Republicans Started a Civil War They Don’t Know How to End
Republicans Started a Civil War They Don’t Know How to End
Knocking off Speaker candidates is easy, but electing one is impossible so far.
House Republicans haven’t been terribly successful at many things this year. They struggled to keep the government open and to keep the United States from defaulting on its debt. They’ve even struggled at times on basic votes to keep the chamber functioning. But they have been very good at one thing: regicide.
On Friday, Republicans dethroned Jim Jordan as their designated Speaker, making him the third party leader to be ousted this month. First, there was Kevin McCarthy, who required 15 different ballots to even be elected Speaker and was removed from office by a right-wing rebellion at the beginning of October. Then, after a majority of Republicans voted to make McCarthy’s No. 2, Steve Scalise, his successor, a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would torpedo his candidacy and back Jordan instead. Finally, once Republicans finally turned to Jordan as their candidate, the largest rebellion yet blocked him from becoming Speaker. After losing three successive votes on the floor, the firebrand lost an internal vote to keep his position as Speaker designate on Friday.
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Less that they don't know HOW to end it and more that they don't WANT it to end.
They are perfectly happy with a non-functional government, it's what they have wanted all along. The less that actively gets done, the happier they are.
Look at Jim Jordan - 16 years in the House, ZERO bills passed.
The incompetence is the point.
They sell their voters a vision of a swamp filled with child molesting, corrupt politicians and the they fulfill that vision once elected.
"Government is broken! Elect me and I'll show you!" ;)
I hate to say this, but doing nothing is the low bar, regressing a medium bar, and fascism the targer.
Like a ratchet effect: make gains whenever you can, then hold the line (doing nothing) until you can "progress" again:-|. Say what you will about the ethics of that, but it is strategic. As Jon Stewart said, "liberal media aims to be correct, while conservative media is effective". We should learn from that. I'm not saying copy, and quite frankly I'm not sure what, but open our eyes at the very least, e.g. as you said by recognizing their deeper intentions.
*target
I feel like they have gone too far off the deep end recently. You have to present some modicum of competency to get elected, usually, even if you just plan on shitting the place up.
Competent leadership went out the window with the rise of the Tea Party over a decade ago now and it's only gotten worse.
They threw out all the old guard who knew how to compromise then. But it was the rise of the Alt Right that turned it actively dangerous.
They wanted dysfunction until funding Israel in a new conflict was on the table. Now they've caused a problem for themselves.