Unless you think they’re all naive.

Most or at least much of the opposition IMO has to do with our outdated House seniority rules. Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn are collectively 235 years old and we have a number of committee chairs over 80. Pelosi has done very little to open up career paths for spring chickens like 60-something Jerrold Nadler, who’s only the ranking member of the judiciary because 89-year-old John Conyers couldn’t overcome a raft load of sexual harassment charges. Which is a good thing because instead of having someone who was showing telltale signs of senility (in addition to his other problems) lead impeachment hearings, we’ll have Nadler. Pelosi and Clyburn both stumbled all over themselves in response to that problem, if you’ll recall.

We dodged a bullet there, but by term-limiting committee chairs like Republicans do (one thing we really should imitate instead of their often destructive party discipline), we never would have even flirted with that potential disaster. Something resembling a meritocracy as opposed to lifetime tenure would be nice, don’t you think?

What’s really naive is not to expect exactly this level of opposition now that Pelosi is obviously vulnerable and we have a chance to retake the House. I think she still wins the Speakership but not without major reforms and that’s why so many Dems are playing this the way they are.