After eight years President Barack Obama will be leaving the White House. Going with him will be Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama, and all of the current Secretaries of the Administration. Due to Secretary Clinton’s defeat, many of her supporters are already leaving the DNC (or will be shortly forced out). While most are focused with dread on who President Trump will pick to fill the slots in his administration, it is important that Democrats realize that a similar transition is occurring within the Party.
This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Countless pundits have now declared, a civil war within the Democratic Party is looming…
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These and many more articles seem focused on the potential all out slugfest that is about to consume the Democratic Party. While obviously this could be a bad thing for the Democratic Party, it does give a chance for a problem to be addressed.
Just days after the election, numerous Democratic women signed a letter asking Nancy Pelosi to stay on as Minority Leader. This is a mistake. No one would consider running Secretary Clinton in 2020 again and the Democrats should not do the same with their leadership in the House or the Senate.
In the United Kingdom, when a Party Leader loses the election they resign. This allows for new leaders to make their case to the electorate. Ed Milliband, the leader of the Labour Party, resigned after the lose of the General Election in 2015 so that a new election could be held to determine the next leader of the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn was subsequently elected leading to a sea change in the Labour Party’s direction.
Although Nancy Pelosi has accomplished much in her career as a public servant, it is time for new leadership. She offers nothing new to an electorate that will be vital if Democrats want to stop the efforts of the Trump administration. Too many already have an opinion of Nancy Pelosi and it does not appear to be positive.
In a YouGov poll conducted on Nov. 1st, 51% of those asked had an unfavorable opinion of the Minority Leader.
And this isn’t an anomaly as the chart above indicates.
The Democrats cannot take the fight to Donald Trump with leaders who provide nothing but the status quo. Congressman Keith Ellison is a great start, but by no means should Democrats accept the return of leaders who have offered nothing new. If the Democrats want a hope of retaking the House in 2018, they must offer leadership that is exciting, young, full of new ideas, but most importantly does not represent the status quo.