The term "fond farewell" usually implies that you actually like the person going away. However, sometimes, I like to use it because I'm really fond of saying goodbye to someone.
Someone like Nancy Pelosi, who has announced she's retiring from the House of Representatives.
While the chances of her seat being taken by a pro-gun lawmaker are even worse than aliens showing up during halftime of the Super Bowl and declaring their undying allegiance to yours truly, the truth is that a powerful Democrat is leaving forever.
And the NRA ain't crying any tears for her, as is clear in this piece from America's 1st Freedom.
As President Donald Trump (R) finished his State of the Union address on February 4, 2020, then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D)—who, as is customary, was seated above and behind Trump in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives—picked up her copy of Trump’s speech and, with dainty fingers making long careful tears, theatrically ripped the speech into several pieces.
When asked afterward why she did it, Pelosi said, “It was the courteous thing to do, considering the alternative.”
It would be difficult to write a better metaphor for Rep. Pelosi’s leadership—including her long disdain for American citizens’ Second Amendment-protected freedom.
Throughout her congressional career, Pelosi has supported every gun-control law and regulation that occurred to the anti-gun lobby.
...
Throughout her tenure in the peoples’ house, which began in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan (R) was in office, Pelosi inflated and twisted statistics in order to advocate for the control of we the people she so desires.
She was no friend of ours, to be sure. Maybe not as vehement as her longtime colleague, Diane Feinstein, but bad enough.
And now she's on her way out, retiring to an allegedly alcohol-fueled sunset that will generally take her out of our hair. I'm sure she'll still be vocal enough about politics and all that, but now she's going to be just another voice in the storm, and one without nearly the kind of power she's long wielded in the House.
But there is some good news for the pro-gun side, and that's how Pelosi's exit will be less than great for Democrats.
See, Nancy has always been a big fundraiser for Democrats. She's known how to get out the votes and the cash, and because of that, the Democrats always had more to spend on getting anti-gun lawmakers elected than they would have had without her.
Now, they're going to be without her.
Unless someone is able to step into that void and do at least as good a job, it'll be at least a bit easier to get pro-gun candidates elected. Not in Pelosi's district, mind you, but elsewhere. In her district, it'll take more than a bit less money in a candidate's warchest for a pro-gun candidate to win there, but the same can't be said in a lot of the rest of the nation.
Pelosi has been terrible for gun rights, to say the least, and her successor will be just as bad. That's a foregone conclusion at this point, but her stature in the House can't be replaced as easily, and her ability to rally her fellow anti-gun lawmakers will also be missed. She knew where all the bodies were buried and was a real threat to our right to keep and bear arms, even if she thought it was part of the First Amendment (yes, really).
Whoever follows her won't have that.
This doesn't make gun rights a slam dunk in the House, even if the GOP maintains its majority in the midterms, which is historically unlikely. What it does mean, though, is that with Pelosi gone, the fight is going to look a lot more different going forward. We've held our own on most things of late, too, so while it's not a slam dunk, it also means we've got a better chance of seeing our rights restored at the federal level than we've likely ever had before.
So all I can say is, "So long, Nancy. We're not sorry to see you leave, we're just happy to see you go."
