The GOP needs help, immediately
On Wednesday, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives nominating Kevin McCarthy for the speakership yet again, tried to spin the matter by reminding people that “democracy is messy.
“Democracy is messy by design,” said Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher. “And that’s a feature of it, not a bug.”
Someone should have reminded Gallagher that the role of leadership is to bring order, for instance, to the mess that can be created by 435 divergent minds — 435 being the number of representatives in the U.S. House.
The fact that McCarthy needed votes from his Republican caucus only makes his failure to become speaker on the first day of the 118th Congress all the more spectacular and telling. If Republicans can’t even elect a speaker in an orderly and timely fashion, then they — and we — are in a heap of trouble.
Think debt ceiling extension. Think natural disaster assistance. Think aide to Ukraine. Heck, think about anything that requires serious consideration, or even attention.
Is the slim House Republican majority, now dominated by the extremes, up to the task of governing? To ask the question is tantamount to answering it.
As former GOP congressman Billy Long of Missouri wrote on his Twitter account last week about the Republican speakership debacle: “Welcome to Bizarroland.”
House Democrats must enjoy seeing Republicans squirm. Then again, the GOP failure is more than cosmetic.
Jerry Nadler, the Manhattan Democrat who’s as partisan as can be, soberly appraised the situation: “If there’s an emergency, we couldn’t respond. Either the Republicans don’t understand that, or they don’t care. I don’t know which is worse, but it is a profound danger to the country.”
Democrat Dan Kildee of Michigan noted to The New York Times that “there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and that’s a dangerous position for us to be in. (In the event of an emergency) would we be willing to figure something out? I don’t know if that’s doable with this crowd.”
“This crowd” includes democracy destroyers Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Andy Biggs, and more than a dozen other Republicans, all of whom, as Amy Walter of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report points, come from ruby red, non-competitive congressional districts.
It’s possible that Kildee, given the strange proclivities of the caucus as whole, was lumping all or most House Republicans into the “this crowd” folder. These rather odd GOP bents of mind include a fixation on Hunter Biden and his wayward laptop, and the “weaponization” of the government and private actors against everyday American conservatives by the Biden administration.
One measure of the political trouble the speakership mashup is causing Republicans is the answer offered by Florida Republican Bryon Donald (himself a speaker candidate), when he was asked about what would happen should an emergency occur.
“We all know … the president of the United States is right down the street,” he said.
As for Joe Biden, he was seen this past week in Kentucky with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The two men were showcasing their bipartisanship bonafides at an Ohio River bridge-building ceremony.
“We disagree on a lot of things,” the president said. “But … he’s a man of his word. When he gives his word … you can count on it, and he’s willing to find common ground.”
The Senate minority leader said, “We ought to look for things we can agree on.”
The district’s own Guy Reschenthaler has pledged to stay in D.C. until July 4th, if that’s what’s required to make Kevin McCarthy speaker.
We can only hope Reschenthaler was speaking rhetorically.
Thie speakership impasse will end, eventually. But the crisis of American democracy will not. One recalls with dread the fact the prior to the Civil War political power drained from the center to the extremes.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.