Thoughts on Boehner's Resignation

1. The Consensus Media, which is an agreement of left and right pundits who don't know much, had been pretty sure that Boehner's job was safe. No one should listen to them.

They assume, in advance, that everything is in stasis. No one in politics should assume things are in stasis. Politics is about change. If you don't believe change is possible, you're not an advocate for politics; you're simply a guy taking a check, discussing which other guys should get checks.

I know one thing about change: Change is not possible unless you first believe change is possible and work to bring about change. Note that believing in change and working for it is not sufficient to bring about change; it is, however, necessary. (A requires B, but B is not sufficient to bring about B. But do focus on the "A requires B" part.)

2. There are some claims that Boehner did this to "spare the party" the trauma of booting him out of office. I don't believe that. I think the Freedom Caucus had the votes to book him out of office -- unless Democrats voted to support Boehner, which they would do. And then we would have a true political problem on our hands, an allegedly "Republican" speaker of the House owing his job entirely to Nancy Pelosi telling X number of Democrats to vote for Boehner.

A Speaker owing his position to the opposite party? Completely compromised -- more so than he is now.

3. The current idea, favored by the same folks who thought that Boehner was such an Indispensable Man are now agitating to put his loyal (???) lieutenant Kevin McCarthy into the position. Kevin McCarthy is, if it's possible, a worse RINO than Boehner, and was by Boehner's side as he punished critics and dissidents for daring to represent their constituents' interests.

Mark Levin just described Kevin McCarthy as "just as bad as Eric Cantor and ten IQ points dumber."

Under no circumstances should the Freedom Caucus permit McCarthy, Scalise, or Cathy McMorris Rogers -- all the Boehner Warriors who have brought GOP morale to all-time lows -- to serve in any leadership position. A purge is a purge. To permit any of this crew to profit from their disasters would show the GOP to be what many of us strongly suspect it is -- basically, the Teachers Union for RINOs, an organization devoted to protecting its members jobs and not to serving its alleged constituents.

4. And on that point, note that if McCarthy, Scalise, and McMorris Rogers merely advance one step each in the leadership, then the only person to have paid any price here is Boehner; the rest of them will actually benefit from the Freedom Caucus forcing them out.

They should not benefit. We keep saying, of Obama, that failure ought to have consequences; how can this team be characterized as anything other than complete failures?

Are we rewarding Republican failures while claiming Obama should be held accountable for his own?

How does that work?

In terms that may appeal to Jonah Goldberg, nothing is helped in the Star Trek Mirror, Mirror universe by simply assassinating one evil opposite of the Star Trek crew and letting his evil subordinate take his evil position.

The only way to change the Empire of Planets is to go outside the corrupt chain of command and bring in a change agent previously not considered for the captain's chair -- Not Quite So Evil Evil Spock, in the case of Mirror, Mirror.

We should be looking for Not Quite So Evil Evil Spock, not a deranged, sword-slinging Sulu to move from Chief Navigator to Captain.

5. Political movements have many things in common with religious movements, and I don't mean the dumb claim that the GOP is owned and operated by the Christian Right. (Were that the case, Boehner and his cronies would not have been permitted to fail for so long.)

One of the things that political movements offer its adherents, similar to religious movements, is hope.

The fecklessness, failures, and flat-out betrayals of the current GOP leadership has destroyed all hope in the GOP. And a political movement without hope is not a political movement at all; it is simply an advocacy organization for getting a very small number of people cush jobs in the federal government.

If there is to be any hope permitted to the rank and file of the Republican Party, then we need big changes that permit us the illusion and fantasy of hope, without which we are nothing at all, just dejected former Republican voters.

Hope requires a change -- Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Cathy McMorris-Rogers are no change at all; they are simply John Boehner's less accomplished inferior employees.

6. For these reasons, the Freedom Caucus must stick to its principles and announce they will not vote for, and will not permit, any of the old guard to remain in any level of power, and will simply continue voting down any Representatives who are not at least outsiders who have not yet proven themselves to be failures and sell-outs.

Otherwise, what is the point?

I find it increasingly difficult to write about politics now, you may have noticed; it's because I can no longer even pretend to care which asshole is in which federal sinecure.

I think many people feel the way I do.

And if you want to entice the alienated back into the fold, you have to at least let us dream of the possibility of actual change.

That requires allowing us hope -- and not simply doubling-down on the current crop of failures and fainthearts we are obligated, sourly, to call our "leadership."

Hope is a silly illusion, but it is a necessary, sustaining silly illusion.

Faint heart never won fair lady, fellas. Nor have fainthearts ever contributed anything to society, except cowardice and inertia.

posted by Ace at 06:40 PM

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