Your GOP House Majority: Get Ready For Two Years Of Chaos
The GOP won a pyrrhic victory by gaining control of the House by a razor thin margin. The Republicans and the mainstream press had widely predicted a “red wave.” Kevin McCarthy even predicted a 60 seat pick up for his party. However, the Republicans only gained 8 seats in 2022 and currently have a 220 to 213 seat majority. It was the worst case scenario for the GOP and the country. Buckle up and be ready for two years of GOP induced “crises” and chaos.
Kevin McCarthy is desperate to be speaker and he still hasn’t locked up the necessary 218 votes. In order to satisfy his blind ambition, McCarthy is making deals with the most extreme members of the House GOP caucus.
In a closed-door meeting of Republicans shortly after the election, right-wing lawmakers, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, extracted a promise from McCarthy that the House GOP would investigate Nancy Pelosi and the Department of Justice for their treatment of the traitors jailed in connection with the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The new Republican majority has promised to to advocate for the people that tried to kill Mike Pence.
In the first official press conference after the election, the House Republican leaders’ initial promise was to announce an investigation of Hunter Biden. These Hunter Biden laptop investigations are going to really bring down inflation and gas prices. Perhaps that’s where we can find the secret GOP plan to bring down inflation.
Already, McCarthy is being led around by the nose by the hardliners in his caucus. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said. “Well, I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do. He’s a very weak leader of this conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator…. It’s going to be chaos with Republican leadership. And, sadly, the crazy caucus has grown among the Republicans.”
Never Trump Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) was equally skeptical about McCarthy leadership abilities. In a recent interview, he stated: “Now I think he has cut so many deals with bad people to get to this position that I think he’s not going to be a leader at all. I think he will be completely hostage to the extreme wings of the Republican Party.”
The House Republicans’ priorities are wildly unpopular. A recent Politico-Morning Consult poll indicated that a mere 28% of the voters said the new Congress should focus on a presidential impeachment and investigations.
A recent focus group echoed those poll findings. A focus group consisting of Trump-to-Biden swing voters in Georgia sent a warning signal to the new House GOP majority: None of the participants believed that it’s necessary to investigate Hunter Biden.
The 2022 GOP platform included more than just an investigation of Hunter Biden. The GOP was very cocky during the campaign and they were unusually honest about their platform. They promised the following.
-Shut down the government to bully Democrats to cut Social Security and Medicare.
— Investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci.
— Impeachment of President Biden and cabinet members.
— Cut off aide to Ukraine.
-A national abortion ban.
Oh, and that bit about taking the debt ceiling hostage to force Social Security and Medicare cuts? During the campaign, Kevin McCarthy and the four top Republicans on the House Budget Committee told the press that they will threaten a default on the national debt to bully Biden and the Democrats into cutting Social Security and Medicare.
“Republican leaders, such as they are, plan to wreak as much havoc as they can, both to appease their party’s most extreme elements and to undermine what might otherwise look like successful governance by the Biden administration. …(T)he economic environment, which was a headwind for Democrats this year, will probably (although obviously not certainly) begin to look better heading into 2024 — prompting frantic efforts by Republicans to make things worse.” Paul Krugman.
Now that the GOP has regained control of the House, will Don Bacon and Mike Flood vote to shutdown the government, default on the debt and cause a recession to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare? That was in the 2022 GOP platform and Bacon supports cuts to retirement programs.
The best thing we have going for us as a country is that 18 House GOP members, including Bacon, represent congressional districts carried by Biden. Some of them will be begging their leadership not to go radical. Will there be enough of them? Or will they cave to the radical right?
The GOP House will turn Congress into a clown show. And they will get destroyed for it. “The House Republican Conference will have the barest majority, rendered ungovernable by the lunatic likes of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green. The self-sabotage of an ungovernable Republican majority will all but guarantee that Democrats take back the House in 2024.” Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY).
We Democrats stopped the imaginary red wave and left ourselves in a good position to regain control of the U.S. House. Let’s take a short break and then get back to work. Our work is never done. Now let’s get it done!