Dysfunction Junction

​I watch with a combination of amusement and a sense of teeth-gnashing gall as Republicans keep trying to lash out at President Biden for a range of things he had nothing to do in relation to the terrorist attack against Israel.  These include, but are not limited to, things like him supposedly waiting to announce his support of Israel (he did so the same day as the attack), being supposedly responsible for the attack after unfreezing $6 billion of Iran’s own money last month (as if this attack was only planned within the past 30 days, rather than likely for a great many months, if not a year or more), supposedly having “blood on his hands” for his supposed weakness supposedly inviting the attack (as if Hamas and terrorist groups haven’t been waging terrorist attacks and war on Israel for half a century) – never mind, too, that the most massive criticism in Israel for not defending against the attacks has been directed at Bibi Netanyahu, the extreme-right Prime Minister who has long been heavily-promoted by Trump.

And never mind the signs throughout Israel thanking President Biden.

But what stands out most to me in bringing this sense of amusement and teeth-gnashing is that it’s coming from a party so dysfunctional that they not only can’t decide who they want to be their leader in the House of Representatives, nor that the House isn’t even able to operate until they do – during this international crisis.  For goodness sake, the House can’t even issue a condemnation of Hamas’s terrorism! – but also that there is no end in sight to this utter dysfunction.

For starters, consider the two announced GOP candidates for Speaker of the House.  On the one hand, there’s Jim Jordan – someone so far on the extreme right that he not only supported the Insurrection and attempt to overthrow the government, but helped plan it, and who has been charged with not reporting sexual abuse after five athletes say they told him when a coach of the Ohio State University wresting team.  And on the other hand there’s Steve Scalise – And his notable for his own comment describing himself as "David Duke without the baggage."  Keeping in mind that it’s actually impossible to be David Duke and have no baggage. The point of being David Duke is all that baggage. The best that Scalise can mean is he's David Duke without enough baggage to get an excess fee.

And these have been the two GOP candidates to be Speaker.

And that’s not even the dysfunction.  Because it gets so much worse.

After hibernating behind closed doors for several days, Republicans finally announced that their caucus had a winner, Steve Scalise.  The problem, of course, was that being “the winner” in the caucus didn’t mean that he has enough support to get 218 votes in the full House.  In fact, after this announcement, it was reported that their “winner” actually lost votes.  And then this “winner” announced that because he didn’t have enough support to reach 218 votes, he was dropping out of the race!

And this is their winner.

(And as a whimsical side note, there’s Trump who let it be known that he’d be willing to become Speaker as a White Knight – never mind that he would never want to actually do the job.  And since then, his name hasn’t even been mentioned.  Which must be a huge embarrassment to him.)

The huge problem for the dysfunctional Republicans is it’s totally unclear what they can do.  Scalise is out of the race.  Jordan doesn’t have enough votes to have more than Scalise.  Kevin McCarthy.  Trump has been shown to be unwanted.  So – who else can they select??

From the reaction against Jordan, it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone on the extreme right who most Republicans would vote for.  There certainly isn’t anyone “liberal” in today’s GOP who would be a viable candidate.  That would seem to leave a conciliatory moderate in the middle to bring both sides together.  But that’s sort of, kind of what McCarthy was – and he became the first Speaker in U.S. history voted out. 

Further, what moderate even would want the job??!  It’s a guaranteed disaster of a job, trying to bring all these fighting wings of the party together – especially with the budget bill coming up in about a month, the very thing that got McCarthy booted.  And as far as we know, the same “one person can call for a vote to vacate the Speakership” rule is still in place.

There are only three options that I can think of.

One is going outside the House and find some retired, respected Republican Congressman (or public figure) who’s willing to take the job, unconcerned about being “voted out” of a body he or she wasn’t in, in the first place.  But at the moment, so names have been brought up.  And being out of Congress seems to suggest such a person would have little interest going back in to such a dysfunctional morass.  An added problem is that the very conservative Republican Party still would need almost unanimity to vote for such a moderate outsider, since Democrats don’t seem likely to help out the GOP, and would probably stick with full support of their own leader, Hakeem Jeffries.

Which is the second option.  If just five Republicans decide to end their party’s dysfunction by voting for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, he (improbably) could become Speaker of a Republican House.  That seems unlikely – but given the lack of coherent GOP options, it’s not unreasonable to consider as an option.

And the third option is that Republicans continue their dysfunction, and the House stays shut down – through the Israeli-Hamas crisis and, who knows, maybe even through when the budget bill is due to be voted on, leading to a government shutdown.  This certainly seem a horrible option…but given today’s fascist, dysfunctional GOP, “horrible option” sort of Standard Operating Procedure for them.  At some point, under this option, you would think that Republicans would finally wear themselves out an select a Last Man Standing choice out of a lack of inertia.  How that would play itself out – and when – though, who knows?

And this doesn’t even take into consider how problematic Republicans are in the Senate – starting with Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) blocking all military appointments, now over 600, I believe, a really horrible situation under any conditions, but especially when there is a world military crisis in the Middle East.  GOP leaders insist there is nothing they can do, but of course there is – like putting pressure on Tuberville by kicking him off committees and pulling campaign funding from him.  But they aren’t doing that, because that’s today’s dysfunctional Republican Party.  And it’s not just military appointments being blocked by Republicans.  They’re blocking presidential appointments – most notably an ambassador to…Israel!!  Yes, really, the United States has not ambassador to Israel right now!  Because Republicans are blocking it.

That’s today’s dysfunctional Republican Party.

Lead by a man with four indictments, two impeachments, convicted of fraud, found liable for the equivalence of rape, had his charity foundation shut down after a “shocking pattern of illegality” – and just the other day, as the world was sickened and aghast by Hamas terrorist attacks, slammed Israel and praised the terrorist group Hezbollah.  To no condemnation by Republican leadership.

In fairness, “Republican leadership” these days is a contradiction in terms.