In this post, I link to and excerpt from the Vox article, The time Nancy Pelosi saved Social Security, By
All that follows is from the above resource.
To people whose main reference point for politics is the late Obama years, the 2016 presidential campaign, and the post-Bernie Sanders blossoming of left-wing politics in the United States, Nancy Pelosi seems — and, indeed, is — an establishment figure.
But for those whose political horizons go back a bit longer, she stands out as the exemplary progressive among powerful Democrats.
She had a role in stiffening President Obama’s spine after Scott Brown threw the future of the Affordable Care Act into doubt, and her opposition to the Iraq War came at a time when the party’s other legislative leaders (Reps. Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, Sen. Harry Reid) and presidential aspirants (John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton) were backing it.
But more fundamentally, her reputation as a shrewd and effective leader dates back to the huge fight over privatizing Social Security in the mid-aughts. At the time, the Democratic Party’s fundamental political position looked more precarious — and Pelosi successfully held her party together against chipping away at one of the greatest party achievements in American history.
All this helps explain why the anti-Pelosi sentiment is among a fairly marginal group of centrist Democrats who are completely detached from the anti-establishment movement on the left.
See the rest of the article for details on then House minority leader successfully opposed then President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security.
We all owe a deep debt of gratitude to Speaker Pelosi.
