The Insurrection Continues

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.

P.J. O’Rourke — American Satirist

As I write this, the House of Representatives failed for the twelfth time to elect a Speaker of the House, a position that is second in line to the presidency. Until a Speaker is selected, no other business may be conducted in the House, including swearing in the Members. Technically, right now, we do not have a House of Representatives and you have no representation in that body. This is the first time since 1856 that it has taken so many votes to elect a Speaker, and the first time since 1923 that more than one vote was required. In 1856 it took 133 votes over two months. In that case, the main issue was the debate over whether slavery should be allowed in the new states joining the Union or not. It was a substantive issue with real consequences. Today’s votes have nothing to do with any substantive issue. It is purely and plainly a power struggle within the Republican Party. Whether a political party has a huge majority or a slim one, as in this case, that party is expected to put together the votes to select a Speaker and to institute the rules for the incoming Congress. The current crop of Republicans are failing in every respect and the humiliation of the would be Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) continues.

I have written in this space before that Mr. McCarthy is a textbook example of a poor leader, and now we can observe just how bad he is. Apparently, he wants the title of Speaker of the House but he doesn’t really want the job. In his attempts to get himself elected, he has abdicated most of his responsibilities and given those that are holding him politically hostage everything that they have asked for, and yet he still does not have enough votes. It is likely that later today, or tomorrow, or next week he will end up as Speaker, but he will be the weakest one to serve in that position in a very long time. The intra-party fight is mostly over power. To outsiders it seems like an arcane collection of rules and patronages and who can chair what committee. It is a fight for power. It has nothing to do directly with policy or governing. However, those arcane rules and committee assignments will set the tone for what, if any, legislation comes to the floor for a vote. Primarily, those Republican Members gumming up the work of the House now are the very same ones who want to spend their time in office impeaching President Biden (allegedly Mr. McCarthy has promised that they can start hearings to do so in order to get their votes) investigating the J-6 Committee, and generally seeking revenge on any Democrat, Republican or citizen that they perceive to be their “enemy.”

This week’s boondoggle is only a preview of things to come. I do not expect any serious work to be accomplished over the next two years. Should there be a Speaker McCarthy, and should he accidentally want to do some serious work, such as, oh say raise the government debt limit on expenditures already made, and thus keep from ruining our economy and plunge the world into a previously unknown crisis, he can be challenged by one disgruntled Republican who can force a vote on his continued Speakership. In other words, Mr. McCarthy is mostly powerless, held hostage by the people within his party that have no interest in actually governing. They are only interested in power, Fox News exposure and raising money. Chaos and anarchy are their goals. They are a mix of insurrectionists, grifters, election-deniers and idiots. And Mr. McCarthy is ready to turn the People’s House over to them so that he can get his portrait mounted in the Capitol.

Actually, this should come as no suprise.

Today is the second anniversary of the insurrectionist attack on our government in an attempt to keep the former president in power. For the first time in our history, there was no peaceful transition of power from one president to the next. Similarly, in the House, there is no peaceful transition of power from one leader to another. In this case it is not because one party or opponents of those newly in power fought to keep the transition from happening. This is an intra-party Civil War for the heart and soul of one of the two major parties in the United States. The situation is entirely the creation of the Republican Party.

There is a straight line connecting the events from two years ago to those of today. In 2021 it was an outside attack on our government. Today it is an inside attack. The enemy is within. Never forget that Mr. McCarthy headed up not only the Republican Caucus in 2021, but also the Sedition Caucus. Even after the attack on 6 January he voted against certifying the free and fair election of Mr. Biden and he led 139 of his fellow Republican Representatives to do the same. (There were also eight Republican Senators in the Sedition Caucus.) For two years, those now obstructing the smooth functioning of the government have tried to disrupt the entire electoral process. Many of these same people are open admirers of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister and budding oligarch Victor Orban. Their goal is to create enough chaos and disruption to allow a “strongman” to rise to power and take control of the government. They cloak themselves in patriotism but have no idea what the Constitution means or what it stands for. In a way, we should be thankful for their dysfunction. If they were organized and united they could be an even greater threat to our democracy.

Thomas Jefferson famously said that “the government you elect is the government you deserve.” I think we deserve better than the circus we are witnessing in the House of Representatives. As the dysfunction continues over the next two years, I believe that the American people will come to realize that they deserve better and will throw the bums out (well, many of them). It remains to be seen how much damage the insurrectionists can do in the meantime. Thank goodness the Senate remains as a buffer to the insanity.