Beyond Schadenfreude

This is how it ends

Traitors

[updated]

“The marvel of Wile E. Coyote isn’t that he eventually falls off the cliff but that he makes it so long running in midair,” writes Ben Jacobs in Slate, finding the perfect metaphor to describe the ignominious and abbreviated Speakership of Kevin McCarthy and its inevitable end. It’s also an apt description of Republican dysfunction and any all attempts to pretend that this is a party that either can govern or is even remotely interested in governing.

Kevin McCarthy became Speaker not because he knows what he’s doing, but because he is one of the most craven and cynical powerbrokers the Republican Party has ever known (which is really saying something given that his immediate predecessors include Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner.) In the end, McCarthy didn’t last because he miscalculated and gave away too much to the fanatical extremists.

Jim Jordan is an ultra-extremist, co-founder of the so-called Freedom Caucus and even less fit to govern than McCarthy, but in today’s GOP, that’s a selling point. He’s also a belligerent, rude, slinger of conspiracy theories who protects and enables sexual predators. Rounding out his list of credentials, he’s a remarkably unaccomplished Representative—during his sixteen years in Congress, Jordan has passed zero bills. His constituents vote for him because he prioritizes their culture wars. His seat, in an egregiously gerrymandered district in Ohio, is so safe he doesn’t have to appeal to a wider swath of voters.

Seriously, look at this thing:

Ohio’s 4th Congressional District, via Wikipedia

Jordan can represent Ohio’s 4th in perpetuity, at least until the state gets its act together, but we now know definitively that he will never be Speaker: This afternoon, he was ousted as the nominee after his colleagues voted in a secret ballot (he lost 112 to 86). This is good news, of course. A Jordan Speakership would have been the greatest stain on our politics since the Republican party elevated Donald Trump. And it might have been as dangerous in some ways as the Trump administration.

After losing by an even wider margin in the second ballot yesterday, Jordan and his allies engaged in the same kind of bullying and threats in which Donald has always trafficked—like Donald, Republicans know they can only “win” by lying, cheating, and stealing.

We’ve heard some in the media, as well as some Democrats, applaud the Republicans’ unwillingness to elevate the likes of Jim Jordan, a legislator who doesn’t know how to legislate, a government official who doesn’t believe in the government he serves. But that misses the point. In the three rounds of voting, a small minority of GOP congresspeople did not support Jordan, but we need to focus on the alarming fact that 200 of them put him within 20 votes of one of the three most powerful political positions in the United States. To talk about vote totals instead of who our representatives are voting for, as well as what they’re willing to risk, is to normalize what has been an aberrant, dangerous process.

And normalizing Republican extremism gives the party cover to do more harm to democratic norms and processes. It’s too early to tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the narrative crafted in the wake of Jordan’s ouster will be that the adults are back in charge of the Republican caucus when, in fact, there are no adults, no moderates, no pro-democracy Republicans left. At the moment, five Republicans have thrown their hat in the ring for the Speaker’s race. Of the three who were in office on January 6, 2021, Austin Scott (R-GA), Jack Bergman (R-MI), and Pete Sessions (R-TX), only Scott voted to certify the 2020 presidential election.

Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Kevin Hern (R-OK) didn’t assume office until 2023, but they both oppose abortion, marriage equality, the minimum wage, and combating climate change; they both support Donald Trump.

Normalization cuts both ways. While obsessing about Biden’s age, the media underreport, or entirely ignore, the president’s accomplishments, making them seem ordinary or somehow underwhelming.

In reality, in the last two and a half years of his first term, Pres. Biden has

• Created over 13 million jobs, including over 750,000 manufacturing jobs

• Decreased the unemployment rate to a fifty-year low

• Appointed over 145 judges to the federal bench

• Passed the first major piece of gun legislation in 30 years

• Signed the Inflation Reduction Act which includes the largest investment in combating climate change

• Enabled Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies (for example, caps the price of insulin at $35 per month

This is a (very) brief snapshot and only covers Biden’s domestic achievements.

Even under normal circumstances, Biden’s first term would be considered stellar. Given the context, it’s been nothing short of extraordinary. But the media never seem to discuss what Biden inherited from his predecessor: three intersecting and potentially democracy-destroying crises—the economy, COVID, and the Big Lie which led to the January 6^th Insurrection.

Ignoring these factors undercuts the strength of Biden’s record.

The Democrats stand united, ready to govern. It would take only a handful of sane, pro-democracy Republicans (literally 5) to make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker. But there are no sane, pro-democracy Republicans. Even those in swing districts that went for Joe Biden in 2020 would rather throw in their lot with the doomed Speakership of whoever the Republican is going to be than cross the aisle in order to establish a stable, bi-partisan coalition. Turning to Democrats for help in keeping the government open is what got Kevin McCarthy fired in the first place. Don’t expect any Republican who wants to get re-elected to make the same mistake.

The media always seem to operate from the assumption that it’s the responsibility of the Democrats to save the Republicans from themselves in the interest of good governance. And this is part of the problem: Republican malfeasance, best exemplified by the behavior of the party’s standard-bearer, is not just expected but excused; any failures at bi-partisanship are always laid at the feet of Democrats because it is they who are assumed to be the adults in the room. Even if the mess is entirely of the Republicans’ own making, it will always be the Democrats’ fault—just ask Kevin McCarthy.

This framing bolsters the narrative that Democrats are solely responsible for making sure the country runs properly while Republicans can do whatever the hell they want— and behave as irresponsibly as they want; it will somehow still be the Democrats’ fault.

Hakeem Jeffries and the united Democratic caucus in the House have it exactly right—the Republicans, through their cynical, anti-government, policy-free agenda have brought this country to its knees, rendering the us that much weaker in the face of unfolding and complex international conflicts. Make no mistake, both the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Hamas have serious, far-reaching implications for the future of this country. Steady, strong American leadership is more necessary than ever.

It is Republicans and Republicans alone who don’t care.

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Yo-Yo Ma posted this on Twitter yesterday. I hope it brings you some peace.