03 January 2023

Reverse the Speaker's Polarity

… and you get a microphone. Or perhaps the circus ongoing (at this writing) in the House. It gives my evil remnant of a soul — tiny and shriveled and ungodly as it is — great pleasure to see the Heffalumps being the Jackasses of half a century ago; to see them engaging in the stereotypical flaw of the Left, the circular firing squad when it comes time to select a leader.

But at the same time:

  • My vote has been suppressed, because I don't have a representative who is a member of the majority party.
  • We're still going to enter a new period of McCarthyism. On all appearances, we learned nothing the last time. And given the ardent "patriotism" of the Heffalumps, I anticipate HUAC will return — perhaps with a new name and new marketing campaign. It already has in Florida, with the inquiries into purported teaching of Critical Race Theory that actually is nothing of the sort.
  • The object of power is power. It is not effective governance — not even minimalist governance. I'm rather annoyed at the "If I can't have the ball, I'm going to kick it over the fence" behavior coming from the purported party of "adults" during this Charge of the Right Brigade (echoes of the Crimean War all too appropriate…).

Tribalism — it's what's for dinner. And, on all appearances, it's what's for tomorrow's lunch, unless there's a solution from some smoke-filled room (which will probably make people think DC has legalized marijuana). After this fiasco, the most-defensible default response to being accused of contempt of Congress will be "Really? More contemptuous than Congress is of itself or the nation?"