, the country has turned to Pelosi to check an unhinged Donald John Trump. And Pelosi delivered.
Again.
And it was Pelosi, who in the aftermath of the perilous impeachment process put the proper respect on the name of another Baltimore political icon, the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.
“One person who isn’t with us physically in this room, but I know is present, was present all day for the deliberations, our former…Oversight Committee Chair, our North Star, Elijah Cummings,” said Pelosi. “He said, “When the history books are written about this tumultuous era, I want them to show that I was among those in the House of Representatives who stood up to lawlessness and tyranny.””
“He also said, somewhat presciently, “When we are dancing with the angels the question will be, what did you do to make sure we kept our democracy entact? We did all we could Elijah,” Pelosi said. “We passed the two articles of impeachment. The president is impeached.”
With those four words, “The president is impeached,” Pelosi, former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro’s baby girl, has perhaps cemented her place in America’s political pantheon as the most consequential Speaker of the House in U.S. history.
At the beginning of the year (“Baltimore’s Nancy D Has Trump’s Number”), I wrote the following about Pelosi and her transcendent political career in this column:
There is no American politician who possesses more guile than Pelosi; the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., (the 39th Mayor of Baltimore, 1947-1959) and the sister of Thomas D’Alesandro III, (the 43rd Mayor of Baltimore, 1967-1971). American city machine politics is literally in her blood and she took her Mobtown skill set and blazed a pioneering pathway of her own. She moved to San Francisco in the 1970’s and worked her way through the California political menagerie; she is currently the 17 term Congresswoman representing California’s 12 Congressional District, which consists mostly of the city and county of San Francisco.
On Jan. 3, Pelosi, the first and only woman to be elected to Speaker of the House in history, seized the gavel for the second time. It is the first time that feat has been accomplished since the legendary Sam Rayburn of Texas did it in 1955.
As we close out the year, we are witnessing Pelosi elevate her game in real time and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Instead of acquiescing to “Moscow” Mitch McConnell, her counterpart in the Senate (and as formidable politically as Pelosi), and the increasingly unraveling Trump, Pelosi is holding onto the Articles of Impeachment crafted by the House. And this tactic is driving Trump in particular to dizzying heights of madness and mania.
For the people of Baltimore, Pelosi’s role as Trump’s chief adversary (and clearly his superior) takes on even greater significance.
Afterall, the despicable impeached president attacked our city, our people and specifically Cummings, our great warrior.
What Trump will ultimately figure out is we take stuff real personal and we never forget. I know Pelosi, who spoke movingly at Cummings’ funeral won’t ever forget how Trump treated her friend and colleague.
Recently, when McConnell, the self-proclaimed “grim reaper of the Senate,” suggested Pelosi was “too afraid” to send him the articles of impeachment, her clap back was vintage Baltimore.
“I’m never afraid,” she said.
“And I’m rarely surprised.”
Sean Yoes is the AFRO’s Baltimore editor and author of Baltimore After Freddie Gray: Real Stories From One of America’s Great Imperiled Cities.
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