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A house of horrors, a clown car careening toward a cliff, a dumpster fire, a circus for performance artists… there are lots of ways to describe the House of Representatives under Republican leadership, and all of them are apt.
It started with the chaotic process to elect a new House Speaker. It took 15 votes and plenty of deals with the most radical faction of the caucus for Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to prevail. That foreshadowed what was to come this year: lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
In the intervening months, House Republicans have accomplished remarkably little of substance. They passed a few messaging bills that will never become law and spent most of their time “investigating” Hunter Biden.
The two times they did anything even slightly beneficial to the country — raising the debt limit and passing a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown — it took the support of House Democrats.
Of course, from their perspective, they accomplished a lot.
Without presenting any evidence, they have convinced a large chunk of Americans that Joe Biden is as corrupt as Donald Trump, which is an insanely high bar considering that the former president is spending this week in court after already having been found guilty of fraud.
McCarthy’s crowning achievement was to spin that lack of evidence into an impeachment inquiry.
Ultimately, however, that was not enough to save his job.
On Tuesday, a small band of renegade right-wing lawmakers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) forced his ouster, and, for once, all of that chaos was turned inwards.
Honestly, there is no telling what will happen next.
As we have noted on other occasions, House Republicans don’t really have a plan. They just do stuff, often guided by what Trump wants or what gets them on Fox News.
But for once, their dysfunction is directed toward each other… and there are lots of hard feelings to go around.
If we were betting people, we would put the odds of physical violence erupting between Republican lawmakers at 50-50 in the coming day.
Just listen to Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) talking about Gaetz.
“You want to come at me and call me a RINO, you can kiss my ass,” he said. “You go around talking your big game and thumping your chest on Twitter. Come in my office and have a debate mother…”
Hilariously, lots of Republicans are trying to blame House Democrats for not saving McCarthy’s butt after they just bailed him out on the vote to keep the government open… only for the (now) ex-speaker to try to throw them under the bus.
Now, the next order of business is for the House to elect a new speaker… if anybody even wants the job.
Chances are that the process will be every bit as chaotic as the last time around, so buckle up and watch this clown car head for the cliff.
