For the tens of millions of americans who follow the century live will be Nancy Pelosis placement in the chamber, a clear reminder that the democrat defeated Trump in the first round in the battle of gränsmuren against Mexico and myndighetskrisen. Last week surprised Trump many of their followers to give way to the Pelosis requirement to open up the federal authorities, after they have been closed in 35 days – a historical record. Trump promised indeed that it was only a temporary solution, then he still insists on building gränsmuren against Mexico. But in Washington regarded it as a clear political victory for Pelosi and the democrats.

month as the speaker of the house of representatives, a position she returns to after eight years of republican rule, has been marked by a series of symbolic victories against Trump. According to those who worked with her for many years, it is no coincidence that she has been relatively successful in negotiations with Trump.

” Nancy Pelosi is a tough cookie and that is why we survived so well in these negotiations. She has managed to move the debate from trade if the Trumps stupid, vain, boundary wall, to a wider debate about the real border security, ” says partikollegan Ted Lieu in a tv interview.

In a time when many democrats are in despair over Trump’s power seems to Pelosi to behave as a politician who is sitting with a winning hand. “She is convinced that the united states has reached the bottom, now starts to see his mistake, and thus again become ready to give her power,” writes Molly Ball in Time Magazine.

Pelosi seems to have a longer perspective on american politics than many of the voices who speak out about the daily tours in Washington. She believes that the democrats have a structural advantage against the republicans, and seem to see Trump as a relatively temporary problem. This self-confidence may have contributed to her political victories over the president. She negotiates not as a person in the desperate underdog, but as someone who believes that they’re sitting on a winning hand.

governor , she has been one of the democrats ‘ most vocal critics of the president. Her resistance to the Trump and the relative kompromisslöshet in the negotiations during the winter, has met some criticism. When she recently refused to grant Trump permission to keep his speech to the nation in congress, with reference to the then ongoing myndighetskrisen, accused her of political veterans in Washington to drop down to Trumps sandlådenivå. Trump, in turn, say that Pelosi is ”very bad for our country” and accused her in a week to have such a lax attitude to immigration policy to the benefit of terrorists and gangs engaged in trafficking. Pelosi has, in fact, required to get through the increased resources at the border to counter just terrorism and trafficking, but Trump has refused to approve any budget that does not fund gränsmuren.

More problematic for Pelosi is the criticism from the own ranks. As one of Washington’s real veterans, she encounters a growing resistance from an impatient, the younger generation, who yearn for a new leadership. It is a symbolic rather than an ideological battle, then Pelosi in the substantive issues are agreed with the party’s younger left flank.

But when the democrats now are trying to gather before a historic presidential election, where it looks to be at least a dozen established candidates vying for the nomination to the president, Pelosi a challenge to keep together the party’s disparate desires. On the one hand, she tries to maintain the energy of the progressive vänsterflanken, on the other hand, she does not want to alienate the more moderate voices who believe that the future of the election is decided in the middle.

rejected Pelosi as a mjukisdemokrat from San Francisco, but then she recall that she is from Baltimore, Maryland, which is known for US’s toughest political culture. Her political ambition would seem to have been shaped while growing up in Baltimore, where her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr was a congressman and then mayor. When Pelosi moved to California with her husband, Paul, in the 1970s, she became active in the state’s local politics and won the first elections to the house of representatives in 1987, where she stayed since then. During the 1990’s positioned herself clearly to the left of the party and fought for the issues that were most important among San Francisco’s progressive democrats, as better health insurance, more affordable housing and LGBT rights.

One of the first laws she got through, 1990, was increased federal funding for AIDS patients. During the Bush years in the early 2000s, she was one of the democrats ‘ strongest critics against the Iraq war. She also managed to stop Bush’s attempt to privatize the pension system, Social Security. After the democrats ‘ big victory in the midterm elections in 2006, when opposition to the Bush took the real form, it took Pelosi as the first woman ever over the leadership as the speaker of the house of representatives.

that the president got Pelosi a key role in the negotiations on the stimulus after the financial crisis, the regulation of Wall Street and, above all, the tough process to turn Obamacare through congress, her greatest political triumph during three decades in congress. At one point in the final stages of the negotiations, she sat up a whole night and called to all of the 67 democrats who have not yet decided how they would vote.

This tenacity, and political negotiating skills will now be put to the historical test, then she in the next two years are forced to contend with a president who explicitly hate her. She must at the same time trying to keep together a party that, under primärvalskampanjen before the presidential election is characterized by conflicting strategic ideas about how the president should be handled.

Read more: Björn af Kleen – Trump may find it difficult to unite the fractured united states