The hanging of blow dryers on trees in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home on Thursday is so trivial and yet so momentous in its implications that it could affect the outcome of the election.
Hardly a single voter hasn’t seen what Monica Showalter of American Thinker called the “Blow Dryer Rebellion”: angry hairstylists hanging blow dryers on a tree. Fewer still haven’t seen the security video that has gone viral showing Queen Nancy indulging herself in a “wash and blow dry” session at a tony salon without a mask while the common folk are prohibited from doing the same.
Said Showalter:
After all, the rules that keep salons shut are not observed by the elites. Just little people have to play by those oppressive rules.
[The rebellion] is the work of angry hairstylists, who have been forced to pay a disproportionate price for COVID, as have gyms, churches, small “nonessential” businesses, schools, restaurants, bars, and other small fry — and stay closed, pretty much forever, until the last COVID case goes away.
Pelosi could have — and should have — simply taken responsibility and apologized and the matter would have evaporated. But no. The Queen not only refused to apologize, but she made matters worse by claiming that she was set up by the salon owner: “I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon that I’ve been to over the years many times, and that when they said … we’re able to accommodate people one person at a time, and that we can set up that time, I trusted that. As it turns out, it was a set-up.”
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This is a lie, said Erica Kious, the salon owner:
For the Speaker of the House to go on TV and falsely claim she was set up and publicly defame me, and sent out PR firms … in support of the Speaker’s own lies is bad enough.
But for Speaker Pelosi to frame herself as a victim under a totally false narrative while small businesses and workers all over California — the state she represents in Congress — suffer and struggle just to survive is beyond shameful.
I don’t owe anyone an apology. Mrs. Pelosi owes the entire country an apology. If America goes in front of Congress and lies, they go to jail. But apparently, when the most powerful woman in the world lies to America, we owe her an apology.
The New York Post couldn’t resist the temptation to call out the Speaker of the House. It editorialized:
Just quit it, Madam Speaker: This “I was framed” stuff isn’t flying. You, Nancy Pelosi, have been insistent that everyone needs to comply with pandemic restrictions, which makes your salon visit the rankest of hypocrisy….
But you got caught, and with no real excuse. And rather than offer an apology to the public, you’re demanding one. It doesn’t get more imperious.
The leftist Sacramento Bee was distraught over the Speaker’s hypocrisy:
Does Pelosi, one of the nation’s most experienced and powerful lawmakers, really expect people to believe she didn’t know she was violating public health rules? Is she so out of touch that she didn’t realize that California salon owners have been protesting against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s necessary shutdown of their industry for months?…
Pelosi has handed Trump and Fox terrific ammunition in their quest to depict the COVID-19 pandemic as an overblown hoax perpetuated by Democrats seeking political gain. The idea that this powerful Democratic leader would sneak into a salon for a wash and a blow-dry against public health rules — and during a month when COVID-19 killed 3,745 people in California — is so ridiculous that it seems like some fictional right-wing conspiracy theory spread by Russian misinformation operatives on Facebook.
But it happened.
This seems like a particularly bad time for dumb mistakes. Was Speaker Pelosi’s blow-out worth the blow that the Democratic Party’s credibility just took in the middle of both a deadly pandemic and a high-stakes presidential election?
Pelosi supporter Gil Duran was equally dismayed. Writing in the Bee, he said:
In politics, it’s best to avoid scandal. If a scandal cannot be avoided, however, the crisis playbook is simple. First, acknowledge wrongdoing. Second, apologize and take full responsibility. Third, outline a plan to make amends (then follow through). Then, maybe, lie low for a while.
Instead, Pelosi issued a statement claiming that she — the most powerful Democratic lawmaker in the nation — didn’t know the rules.
This is a gift to Republicans, wrote Duran:
That’s what makes her error so shocking. Pelosi knows better than to give Trump’s Republicans an opening right now. She understands the power of symbols and scandals. She knows how it looks to most Americans when someone of her wealth and stature scoffs at rules. Yet she played right into the GOP’s worst stereotypes of her as a super-wealthy and entitled elite….
Pelosi’s blow-out handed Trump a powerful and deadly argument. If it’s safe for Pelosi to get her hair done, why isn’t it safe to go to church, school or work? If an octogenarian can survive a salon visit as COVID-19 deaths peak, why can’t we all resume normal life?
In her arrogance and her self-perception as one of the “elite” — a member of the ruling class versus the country class — Pelosi has exposed herself to the world as the worst sort of hypocrite, and given Trump and his reelection campaign another tool in their quest to gain a second term.
As General George Patton said following his slapping incident, “It was so trivial and yet so monumental in its consequences.” Pelosi may look back at this event as the one that not only defines her political career, but one that also impacted election day in November.
Image: burakkarademir/iStock/Getty Images Plus
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
