More Democrats Need to Follow Pelosi’s Example and Retire

More than almost anyone else in Washington, Nancy Pelosi earned the right to consider herself indispensable. As speaker of the House — the first woman to hold that title — she was masterful at holding a fractious and heterogenous Democratic coalition together. Without her, we probably wouldn’t have the Affordable Care Act. She regularly showed excellent judgment, including on the Iraq war, which she was one of few leading Democrats to vote against. During Donald Trump’s first term, she proved skilled at getting under his skin, regularly goading him to lash out like a petulant child. Trump’s outbursts, one senior Republican complained to Politico in 2019, play “right into her hands.”