House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made the terrible mistake of declaring that the country needs a “strong Republican Party.”

While speaking at the Aspen Ideas Climate Conference in Miami, Florida, Pelosi targeted Republican lawmakers over issues like climate change, which she says should be “bipartisan.” She then called on Republicans to take their party back to become more pro-choice and pro-environment.

“So rather than saying, ‘Well, we have to defeat them,’ no, let’s just try to persuade them. I want the Republican Party to take back the party, take it back to where you were when you cared about a woman’s right to choose, you cared about the environment,” the congresswoman said.

The lines worked plenty in the room as Pelosi was met with applause.

“Here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party. Not a cult,” she added.

Pelosi’s idea of what a “strong Republican Party” has earned plenty of expected backlash from conservative critics, but her fiercest criticism has been from liberals disgusted at the idea of Pelosi calling for persuading the opposing side on issues.

“Yeah… finding it basically impossible to justify voting for Democrats while Pelosi is in power. This is a Republican,” liberal journalist Carlos Maza tweeted in response to Pelosi.

“What we need is Democratic leadership that recognizes oppression and suppression for what it is. What we need is strength and bravery to stand up and protect our collective interests,” YouTube creator and ESPN correspondent Angela Rye wrote, adding, “do better, fam.”

Others were equally as dismissive of Pelosi’s call for a “strong” opposing party, something some critics argued would never be a call made by Republicans about Democrats.

Only liberals do this. Imagine Mitch McConnell or Trump repeatedly saying “this country needs a strong Democratic Party.” But because centrist liberals fantasize about compromise rather than ideological victory, they actively fetishize an idealized opposition. https://t.co/HfLtV7dCWs

— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) May 10, 2022

i am going insane https://t.co/ptt9uUbKEd

— sonia (@soniasaraiya) May 10, 2022

…and then Pelosi gave Mitch McConnell a healing hug. And he cried and came to his senses and America was saved!

The fever is not going to break. This is the Republican Party. It’s going to get worse from here, just like it has every year I’ve been alive. https://t.co/0gNxPCHMhc

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) May 10, 2022

“This Country Needs a Strong Republican Party” is a slogan that will surely lead the Democrats to victory in the midterms https://t.co/oLQVhfV8xj

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) May 10, 2022

What’s fascinating here is the use of the word “strong.” I would say a party that has achieved an amazing constitutional revolution of overturning a 50 year old decision, an achievement that took a focused movement overturning norms over decades, is “strong.” https://t.co/Zf9Zylu2MT

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) May 10, 2022

this is gross. idc if it’s a legitimate political theory. it’s idiotic in our current state of affairs to hope that there’s some civility and decency from an increasingly insane gop when they show zero remorse. no different than offering thoughts and prayers after a shooting. https://t.co/f5q8Ei181r

— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) May 10, 2022

Some were also understandably confused at Pelosi reminiscing about a pro-choice Republican Party that fights for the environment.

“The 82-year-old Speaker of the House is deliriously reminiscing about a pro-choice, pro-environment Republican Party that never actually existed,” liberal writer and Don’t Look Up screenwriter David Sirota tweeted.

Pelosi’s strange conception of the Republican Party once being a group of advocates fighting for abortion rights and the environment is odd and easy to mock, but one political party’s leader calling for the other major opposing party to be “strong” shouldn’t send the far-left into a fit of rage.

The U.S. is already painted into a corner: two major political parties control the narrative every election cycle, with little incentive to compromise, while third parties struggle to get debate invites and even make state ballots at times.

In a political system mostly controlled by two political forces at increasing odds, the leader of one calling for the other to be “strong” and necessary to the country is extremist only to the most partisan of voices.

The post Nancy Pelosi Criticized By Left for Committing the Grievous Sin of … Wanting a ‘Strong Republican Party’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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