"The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House” by Nancy Pelosi. (Image: Simon & Schuster for Washington Post)
Nancy Pelosi begins her new book with a plea for a return to standards of common decency in politics.
"The current climate of threats and attacks must stop,” the former House speaker writes in the opening chapter of "The Art of Power.”
Pelosi is speaking from personal experience, of course, recalling the vicious partisanship that preceded the attack on her husband, Paul, in their San Francisco home in 2022. She traces the rise in aggression back to the firebrand GOP House leader Newt Gingrich. But "The Art of Power” hits shelves less than a month after another equally brazen act of political violence, when a would-be assassin’s bullet clipped former president Donald Trump’s right ear.
The parallel events, less than two years apart, cement the moral clarity of Pelosi’s plea. After the attempted assassination of Trump, Pelosi publicly condemned "political violence of any kind,” in sharp contrast to how Trump mocked "Crazy Nancy” and her family, even as Paul Pelosi was recovering from his injuries.
But they also reveal the conundrum facing readers of this or any other book on contemporary politics: "The Art of Power” is at once of the moment and out of date, overtaken by the rapid-fire political upheavals in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
The most intriguing question about Pelosi today is surely how the 84-year-old California congresswoman continues to wield such influence, more than a year and a half after giving up power as leader of the House Democrats, that she was able to maneuver a sitting president three years her junior out of the race for the White House.
While seeking the answers to such questions is fodder for the ongoing 24/7 news cycle, "The Art of Power” instead offers insights into the enduring effectiveness of Pelosi’s leadership strategy. Last month, the polling and fundraising data that have always been the backbone of her success suggested that if Biden were to seek reelection, Democrats faced defeat not only in the White House but also in down-ballot races, imperiling any chance of their regaining the House - the institution that Pelosi cares about most.
It was widely reported that Pelosi played a key role behind the scenes in persuading Biden to step down. This book was clearly finished before the president pulled out of the race, but in a recent interview with CBS News, Pelosi said: "I wasn’t a leader of any pressure party. Well, let me say things that I didn’t do. I didn’t call one person. I did not call one person.”
That careful phrasing is typical of Pelosi’s constant calculating, which is evident throughout "The Art of Power.”
This book adds new details about Pelosi’s attempts to manage Trump during his presidency, from her response to his late-night phone calls to the possibility of asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of a president deemed "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
But Pelosi’s book is more an overview of major episodes in U.S. history that Pelosi played a role in than a recounting of recent dramatic years. During her nearly four decades in Congress, Pelosi writes, she has never viewed her role as a steppingstone, and she believes that other House members trust her because they know that her advocacy for any given position is motivated by policy goals and not a personal agenda.
In 1987, Pelosi’s desire to improve the lives of children and battle the scourge of HIV/AIDS was "the primary reason I ran for Congress,” she writes. At first, she was not interested in pursuing leadership roles within the House.
"What triggered my change of heart was four straight election-year losses from 1994 to 2000,” Pelosi writes. "I believed Democrats needed to start winning elections for our country and our country’s children.”
And win she did in many cases, careful to take bills to the House floor only when she was confident she had the votes to pass them.
In this book, Pelosi documents the discipline that led to legislative success while brushing over the issues she has been criticized for - her resistance to reforms that would have prevented members from trading individual stocks, for example, even as the Pelosis’ own wealth soared; and her determination to remain speaker when some younger members called for her to step aside, seeing her strictly enforced centrism as inadequate to face a rising and increasingly radicalized right.
Pelosi’s San Francisco seat is so safe that she has had freedom few other members enjoy to engage in bruising legislative battles.
"The Art of Power,” with its echo of Trump’s somewhat more hucksterish book title, "The Art of the Deal,” makes a claim for using political power to advance the common good. As the subtitle - "My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House” - suggests, Pelosi is proud of her position as an inspiration for young women.
"The Art of Power” is in many ways a successor to Pelosi’s breezier, boosterish "Know Your Power” (2008), in which she exhorted younger women to follow her example by speaking out and pursuing their dreams.
The tone of this new volume (she declines to call it a memoir) is far more sober, reflecting the changed political atmosphere and the extraordinary personal toll that public life has recently exacted on her and her family.
Yes, she continues to reflect on her own victories as the first woman speaker, working across the aisle to secure legislation that would shore up the economy in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and - the accomplishment of which she’s most proud - transforming the provision of health care through the 2010 Affordable Care Act. But it all comes with a word of caution.
"When I speak to women or others who are considering running for office, I tell them that it is not a decision for the faint of heart. . . . You must know your ‘why.’ Why are you running?”
It was the risk that the ACA might be dismantled after Trump took power in 2016 that convinced her to stay in politics, Pelosi writes. Eight years and two impeachments later, she views the former president as mentally unstable and a danger to the very future of the country.
"The threat to our democracy is real, present, and urgent. The parable of January 6 reminds us that our precious democratic institutions are only as strong as the courage and commitment of those entrusted with their care.”
Pelosi recalls in both books how her daughter Alexandra, 16 at the time, encouraged her then-46-year-old mother to go into politics, saying, "Mother, get a life!” Alexandra, now a documentary filmmaker with children of her own, accompanied her mother to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, documenting the riot in real time on video until they were sequestered under the protection of security guards at Fort McNair.
During the attack on the Capitol, Pelosi remained calm, "already deeply aware of how dangerous Donald Trump was” and ready to go to battle to prevent him from causing more chaos. ("It has been clear to me from the start that he was an imposter,” Pelosi writes of Trump, "and that on some level, he knew it.”)
She rose above online demonization, verbal abuse and the eerie calls of "Where is Nancy?” that reverberated through the Capitol on Jan. 6. But the attack on Paul clearly took a toll.
"From housewife to House member to House Speaker, I certainly would never have broken the marble ceiling without Paul’s support, encouragement, and love,” Pelosi writes. "And I would never have done it if I thought it would one day cause him to risk his own life.”
Whether you agree with Pelosi’s policies, "The Art of Power” leaves readers with a disconcerting question: What will become of the political process in America if people as courageous as Pelosi decide that running for office is simply not worth the risk?
