If you pretend to be an extremist, or at least go along with them, there’s not much meaningful distinction left.
I know “Mother Night” has come up in this context about these folks already. You are what you pretend to be.
To wit:
Listen to the mainstream media’s coverage of House Republicans, and you might think there is a mass of “normal” Republicans who do not buy into election denial, who are not apologists for former president Donald Trump, and who understand that the party’s crazy talk and election conspiracy theories contributed to its historic underperformance in the 2022 midterms.
The mystery: Where are these people hiding?
Prime suspects would be the 18 Republicans from districts that Joe Biden won in 2020, such as Reps. David Schweikert (Ariz.), Don Bacon (Neb.) and Thomas H. Kean (N.J.). Yet every single one of them voted 15 times to make Kevin McCarthy, an election denier, the speaker of the House.
Every single one of them also voted for the rules package that the House passed this week, which sets up a standoff over the debt limit, creates a committee to “investigate” ongoing criminal cases and hobbles the Office of Congressional Ethics. And they didn’t bat an eye over reports that McCarthy (Calif.) promised to give more seats on the Rules Committee to MAGA radicals. Pretty immoderate behavior.
…
Doesn’t mean they’re not moderates. Just means they’re cowards.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Yeah, there’s a big chunk of eligible voters who often don’t bother to vote. I’m sure for some it’s because they just don’t pay attention to anything, but for some, they probably figure it doesn’t really matter who is running things as long as things run.
Give that latter group a couple of years’ worth of stories about how the GOP Congress is just one shit show after another, and maybe they’ll decide they need to actually vote the next time. That’s what happened with Biden’s win, so it could happen again.
Which would mean the remaining minority would be harder-core, something we have seen before.
I had the same question earlier, but thinking about it more, bringing up the vote may force some politically awkward position. It may be that Gaetz and one or two others are the only one who actually wants to Oust McCarthy, so if it takes five to initiate a coup nothing happens. But if a single Republican files the motion then every Republican is forced to choose a side, and those who would otherwise not mind the status quo may feel the need to vote against him to prove their Conservative bonifides.
McCarthy has reiterated his promise to kick Democratic Reps Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and Rep. Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Apparently, he can keep members off Intelligence unilaterally, but will need to pass a resolution to kick Omar off Foreign Affairs.
This continues a tit-for-tat after Democrats stripped MTG and Paul Gosar of their committee assignments last session.
And he has now followed through on his promise, officially blocking Schiff and Swalwell from being appointed to the Intelligence Committee.
I don’t know too much about Republican Victoria Spartz of Indiana, but I do like what she had to say about this:
Referencing the earlier votes targeting Greene and Gosar, Spartz said she will oppose the “charade” and pushed McCarthy to “stop ‘bread and circuses’ in Congress and start governing for a change.”
She was the person who kept voting “present” during the drawn out Speaker election. Outside of that, I got nuttin’.
Well, well, well – McCarthy may be unable to follow through on his promise to banish Omar from Foreign Affairs, as three House Republicans have come out in opposition to the move. With a five-seat margin and one House Republican unable to vote, he will need every other House Republican to vote to remove her (assuming Democrats remain united in support for her). And the Republicans who’ve publicly opposed the move aren’t just those mythical “moderates” – Ken Buck is a Freedom Caucus member.
I wonder why they’re coming out so strongly for her?
Perhaps they’re worried about it setting a precedent that could be used against them?
McCarthy’s argument is that Democrats set the precedent when they voted to kick MTG and Paul Gosar off committees last Congress. But the difference is that those two were punished because they communicated threats of violence against their fellow House members. McCarthy’s reasoning for booting Omar is that she has previously made (allegedly) antisemitic and “anti-American” remarks. It seems there are even some Republicans who draw the line at the House punishing a member for expressing their views, regardless of how distasteful they may find them.
They might say that they can do that. But I’m pretty sure that that would be a bill of attainder, so the Constitution says they can’t.
But they can if they simply defund an office or program or eliminate a specific position or division or enact that a certain work can’t be done in that department. Not fire the person, but abolish their job.
As much as I admire Ms. Cheney for having commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law, I would not in 10 million years call her a moderate Republican. She’s as deeply Conservative as they come in the traditional sense. I don’t think there is such a thing as a moderate Republican.
If they’re not willing to go against the current fanatics who are running the show, does it matter?
Maybe. United States v. Lovett set a precedent that Congress denying specific government employees their salaries for perceived “crimes” without benefit of trial would constitute an unlawful bill of attainder. Not that I’d have much faith in the current Supreme Court to respect that precedent. House Republicans could also try to frame it as eliminating salaries for a narrowly defined “class” of employees – Secretaries overseeing a department with a budget of between $50-60 billion annually (which would only capture DHS).