Nancy Pelosi: Enjoy!

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Rolling Stone brought chocolates to Nancy Pelosi, who tells stories in paragraphs, and probably with her hands. Here is one of the shorter answers, most of which were far too long to excerpt, and she's awesome, and enjoy, readers. Enjoy.

In November, there was a sit-in in your office , demanding action on climate change, and some of your new caucus members participated. What was your gut reaction?
You have to understand: I came into the political arena as an organizer. You know, people say, "Oh, she was a fundraiser." Well, no, I wasn't a fundraiser. I had to raise money to keep the doors open so that we could march in the streets. But I was not a fundraiser, I was an organizer. I was a mom, with five children, who just really could not tolerate the idea that one in five children in America lived in poverty. That was my kitchen-to-Congress motivation, and still is. Every day I'm like, "Don a suit of armor, put on your brass knuckles, eat nails for breakfast, and go out there and stop them from taking children out of the arms of their parents, food out of the mouths of babies." I mean, it's just the way it is. So, in my day — go back 30 years or more — I was pushing strollers and carrying signs myself. I say to these people who come in, "I was carrying single-payer signs before you were born."
I understand that to be an advocate you are persistent, dissatisfied and relentless. I was chair of [the Democratic Party for] Northern California for a long time. We were like, "We worked so hard to elect these people, and then they go back and they compromise. We are the purists." I've been there. I understand it. You have that responsibility as an advocate — I have a different responsibility as a leader, but enjoy. You know, enjoy. That's a new generation. People kept asking me, "Are you sick of that?" I'm like, "I'd probably be doing that myself."

[ RS ]