On Saturday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that reads like an excerpt from TheGreat Gatsby reimagined for the 21st century. In Dowd’s telling, Pelosi savored chocolates “with delight,” decked out in “purple Manolo heels” as she regaled Dowd with war stories about “her vineyard getaway in Napa” and the time U2′s lead singer attended a speech she gave in Ireland. “Bono came,” she told Dowd, apparently with a bright grin. “And that was really fabulous.” Pelosi has had a rough go of it lately, and the Dowd interview is the strongest evidence yet that the most powerful Democrat in America is losing touch with the country. Pelosi dismissed calls to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, claiming that Trump “self-impeaches” practically “every day” ― whatever that means. She downplayed former President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern as “doing a dumb thing as a guy” ― a curious position in the Me Too era ― and suggested that Trump himself might have helped Democrats secure liberal priorities in a recent immigration bill had he not been so busy in North Korea. But the interview really went off the rails when Pelosi lit into freshmen Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who all recently voted against that immigration bill, objecting to billions of dollars in fresh funding for the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement ― two agencies the president has relied on to wage a campaign of terror against children, refugees and communities of color. As Pelosi was devoting time from her congressional recess to badmouthing her colleagues, the targets of her wrath ― Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley ― were spending much of their time away from Capitol Hill visiting Trump’s border camps and detailing their horrors to the public. According to Pelosi, the opposition from Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley didn’t matter, because Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley don’t matter. “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.” Ninety-five Democrats voted against the border bill Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent over from the Senate, which Pelosi chose not to amend. Some of Pelosi’s top lieutenants voted nay. The progressive freshmen were not isolated and alone. They spoke for 40 percent of the caucus.

Tom Williams via Getty Images Nintety-five Democrats voted against the border bill Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent over from the Senate, which Pelosi chose not to amend.

The Dowd interview inspired an immediate outcry from progressives, but Pelosi’s office is standing firm. Pelosi aide Drew Hammill emphasized to HuffPost that when Pelosi talked to Trump before the border bill passed, the president really was rattled by bad press and claimed he was open to humanitarian concessions. Talks soured when Trump left town for the North Korea talks and Pence took over. Ocasio-Cortez and Co. had been criticizing the bill for weeks and refusing to vote for anything the speaker proposed, trashing the bill after it passed. Pelosi wasn’t attacking members of her caucus out of the blue, just responding to criticism, he said. The trouble, of course, is that the bill really is bad, which is why Democrats are now pleading with the Trump administration to do nice things with their new funding. And of course, the progressive crew weren’t the only Democrats creating procedural headaches. Pelosi could be badmouthing Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who organized a flank of conservative Democrats to blow up a House package that put humanitarian strings on the border funding. This is not how a savvy leader rallies her troops. And it’s certainly not the way anyone attuned to the demographics of the modern Democratic Party talks about its next generation of political talent. Indeed, a political neophyte wouldn’t know from Pelosi’s comments or virtually any of her public acts this year that Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley are members of the speaker’s own party, much less that the four women supported Pelosi in the leadership battle this past fall. When conservative Democrats backed by Gottheimer challenged Pelosi from the right after the November elections, the lefty freshmen stuck with Pelosi and urged their supporters to do the same. Pelosi has rewarded them with persistent contempt. Politics is a messy business at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. But Pelosi’s leadership is damaging the Democratic Party. By catering to a very narrow, very elite slice of the electorate, she has removed herself from the mainstream of party thought and distanced her caucus from the interests of working people ― who vastly outnumber the people who base their votes on pricey footwear.

This is not how a savvy leader rallies her troops. And it’s certainly not the way anyone attuned to the demographics of the modern Democratic Party talks about its next generation of political talent.