Could anything possibly be more pathetic than the spectacle of MAGA-infested Republicans setting themselves afire on Day One of their House reign, having nary a clue how to govern or to even pretend that they do?
If the current clusterfuck gets any more entertaining, President Biden will need to draw down on the Strategic Popcorn Reserve.
You can’t tell the players without a scorecard:
We’ve got Kevin McCarthy, the hack who keeps trying to sell his soul to be Speaker but still can’t sway the MAGA cult whackos to whom he has doggedly sucked up; who on Tuesday was repeatedly humiliated, enduring three ballots of rejection – because, unlike Nancy Pelosi, he can’t count.
We’ve got Marjorie Taylor Greene (pro-McCarthy) and Lauren Boebert (anti-McCarthy) scratching each other’s eyes out.
We’ve got Matt Gaetz, the ur-Florida Man and recent target of a federal sex-traffic probe, trashing Greene for her support of McCarthy, predicting that “at the first opportunity, (McCarthy) will zap her faster than you can say Jewish space laser.”
We’ve got Sean Hannity fuming on Fox News that House Republicans are “becoming a total clown show.” We’ve got Brian Kilmeade on Fox telling Republicans that “You look like idiots in front of the country!” We’ve got Judge Jeanine on Fox wailing: “The ordinary American is sitting at home and saying, ‘What the heck is wrong with these people? We now have the majority in the House, and they can’t get along with each other?'”
We’ve got Newt Gingrich, who quit as Speaker in 1998, comparing the anti-McCarthyites to “terrorists” and “hostage takers.”
We’ve got congressman Dan Crenshaw lamenting that his party’s inability to elect its own Speaker “makes us look foolish…like the Republicans can’t govern and don’t deserve any gavels whatsoever.”
We’ve got Donald Trump basically sitting it out, because even though he has endorsed McCarthy for Speaker – McCarthy licked his shoes after the Jan. 6 insurrection – there’s no way Trump will stick with McCarthy if the latter looks like a loser.
And we’ve got stalwart McCarthy supporter George Santos (assuming that’s his real name), sitting sad and lonesome at the rear of the chamber, treated as if he were Patient Zero of a new Covid mutation. At one point yesterday he boasted in a press release that he’d been officially sworn in – but he even lied about that, because the party must first find a leader before anyone gets sworn in.
The last time a “ruling” party had to cast multiple ballots to name a Speaker, it was 100 years ago when only one percent of households had radio. How and when will today’s House Republicans find a solution to its shitshow? Guy Reschenthaler, a Pennsylvania congressman, offered this critique: “We’ll see what happens when Tucker and Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro start beating up on these guys. Maybe that’ll move it.”
Oh, I see. Nothing will happen until the real bosses – the Fox talking heads – fully swing into action? I wonder if Guy is even aware of how imbecilic Republican politics has become.
What we do know for sure is that the House will be largely dysfunctional no matter who gets the Speaker gavel. If it’s McCarthy, his leash will be yanked 24/7 by the caucus’ most extremist MAGAts. He’d be a powerless figurehead, taking the slings and arrows while power is wielded elsewhere. (Which reminds me of Junior Soprano, who got the head-of-family title – and even went to trial – while Tony ran the show.) And if the Speaker turns out to be a nutcase worse than McCarthy, it’s hard to envision the more mainstream Republicans following in lockstep; indeed, 18 House Republicans won races in blueish districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, so expect the united Democrats to woo them relentlessly.
Alas, nothing of substance will likely get done in the House these next two years, courtesy of the MAGA GOP’s hostility to governance and its addiction to lies, election denial, and grievance. Bogus investigations will abound -Hunter’s laptop! Dr. Fauci! – thus gumming up the machinery. David Corn, the smart reporter-commentator says it well today: “Enemies of American democracy are being rewarded and placed in positions in which they can continue to undermine the republic. Even if they and their fellow Republican extremists shoot themselves in the foot, the bullets will ricochet. There will be collateral damage.”
So we might as well get our laughs wherever we can. Which prompts me to suggest that if the Speaker balloting bogs down indefinitely, a former Republican Speaker named Dennis Hastert is tanned, rested, and ready. Granted, he was imprisoned for sexually abusing teenage boys, but, hey, he’s been a free man since 2017.