We Deserve Better
The GOP's pathetic meltdown in the House is just yet another absurd incident in the ongoing tragedy of our misrepresentation
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They were eating popcorn. Drinking. Posing for ready-made-for-virality photos. All while the Republicans embarassed themselves repeatedly one vote after another. Tensions even threatened to boil over after the 14th vote to elect Kevin McCarthy failed and Alabama Representative Mike Rogers had to be restrained from Florida disgrace Matt Gaetz.
Finally, after days of dysfunction, and on the 15th vote, McCarthy was confirmed and the House of Representatives was back in function.
Truth be told, this was a made-for-television moment. The endless votes made for instant tension, and an entire generation of elected officials taught to seek the limelight vamped for cameras and sought out every cable news and radio show in the country to build their brand. It was pure theater, bargain-basement professional wrestling, everything that is wrong with American representative government.
That this happened with the Republican Party is little surprise. Though conventional political wisdom continues to paint the party as one of uneasing discipline and dogma, the writing has been on the wall for years as the New Right continues to war againt the traditional Neoliberals in a bid to capture the controls. McCarthy’s candidacy was a perfect moment for the Freedom Caucus to flex their muscles as he is both an extremely weak politician and has made his career living in the center of the building schism.
The ins and outs of what happened, from a political bartering standpoint and also the horse-trading behind the scenes, is one thing, but what is being missed in so much of the coverage and discussion is the tragedy of this perversion of government. While the raising of the debt ceiling looms in the near distance like a full-on apocalyptic storm, every moment of this shameful garbage simply obscures the fact that the people elected to represent us have no desire whatsoever to actually represent our interests or do much of anything beyond bask in our anxious attention.
And perhaps even worse, we have come to expect nothing less from these grifters.
That is not to say that the House of Representatives and the United States government do not have a history of these types of shameful behavior. From the beginning this entire system was calculated to freeze the business of the people for the benefit of wealthy stockholders, all while prioritizing the needs of the vainglorious.
But there is something we must declare and ultimately believe: we deserve better.