“Pelosi, however, had two things that her Republican counterpart will not: a caucus full of mostly sane team players...”
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They were not sane, and they were most definitely TEAM PLAYERS. Democrats almost never buck the power of the empire. They are good little sycophants. The Senator from WV was one of the few exceptions.
SO the article’s whole problem is that republicans are not NPCs
They also had up to 30 GOP turncoats for support when they needed it.