Imagine the Pushmi Pullyou on a teeter totter, built atop a merry go round, inside of a dumpster fire, and you have the GOP conference in the House of Representatives, circa 2023. They simply are going all directions and nowhere at once — while self immolating. The tragedy of this situation is that it’s not just limited to the House or to the GOP. America is involved.

We are teetering on the brink of yet another government shutdown. The longer the House is frozen into a state of dysfunction, the greater the chance that the economy gets wrecked and/or the United States loses standing around the world with our allies and partners. You remember how one of the near shutdown debacles caused our national credit rating to be reduced from AAA to AA+. The serious financial people on this planet don’t trust the U.S., seeing the unserious people that are elected to run this government.

No, they are not. And the rest of the world sees this. This started out as a black eye to Kevin McCarthy, in particular, but Matt Gaetz, in toppling McCarthy, has revealed the total dysfunctionality of the Republican conference and now the entire body politic is involved in the worst infra party fracas ever seen. The New Republic:

Alas, not for the first time, we must observe that among the many things the Framers could not have foreseen is the state of today’s Republican Party: devoid of any respect for institutions and hell-bent on writing blank checks to the biggest extremists in its midst. That the GOP has made a farce of such a basic task as electing a leader should really come as no surprise to anyone. It’s been quite some time since Republicans have shown any kind of interest in performing the basic functions of a majority party in the legislature.

Forget their weird lust for government shutdowns and debt ceiling breaches; this gang of freaks can go months without putting their majority to any productive purpose at all. So let’s be realistic about their current struggles. The Republicans’ basic problem isn’t that they broke the House of Representatives—the problem is that they’ve finally perfected their approach to (not) running the joint.

That so many of the people who claim to cover politics seem surprised at the way Beltway Republicans have ended up here only demonstrates what short memories they have. Anyone who was paying attention during the Obama era knew that the brine that the GOP of today soaks in was already well into its fermentation stage then. And long before McCarthy’s pale eminence seized the gavel, an older version of his antagonists was doing then-Speaker John Boehner dirty. As Ryan Lizza wrote for The New Yorker, way way back when Ryan Lizza was on staff at The New Yorker:

[Boehner’s] tenure was marked by an increasingly futile effort to control a group of conservatives that Devin Nunes, a Republican from California and an ally of Boehner’s, once described as “lemmings with suicide vests.” In 2013, to the bafflement of some colleagues, Boehner supported the shutdown, in the hope that the public backlash would expose the group as hopelessly radical. It didn’t work. The group continued to defy Boehner. He tried to regain control as speaker by marginalizing its members, and they decided that he must be forced out.

Savor the memory of Devin Nunes being lumped on the reasonable side of the GOP, because it didn’t last! He and Boehner alike were among the casualties of the Republican Party’s long-running project to indulge and empower the fringiest members in their midst. With the aid of their brightest think tank minds and the deepest-pocketed donors, the Tea Party movement helped numerous far-right ideologues make their way to Washington, which in turn begat the Freedom Caucus—and all of the showdowns, shutdowns, and near misses on the way to a debt ceiling apocalypse that became their stock-in-trade. This miasma of extremism and dysfunction ultimately crescendoed with the advent of Trumpism and the full flower of that authoritarian project.

Jim Jordan, whom Boehner once assailed as a “legislative terrorist,” is as pure a product of this political project as you can find anywhere—a 180-proof distillation of the GOP’s turn toward nihilism and unhinged self-regard. (It’s little wonder that his attempt to ascend has come with the threat of political violence toward his opponents that has become so au courant in the Trump era.) Despite his stated belief that “America wants him” to be speaker, Jordan owes his existence in Congress entirely to the fact that he can’t be held accountable by Americans: He’s stuffed into a ridiculously gerrymandered district and hasn’t had to deploy any kind of political skill to retain his seat in years. For all intents and purposes, he’s the electoral equivalent of a welfare queen.

 

Jim Jordan, the electoral equivalent of a welfare queen. Dear Gawd. Now I’ve heard it all. The hard “noes” are piling up, preventing the Interim Speaker from becoming a stop gap measure until January 3, 2023. That’s a shame, but on the other hand, that idea was fraught with peril to begin with because the Interim Speaker’s constitutional authority is so limited.

So now Jim Jordan is going to try to pull a rabbit out of a hat and maybe he’ll get the votes on the third try. Somehow I don’t believe that. So now I wonder what the next play is? Maybe there would be some attempt to get Donald Trump to juggle his six trials (the Michigan voting disenfranchisement case got added to his load this week, the Honorable Tanya Chutkan, presiding) and running for president. I seriously have no idea because this situation has gotten far more Bizarro World already than I anticipated. I really did think that some form of coalition government would be cobbled together by now, but the GOP isn’t done beating itself up yet.

This is like watching domestic violence. You cringe and you keep thinking they’re going to stop and then they go right back at it. The GOP needs an intervention, and maybe that’s what Joe Biden was trying to do Thursday morning when he invited the GOP to join him at the adults’ table. I don’t see that happening either.

Stay tuned. Whatever is about to take place nobody can guess.

 

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10 COMMENTS

  3. They seem to prefer standing in a pile of rubble they’ve made, and whinging that ‘it’s all the Dem’s fault’ to doing anything constructive at all.

    They appear to have forgotten that governments are elected to do one thing.

    Govern.

    11

    • IT’S VERY INTERESTING … All these noobs have sworn under oath repeatable times to get where they are, they even hold their hands on the bible occasionally, which is stupid, because they have no idea what that means and what WE expect of them when they get their new ideal income bracket, which they determine for themselves sometimes, the perks they get alone, amount to a lot more cash than we the people get for actually working hard enough to break a sweat …

      The only sweat Trump and his zombie Republicans produce is when they get caught doing what they do best — NOTHING AT ALL !! – (FOR THE PEOPLE)

      McConnell actually said the Republicans during Obama’s term were NOT going to pass or do ANYTHING for the people while HE was in office … That should have been the first RED FLAG about Republican’s dedication to the Constitution and rule of law was slipping already, they managed to find the World’s Worst at Anything, cranking up the drooling a-hole to the level of a God on Earth, who immediately killed Obama’s plans and equipment to fight the next Pandemic, a HUGE mistake that helped kill thousands of our Citizens …

      Trump has ALWAYS hated Obama, who was so popular because he got things done, was smart in so many ways, and built a system of trust in our government, that was always a challenge with the Turtle and his no-accounts fighting against any project because, well, Obama was working they were not, just the way it’s been ever since …

      The GOP is going to have that pratfall soon, there will be no recovery … If the criminal, Gym Jordon is the best they can do, what are the chances the GOP will survive? Times are running out the wars are a problem for a naked House without a REAL leader to be found …

      It hurts everyone for these old farts sitting on their hands, doing NOTHING about these freaks way out on the right, being a useless pile of cow dung …

      Watch your back, they have NOTHING but verbal attacks on the Democrats now, keep your receipts and notes, let your voices be heard, we don’t have mega millions to spend like they seemingly do, since Trump’s ads are running all the time here with lies still coming about the money we gave to Iran … It was already theirs … all the dork Republicans still blame Biden for sending SO MUCH cash to Iran … PHYYYTTT

      7

  4. I can’t predict what’s gonna happen, but I was very anxious about the idea of a compromise on an interim Speaker! How can anyone possibly trust a deal with the House GQP?! I had visions of pseudo-legal arguments that because the Dems agreed to create a House job that is not in the Constitution, the GQP will take over the Speakership in perpetuity! Who cares if it makes no sense! While it’s being argued the clowns will stomp their feet and have fun disrupting the world!!

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    1

    • The reality of the situation with McHenry and Jeffries is that Jeffries would wield a lot of power and that scares them. And it’s their OWN.DAMN.FAULT! If they would elect a Speaker they wouldn’t have this issue. The Democrats are only in the position of proposing a coalition government because the Republicans can’t govern.

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  5. This is all a game for them. It is a govt shutdown without anyone calling it a govt shutdown!!!

    I’m so sick & tired of this horse-race BS.

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  6. The H.O.R. isn’t dysfunctional enough so throw the dimmest bulb of the lot, trump, into the fray. I believe the g.o.p. members of the house do not want to remain so much longer.

    3

  7. This whole quagmire has its origins in the GOP’s national leadership not being willing to take some short-term losses in 2010 (and possibly 2012) and dumping the Teabaggers at the start and telling them, “Fine, go start your own political party. We don’t need you and don’t let the door hit you on your fat ass on the way out.”

    Nope. The national leadership was too afraid that their chance at retaking Congress was too much at stake to risk even a single potential House loss (much less the Senate) so they caved to the terrorists–I mean Teabaggers–and let them basically set the party’s course.

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  8. I find myself thinking back to times when average folks were thrust into dire straits and wondered…am I going to have to pick up a gun and shoot somebody? Of course not. Those wars are far away in Europe and the pacific. Of course not. Those hooded men with torches and guns are just trying to scare us. Of course not. Hamas will just rattle their sabers and fire a few rockets. Of course not. The rich and powerful will not turn our democracy into a fascist state over a few dollars. Of course not. Then I remember my sweet mom, a truly devout lady, whom everyone loved…who had to shoot my father in self defense. Was I surprised? Having grown up with him…of course not.

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