At his contentious town hall meeting held in Amesbury recently, Seth Moulton compared the now nearly dead rebellion against Nancy Pelosi to the Conservative Party (!) intra-party coup against Maggie Thatcher that was successful in bringing down Thatcher. While just being an odd choice of analogy to begin with, it is also reveals what Moulton got wrong in his attempt to bring Pelosi down. This requires just a bit of history. . .
By 1990, the year the Tories brought down their most electorally successful leader in the modern era, Thatcher has become the deeply unpopular character that, even in death, she still remains in vast swaths of Britain. Against the advice of her own Chancellor of the Exchequer, she introduced the Poll Tax, which provoked fierce opposition in the streets and betrayed her own image of a tax-cutter (in fact it did amount to a tax cut, just for the upper-middle and upper classes). This was coupled with the fact that Thatcher herself had seen her own ego become outsized – provoking Europe, provoking the rank-and-file, provoking her own once devoutly loyal cabinet. Ultimately, this led to the resignation first of the Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, and in much more dramatic fashion, the Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe. Howe had been, at one time, Thatcher’s most trusted minister, but in a speech before Parliament explaining his resignation, he essentially took an axe to Thatcher’s leadership, prompting a vote of no-confidence and a leadership election. Thatcher, though, was so cut off from her backbenchers that she didn’t believe in the strength of the impending coup. Instead of phoning and reassuring those backbenchers, she went to Europe, confident her party would retain her. Her challenger was Michael Heseltine, himself a member of her cabinet, and a man of heft – someone that “made sense” to lead the country in the eyes of just enough Tory MPs. Thatcher won the first round ballot, but not with enough votes to prevent a second round vote (she was just four short). She resigned shortly thereafter and Heseltine eventually gave way to John Major.
So how does this compare, as Moulton claimed it did, to the plot against Pelosi? Beyond it being an inner party coup against a woman who has been in leadership for over 10 years, it really doesn’t. Pelosi is, by name, unpopular when polled – but so is Mitch McConnell, and the Republicans aren’t replacing him anytime soon. Unlike Thatcher, Pelosi is still widely popular amongst her colleagues. Unlike Thatcher, Pelosi keeps in close touch with her backbenchers and knows their districts, their needs, and their wants. Unlike Thatcher, the key policy of the day, healthcare for Pelosi versus the Poll Tax for Thatcher, is a net positive for Pelosi: people rebuffed Trump at the polls, yes, but they also made clear their vote was also to protect the ACA. And, most critically, unlike Thatcher, Pelosi’s critics have amounted to a hodgepodge of centrist Members and freshmen lawmakers. There isn’t anyone involved that had the same comparable stature of Lawson, Howe, or Heseltine. The mood is also clearly moving away from how Moulton envisions the party – his outreach and messaging to the left of the party has been, at least publicly, virtually non-existent.
I think Seth can bounce back from this, but it has been a very bad and naïve demonstration of politics. His call for new leadership should not go entirely unheeded – there are many capable Members of the Democratic caucus that ought to be elevated. But despite his own personal bona-fides (and his service to the country is undoubtedly impressive and something I, at least, am personally thankful for), Moulton may have overrated his own personal ability to whip against one of the great masters of the modern U.S. Congress. And it seems to have begun with his own misreading of history.
I’m not sure Seth is enough of a deep thinker to understand the actual circumstances of Thatcher’s ‘ouster’. Someone told him they got rid of an old lady in England, and that’s the limit of his knowledge.
I didn’t remember that Thatcher had become unpopular. One time Heseltine filled in for John Major during PMQs and got needled mercilessly by Labour of all people for his role in her ouster. I mentioned this to a friend who follows British politics and commented it seemed odd that Labour seemed to be complaining that he brought down Thatcher and his response was that it was because Thatcher was universally loved.
I’m definitely skeptical of that view. The line today is that Tony Blair’s New Labour operated in a world where Thatcherism moved the center of gravity in British politics to the right. Before Corbyn, the idea that Labour would re-visit its now infamous 1983 manifesto (“the longest suicide note in history”) was a non-starter. So, in that way, her legacy was quite well preserved.
But there is no doubt that by 1990, Thatcher was in serious trouble with the general public. Guardian/ICM polls from the Spring of 1990 had her trailing Neil Kinnock’s Labour by between 17-21%. This also contradicts Moulton given that Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats are about to set the record for House “popular vote.”
Obviously, no analogy is perfect and none prove a point, they only serve to explain. In this case it’s just that there is no plan for succession in the Democratic leadership. This is not about left or right ideology and suggestion that it is has been made to muddy the waters. It’s about the future of the Democratic caucus, not its past. By the end of this next Congress the three Democratic leaders will be octogenarians and will have served in their current positions for a dozen years. There is no plan for the future beyond the next two years. There is no person in the current leadership who can articulate a vision for the Democratic caucus in the same way that Paul Ryan did for the GOP. There is clearly a need for change and for a deal to be made that allows Pelosi to remain Speaker and for the Leader’s position to be open for a floor vote.
The Leader position doesn’t come to a floor vote. That is decided within the caucus only.
Paul Ryan is an excellent example of what not to do.
“… will be octogenarians and will have served in their current positions for a dozen years …”
and the sun will rise in the east all next week. Completely irrelevant to anything.
I enjoy the Australian tradition of tossing out a leader without an election, but the fact is I can’t recall a leader being dispatched after winning. And Pelosi won this election. If he had been looking to get a new leader two years ago, that would have made sense, but now, before she’s even had the chance to mess it up? Foolish. Not sure what Seth’s angle is, short of pissing off many of his own constituents. But like Sarah Palin, he needs to realize that having a two-sentence deep understanding of global politics isn’t sufficient in Massachusetts.
Oh, and let’s not forget Stevie Lynch, the most inexplicable Massachusetts congressman. That slimeball signed the letter, too, and just because he’s not as mouthy as Seth doesn’t keep him from being a problem.