We’re all to blame for the circus that erupted on the House floor last week. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had to go 15 rounds to secure the ballots for the House Speakership, and I was willing to go another 200. My Christmas wish came true: there was gridlock. We didn’t have a House of Representatives for almost a week, and I was at peace with that: one party shoved a $1.7 trillion omnibus down our throats while the other party simply signed off on it. But McCarthy is now Speaker, so what should we expect with a Republican Party riddled with incompetence which holds a slim grip on the House? Misery and mayhem. I wanted to watch everything burn because our people in Congress are abysmal—all of them. I’ll always pull for Republicans because they’re the party that better aligns with my views, but Congress is a snake pit no matter who you put in there. I’m preaching to the choir, but we, as voters, are also to blame for this fiasco. We keep re-electing these clowns, who ascend to leadership positions and later botch winnable elections.
If this were an accountable system, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and Ronna McDaniel would be kicked to the curb—as they should. We lost to a man whose brain function had been severely impacted due to a stroke in a crucial US Senate race; we couldn’t beat him. There’s no easier political layup than a midterm election with an unpopular president whose party has engulfed the nation in economic torpor. We’re in a recession—and the voters mostly picked the party that created this mess. We couldn’t see freedom and liberty, and in the words of Andrew Breitbart, if you can’t do that—you suck.
I know House Republicans want to overhaul everything Biden has done. Still, their leadership botched an eminently winnable election cycle, so they don’t have the political capital nor the legislative majorities to do that. The Senate remains in Democratic control, and the House GOP has a small anti-McCarthy band of rebels who can create havoc due to our slim majority in the lower chamber. Theoretically, one misstep and McCarthy could lose the gavel since the motion to vacate has been lowered to just a single member. It’s exceedingly doubtful that enough Republican members would go along to boot McCarthy from the Speaker’s office, but the mayhem we saw on the House floor could quickly return.
A part of me sees the danger with the high-top antics: voters picked Democrats in 2022 against their better judgment because they saw the GOP as too rambunctious to be given the reins of power through healthy congressional majorities. That aspect gave me some anxiety, but I don’t care; if we fail, it’s because of the GOP leadership. We can’t do anything about border security or spending issues because McConnell surrendered all of that to pass the omnibus.
Republicans and Democrats hate each other, which is the core of politics; it’s the organization of our animosities. Nothing will get done, so expect all the blood sports to originate in the House, where Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) might be at the center of numerous legislative shenanigans that will give the establishment fits. Deal with it. I couldn’t care less about this session because nothing meaningful can be done. It will be entertaining to see Democrats seethe as we take on the Justice Department and maybe Hunter Biden, but nothing will come of it. Our side already knows we won’t indict the son of a sitting president, so we’re back to square one. And that means chaotic scenes, though primarily symbolic, that occur on the House floor, coupled with the torment that Joe Biden is still president and wrecking the country, and we don’t have the people who can stop it right now.
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Cheers.
