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[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
When Democrats are in the majority, they get their way. And when Republicans are in the majority, the Democrats also get their way. Most recently, after the stopgap spending bill was passed, Rep Jamie Raskin took to MSNBC to boast that the Democrats “got the vast majority of what we wanted” from it. And for some Republicans that was the last straw.
Eight House Republicans allied with Democrats on a vote to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And for the first time in over a century, a House Speaker was successfully booted from office.
A civil war among Republicans came down to threats from both sides of collaborating with Democrats in a House of Representatives with a narrow majority. And collaborating with Democrats seems to be the only thing that House Republicans know how to do anymore.
What are the legislative achievements of a House GOP majority, today, yesterday and the day before? They invariably involve collaborating with Democrats for personal political gain.
It’s been over a generation since a House Republican majority delivered for conservatives. Congressional Republicans are too terrified to fight Democrats and instead go after safe targets like each other. It’s not even worth counting how many times a Democrat White House made a House Republican majority cower in fear over the threat of being blamed for a government shutdown. Or how often that same majority compensated for surrendering to Democrats with meaningless virtue signaling votes that everyone knew were never going to pass the Senate.
Why are Democrats able to effectively wield their House majority while Republicans couldn’t? The Democrats are not afraid of what Republicans think of them. They develop a plan, implement it and dismiss Republican efforts to stop them. Republicans however care a great deal about what Democrats, in the House, in the media and the culture, think of them.
When Republicans threaten to blame Democrats for something, they laugh it off. Democrats backed the mobs that burned cities to the ground and opened the border to an unprecedented mass invasion without worrying what the Republicans would say. But Republicans live in fear of being blamed for a government shutdown. Rather than risk being blamed for shutting down the country, they shut down their own agenda, and then formed circular firing squads.
House Republican majorities do very little because they want to avoid taking responsibility for anything. When there is a Republican Senate majority or a Republican White House, they defer to them. And when there isn’t, they defer to the Democrats. The pattern is that the House Republican leadership wants someone else to take on their responsibilities.
Congress increasingly doesn’t legislate, it rubber stamps, and the House GOP leadership has been among the worst offenders. But the situation isn’t likely to improve under any speaker. The GOP leadership has concentrated legislative power in the hands of small men like Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Paul Ryan who haven’t the faintest idea of what to do with it except to prevent things from being done that might upset the status quo too much. Weak speakers are fall guys whose only job is to last long enough to deliver some stability for special interests.
The 118th Congress has been marked by weak and abusive leadership, and by mistrust and backstabbing among House Republicans. Short on ideological vision, it has no shortage of flamboyant members looking for ways to get ahead by becoming celebrities and undermining each other. None of this has accomplished anything for the country, only for themselves.
The Democrats have personal and ideological agendas, while the Republicans have only personal agendas. While the Democrats make money, become famous and get results, Republicans just make money and get famous before crashing and burning a few years in.
That is why Democrats keep getting the upper hand in negotiations whether they’re in the majority or in the minority. As awful as they may be, they’re not just out for themselves.
Republicans keep explaining that they have to work with Democrats since they have a narrow majority in a two-party system. But the problem isn’t that they negotiate with Democrats, it’s that they’re so bad at it. Every time Republicans work with Democrats, it’s the latter who have the leverage. And now, even when it comes to the House speakership under a GOP majority, the Dems ended up with an unprecedented degree of leverage over any Republican speaker.
The House GOP’s legacy of letting Democrats have the leverage now means total leverage.
Under Democrats, the speakership was a powerful position, while under Republicans it’s become a thankless job offering power without purpose in a deeply divided party.
And that is the real crisis.
What is the purpose of a GOP House majority? What is it there to accomplish? When all the hysterical fundraising emails, texts and carrier pigeons have been sent, what does it do?
Republicans campaign like insurgents, but they govern like placeholders. All the insurgent energy is completely lacking once the business of cutting 30 second ads gives way to the dry tasks of scheduling the votes that the leadership wants on the money that it wants to give away.
GOP leaders talk about the business of government as if its institutions exist purely for their own sake. That is not how Democrats, especially the growing leftist insurgency, sees matters. And it is not how Democrats govern. Rep. Nancy Pelosi did not treat the legislative majority that she had spent so much time and effort fundraising for as a mere non-ideological institution, and yet apart from the ritualistic virtue signaling, that is how House GOP majorities do things.
And it’s mostly how they have done things.
The Gingrich revolution briefly shook things up by giving the House GOP majority an agenda and an identity. And while the results were a long way from perfect, the branding gave the body some sense of purpose. Since then, House GOP majorities have no such mission. The leadership has tightened the screws leading to more resentment and no meaningful results.
The GOP has spent a long time treating its voters as if they were idiots, but they’re far from it. The average small dollar donor may not spend a lot of time delving into the ins and outs of legislative procedure, but understands perfectly well that he keeps investing time, energy and money with little to show for it except more fundraising letters, excuses and drama.
Conservatives are angry. And rightly so. They’ve been funding a revolution and getting a continuing resolution. The mismatch between rhetoric and results can only go on for so long. But the only thing a civil war does is hand more power and leverage to the Democrats.
The House Republican mission is not the business of government, but the business of revolution. The Democrats see that as their mission and it’s time that Republicans did too. That will take a wartime party, not peacetime managers. A true wartime party does not collaborate with the enemy. It builds a united front and sets out to win without fearing the other side.
A party like that requires strong leaders who know what is at stake: not hollow men and grifters.
The House GOP doesn’t have a speaker because it doesn’t have a mission. And without a mission, it’s only a matter of time until every session falls apart into self-serving drama. Either the House GOP will find its mission or it will continue to waste time that America doesn’t have.
Either Republicans will find their mission or they will lose.
They should have let the government shutdown, nobody would have noticed until the roads fell apart in twenty years time.
No, the Republicans could not let the government shut down because of border security; that is, the security of the Ukrainian border. Any politician who does not support endless funds for Ukraine’s war is, according to our Democ-rat masters, spreading Russian disinformation and doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin. Vote against enriching the corrupt government of Ukraine and jack-booted FBI agents with a FISA warrant will either kick down your door OR the DOJ Gestapo will threaten bogus charges of sex trafficking against the wayward legislator. That’s what they did to Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. If Republicans did anything like this to Democ-rats, the result would be swift and certain: All legislative operations would cease immediately. The Democ-rats would go on strike.
Republicans live by and are proud of their ability to “snatch defeat from the paws of victory.” No matter what it is, Republicans will always find a way to screw it up and revel in their ability to do so. God help us!!!!!!
Greenfield says the House Republicans need to have a “mission” and then execute it without regard for or fear of the Democrat reaction. This seems to be what Gaetz and the other 7 Members have done. But. it seems that “mission” will fail, as so pointedly shown by the fact that but for the eight Members all the other Republicans, including those like MTG, sided with McCarthy who, not only failed to keep the promises he made to secure the Speakership, buit also continually genuflected to the Democrats and helped propel their agenda. Because of this, I don’t see how things will change in the short-term. In the long-term, even if President Trump is elected, will he face the same lack of commitment by the Republican Members to the MAGA goals that hamstrung his many efforts to change the Washington dynamic during his first term?
I agree. idk Gaetz’s sincerity or future but I am disgusted with those quickly dismissing him & the other of the eight or accusing him. Someone had to do something!
There is an aspect of this that must be addressed. McCarthy honored no promises and stabbed us in the back and front and then tried not to leave as agreed. If we do not provide a consequence for bad behavior we get more and more bad behavior. Too many people have the perspective of a beaten down abuse victim. They fear losing the abuser’s few crumbs. They whine that “ things could get worse.”
It is long overdue to risk things getting worse. And stop behaving like abuse victims.
I want all of the people complaining about helping Ukraine to understand that the Red Menace never went away. While Americans have wallowed in pleasure and degeneracy, the Reds have been planning their comeback. When they are not opposed, they are incentivized to conquest. Remember Korea & Vietnam? Two wars that Americans lacked the will to win? I personally know women and children who have been shelled by the Russians in Ukraine. If your complaint is about corruption, then start in Washington. China is watching very closely. We are not immune to an attack from a near peer enemy. If we were unable to defeat primitives in Afghanistan, what do you think will happen if we have a full scale war with actual armies? Do you think that the high heel brigade will stop the Red Chinese? Sensitivity training & diversity to combat the hardened Russian or Chinese soldier? We are getting off cheap by sending the weapons to those who will actually fight.
If we had listened to General Patton in WW2, there would have been no USSR. If we had listened to MacArthur in the Korean War, there would never have been a Vietnam. China would never have become the threat that it is today and the Soviet Union would have fallen much more quickly. We have capitulated until we are out of options. They are coming. The Southern Border problem is but one component in the plan to bring about America’s downfall.
The “Reds” have already won. They’re called “woke” Democ-rats. What awaits is a counter-offensive. Vote MAGA!
Russia abandoned communism and has no interest in expanding beyond eastern Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine — and Crimea — would be part of Ukraine at this very moment if the Ukrainians, the OSCE, France and Germany had participated in negotiating or signed those agreements in good faith. But they didn’t. They had a corrupt purpose in signing them as Comrade Merkel has declared. Read that last sentence again.
There also would be no war in Ukraine and tens of thousands of men would be alive and intact if Barack Obama, Victoria Nuland, and the US State Department had not financed and organized the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government and proceeded to arm and train the Ukrainian army whose immediate priority was the shelling of Donbass civilians to the tune of 14,000+ deaths.
The US government and its despicable, woke Department of State are and have been the greatest threat to peace in the last 30 years. The EU is a close second with its inability to do anything except drink America’s bathwater.
There are a boatload of people working to bring about America’s downfall but the Russians are not among them. The grotesque Democrat party, the rotten media monopolies, the corrupt FBI and Justice Department, a corrupt academy, and our loathsome billionaire and NGO class are.
The Democrats and Republicans will destroy America. The Russian government does not have to do anything. Who will the Democrats and Republicans blame when the financial, political, economic, and social system in America falls apart. I know, I know, its all Trump, China, and Russia fault. Its never America’s fault. We are just sweet, little lambs being picked on by the world.
A little humor for the evening.
I hate the gop with a white hot intensity. They do representin’ for themselves. Not for me. Nothing on the border. Surrender on Ukraine. Nothing on sex trafficking. The gop is worthless.
Libertysdefender:
You have to understand the people in Congress are like 7th graders, they are still learning how to read, write, and think. In fact, the current text book they are reading is about the fastest way to get rich, by getting elected to public office. Biden read it several times, even when he was on summer vacation. Look, how rich he is today. America, the land of opportunity.
Since at least 2008, Congress (with help from the Executive Branch) drag their feet, go on vacations, never get anything done on single Bill expropriations, the dog ate our homework, wait till 48 hours before the emergent crisis of Federal shutdown fraud necessitates an “Omnibus” fraud where a 3,000 page shyster monstrosity is loaded up with all kinds of grift and graft, no one can understand all the implications of, after it is said and done, till 6 months later. This time it blew up in their face. Omnibus legislation is legalized lying, cheating and stealing Nancy nee’ D’Alessandro Pelosi is maestro of.
It looks to me like these spending bills have become nothing more than a way to siphon wealth from the working class to spread around among friends, corporations and favored nations with a percentage of it making its way back to campaign coffers. Even if we don’t contribute to any particular pols campaign, we still do. The political class has become so addicted to this method of self=perpetuity they’ve had to run up the debt because they don’t dare try to milk these exorbitant amounts from the taxpayers. How often have we heard some pol saying ‘it takes a lot of money to campaign’? I’m just speculating here but it makes sense to me when, over and over, the majority of reps continue to vote for all this spending with most of it being in the red.
“Until the roads fall apart”–?
They already are falling apart.
The direct, straightforward question that needs to be answered is, “Where did the trillions of dollars in state and Federal fuel taxes that have been collected at the pump in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes since the 1950s–specifically directed to exactly this necessary maintenance work–go; and what was that money spent on–or stolen in bribes and graft — instead?”
Hunh?
Before anybody demands higher taxes, they need to account for what they’ve done with the fortune they’ve already taken from us, especially from us motorists.
So far I haven”t seen many important, worthwhile results. And increasing the DoT’s budget ISN’T a solution–although long prison sentences might be.
How much do U.S. Representatives need to be tied to the following to
be able to navigate through the corridors of power in Congress – and
get anything done: corporations/industrialists – social and mainstream
media – thinkers and intellectuals in academia – bankers – technocrats –
and other societal donors and influencers. Can a new little cheese in
Congress – or even a ripened big one – stand alone? Because all these
institutions – including peripheral government agencies and the military –
have the perspectives of the Left – of the globalist Communists – of the
Democrats. And you better go along to get along – or else.
Look what they are doing to Trump. For the first time in American
history, a President or former President has been indicted – and several
times in four different states! Any Representative on a mission of
rebellion against the status quo will be crushed – unless some
muster the courage to stick together against the Commie onslaught.
The people would back them the way they back Donald Trump –
with J6 reminders of what they can do to us headed our way.
Christopher Hitchens wrote a book on the works of Thomas Paine who
wrote ‘Common Sense’ – ‘Rights of Man’ – ‘The American Crisis’ – ‘The
Age of Reason’. Paine’s writings touched the hearts of colonists in 1770s
frightened of the royal English juggernaut with the most powerful army
on Earth. Hitchens wrote that Thomas Paine’s ideas will always be
needed when rights and reason are under attack. A little timeless moral
support of the yearning to stay free might be good to have right now.
Christopher Hitchens was a unique hater . Thomas Paine certainly an admirer of the French revolution.
Frank b – I always like listening to the late Christopher Hitchens
and although I disagree with him on atheism – I love his admiring
talks on freedom and the American Constitution, as well as his
takedowns of Sharia and Islam.
Paine was initially enamored of the French Revolution until he
realized what a futile bloodbath it was and found himself
imprisoned in France under Robespierre.
Dear David and conservatives! Well w/the ouster of Kevin McCarthy by Matt Gaetz who wants a seat in Congress!! Republicans have once again ”SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT!” Democrats have ”UNITY” and even support ”hate America” AND TREMBLE AT THE VERY THOUOHT OF ANOTHER RUN FOR THE PRESIDENCY…TRUMP. Soo with dedicated Democratic POWER CONTROLED GOV’T, THEY HAVE GOTTEN A TASTE OF POWER BY THE GOVT AND NEVER AGAIN, POWER TO THE PEOPLE! IT TOOK ”A VILLAGE” BUT WITH CONTINUED LOOK AT THEIR FUTURE AMPLE EVIL POSTURING AND A COMMUNISTIC STYLE PROJECTORY… eeej/THEY;RE ON A ROLL BUT NOT BY JOE BILDEN’S GAFFES BUT REPUBLICANS NOW DIVIDED AND SCARED MORE THAN EVER! Dear GOD,PLEASE FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AND INTERVENE!!! FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP. …..NEXT….DON’T SEND AMERICA TO EXCILE IN ”BABYLON!” AMEN*
Goetz is the GOP version of AOC all mouth and zero intellect
Ah yes, “muh principulz!” Titty Caca Cortez might have zero intellect but she has a mission. Kevin McLuntz’s mission was to fake leading the charge in stopping the Leftists’ agenda.
I couldn’t’ care if Goetz has the intellectual agility of Lumpy Fetterman’s neck lump (and he’s a lot sharper than your impression) so long as he does the right thing. And here, he did it for sure.
Thank you for your concern.
Exactly this.
The people on the notional “Right” that are whining about McCarthy getting ousted for breaking the deal he made to get the gavel can just get bent. It’s about time there are some consequences.
And consequences are everything. Raise a child, train a dog, control a uniparty faker,….. same thing.
Imagine if there were ever the consequences for Obama, Pelosi, Garland, Wray, Clinton, and 51 who signed a lie about that laptop, etc etc.
If you cant even imagine those consequences, then it is a sign that you have been traumatized.
The first step to making something happen is to imagine it could. It may not ever come to pass but imagining it restores one’s self respect because it is something that is right.
They have a mission. It is to have a good time, get rich and for their donors to get rich. They also have the attitude that their base is stupid and people to be ashamed of. You never hear democrats criticize their base. The gop establishment believes that they are better than us.
They say Matt Gaetz went after McCarthy and maybe indirectly McConnell for the wrong reasons and that might or might not be true but it’s hard to imagine anybody supporting McCarthy/McConnell for the right reasons.
I’m sure the comments here will be wildly varied but, Tim Burchett is my representative and I couldn’t be prouder of his actions as a member of the “gang of eight” who booted McCarthy out of his speakership. With an ever-so slim majority held by House Republicans to begin with, and a decent helping of Bush-style Republicans and RINOs mixed in, we’ve seen exactly what they’ve been able to accomplish so far with the latest continuing resolution sending more “aid” down the drain to Ukraine.
While we weren’t able to curtail the government’s budgetary excesses with a shutdown, we’ve effectively done the same thing by removing RINO McCarthy, since the only thing the House is allowed to do now is pick a new Speaker. Not spending money, however temporary, is a net positive in any bookkeeper’s ledger.
Republicans will never be as unified as Democrats until such time as moderate (corporate) Bush-era folks and those in name only are either replaced with MAGA Republicans or vice versa, but if RINOs ultimately rule the party then there’s no real need for a party anyway, being just Democrat-lite.
If you bothered to listen to Rep Gaetz on the floor yesterday, he listed the accomplishments of the current House and all the bills sent to the Senate that are just sitting there, with no actions being taken by the TRUE RINO class there who have the guts to call themselves “Republicans”.
We need to stop listening to the legacy media and takes the “wins” where we can get them. However small, this was a win.
Yes, I’m having a bit of trouble understanding Daniel’s argument here, which almost never happens. On the one hand, he seems to be saying that the Republicans in the house never do anything, but then he pivots and says that here, they did too much, and formed a circular firing squad. Newt Gingrich was, not surprisingly. livid, but I will see what Dan Bongino says.
Here’s a thought. Could this perhaps be just what the Republican party needs? I have trouble understanding just what the GOP stands for these days. The Dems are all “progressive”, meaning drag-queens, trans-kids, open borders, unlimited abortions, they’re pretty obvious. So, what agenda describes the Republicans? They should have had a majority in both houses after two years of Biden, but they just couldn’t sell it. Probably because up to now, without Trump they’ve had nothing to sell.
internalexile:
listen to Flashpoint tv show and War Room tv show on Victory network and Real America’s Voice network, respectively – I think the only two so far that are reporting the truth that Gaetz and the other 7 are patriots trying to save America from going bankrupt.
very sad to see so many conservatives not supporting Gaetz – including Maria Bartiromo, Rep. Tenny (NY), Rep. Jim Jordan, Fox, Newsmax, and Gingrich, who went completely psycho on Gaetz.
Dan Bongino says call your representative in Congress and tell him to elect a conservative!
Sounded like a good idea, if we would all get on our high horses and let them know we are watching!
So I made a call!
I hear Obama chuckling and see the evil forces behind him salivating.
American politics is no longer one ideological system with two party choices. It is now, by hook and by crook, two incompatible systems.
Elected representatives aren’t elected to represent themselves. They have not been elected to be one big happy family. They mix with the enemy day in and day out in the halls of Congress.
“Can’t we all just get along” is a toxic mentality.
The elected Republicans don’t seem to understand that we no longer have one system. THEY don’t feel threatened. It is we the people, who voted them into office, who feel threatened, betrayed, powerless, abandoned.
The objective of this two incompatible systems reality is that one of the systems subsumes and swallows up the other system, thereby removing, making null and void, and utterly inconsequential, the fundamental, most valued privilege and strength of the American citizen – the right to vote.
We’ll be back to a one party system, but it will only have one choice, which means, there will be no choice.
If there is an effective Republican the Democrats and Press gang up on him and drive him out of politics. I remember reading about that happening to some effective Texas politicians in the early 2000s. Since then Republicans have been running scared.
Considering what’s happening to trump, could you blame them?
Conservatism was founded in the 1950s explicitly in opposition to philosophy, purpose & ideology. “Abstraction” was a curse word to the “trads.”
This did not sit well with classical liberals who championed individualism, individual rights, and individual liberty, all as moral ideals. A Fusion was created with peaked with Reagan & Thatcher. Reagan explicitly attacked government with moral fervor & said libertarianism is the heart of conservatism in an interview in the mid-70s.
On this Ayn Rand was right: a moral defense of liberty is the fuel of a political philosophy. Trimming spending & fiscal prudence strikes the voters as wonky details. Robing your neighbor (taxes) or children (debt) to spend what you haven’t earned is a moral outrage.
Is it any coincidence that the Democratic Party is also the pro-criminal party? That stores are closing because of theft in Dem cities? We get distracted by side issues when the party of crime–both institutional (government) & unorganized (individual criminals)–is corroding our nation. Property rights secure one’s life & sphere of liberty. This fueled our founding & will revive our nation if it is fought on moral grounds with moral outrage.
The Dems pretend in Congress to care about the rule of law. They don’t. The GOP of course knows this, so they cower before lawless, indifferent Dems. It’s comical. Nothing will change till a person of courage comes along who’s willing to play the Dem game: seize power, arrest traitors, close the border, etc ad nauseam. But no GOP milquetoast will do anything, except cave to Dems. What the USA needs is a Lord Protector Cromwell, willing to save the republic from lawlessness & wholesale deliberately destruction. But no such deliverance is coming.
Cromwell. That’s a good one 🙂
Thanks Stephen!
Cromwell Quotes (this one to Parliament):
“You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
I wonder if Republican inactivity in such matters is due to the corruption that permeates high-level politics and the subsequent fear of exposure.
semaphone-
yes – those republicans speaking out against Gaetz are the ones receiving funds from lobbyists while Gaetz gets his political funding from citizen donations.
I think that has a lot to do with it. How many times have we heard about pols amassing great wealth on a salary of $175K and how they came by it legally? Methinks that’s the dirty little secret that keeps everyone quiet. Speak out about it and your career in politics is over. Gaetz had better watch his back with the crime rate in DC being what it is.
“House Republican majorities do very little because they want to avoid taking responsibility for anything. When there is a Republican Senate majority or a Republican White House, they defer to them. And when there isn’t, they defer to the Democrats. The pattern is that the House Republican leadership wants someone else to take on their responsibilities.”
I seem to recall we had a Republican majority in both chambers AND a Republican in the White House between 1/20/2017 and 1/20/2019. And what did those majorities do for that particular president?
Mostly defer to the Democrats, IIRC..
Daniel,
Another well-written article. Thank you.
I disagree on one point, however: “But the only thing a civil war does is hand more power and leverage to the Democrats.” If this is eventually true, what difference would it make from today, yesterday, and the day before?
Yesterday’s and today’s breed of “conservative” republican is not to advance America but only to play the game, fool the voters, and as you state “invariably involve collaborating with Democrats for personal political gain.” Country be damned.
I’ve been voting for “conservative” republicans for over 30 years, and, with the exception of Reagan and, as you note, briefly Gingrich, what has that voting accomplished? Nothing. No border, invading hordes, $33,000,000,000,000 of money spent that will never be repaid, a laughable military, daily intrusions into our personal choices vis-a-vis “climate change”, and a now potent Chinese economy and military that was gifted to them by our corrupt and anti-American politicians and businessmen.
Unless something drastic changes, nothing will change, and America, a country based on individual rights and freedoms, will become nothing more than a historical footnote, devolving into just another totalitarian state.
A civil war is needed, and if has to happen within the political ranks to avoid it within the country as a whole, let the firing squad continue. It is time we rid our country of the egoless little men and women who enrich themselves at our and our country’s expense.
I don’t know if Gaetz is the man to do it, but doing nothing and expecting a different result is a fool’s errand.
The Democrats have no fear of repercussion from their constituents because most of them are harvested like produce .
and many, many are on weed.
Here is my simple explanation for why some Republicans seem willing to prioritize honorable defeat over dishonorable victory, as Victor Davis Hanson recently observed. Many so-called RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) are dues-paying members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has always maintained that, as a 501(c)(4) organization, it works with and supports both political parties to advance its agenda.
Pretty much right on the money. A deeply divided GOP populated by self-serving. cynical technocrats. No ideology, no plan, no vision. This is what Trump has wrought for his party. I hope you are right, Greenfield, and GOP voters will realize that voting Republican is a waste of everyone’s time.
^^^this is what going “full retard” looks like^^^
If anything, Trump revitalized the Republican party and did so under fire from his own side (read John McCain, etc).
Trump correctly perceived and communicated to Americans that the American political class — including the Bush RINO morons — have had no ideology, plan, or vision. Unlike any other politicians, except Ron and Rand Paul and a tiny number of other stalwarts, There was no wroughting by Trump.
Voting for either party has been a waste of time in recent years, unless what you wanted was more war, lunatic spending, gigantic monopolies, arrogant billionaires and NGOs, massive third-world invasion, political prosecutions, a corrupt FBI, climate change lies, massive domestic propaganda, endless state-controlled censorship, an emboldened AntiFa, the full homosexual/drag queen/pervert/Bud Lite catastrophe, and wall-t0-wall lies about covid and the hideous “vaccines.”
I might have missed something with my list there but you get the point, I’m sure.
Gaetz is spot on. For years, Republican voters had to listen to the lament that went something like, “we’d really like to represent your interests, but if we just have the House or just the Senate, or just the House and the Senate, but not the White House, no can do.
Well, guess what? In 2016, they got the trifecta and did absolutely nothing to advance a conservative agenda. They spent money like drunken sailors, left the border wide open did everything else they could to thwart Trump’s agenda, led by a turncoat Paul Ryan. They also held toothless investigations of the the blatant attempt by Obama and the rest of the permanent bureaucracy to undermine Trump’s presidency, led by duplicitous hacks like Lindsey Graham. And when it was all said and done, they got hammered in 2018.
McCarthy? He the poster boy for the reality that, millions of Americans are utterly disgusted at being forced to vote for the “lesser of two evils” when it’s the choice between Democrat totalitarian wannabes, and Republican base-betraying cowards.
If you want to know what motivates politicians, look at who their campaign contributors are.
In TX, the TX House RINOs were exposed w/ their impeachment of AG Ken Paxton. A close look at the money flow shows Dade Phelan collecting $millions from special interests (e.g $300k from TX Sands PAC- sponsored by Las Vegas Sands).and then distributing it to House members. If you want to see for yourself do an internet search on “Ballotpedia Dade Phelan”
Do these pols care more about what their constituents want or what their contributors want? The answer is obvious.
I’ve never understood why more isn’t made of these loyalties in political campaigns. Maybe b/c the one doing the exposing would be exposed himself.
Quoting article: “The Gingrich revolution briefly shook things up by giving the House GOP majority an agenda and an identity”. Several points of fact:
1 Newt Gingrich is, by degree, a professor of history. That he can craft lengthy documents in well-written prose should come as no surprise.
2 Ah old chestnut regarding academics is “Those that can, do. Those that can not, teach”. History is impossible to “do” in the present. Thus, Newt researched (quite well) what history tells us “ought” to be done and authored his famously ineffective “Contract With America”.
3 Newt Gingrich was charged, while Speaker of the House, with 84 counts of ethics violations, and was formally reprimanded on one count. He was ordered to repay the House an amount of $300,000 for the investigation of the charges. He was found to have violated federal tax law by House Ethics Committee’s Special Counsel James M. Cole , but later cleared by the IRS.
4 In 1998, Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a woman 23 years his junior and therefore unable to effectively manage pressure on Clinton arising from the Lewinsky scandal; the GOP lost five seats in the mid-term, largely as a result of his loss of any perceived “moral high ground”.
You are correct to say “The Gingrich revolution briefly shook things up by giving the House GOP majority an agenda and an identity”, but I would prefer more emphasis on the word “briefly”. Sadly, the firebrand approach we effectively used by Gaetz is what is needed to restore true governance in the House and Senate, not the compromise “go along, get along” politics of McCarthy and McConnell. Further, use of the term “chaos”, as it arises from McCarthy’s loss of the Speaker’s gavel is vastly overblown. Such “chaos” is well known to Gingrich, and the visible result of politics rather that governance and statesman ship.
I have been convinced for several years now that the worthless republican party WANTS to remain the minority party. It’s an easier ride. You have no real responsibilities except to constantly rant how leftism is going to destroy the country while you can’t do anything about it. When they mess up and end up in the majority then they have to face the task of actually accomplishing something, which they never do and so, they get their wish and end up again as the minority party whining about leftists.
It is the only reasonable explanation for the inept performance by the republicans in congress fr the last 40 years.
Yep, the Republicans are that basketball team (I can’t recall their name right now) that used to tour with the Harlem Globe Trotters. Their only purpose was to make it look like there was an opponent on the court.
The trouble with this is that it never gets down to telling us what the Republicans SHOULD do. Like every other political action, collaborating with the Democrats is a matter of tactics. Whether you should comes down to what you get out of it. Greenfield never gets around to telling us what he thinks it should be.
Daniel writes that Democrats are the more effective party because they don’t care about what Republicans think of them. True, but neither do they care about what the people think of them. The Dems are on a mission to socialize/communize the U. S. If the electorate is isn’t cool with it, that requires a change of tactics, not policy. The Republicans, on the other hand, seem ashamed of their own policies–apologizing because they expect the recipients of government benefits eventually to learn to stand up on their own two feet.
I’m sympathetic to most comments but thinking about this again … Daniel is right … the Party is broken.
The question is how to fix it.
FPM has always supported going to war with the army we have (as Rumsfeld once put it). It has always fired its rhetorical ammo at the leftist enemy. Here’s where FPM excels. Keep it up!
It’s because the media backs the democrats and republicans are afraid of bad press. Republicans need to get wise to this and figure out how to effectively create counter-propaganda to get their way. McCarthy had no idea how to do this.
Republican are not nearly the polished crooks that Democrats are. My only hope is WWIII. A few ground bursts from Putin on DC would help, not hurt.
“A Broken Congress”
That certainly appears to be the case if we’re measuring things by conventional standards.
But what is coming in the days ahead is one of those irrational periods that characterize all revolutionary upheavals.
Think about the GOP fading away and being replaced by something else.
When the Whig Party died off and was replaced by the original Republicans……….what happened after that?
A whole bunch of anti-social behavior in the 1860s.
Filthy Koch-sucking Rove Republican swill gonna suck Koch. Same now as it ever was.
THAT is why they are part of the Uniparty!
The Question to ask….”Does your government work for you?” Its easy to answer after what we have seen happening from stollen elections , fundamental transformation, and deep state changes and control. When Rinos are at top positions and side with the left on the New World Order, the government isn’t working for you. Thus we are losing the country we grew up in.
High time people remember who put McCarthy and RonnaMcRommey in their positions. Pres Trump did that. He is incapable of making the true changes that are needed in the battle ahead. Big difference between executive orders and passing laws, balancing budgets and making as the, Commie past president said, “fundamental change.”
Afraid we need DeSantis, to perhaps do that, but he won’t win, cause the morons that gave him the bad advice on a 6 week Abortion ban. I think Michelle O is going to be the Demo’s nominee and know-one can beat her. So I’ve turned this one over to God, cause I have no idea what’s coming.
Face it. Voters in House districts are generally ill-informed about the actions their representatives take and ill-prepared to oust representatives who are beholden to and financed by monied interests. Republican voters mostly just want government to leave them alone and provide public safety – which is the goal of neither Democrat elected and appointed officials nor of the bureaucracy. Republican representatives routinely mislead their voters about the representatives actions and accomplishments. They also engage in misleading fundraising efforts that enrich political operatives and concentrate power in the hands of a few party leaders. So cretinous elected Republicans are seldom turned out of office (witness the shock and awe when Liz Cheney was ousted). Even well-intentioned elected Republicans are suborned by the permanent Washington political staff, by party leaders, by big donors, and by relentless exposure to the leftist media in their place of work.
It takes a will of iron and incredible intellectual capacity to remain true to the constitutional obligations of elected office. And few possess sufficient amounts of either.
conservatives and libertarians should have left the republican party years ago and created a real party based on constitutional values. the republican party needs to go the way of the whigs.
Republicans do not need enemies. They have themselves. One thing Republicans are not, and that is the loyal opposition. Way too many RINOs and GOPe’s who have forgotten they work for us. The GOP and the Democratic Party need to be dissolved. D.C. is completely broken.
Republican party has been broken for a long time. At least for the last 50 years. Republicans are suffering form a battered women syndrome. No Matter how much abuse they get from commieKKKrats. They keep going back and assist them with their ultimate goal of one party Marxist ruling. Time to abolish the RINO party and start over.
I’m sure I missed his name in Daniel Greenfield’s post, along with the many many comments: Jim Jordan, the probable next Speaker. I have hope.
Democrats are not afraid because they have the government fully behind them, or is it that they the Potemkin village front for the government? Either way, that’s the conflict under which we struggle–citizens vs the federal government, especially the ruling Intel bureaucracy
the whole of america is broken and cant be fixed . the democrats want it that way and the republicans will be forever on the back foot because they don’t have sufficient male appendage to work out how to play hardball . the whole system has been corralled by the left . all of govt. has been taken over by marxists . the dems have stitched up everything and now that they know how to fraudulently win elections they will do it again . welcome to a one party state . enjoy while rome burns .
The Republicans need to have more hearings with Biden officials and question and speak to them sternly for likes on social media. Whooaaaa! Those officials will get “owned” and “destroyed” and their lies exposed. Wow that will be so great.
Actually, the House is NOT broken.
The fellow who had gone back on his promise was removed according to the Rules. Better this way than what Nancy the Terrible did – threaten her members with withholding funding IF they did not vote like she wanted.
McCarthy went back on his word. He allowed Biden to have everything he asked for in the first CR. With the lack of a southern border because of the corrupt regime, and with so much gifting of $billions to Ukraine (the most corrupt nation in Europe) giving the Fool in Chief so much money was unspeakable. US debt is $33 T. The US is definitely in decline because of the Dems and rinos. This is the hill to fight to the death on if needed and unless we are sold out by rinos.
You missed the whole point. The twenty that forced McCarthy to agree to follow a good plan have it correct and had a good plan. McCarthy wimped out to the the person who has been ruining the senate and the house, Sen. McConnell. Except for Trump’s judges, McConnell has canned or killed almost all conservative bills. He fought against the Tea Party who was very conservative. He fought against most conservatives running for the senate. He help elect a RINO and re-elect the same RINO instead of conservatives in Alaska. For example, go check to see how many of Speaker John Boehner’s bills were NOT allowed to move in the Senate by Sen McConnell. He is the one that we should work to replace with a conservative.
Yes, it is hard to get bills through the democrat senate and a democrat president, but the House of Representatives has the power of the money allocations, and that power should be used to move the country toward more conservative values and government action.
I’ll tell you what people are sick of. The Undermining of America with no verbal opposition from the Republican party. They should be on the news every day condemning what has happened to this country. Remember, ROME fell from within too because of internal corruption. Then they have the nerve to ask for money when they aren’t even doing their jobs and in a stagnant economy that the Biden administration produced that reduced the earnings and savings of people, along with paying for all the illega aliens coming through unsecure borders. Why should anyone donate money to the failures, and its not just the Republicans, its the Democrats who now represent the Socalist-Communist agenda.