Nancy Pelosi Didn’t Take the Same Approach With Members of Her Own Party

Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) speak at a press conference at the Capitol on July 15, 2019. (Holly Kellum/NTD)

Commentary

President Donald Trump’s recent tweets have led some congressional Democrats to call for his impeachment. Some in Congress have called him racist, while others have alleged that Trump is trying to “make America white again,” because of his proposed “citizenship” census question.

Of course, these allegations are nonsensical in light of the many benefits that Trump has conferred to people of various socio-economic groups and races, the state of Israel, and others. Still, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced July 15 that House Democrats were drafting a resolution to condemn Trump’s recent tweets, which they subsequently voted on.

What’s interesting, however, is that Pelosi failed to take the same corrective action when members of her own party made comments that, unlike Trump’s, were blatantly “racist,” or “anti-Semitic.”

Anti-Semitism

Earlier this year, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) suggested that U.S. supporters of Israel have an “allegiance to a foreign country.” These comments were denounced by some as being anti-Semitic, because they apparently alluded to the belief that anyone supportive of Israel harbors dual loyalty.

At the time, Pelosi didn’t feel that Omar should be singled out for her comment, despite the fact that Omar had previously made additional inflammatory comments, in which she suggested that pro-Israel lobbying groups were buying lawmaker support for Israel.

In May, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) caused controversy when she said that thinking about what happened after the Holocaust gave her “kind of a calming feeling.”

“There’s always kind of a calming feeling, I tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors—Palestinians—who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports. And, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And, I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways, but they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right? And it was forced on them,” she said on a Yahoo! News podcast.

When Republicans called on House Democrats to bring up a resolution that specifically identified members and formally condemned anti-Semitism, Pelosi waved off such requests. To add insult to injury, according to The Hill, “Pelosi called on President Trump and GOP lawmakers to apologize to Tlaib ..., alleging they took her remarks out of context,” after they denounced her comments as anti-Semitic. Incidentally, Tlaib’s comments were made on or around Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Double Standard

Why would Pelosi treat such vile comments from members of her own party with such fragility? How can Pelosi compare the president’s recent comments to those of some within her own party? While the president’s comments could have been more artfully crafted, he was simply making the point that people who don’t like our country are free to leave. His comments pertained more to patriotism than to race.

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) understood the double standard that was at play after Tlaib’s comments went generally unpunished.

“The Speaker of the House, and Majority Leader believe that we should be apologizing to Rashida Tlaib ... I believe that the anti-Israel hate that’s infiltrated American politics and college campuses and the halls of Congress is wrong, that we should be doing more to identifying and crush it,” Zeldin told The Hill in May.

“And this tactic of promoting hate as a member of Congress, and immediately playing victim, accusing anyone who has a problem with your words and your hate and calling them racist, sexist or Islamophobic even though they make no reference to your race, religion or gender is greatly disappointing and shocking. And the Speaker is making a play call, making a selfish play call for her gavel to not identify and confront and crush it and instead be led by the radical left because she doesn’t know how to lead it.”

Zeldin added that if Tlaib had been a Republican, Pelosi and the other Democrats would have been “absolutely flipping out.”

“[All] we would have been doing today on the floor would have been condemning with speech after speech after speech from one Democrat after another, insane lighting their hair on fire,” he said.

Pelosi’s response then, and now, lends strong support to Zeldin’s conclusion. The uproar among congressional Democrats over Trump’s recent tweets clearly reflects a double standard and is purely political. They utilized it as a desperately needed “talking point” to temporarily deflect the public’s attention away from the infighting occurring within their party.

Interestingly, House Democrats even overruled House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who ruled that Pelosi’s comments on the House floor (referring to Trump’s comments as “racist”) were out of order and should be stricken from the record.

In a perfect world, Trump wouldn’t have made these comments, which some consider distasteful. Rather than making potentially controversial comments (which is tantamount to feeding congressional Democrats and their media mouthpieces a juicy piece of steak), the president should continue to promote his successes and to explain why the Democrats’ policies will hurt America.

Elad Hakim is a writer, commentator, and attorney. His articles have been published in The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, The Western Journal, American Thinker, and other online publications.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.