It’s fashionable now to criticize Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic gerontocracy. The party, after all, has a yawning generation gap that has stymied younger politicians from attaining power, ascending to leadership and freshening Democrats’ image and agenda. But if there was one member of Capitol Hill’s answer to the Thursday Murder Club who should have remained in office — and in party leadership — it was Pelosi, a master tactician and political brawler who was the most effective speaker of the House in modern political history, and the first woman to hold the job.

Instead, she chose to set an example that few other elderly Democrats have followed. In the wake of the party’s unexpected showing in the 2022 midterms, Pelosi announced she was stepping down after more than 20

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