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If Repugnican U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy looks like he’s lost among his fellow stupid white men, it probably is because he is. Today was the first time in 100 years that the new House speaker was not chosen on the first vote, and the House cannot conduct any business until after a speaker is chosen.
It widely had been reported that five Repugnican U.S. representatives were dead-set against voting for Kevin McCarthy as the new House speaker, yet thus far today, McCarthy lost the first two votes for speaker — with 19 House Repugnicans defecting both times.
McCarthy always has struck me as a big-enough asshole to “lead” the Repugnicans, but apparently, many Repugnicans want someone even dumber, even crazier and even more mean-spirited than McCarthy.
What we are seeing among the House Repugnicans right now I think is representative of the larger schism within the party: the more establishmentarian, Repugnican Classic wing (the wing that still cares about actually winning elections and rejects the “plan” to lose elections but just claim that you actually won them) — and the bat-shit cray-cray wing that doesn’t mind losing winnable general elections by fronting bat-shit cray-cray candidates (and just claiming “fraud” after these candidates lose to the saner judgment of the American electorate).
The bat-shit Repugnicans are fantastically aspirational — that is, they’re quite willing to turn off the average American voter if their hellscape of a vision for the United States of America has even the tiniest chance of ever coming to fruition. After all, better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven, no?
Today was the first time since 1923 that the House failed to elect a speaker on the first vote.
If the clowns that comprise the House Repugnican caucus manage to hold on to power for a full two years, I don’t see them holding on to the House come January 2025.
What happened to the Repugnicans?
The “leaders” of the Repugnican Party, having realized some time ago that there aren’t enough rich people to keep their party afloat, decided to appeal to the worst elements in the nation to bolster their party at the ballot box.
It started, methinks, no later than with Sarah Palin in 2008, and then became the “tea party” (which started, out of opposition to the nation’s first black president, in 2009), and then became the Pussygrabberian, a.k.a. the MAGA, (bowel) “movement.”
The chickens have come home to roost; make a deal with the devil — and some day, the devil will demand his due.
P.S. While the Repugnicans deal with the satanic chickens that have come home to roost, the House Democrats unanimously voted for Hakeem Jeffries as their new leader.
Jeffries is the first black leader of either party in the House or the Senate, and at 52 years old, he gives my generation some long-past-due representation in a Congress long dominated by baby boomers and other old fucks.
Clearly, one party is forward-looking and seeks to be more representative of all of the people — and the other party seeks to keep stupid white men in power in perpetuity, just as in “the good ol’ days.”
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