Filmmaker Michael Moore↱:
Call it what you want; poetic justice is of entirely subjective value. Certes, it is one thing to watch the conservative humiliation and performative denigration of Congress; last night was the first time in a hundred years the Clerk was left in charge of the House, like that.
The problem with Moore's two bits is that dysfunctional clownery is what conservative voters wanted. That is, the political party that spent three quarters of my life complaining that government just doesn't work has spent the last decade or so fulfilling the promise. The inability to perform the most basic duties of governance, such as calling the House of Representatives to order, is actually a feature of conservative politics, not a bug. They've told us, for years, that they want to murder the government. This is what it looks like.
If voters responded to these episodes by punishing, or, at least, not rewarding Republicans, that would be one thing. Moore's sweet justice is entirely internalized; Republicans will likely go unpunished for this, and just like 2010, 2014, and 2016, voters in 2022 rewarded Republicans for their dishonesty. The McCarthy debacle only strengthens conservative resolve, while the so-called moderates and would-be crossovers try to find new ways to express this as a problem for both sides in order to clear themselves a path to rewarding Republicans.
This has always been a particlar American challenge: "Liberty and Justice for All" is just a cheap slogan for nearly half the society, and negotiable to a significant enough "independent" bloc to consistently just say no to what we place our hands on our hearts and pledge allegiance to.
There is, indeed, a certain low-key satisfaction, or perhaps relief, that the conservative danger is also so extraordinarily incompetent. But incompetence or noncompetency are not any guarantee against danger. Yes, it is a strangely encouraging—or, perhaps, strangely not discouraging—suggestion that the GOP is not capable of bringing its greatest dangers to bear, but when one seeks to inflict harm, they can achieve it simply by disrupting rescue and relief, or even disrupting basic function.
Call it what you want, but as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA20) loses his seventh vote for Speaker, remember how many people voted for this excremental show because what they really want is a pageant of crime and tyranny.
And for the rest of us, this is what all those years of equivocating and making excuses were for. It's what all those wannabe middle-ground excuses were actually advocating. While there is some scrap of comfort to be found in knowing how stupid and incompetent Congressional Republicans actually are, calling the mess some manner of justice would seem to pretend the GOP will experience some sort of significant consequence for their behavior, and that aspect has not been in evidence for the most part of the twenty-first century.
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Notes:
@MMFlint. "The irony that these insurrectionist-loving traitors would, just 2 yrs later, conduct an actual uprising against themselves is pure, sweet Justice. The Clown Show in Congress resumes today at 12pmET." Twitter. 4 January 2022. Twitter.com. 4 January 2022. https://bit.ly/3QheZ7i
The irony that these insurrectionist-loving traitors would, just 2 yrs later, conduct an actual uprising against themselves is pure, sweet Justice.
Call it what you want; poetic justice is of entirely subjective value. Certes, it is one thing to watch the conservative humiliation and performative denigration of Congress; last night was the first time in a hundred years the Clerk was left in charge of the House, like that.
The problem with Moore's two bits is that dysfunctional clownery is what conservative voters wanted. That is, the political party that spent three quarters of my life complaining that government just doesn't work has spent the last decade or so fulfilling the promise. The inability to perform the most basic duties of governance, such as calling the House of Representatives to order, is actually a feature of conservative politics, not a bug. They've told us, for years, that they want to murder the government. This is what it looks like.
If voters responded to these episodes by punishing, or, at least, not rewarding Republicans, that would be one thing. Moore's sweet justice is entirely internalized; Republicans will likely go unpunished for this, and just like 2010, 2014, and 2016, voters in 2022 rewarded Republicans for their dishonesty. The McCarthy debacle only strengthens conservative resolve, while the so-called moderates and would-be crossovers try to find new ways to express this as a problem for both sides in order to clear themselves a path to rewarding Republicans.
This has always been a particlar American challenge: "Liberty and Justice for All" is just a cheap slogan for nearly half the society, and negotiable to a significant enough "independent" bloc to consistently just say no to what we place our hands on our hearts and pledge allegiance to.
There is, indeed, a certain low-key satisfaction, or perhaps relief, that the conservative danger is also so extraordinarily incompetent. But incompetence or noncompetency are not any guarantee against danger. Yes, it is a strangely encouraging—or, perhaps, strangely not discouraging—suggestion that the GOP is not capable of bringing its greatest dangers to bear, but when one seeks to inflict harm, they can achieve it simply by disrupting rescue and relief, or even disrupting basic function.
Call it what you want, but as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA20) loses his seventh vote for Speaker, remember how many people voted for this excremental show because what they really want is a pageant of crime and tyranny.
And for the rest of us, this is what all those years of equivocating and making excuses were for. It's what all those wannabe middle-ground excuses were actually advocating. While there is some scrap of comfort to be found in knowing how stupid and incompetent Congressional Republicans actually are, calling the mess some manner of justice would seem to pretend the GOP will experience some sort of significant consequence for their behavior, and that aspect has not been in evidence for the most part of the twenty-first century.
____________________
Notes:
@MMFlint. "The irony that these insurrectionist-loving traitors would, just 2 yrs later, conduct an actual uprising against themselves is pure, sweet Justice. The Clown Show in Congress resumes today at 12pmET." Twitter. 4 January 2022. Twitter.com. 4 January 2022. https://bit.ly/3QheZ7i