Progressive groups conducting a postmortem on the 2020 race slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week, saying her “showing off” of her flashy freezer full of ice cream was an “unforced error” that eroded Democrats’ majority in the House.
“The economy was voters’ top concern in this election,” read the letter penned on Wednesday.
“When Democratic leaders make unforced errors like showing off two sub-zero freezers full of ice cream on national television or cozy up with Wall Street executives and corporate lobbyists while Trump tells voters we are the party of the swamp, it is not surprising that we lose,” it continued.
The letter referred to a now-infamous exchange in which Pelosi (D-Calif.) flashed her $24,000 Sub-Zero freezers stuffed with $13 ice creams in an interview with James Corden at the peak of the pandemic.
Progressive groups New Deal Strategies, Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement and Data for Progress unloaded on Democratic leadership, whom they accused of being out of touch, and predicted Republicans would recapture the House in 2022.
“Democratic leadership has failed over the years to make sustained investments in field organizing, forcing grassroots organizations to carry the bulk of organizing work in key battleground states on their own,” the letter read.
Progressives said it was grassroots work by Latino organizers and black activists that won Joe Biden the state of Arizona and saw Democrats put the ruby red state of Georgia in play.
“In Georgia, after being told it could never become a swing state, it was progressive Black-led organizations like Black Voters Matter, New Georgia Project and Fair Fight Action who registered over 800,000 new voters, almost 50% of them under 30 and people of color since 2018 to prepare for this moment,” the letter went on.
The Democratic Party is currently tearing itself apart in the wake of Biden’s win, with lawmakers fighting over whether the progressive agenda championed by the likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is helping or harming.
Despite mainstream Democrats lashing the Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all agenda as alienating, progressives wrote that it was leftist lawmakers like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) who delivered a defeat against Trump.
“While the Biden-Harris campaign resisted in-person canvassing, Omar’s campaign kept doing it, hiring dozens of people to knock on doors and pull out votes,” the postmortem read.
“Trump and the GOP really thought they could win Minnesota — what they didn’t count on was 88% turnout in Ilhan’s district with over 400,000 votes,” it went on.