The other shoe has dropped. The past few days have been filled with Lauren Boebert’s egregious conduct of entertaining her constituents with an animated story about Ilhan Omar, the punchline of which is to infer that Omar is a suicide bomber. The racist trope has drawn a huge amount of publicity, so much so that it has overshadowed an equally awful homophobic insult made about Pete Buttigieg taking paternity leave, made at that same event.
All the world has been waiting with bated breath to see what Kevin McCarthy would do/say. Here is that momentous response. Drum roll, please:
“I talked to Congresswoman Lauren Boebert today. She has apologized for what she said and has reached out to Congresswoman Omar to meet next week. I spoke with Leader Hoyer today to facilitate that meeting so that Congress can get back to talking to each other and working on the challenges facing the American people.”
This is McCarthy-speak for, “I couldn’t care less. Those two bitches can work it out or not. I’m too busy worrying about my political future to deal with actual issues of leadership, are you kidding?”
The statement is almost laughable. I talked to her and she’s going to meet with Omar. The end. As you may expect, McCarthy is not getting plaudits for this nothing burger.
Fast forward to 2:18.
Kevin McCarthy has the title of “Minority Leader.” That’s undisputed. What’s also clear is that there is no leadership in the House. The GOP caucus is a rudderless boat being tossed on whatever waves of controversy swell on any given day.
McCarthy is clueless. The Democrats are famous for being a herd of cats, but there is still a core identity within the party that keeps representatives and senators operating along predictable and respectable lines. Not so in the GOP. The Republican party has no identity now. It lost its identity when it put Donald Trump on the top of the ticket. Now it’s flailing like a beached whale, trying to figure out if it can return to traditional conservative values, or if the only way to retain power is to cave to the far-right extremists.
The GOP has always housed dangerous fringe elements under its tent. But now they’re in charge. The inmates are running the asylum. This mess with Boebert and the usual embarrassment with Marjorie Taylor Greene wanting to give the Congressional Medal of Honor to Kyle Rittenhouse are just more exhibits to that premise.
Boebert and Greene are not congresswomen anymore than McCarthy is a leader. They bear that title, but their job is political theater, politics as a performing art.
We are the joke of the world right now and it’s because there is only one functioning major political party in America and you can’t run a democracy that way. Democracy demands there be at least two.
As punchlines go, our current “joke” of a country is neither too bad nor offensive. Never forget how this scenario would be playing out in other countries (and while you’re SERIOUSLY reconsider any ideas of “speedy justice” you might be harboring just because you’re in too much a hurry to make the bad guys to bother asking what you’d be destroying in the process). As to the Republicans, what are we supposed to do? It’s their house, ergo they gotta clean it up. Lincoln Project failing at making this happen has been a major letdown, post-Trump. Liz Cheney has got her work cut out for her.
“…SO THAT CONGRESS CAN GET BACK TO TALKING TO EACH OTHER AND WORKING ON THE CHALLENGES FACING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.” That’s a complete joke. The GOP leadership in Congress has zero interest in doing anything that would benefit Americans.