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‘Nancy Pelosi did not like what I had to say’: Winston Marshall shreds ‘elite’ Dem – to her face

May 11, 2024 | | Print Article

Winston Marshall, once the lead guitarist for British folk rock band Mumford & Sons, shredded former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a recent Oxford Union debate, branding the octogenarian an “elite” who uses the word “populism” to “show their contempt for ordinary people.”

The best part? He did it to her face.

Now the host of the UK’s “Marshall Matters” podcast for The Spectator, Marshall spoke in opposition to the Oxford Union motion that “This House Believes Populism is a Threat to Democracy.”

During the April 25 debate, Pelosi argued that there are Americans — “poor souls who are looking for some answers” — who refuse to accept what Democrats have “given” to them because they are “blocked” by their views on “guns, gays, [and] God.”

Populism in America, she said, has taken on an ethno-nationalist character.

(Video: YouTube)

“Words have a tendency to change meaning,” Marshall countered.

“‘Populism’ has become a word used synonymously with ‘racist,’” he said. “We’ve heard ‘ethno-nationalist,’ we have ‘bigot,’ we have ‘hillbilly,’ ‘redneck,’ we have ‘deplorable.’ Elites use it to show their contempt for ordinary people.”

(Video: YouTube)

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama “took umbrage of the notion that Trump be called a populist,” Marshall noted.

“If anything, Obama argued that he was the populist. If anything, Obama argued that Bernie was the populist,” he said. “Something curious happens. If you watch Obama’s speeches after that point, more and more recently, he uses the word ‘populist’ interchangeably with ‘strong man,’ ‘authoritarian.'”

“The word changes meaning,” he said. “It becomes a negative, a pejorative, a slur.”

Though he acknowledged that the January 6 riots at the Capitol in 2021 was “a dark day for America, indeed,” Marshall pointed to June 2020, the peak of the George Floyd riots.

“I’m sure Congresswoman Pelosi will agree that the entire month of June 2020, when the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, was under siege and under insurrection by radical progressives, those, too, were dark days for America,” he said.

Pelosi’s hand shot up as she interrupted the speaker.

“There is no equivalence there,” she said. “…It is not like what happened on January 6th, which was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States.”

“My point, though, is that all political movements are susceptible to violence and, indeed, insurrection,” Marshall shot back. “Populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy. And why else have universal suffrage if not to keep elites in check?”

“I’m actually rather surprised that our esteemed opposition, Congressman Pelosi, is on that side of the motion,” he said. “I thought the left was supposed to be anti-elite. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-establishment.”

“Today, particularly in America, the globalist left have become the establishment,” he stated. “I suppose for Ms. Pelosi to have taken this side of the motion, she’d be arguing herself out of a job.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, populism is the voice of the voiceless,” Marshall argued. “The real threat to democracy is from the elites.”

“Now, don’t get me wrong, we need elites,” he continued. “If-when President Biden has shown us anything, we need someone to run the countries.”

“When the President has severe dementia it’s not just America that crumbles,” he said, “the whole world burns.”

Marshall went on to blast “mainstream media” and the social media platforms that censor “political opponents.”

“Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don’t just disdain populism, they disdain the people,” he said.

“[P]opulism is not a threat to democracy, but I’ll tell you what is,” he told attendees. “It’s elites ordering social media to censor political opponents.”

“The threat to democracy comes from those who write off ordinary people as deplorable,” Marshall concluded. “The threat to democracy comes from those who smear working people as racist. “The threat to democracy comes from those who write off working people as populists.”

Following his speech, Marshall took to X.

“Nancy Pelosi did not like what I had to say…” he wrote. “Populism is not a threat to democracy.

“Democrat elites like her are.”

Melissa Fine
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