Pelosi’s defiant body language speaks volumes against Trump’s rhetoric

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) knows the power of an image better than most politicians. She talks a lot in her job, but she has also successfully wielded her clothes, her gestures, her gender and the virality of the Internet to emerge from her interactions with President Trump as a symbol of power and resistance for the left.

The red coat and sunglasses

First came this December 2018 meeting, involving some of the most powerful politicians in the country, that devolved into a heated argument. In the Oval Office. In front of cameras.

“Nancy’s in a situation where it’s not easy for her to talk right now, and I understand, and I fully understand that,” Trump said at one point. “Mr. President, please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats, who just won a big victory,” Pelosi responded.

Yet Pelosi emerged from the meeting not some wilted flower, but a symbol of a woman who doesn’t have time for male posturing. A photo of her departing the White House, dressed in a red coat and putting on her sunglasses, instantly became a meme.

“It’s like a manhood thing for him,” Pelosi privately told Democrats after that meeting. “As if manhood could ever be associated with him.”

The State of the Union clap-back

It’s February 2019. Democrats have just won back the House for the first time in almost a decade.

She is most clearly pointing at the president, telling him with her body language to listen to his own words. It’s a warning in a clap, reminiscent of how her fashion makes a political statement.

The pointing photo

In October 2019, in an agreement with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Trump calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Syria. The decision left Kurdish fighters previously allied with the U.S. vulnerable to a Turkish offensive.

Tensions between the president and lawmakers in both parties escalated, and Democratic leaders walked out of a White House meeting after what they described as an insulting and “nasty diatribe” by Trump during which he called Pelosi a “third-rate politician.”

Trump tweeted a photo of his contentious meeting with Pelosi.

But where Trump saw weakness, Pelosi and her team saw strength. The photo actually symbolized that Pelosi is in control. And she recognized it the moment Trump tried to weaponize it against her.

“Any woman knows what it’s like to be the only woman in the room,” said Kelly Dittmar, a gender and politics expert at Rutgers University, “so having it not only be an image where she’s just one woman alone at the table, but also where she is clearly engaged in a conversation in which she’s taking the lead in the conversation, that’s indicative of power.”

Tearing up SOTU

Trump began his State of the Union speech by not shaking the offered hand of Pelosi. Trump simply handed her a copy of his speech, as presidents do, and turned around. It’s not clear whether that was an intentional snub, but it was, at best, an awkward start to the night.

She and other Democrats in the chamber grew visibly frustrated by the president’s extremely political address, where he dubiously took credit for a growing economy and appealed to his conservative base, rather than bipartisanship, on issues such as abortion and school prayer.

So as Trump finished the speech, with Republicans and Vice President Pence applauding him, Pelosi took advantage of the fact the cameras were on her, too, and tore up his speech right in front of him. “It was the courteous thing to do, considering the alternative,” she told reporters after.

Trump’s back was to Pelosi, but he noticed. As Pelosi tearing up the speech received as much coverage as the speech itself, Trump frequently tweeted about Pelosi’s reaction — more than even his own speech, according to a tally from CNN’s Brian Stelter.

People who know Pelosi say that she didn’t set out to become a meme. But in an era where Trump is regularly engaging his supporters on social media, she appears to have embraced the inherent power of her position to do the same.