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.
I used to think this way, in part bc there’s an aspect of this that is obviously true - conservatives and liberals from many states are not all that far apart. However, I do think we’ve crossed over into dangerous territory here, to the point where politics are not “merely” shitty as usual, but actually ends. It’s like the difference between people who as they get older feel back pain, vs. outright dying. That is normal too I suppose, though it is our duty to be as diligent as possible to delay that eventual outcome for as long as possible.
I keep thinking like, if the question is “what is 1+1?”, then Democrats will say -100000, then give contracts to the corps that bribed them, and while in the past Republicans might have done similarly, now they will pull out a gun and shoot you in the head (as their way of answering the question).
Thank you for your service. Indeed we all need to struggle as best we can to open our eyes to what is going on, bc it’s not pretty. This nation that you tried to serve is hurting.