“Are you going to write about Kevin McCarthy and the contest to replace him?” asked the coffee drinker at the other end of the table. Should I? It seems like a rather meaningless family feud, especially compared to what is happening in Israel.
But it should not be meaningless. And if the soap opera in the House paralyzes our government in a time of international crisis, it isn’t.
Significant takeover
The significant event was not the fall of Kevin McCarthy, but the takeover of the House by the Republican Party after the last election, and dominance of the Republican caucus in the House by extremists.
The frauds are easy to spot. They hold press availabilities and emote. And that’s it. No committee work. No constituent work. No work.
To them, populism is a big primal scream. And so they scream and hope that satisfies the people they are elected to represent. And, thus far, this has mostly worked.
The nihilists are terrorists of the collective psyche. They are the soft, intellectualized version of the January 6 rioters. Nihilists know only how to destroy, to wreck, to tear down. This is who and what they are. Roughly ten of them now control the House caucus, and thus the House.
The House nihilists have no sense of duty to the enduring republic. They don’t grasp what representation is. They don’t understand our Madisonian system, with all its built-in subtleties, checks, and competing constituencies and conversations.
Our system is ingenious. Many of the people now entrusted with it are con artists and goofballs.
It doesn’t matter
Newt Gingrich won the House in 1994 offering a “contract” with the voters: Elect us and we will pass certain legislation. Republicans took the House in 2022 with no such promise. The only agenda (partly implicit and partly explicit) was to obstruct and to wreck. No contract; no goals; no proposed major legislation.
So how could it matter who the House Republicans elect to lead them in nullity?
To attain the speakership, Mr. McCarthy promised the yahoos (both types) veto power over the nature of negation. But his obeisance and obsequiousness could never be enough. Because when there is no limit to the anger and paranoia of your masters, there will never be trust or even satisfaction.
Mr. McCarthy was willing to go along with a cynical effort to impeach President Joe Biden, but he drew the line at shutting down the government simply for nihilistic jollies.
McCarthy’s air guitar
But you can’t suddenly be a responsible institutionalist when anger and paranoia put you in power. That’s the rub.
I think Mr. McCarthy understood this on some level. He was playing air guitar, and he knew it. He was a paper maché Speaker — a cipher.
And his successor, no matter who it is, will be equally powerless, unless something changes. Until the Republicans overcome nihilism.
Consider Steve Scalise, a decent human being who wasn't gonzo enough. No one can move as Speaker if locked in by political adolescents.
Until they are brought to heel the process, and results, will keep getting uglier. It doesn’t matter who the leader is if the platoon’s mission is to set fire to itself and run naked off a cliff together.
The caucus, as a caucus, has to stand up to the Ten, the zealots, the wreckers. No Speaker will matter until then.
Meanwhile, the media is utterly distracted and distracting. Chasing dust bunnies.
A dysfunctional family drama
Early on, the talking heads obsessed on Donald Trump’s role, or lack of one, in McCarthy’s unraveling. Why didn’t Trump “save” McCarthy (he’s not the saving type methinks) and whom would he anoint? They trivialized and reduced to the Speakership and the House to a dysfunctional family drama.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, the able man who tried to save the Trump Administration from its namesake, went on the record with some sobering stuff.
He confirmed that Mr. Trump looked down on wounded veterans and denigrated them as “losers.” (Remember when he would not honor the World War I dead in France because light rain might mess his hair?)
The general was also outraged by the former president essentially putting a bounty on the head of retired Joint Chief’s Chair Gen. Mark Milley. He concluded that Mr. Trump “has no idea what America is all about,” which is simply true.
Created distractions
American populism is a perfectly legitimate tradition. American libertarian conservatism has deep roots in our politics and culture. But both have been hijacked by poseurs and nihilists who have little interest in governing or serving the country.
Until the public wakes up and replaces the poseurs and nihilists with serious politicians, and politicians grow enough courage to be considered serious, the House is condemned.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” said Joan Didion. We create distractions so we don’t have to live.
Or govern.
Keith C. Burris is the former editor, vice president and editorial director of Block Newspapers: burriscolumn@gmail.com. His previous article was “Can a sick culture fix our sick politics.”
First Published: October 16, 2023, 12:00 p.m.
