GOP Limited with a Restricted Rating

I’m renaming the House Republicans GOP Limited because they can barely think inside the box let alone outside of it. Moreover, indications abound that they have subconsciously slapped a Restricted rating on themselves with help from their unimaginative voters.

I noticed these trends while putting together Tracking the Election for House Speaker Mk2 – Round 1. I mean, just look at this graphic – how many single-syllable names do you see in red?

Yep, 7 out of 8. That’s 87.5%. And you can bet Kevin is Kev more often than not (unless they’re moved to use a more colourful name for their former Speaker).

How many Toms do you see? Uh-huh, 3 out of 8. That’s more than a third at 37.5%.

Now check out the CD numbers. Three of them reside in District 4 and two of them in District 1. What are the chances of 5 out of 8 nominees – that’s a whopping 62.5% – coming from Districts 4 or 1? It’s like they’re unconsciously self-selecting so there’s not too much variation for their members to deal with.

Voting for Speaker of the House should be easy. Look at the history. Since 1789, The House elected speakers 128 times and 113 of those required only a single ballot. That’s 88.3% receiving a clear majority on the first vote. If we narrow the figures down to the actual number of Speakers (because loads of them had more than one term), it’s 40 out of 55 which is 72.7%. So, on the evidence of history, electing a House Speaker is more often than not an easily achieved objective.

Not so for the modern members of GOP Limited. They’re hyped up on obfuscating the obvious, twisting the truth and making easy hard. In the simplest terms, they’re papering over their shortcomings and deficits. It’s what liars do (Exhibit A*: George Santos). It’s also what the deluded (Exhibit B*: Greene) and dimwitted (Exhibit C*: Boebert) do in a futile effort to look clever.

*Exhibits cited represent outstanding examples but are by no means the only ones. They have considerable company among their colleagues.

At least there was more variation among names in the second round. Two of the three Toms were gonged out – which coincidentally took out two reps from District 4s – and five new names were added without a single repetition. I suspect the rebels – aka the Gym holdouts – are subconsciously seeking to increase the level of difficulty.

Personally, I’m hoping one of them will put forward a vote for the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. There’s no rule against nominating the deceased and it would have the satisfying advantage of making Gym Short’s bid for power even more of a mockery than it is already. I’m here for that.