Hubris of the Eternal Politician: Time Won’t Stop for Nancy Pelosi

Dying rich in office may make you a ‘winner,’ but is the game even worth playing?

It may not be as dramatic as Homer’s Odyssey, but the moral themes of ancient Greek mythology mark the aged permanent political class entrenched today in Washington, DC. A mortal lives and a mortal dies. No amount of secure incumbency can make it otherwise. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are the latest career politicians living out the closing stages of the kind of parable US children once learned in grade school from Aesop’s Fables.

Hubris is a central storyline of classical Greece. Displayed arrogance to the natural rules binding men fired by a willful spirit of vanity and blind ambition was a surefire way to bring down the wrath of the gods. While term limits remain a distant hope for a number of Americans put off by the sight of elected officials spending multiple decades frozen into their seats, the final years of those who cling to their positions despite age and infirmity are increasingly presenting a spectacle of woe that may do more to persuade old politicians to retire than any legislative redress ever could.

Fractured Pelosi

Former House Speaker Pelosi has held her seat since 1987. At 84, she continues to wield enormous influence.

On December 13, Pelosi was in Luxembourg as part of a congressional delegation commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. She was clearly not well. Pelosi “was seen in a photo… gripping the hand of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) on the grand marble staircase at the Grand Duke’s palace,” UK newspaper The Daily Mail reports. Then disaster occurred.

A source told the paper that “she then fell down the marble staircase during the official visit in front of all the lawmakers and dignitaries.” Pelosi fractured a hip and needed surgery.

Mitch Takes Another Tumble

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is another career politician who has faced criticism for staying in place. McConnell, who turns 83 in February, has held his Senate seat since 1985.

On December 10, the stalwart establishment Republican took a nasty spill following lunch, causing cuts to his face and a sprained wrist. This is the fourth disturbing health scare for McConnell in less than two years.

“One fall in March 2023 at a hotel in Washington resulted in a prolonged absence from the Senate. McConnell suffered a concussion and fractured rib from the incident, requiring hospitalization and outpatient rehabilitation that forced him to miss six weeks on Capitol Hill,” ABC News notes. “McConnell also sparked concern after two episodes last year during which he appeared to freeze in front of television cameras.”

‘Til Death Do They Part

It is now normal for US senators to die in office. Decades-long Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor in 2008. He did not resign. “As he underwent cancer treatment, Mr. Kennedy was little seen in Washington,” his August 200- obituary in The New York Times read. “Mr. Kennedy was physically absent from the capital in recent months,” the obit added, as if this were a perfectly acceptable scenario for the senatorial representation of the people of Massachusetts.

Decades-long Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain also died in his seat. He too had a malignant brain tumor. He too was diagnosed with it more than a year before his death in August 2018. And he too refused to resign and missed important votes due to his condition.

The final days of California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein were especially ghastly. Before dying in office at age 90, Feinstein physically disintegrated before the eyes of her constituents. Wracked with shingles and rumored to be suffering from encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, Feinstein was advised to “work a lighter schedule” as she returned to the Senate in 2023 in a wheelchair.

Feinstein had amassed a considerable personal fortune, and not without controversy. In 2018, shocking news broke that the former San Francisco mayor had employed a Chinese spy on her staff for 20 years. Alarmingly, her husband made a financial killing in China shortly after Feinstein became a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1995.

What did she reap from all this? Mythical misery marked the end of Feinstein’s Washington tenure.

Feinstein was surrounded by a “phalanx of aides” as she struggled to make her way around Capitol Hill, The New York Times reported in May 2023, just four months before her death. “They push her wheelchair, remind her how and when she should vote and step in to explain what is happening when she grows confused.”

As this was happening, heirs fought over her estate while she still was alive. “Feinstein has sued to remove the trustees of her late husband’s estate, alleging they committed financial elder abuse, refused to respond to any requests for disbursements and improperly financially enriched his daughters,” The San Francisco Chronicle reported in August, just one month before her passing.

The personal pathos of all this expiring ambition is almost biblical, but the ancient lessons are going unheeded. There is nothing new under the sun. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. There may not be term limits in Congress today, but the unbreakable laws of nature still apply to America’s career politicians, whether they accept that human reality or not.