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An Appropriate Fiasco
The embarrassing squabble of the House GOP over the selection of Speaker is actually a pretty honest reflection of the state of the GOP in its two parts: (1) A conventional, ideologically pale establishment that believes that avoiding controversy and offering modestly different alternatives will allow the party to win elections in those intervals when the commies running the other party overreach and upset the voters and (2) an angry faction that shares an (accurate) intuition that much is wrong with the country but which faction really has no idea what to do about it. Neither side has anything resembling a long-term strategy.
Meanwhile, the woke rot has infected schools, government at all levels, media, and even corporate board rooms. Perverts and anti-Americans no longer even have to win elections to keep gaining destructive power. Elections are unlikely to be more than an occasional inconvenience. Monolithic media power combined with corrupt new election processes funded by mind-boggling wealth means that the bad guys will never be badly beaten in elections even with weak candidates. If Biden succeeds in burying Texas and Florida with a tsunami of illegals (i.e., voters-in-waiting) and perverts get another ten years of control of elementary and middle school education, the national identity and cultural memory could be largely erased.
Last fall, despite the manifest, unprecedented failures of the Biden regime, the GOP was out-hustled by the other party’s organizers, outthought by the manipulators of election processes, and proved to be pathetically incapable of overcoming a silly electoral message that was nothing more than Orange Man Bad–and the Orange Man was not even on the ballot.
The other side funds their perverts, NGOs, agencies, and grifters who staff its political operation. It legislates advantages for their side whenever possible and faithfully parrots the party line at all times, however stupid. Having momentum and purpose matters. Voters tend to prefer the side that seems to have its stuff together, even if its platform is distasteful. In 1932, 52% of German voters pulled the lever for either the Nazis or the Communists instead of any of the other 60 (!?) parties in the clown show that comprised the moderate alternative.
We need leadership that aids the requisite fight at every level and does so with skill, savvy and long game. Regardless of who is the next Speaker, the leader we need is not likely to emerge from the current GOP congressional leadership.
Published in General
The everlasting problem is that the Democrats, with their orchestrated actions and unlimited wealth, routinely drop a cluster bomb of issues on our country that no opposition can defend against. The Democrats are overbearing and overwhelming.
It is not the numerous of issues raised so much as the quality of packaging, control of how they are discussed and the caliber if opposition.
They’ve be allowed to set the terms and we help them by accepting thise terms and being defensive;
“I’m not a racist” is a defensive crouch instead of an immediate counterattack on the diviseness and inherent dishonesty behind the charge.
“I am not a climate denialist” is also defensive instead of aa attack on the blindingly stupid, unworkable, destructive and hideously costly nonsense being hustled.
Etc.
Those are not even valid starting points concerning real issues.
An affirmative agenda would take time to convey but so what?
Right. The appropriate response to being called a racist is a jab to the nose, as a warning.
(although we are all racists, of course, that is all of humanity, but that’s not what it means when it’s used as an epithet)
If people want to fight for their beliefs instead of going along to get along, ths is what it looks like. Every day the new batch of Congress-critters isn’t sworn in is another day they aren’t doing something stupid and harmful and very, very expensive while preening for the cameras … a small victory.
I am hearing specifics about balancing budgets, ending illegal immigration, investigating corruption, investigating the IC, and restoring a normal budget process. Doing those things would be the best 2 years in Congress since Coolidge.
These are features of a Maoist cult. The narrative (aka “the truth”) is proclaimed by leaders and anybody not immediately repeating is destroyed. Also, power must be accumulated and applied to push the narrative. Utopia is so close.
Just over the next hill.
Good point.
The fundamental problem is that we’re a minority party in a country that is left of center. Somehow we’re trying to gain traction but we’re not. So we squabble. We point fingers. We still can’t get traction. It gets worse. It doesn’t really make that much of a difference because we don’t have enough national support. The country will turn to conservatives when it gets tired of the perversions and the spending. Until then we wont get traction.
The problem is deeper, in that we’ve had opportunities in the past to gain traction but each one was killed off by the same people running the GOP now. We had a golden opportunity after Obamacare with the Tea Party. We had a second wind with Trump’s election: House, Senate, and President. No repeal and replace, no border wall legislation, no cuts to spending, etc.
When it’s time to vote, you have to make a real choice. More often than not that’s choosing the least-bad option. Otherwise you’re just a spoiler, tossing grenades over the fence, not providing realistic solutions. There are times to push and set up the big battles, and there are times to compromise and push the margins over time. This is the latter.
I don’t see the end-game for the 20 dissenters. They’ve got only two options, back down, or see a compromise candidate replace McCarthy. However, I doubt that a compromise will be more to their liking. Nobody else wants this poisoned chalice. That means the only compromise candidate will be someone that Democrats vote for. That will be worse in all respects. This is likely to be a weak Congress for all the obvious reasons, post November. The only bright spot is the potential from Jim Jordan’s committee.
The best option is that McCarthy gets the next vote after more concessions for transparency, etc., and remembers he’s got to hew to the right to keep his caucus. We need to differentiate between strategic and tactical fights. This will be a tactical Congress. It’s important to create the situations where a squish wants to make the right happy. That’s how a coalition grows. Not by tossing the insufficiently pure. Elections are won by growing a coalition. Republicans will only win by growing a coalition beyond the margin of fraud.
That’s why they most important fight is the strategic fight. That means the National GOP chair, which needs someone like Hameet Dhillon to set up the moves for the future. That’s where the hard fight needs to be.
@nocaesar, I wouldn’t call it backing down. We do want them to take a deal at some point, so long as it’s a deal worth taking. That way, they don’t “back down” — they declare victory in the battle and return to keep fighting the war.
Don’t believe the haters.
Is that the party making bad decisions or the fact that those issues run against the general will of Americans? Is it because those politicians are acting in their political self interest?
Well, if there’s no pushback, we’ll never know — we’ll just get mau-mau’d into the grave.
I suspect that with all the polling and taking the pulse of their constituents, each Congressman and Senator knows what’s best for their elective interests. The amazing re-elect rate would indicate they know how to vote on issues.
This is the zero-sum mentality. If there’s any hope it’s in being inspirational, leading, generating wins and attracting people to the shchtrugggle. Wait until the next generation figures out how screwed they are. Fiscal conservatism may well explode in popularity. It will not happen if there are no fiscal conservatives to accomplish it.
Can’t win the long game if we give up the short game.
May sound strange from an atheist, but have faith!
I don’t disagree. I’m just explaining what I think is happening. Of course it’s just my humble opinion.
That’s really the central question of the past 20 years. I’d answer it by turning it on the opposing party, as I’ve done elsewhere. How have the D’s successfully pushed insane ideas on a right-leaning nation? Obamacare was not the will of the voters. It was forced through during a period of complete democrat control and cost them greatly. But what was important was that the barbed bill had been pushed through, and will remain the law of the land in perpetuity.
With that example in mind, did the Democrats make bad decisions or push issues that run against the general will of Americans? Yes.
Did the Democrats act in their political self interest? That depends on the time span being considered. If was a loser for them in the short term, because Americans still believed them to be extreme. Over time, however, the memory of pre-Obamacare times fade and people get used to the idea. Now discourse shifts even further left. This applies to pretty much every leftist crusade, from healthcare to transexualism to objective reality itself.
It’s starting to look like that the end result of all of this will be power sharing arrangement between the Democrats and the Republicans.
I admit that this is just a guess on my part.
But it seems that at some point, after perhaps a dozen inconclusive votes for Speaker, a group of squishy Republicans will open up negotiations with a group of Democrats and they will agree to having all House committees, including the Rules Committee, split 50-50 between the parties. I suppose they might go with a squishy Republican as Speaker, one that the Democrats think is preferable to McCarthy.
The reason why I think this will happen is because after a few more days, there will be a bi-partisan majority of Democrats and Republicans who will want to get on to the business of governing, which to them mean spending a ton of money on pork projects.
Exactly. We’re not “drifting”, we’re being stampeded by a bunch of murderously serious Alinskyite Marxists.
“What we have heah…” BLAM!
I agree. It’s time for the McCarthy faction to compromise and step back. They can fight another day when they figure out what it is they’re going to fight for. .
The Dems did take a massive hit at Obama’s first mid term but in the long run, the country did not overthrow Obamacare. Why? Did the country react to Obamacare’s cost or to the government program? My hunch is that they didn’t mind the government program but didn’t want to pay for it. Now that payment is out of sight, it’s also out of mind.
Propaganda works. It just does. The American people have been worn down and conditioned to accept things. This process is not irreversible, but somebody does need to fight to reverse it.
The Democrats have a long history of shoving through horrible legislation which is extremely difficult to remove once implemented. Think back to Social Security. It was unthinkable before the depression that you would be assigned a number and have your salary garnished by force, but the depression allowed that barb to grab hold. Now Social Security is a part of our every day life, not just when checking your pay stubs, but when signing most any form. That blasted number is required for damn near everything. For the next generation, the ACA will be as noncontroversial as SSN’s. This will continue for issue after issue, until and unless a suffient counter-movement is established in our academia, culture, and government.
If McCarthy knows he can’t get the votes, here’s what I’d recommend:
Defer to Steve Scalise. He’s next in line, and is likely a bit easier to swallow. The dude knows from personal experience how crazy the left can get. State that the failings in the campaign means that we need new leadership. Get someone who actually flipped a district to chair the campaign committee.
Take a page from one of the clever Ricochetti and move back to regular order. Focus on small funding bills and keeping the democrats from pulling leverage. Investigate and publish all the investigation documents.
McCarthy made some really bad moves during and after the election, so I can see the outrage. However, we need a leader.
Which society, country, civilization in history did not rot and die? Is there one? What are the characteristics of a dyeing place? We knew why such death occurs designed ourselves around it but still managed to destroy ourselves. In our case the fall and decline will be much more drastic and painful because we were so much more developed and diverse. Fixing it is simple enough to understand, but won’t be and won’t happen.
Well, after the Covid subsidies, what a paltry 2T for the ACA over 10 years. We spend .ore than that in a year now in subsidy payments and/or loan forgiveness.
The debate and delay could be fine. What they should be doing it making their case. The media won’t help them by giving them voice as the media loves the spectacle, but a few weeks won’t hurt if they can articulately make their case. So far I haven’t seen it.
Well Rep. Crenshaw says that those that oppose McCarthy are “terrorists” and “enemies”. He promised that they would loose committee assignments at the very least. It’s always great to insult your opponents, that usually means you don’t have an argument.
The whole point of having the Republican conference vote a month ago was so that they could select a single Republican to unite behind so that they could go up against the Democrat candidate for Speaker.
It’s sort of like a primary. Rather than split the Republican vote 5 different ways, the 5 Republican candidates have a primary election and the Republicans unite around the primary winner.
McCarthy won the conference vote overwhemingly. So, normally, everyone, including those who preferred someone else, would just unite behind the conference choice. But now you have about 89 percent of the GOP conference fighting with the other 11 percent of the GOP conference when all of this was supposed to be settled in the conference choice.