In just a few hours (noon EST), the 118th Congress will be sworn in and the GOP, which hold a very slim majority after barely wrangling success from the jaws of defeat, will have control of the agenda of the House. What will their agenda be? They have made that perfectly clear: if your last name is Biden, you can go eat a pile of shit. Their plans include impeaching Joe and investigating Hunter, but you can assume they’re not going to stop there. My guess is that there will also be an attempt to get Jill Biden’s doctorate reversed and will attempt to have First Dog Major shot in the face.
This is what Republicans have said they will do, and it also seems like they kind of feel they have to do it, too. With an election year coming up, the plan seems to be, “Use our power to attack the Biden’s so a conservative can be president in 2024.” Which is funny, because I thought Congress’ job was supposed to be helping people. And I get that you can say that Democrats impeached Trump twice and you would have a point, but the GOP went batshit crazy about how wrong and evil and stupid and horrible it was. But they are in charge now and words mean nothing, especially if those words come from someone like Lauren Boebert.
However, none of that can be done until a Speaker Of The House is chosen. That’s the dude (or lady-dude, like Nancy Pelosi) who determines what the agenda and voting record will be for the next two years. All the GOP has to do is come together, use their majority to vote in their dude (or lady-dude) and let the Biden bashing commence. But Matt Gaetz and four other congresspersons are not having it.
The GOP is in chaos. And it is kinda fun to watch.
Kevin McCarthy, the last GOP house speaker, was all set to return to his role. This is the dude who threw everything Benghazi at Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election, and he bragged about the fact he was doing it to hurt her politically. He seemed to be the perfect guy to be the GOP’s attack dog.
Then the wheels fell off the wagon.
A group of five conservatives including Gaetz and Andy Biggs have come out and said they will, in no uncertain terms, be voting for McCarthy. The reason? They basically don’t think their attack dog has the kind of bite that they want. This would be like saying that Slimer in Ghostbusters is not slimy enough. But if we have learned anything about modern conservatism, it’s that they will always want to be more slimy.
Now, if you’re a Republican, there are two problems here. The first is that despite offering concession after concession, this tiny voting block has publicly stated that they will never vote for McCarthy. The second is that the GOP margin in the house is so slim, without this voting block, McCarthy will not get a majority of the votes needed to become speaker. Which means if the Democrats can all focus up and vote for the same person, they could cause real havoc in Republican plans. They won’t have a majority of the total votes (218 of the 435 total seats), but they will have enough to have the overall vote-leader and push this to multiple votes.
All because Gaetz, a man investigated for child trafficking and who has an associate who has said the congressmen has had sex with women as young as 17, cannot get his way. I didn’t need to mention that stuff, but I did call Gaetz a piece of shit in the title, so figured I should back that up.
So, why are these five GOP House members doing this? As far as I can see it, there are only a few options:
They plan to cave on the second or third vote but want to put on a show about how principled they are but eventually acquiesced for love of country and party. This seems like the most likely choice, because if they change their minds, no one in the press will ask them about it after next week for fear of being attacked as the “liberal mainstream media.”
They truly believe they can get the rest of the GOP to vote for someone else. Both Gaetz and Lauren Boebert have said they want Jim Jordan to be speaker and that makes sense. Gaetz is a creep and so is Jordan, who covered up numerous sexual abuse situations while at Ohio State. You know, because Republicans care so fucking much about bad things happening to our children.
They are hoping for chaos. Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, who has a wonderful name, has already pulled out his big gun, stating he will vote with Democrats if the GOP can not get their shit together, and while that would be an absolute body blow for the Republicans today, it weirdly opens up options for Gaetz and Biggs and Boebert in the future. This might allow them to start working on the formation of a third party, something more MAGA-friendly. It might do well for presidential runs as they work to promote themselves as firebrands who refuse to back down. It might be good because no Biden investigation is going anywhere (especially with Democrats still in charge of the Senate.
Or, it just may be because they’re all pieces of shit. But, for now, as the GIF says…
Fancy Boys Club 