Paul Ryan Light Takes the Gavel
I couldn’t bring myself to watch very much of last week’s D.C. theatrical production, but the little bit I did watch was enough to make me roll my eyes. Even though the Foxcasters tried their best to make the Republican speakership brawl sound like a life-or-death nail-biter, it’s safe to say that most viewers knew full well how it would all end. When you’ve watched the same movie over and over again, why wouldn’t you know the ending?
It was yet another chance to witness just how entrenched in their status quo positions the vast majority of House Republicans are, because voting for Kevin McCarthy for speaker is about as status quo as you can get. The fact that McCarthy was Paul Ryan’s first lieutenant should have automatically eliminated him from consideration by any Republican who truly wants to do what’s in the best interest of his/her constituents. Does anyone really believe Kevin McCarthy is the best the GOP can do when it comes to selecting a leader?
In a spirit of generosity, I can give some Republicans a pass for supporting McCarthy from the outset if they naively believed he has seen the light and is ready to carry out the will of Republican voters. Both Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene apparently believed so. But when Republicans start acting like Democrats, my goodwill disappears. Specifically, I’m referring to the threats, name-calling, and intimidation tactics many Kevin McCarthy supporters resorted to, tactics right out of the Democrat playbook.
Even Fox anchors and contributors like Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich were outraged by the 20 conservatives who kept voting against McCarthy, chastising some of their favorite House members like Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Chip Roy. But the Indignation Trophy has to go to the usually solid Judge Jeanine Pirro, who said on “The Five” that the House members refusing to vote for McCarthy should “be quiet and go along with the majority.” (To her credit, the next day Pirro acknowledged she was wrong and said she now believes their demands were good for the country, but shame on her for talking before thinking.)
Such outrageous talk is a reminder of why Democrats always seem to come out on top. It’s so much more comfortable to go along with the majority than to be the target of smears and threats. Everyone in D.C. knows the game: If you want to get along, you have no choice but to go along.
A lot of folks were livid that 5 percent of the Congress could hold up the will of the overwhelming majority, but isn’t the whole purpose of a democratic republic to protect the minority? Anyone who doesn’t like stalemates always has the option of lobbying to get the rules changed to make it possible for the majority to steamroller the minority. In other words, they can try to codify tyranny if that’s what appeals to them.
What, exactly, did the minority want? At its core, it was about serious change versus business as usual, and serious change is what Uniparty parasites fear most. The devil is in the details, and in this case the details are in the House rules, because the rules are how career politicians rig the game in their favor.
What the 20 holdouts said they most wanted was major changes in the rules that now allow members to ignore both the Constitution and their constituents and do whatever the hell they please. If you’ve ever wondered how monstrosities like the $1.7 trillion pork-filled “omnibus” bill, the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” and the Inflation Reduction Act (which has absolutely nothing to do with reducing inflation) get crammed down the throats of wimpy Republicans without being given enough time to read them, it’s because of the House rules.
The swamp has been stacking the House rules in their favor for decades. Their focus is on putting themselves in a position to be able to ignore the Constitution, make it easier to game the system, and establish a totalitarian grip over the country, and they are probably one election away from achieving all that.
This is precisely what John Adams warned about when he said the Constitution was made only for a moral and religious populace. The people running the show in Washington are immoral to the core, and the people who keep voting them into office are not much better. So long as enough voters are so naïve, so uninformed, and/or so greedy that they believe the swamp’s promises and are thus convinced they will receive more of the government largesse than their neighbors, the situation is likely to get worse rather than better.
No matter the issue, we always seem to end up back at square one: People do, indeed, get the government they deserve. That said, I will be rooting for the Freedom Caucus guys to pleasantly surprise us by hanging tough against the business-as-usual crowd and starting to implement some serious changes.
Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.
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