'primary-ing'

what makes our politix go 'round

For the second consecutive week, the Republicans failed to elect an arch conservative—or anyone else—as Speaker of the House, the person third in line of succession in our political system. Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio today and his colleague Steve Scalise of Louisiana last week were unable to convince a simple majority to support each of their bids, as did the previous incumbent Kevin McCarthy merely a fortnight ago tonight.

It appears Jordan will attempt to rally his partisan colleagues but the widely reported ‘strong arm’ tactics of the Party mechanism did not garner the additional 17 required votes. Jordan actually received the second highest number of votes in this round, falling 12 votes behind the House Minority Leader, New Yorker Hakim Jeffries. Jeffries needed 5 more votes to become Speaker but that wasn’t going to happen either.

This matters so fundamentally. The two parties differ so greatly on how and what to use your and my taxpayer dollars to achieve. Jordan, never yet able to lead a single bill to passage with his name affixed as sponsor in his seventeen year career, has made his mark in drawn out, highly charged oversight investigations. His repeated hearings over the Benghazi tragedy on 11 September 2012 remain indicative of a focus not on governing as much as bringing attention to shaming Democrats without any proposed reforms to avoid repeating the mistakes. Jordan, in conjunction with former South Carolina Trey (this is what happens when you are aging and watched a lot of baseball so my earlier draft said Curt. CAPT George Smith— thank you—gently reminded me that being old and in a hurry isn’t justification for messing with names. Trey!) Gowdy, held extensive and fiery oversight hearings to the tune of $7 million without much policy effect. The proposed Speaker similarly initiated oversight hearings against the current incumbent president, his son, and other Democrats, much as Jordan’s champion, former president Trump, demands regularly.

Steve Scalise served faithfully in senior House leadership over the past decade, most recently as House Majority during this session. Suffering life threatening injuries during a 2017 assassination attempt, Scalise is every bit as rightwing as Jordan, allegedly having exclaimed he was ‘a conservative like [former Ku Klux Klansman] David Duke without the baggage’. He opposes gun control (even following his near death from a gunshot wound), gay and lesbian rights, tax increases, and all of the agenda seen as anathema to the contemporary GOP. Scalise won an initial round of support in the Republican Caucus last week, then proceeded to see those votes bleed out as he neared a floor vote in the full body. He surrendered before the full floor vote.

Neither Scalise, Jordan, erstwhile Speaker McCarthy, or Flipper the Pet Seal seem to have the votes to rouse sufficient support because their entire objective is to prevent negotiations among the 435 House Members. McCarthy’s sin, after all, was that Florida Representative Matt Gaetz preferred the Speaker allow a full shutdown of the U.S. Government rather than to cross the aisle to engage Democratic support for a budget stopgap measure. Sure, McCarthy was on borrowed time for months after his 15 round marathon to get the Speaker’s gavel in January but the proximate cause was his willingness to disobey the hardest of the hardliners by working with the political—not international but domestic—opposition.

This is exhausting. It also is indicative of how far we are from ‘a great place’ that the majority party in the House chamber prefers destroying to governing.

We have a slight but ruling majority stopping of the functions of the body they are there to serve within. Wearying, as I noted, and appalling.

However, the one thing we as citizens cannot forget is that these people made clear their guerrilla intentions before they were elected. I don’t follow the campaigns of the 435 House Members but I have heard nothing indicating the two dozen or so Chaos Caucus members had personality transplants after arriving on the Hill.

Au contraire, we are seeing individuals petrified that their supporters will deny them re-election (ah, where did those days go of people who claimed they believed in term limits? Scalise arrived in 2009, for example, following Jordan’s and McCarthy’s election by two years). The issue of ‘primary-ing’ a serving member of either Party pulls the parties’ political centers of gravity (or central oomph, for lack of a better term) further to the extremes. And extreme a number of Representatiaves are. Based on what we are seeing, I think it’s impossible to ignore this penetrating fear for those in the Republican Party particularly.

The elections motivate the voters who like the extreme rhetoric, who reject compromise, driving those extremist candidates further into Chaos Country which excites the voters who demand continuity of action—etcetera etcetera etcetera. What could go wrong?

Many comments ricochet through our society about Donald Trump but he grasped this reality before anyone else. While he failed to do most of the things he promised before his 2017 inauguration, Trump met the most unifying issue in the Party before the summer of 2022: he provided Justices on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe. He nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Court ten days after the inauguration and Amy Coney Barrett seven days before the 2020 election. This was despite Republicans hypocritically refusing to consider Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, because their supposed concern for ‘the people’ having their voice heard in the forthcoming 2016 election; Garland’s possible seat went to Gorsuch within the first fortnight of Trump at the White House. With Coney Barrett, Trump never hesitated as he intended to meet his core supporters’ fundamental desire.

Democrats are a party of compromisers but the current Chaos Caucus fears compromise more than anything else. Their voters reject the idea that compromise is the American way, ignorant of the more than two centuries’ history of precisely that method so carefully built into the political system by the Founders.

It behooves all of us who believe in governing to start to understand the political mindset demanding chaos as it does not appear waning across our nation. The two parties are virtually even due to state gerrymandering, leaving the foreseeable future one of deadlock. About 20 seats (at best) in each election are truly open, competitive races. That may feel geat to the ‘victors’ but it guarantees more paralysis and the steady decline of America as the leading voice around the world. No one really enjoys listening to screamers who see that the outcome rather than the method to accomplish something else.

I suppose that is unfair analysis. The screaming aims at maintaining power but it’s a slippery slope when ‘primary-ing’ drives that center of gravity further away.

We need a plan b for this country, regardless who we are as individuals, if we want this Republic to service. That is not hyperbole.

The clouds have been spectacular today as have been the gift of flowers fighting to maintain their lives in the diminishing light of autumn.

Thank you for reading this column. I welcome any and all thoughts. Perhaps you will join those who have invested in a paid subscription to Actions Create Consequences, for which I am so thankful. In any case, I genuinely seek to expand our national discussion—across the aisle and all over. Otherwise, I fear for everyone’s future regardless of her or his position.

Be well and be safe. We have a bumpy ride ahead, I suspect. FIN

Stephanie Grace, ‘Stephanie Grace: Scalise's pitch to Duke supporters seems plausible’. The Advocate, 31 December 2014, retrieved on 17 October 2023 at https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/stephanie_grace/article_5d6ad63a-caed-5ad7-a377-c5cb0d41d1ac.html