It’s not clear whether Pelosi even thinks people actually believe this line of reasoning. She just doesn’t seem to think it’s her job to convince them. Voters handed Democrats a meaningful avenue for holding the executive branch accountable in 2018, but Pelosi seems to have no interest in the hard work of doing that, except inasmuch as it means Democratic Party elites will issue public statements condemning the president’s actions, and effectively fundraise off of those public statements. As far as she’s concerned, her assurance that she’s in some distant fashion righting the wrongs of Trumpism by hoarding her own symbolic political power should be action enough for now.

—Elizabeth Spiers, in “Beyond Pelosi”