Several years back, one of y’all called former Ohio Gov. John Kasich “shellfish allergy Harrison Ford,” and I can’t unsee that. (Thank you!)
That asshole was on MSNBC moments ago, reacting to the Repub clown show in the US House by angrily asking, “Where are the Democrats?”
Kasich is pretending not to know that a radical Repub minority is imposing its will on the US House GOP majority. This is a state of affairs we ordinary citizens know all too well, thanks to the cowardice of Repubs like Kasich.
Josh Marshall (gift link) compares the radical Repub Gaetz-Jordan gang’s tactics to the ritual debt ceiling hostage-taking House Repubs resort to every time they have a House majority and the president is a Democrat. It goes like this: Give us what we want, or the country gets it. Marshall:
This is obviously a fool’s game. Agreeing to play by those rules means you’ve already lost. I don’t particularly care about McCarthy or Scalise who thrived under this system before it consumed them. Who cares about them? But as we discussed a couple days ago, this is just is just a microcosm of the authoritarian pathogen looming over and threatening the whole American Republic. It’s the use of force over systems of rules. So in that sense it matters quite a lot.
It does matter. And the people who finally sack up and call the authoritarians’ bluff will not be found in the Repub Party.
Kasich and even some Dems blame the Democratic House conference for letting Repubs twist in the wind on the speaker vote. I see it differently. The House Dems are refusing to play the fool’s game.
They know the radical Repubs have been running the joint since January, so why should they lift a finger to save McCarthy’s sorry ass? He’s essentially Jordan with a better haircut or Gaetz with a normal forehead. How would helping him help the country break this impasse, which is still invisible to too many people?
Ultimately, only voters can solve this problem. Helping Repubs paper over their dangerous dysfunction just delays that reckoning.
Open thread.
