Nancy Pelosi goes to Miami and finds herself in for a surprise
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi didn't quite get the welcome reception she expected when she went to Cuban-filled Miami to campaign for Democrat Donna Shalala for Congress. According to the Washington Post:
A group of hecklers angrily confronted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi during a campaign stop for a congressional hopeful in South Florida, cursing at her and calling her a communist in a moment that was captured on video.
You can see the video here.
And you can see that the Democratic Party's big honcho in Congress was more or less caught off guard. She didn't expect protests.
Now, the Miami Cubans, who constituted this group at least partially, are an extraverted lot. They're famous for talking with their hands. A little culture shock is not a bad thing.
But I have mixed feelings about this event, given that Democrats have perfected the art of harassment and violence to such virtuosity. On the negative side, the group used foul and incendiary language and banged on the door to Pelosi's event in what Pelosi could arguably say was a threatening gesture. That the group was called the Proud Boys, a weird name that sounds as though it comes out of the working-class slums of London, sounds a little inorganic, because the group first came to news attention from a confrontation with Antifa leftists in New York recently, suggesting some professional agitation. There is reason to be wary, because obnoxious confrontation, rather than peaceful protest, tends to drive away voters.
But some things were gotten right: they didn't engage in the sort of things the left engages in, such as poop-flinging, tire-burning, rock-throwing, vandalism, or punches and kicks; they just yelled a lot and let the woman pass. Also, the group rightly targeted Pelosi, who's going to be calling every shot and every vote should the Democrats retake the House in November, which draws attention to that fact. Also, the chants that she was a communist and that "socialism sucks" were rather the right vernacular things to say to her, given her awful left-wing record.
The interesting thing is that it had to be unexpected. Many of the participants were Miami Cubans who know communism firsthand and don't like what they are seeing coming from her or her little cat's-paws in Congress. And by coming out, they show that Miami Cubans, long dismissed as a non-element in Florida politics, a thing of the past, seem to have some energized people who may matter.
Let's hope it's a portent of bad things for Pelosi's Jurassic left come November.