As everyone likely already knows, Matt Gaetz’s power play to get Kevin McCarthy ousted as speaker worked. McCarthy is no longer speaker. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is the temporary speaker. What powers does he have? I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head. This has literally never happened before. A speaker of the house has never been ousted during a legislative session. Congratulations Kevin, I guess you’ve made history.

Some of my friends on the left are celebrating today. I can’t celebrate. Yes, the Republican party is a mess. Yes, this throws everything they are doing into chaos. Who the heck knows what happens to all of those sham investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden? Who knows how this might impact their oversight of things like the Justice Department and FBI? I literally cannot tell you if they are able to do anything at all.

When McCarthy went through all of those ballots to become speaker we were repeatedly told that no business could take place until a speaker was elected. Now, there is no speaker. So, do we go back to that state where we are waiting for a new speaker to be elected? Can McHenry conduct business until a new speaker is elected? How long is this all going to take?

These are questions I can’t answer. They are very basic questions. I was a political science major. I taught high school government for several years. These are the things my wife and daughter ask me when they don’t know the answer. These are the things I could tell them before. I can’t now. I honestly don’t know the answer. That by itself is frightening.

It might seem at first glance that the Republican party eating itself from the inside is a good moment for people on the left. I’d remind everyone that like that nothing ever happens in isolation. A dying animal lashes out all around them before they succumb to whatever is attacking them. It might be an actual law of physics or maybe Murphy’s Law, but these things are never completely isolated to themselves.

The House is done for the week. So, we won’t have a speaker until at least Monday. That means we have frittered more than a week away when the deal McCarthy brokered gave us 45 days. So far, we are talking pure mechanics and not even anything remotely political. I don’t have answers. Beyond the political ramifications, I can’t even address the basic ones. Sure, there are people that study this. There are people that probably know more than the folks actually doing it. It’s not like I am the Grand Pubha of all things political. It’s just disjarring not to know the answers.

Of course, the political ramifications are next level in terms of anxiety. Who will be the next speaker? Will it be someone more moderate or will the Freedom Caucus somehow take the entire chamber hostage? Are we looking at a speaker like Jim Jordan? These are things no one can answer right now. Even if we could we couldn’t tell you what it would all mean for everything happening over the next year and a half. This is why I’m not celebrating this. I literally do not know what’s happening next and no one else does either. Kevin McCarthy was a lying scumbag and he did not have a discernable backbone. Yet, I can’t even begin to guess on whether the next guy (assuming it is a man and not Marjorie Taylor Greene) will be better or worse. Put the popcorn away folks. This is no time to celebrate.

McCarthy and the TFG Wing of the GOP are suddenly clutching their pearls and swooning over federal spending and budget deficits under the Biden administration.  And during such pearl clutching, they keep citing “$31 trillion in debt,” and that “we need to get spending under control.”  At the same time as he’s introducing turmoil into every American’s life by threatening the global economy, he’s decrying causing turmoil.  Saying he wants “government to work,” he’s guaranteeing on several fronts that it doesn’t.

The debt is currently about $31 trillion dollars, which sound like a huge number, right?  It is, but let’s look at it in perspective.  US debt was at $20 trillion when TFG took office.  When he left office, it was $28 trillion, caused by a gigantic tax cut to billionaires, a huge spending spree on his wall, defense spending, and bungling of the pandemic response which caused the highest unemployment rate in history as well as collapsing the economy.  In fact, that $8 trillion increase represents 25% of all US debt today.  And it goes without saying that McCarthy and his Trumpist friends increased the debt limit THREE TIMES without conditions during that same period of time to fund the TFG spending spree.

So Kevin, let’s stop bullshitting ourselves about spending and the debt.  The facts are that when there is a GOP president in office, spending and deficits don’t matter.  When a Dem is in office there’s nothing more critical than spending and deficits with a 24/7 hysteria over spending.  This is blatant mob style hostage taking to keep their base whipped up going into 2024.  Like 2011, Republicans are once again threatening the GLOBAL economy to extract unspecified spending cuts (except for threatening seniors with cuts to social security and medicare, AGAIN).  Obama learned the hard way not to negotiate with hostage takers.  Thankfully, Biden was there and learned that same lesson.  All McCarthy deserves from him is the middle finger.

I’m personally sick to death of McCarthy’s bullshit.  I know it won’t change anything, but I feel better at least telling him so.

I have a tiny piece of advice for the Democrats. As I sit here, Kevin McCarthy has failed to gain the speakership after eleven ballots. The last time this happened (1923) the eventual speaker was elected after nine ballots. So, McCarthy has made history. Congratulations Kevin. Democrats have had their pictures taken with popcorn and thoroughly enjoying the whole spectacle. Tread lightly Democrats. The Republicans are disintegrating before our very eyes and you don’t want to be anywhere near them when they do.

No one likes a bully and no one likes someone that laughs at someone else’s misfortune. There is a time when the joke has gone on long enough and everyone wants to move on. The people see what is going on and the longer it goes on the less people need for anyone to spin it. The House of Representatives literally cannot govern until they elect a speaker and which each passing day the symbol becomes more and more emboldened.

Republicans are not interested in governing and they really can’t govern. Of course, one leads to the other, but I couldn’t tell you which one of those comes first. Think about Texas Republicans. They keep complaining about how liberals have ruined the state. They have been in power for 30 years. They’ve controlled the legislature, governor’s chair, and lieutenant governor’s chair every day this century. Yet, they blamed the power outage on renewable energy. It’s like the chef that goes to the market, buys the ingredients, preps the food, and then cooks the food blaming the meal on someone else.

They at least can seat leadership. The House can’t even do that. Democrats passed numerous bills over the past two years with narrow majorities in the House and an even Senate. During the Trump years they literally passed only one landmark piece of legislation in four years. So, just stay out of the way. Do not call any attention to yourselves. Don’t get caught enjoying the moment too much. The American people will learn a painful lesson before too long. Republicans are not serious actors and they won’t get any serious policy ideas from them. They are performance artists, carnival barkers, and frauds. The people will see it. You don’t have to break your arm pointing it out to them.

I was having one of those discussions with my daughter. She is at the age where I’m trying to teach her some more complex concepts. A part of it is preparing her for a complex and sometimes frightening world. Another part is simply building her vocabulary. So, I had her look up “nihilism” on her phone. Nihilism is “the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.” So, in other words there is no objective truth. There really is nothing of value and there are no moral absolutes. Dealing with people that truly believe this is a lonely and frightening existence. Leadership based on this isn’t really leadership at all. Yet, this is where we are.

The new Congress is trying to elect the new Speaker of the House. Candidates have to have 218 votes in order to be Speaker. Technically speaking it doesn’t even have to be a member of Congress. I suppose it could be a member of the minority party, but that would be theoretical at this point. In simplest terms, you simply keep voting until you find one. Kevin McCarthy is supposed to be the new Speaker of the House. He has gotten as many as 201 votes in the elections from the past two days. As I write this, there have been four separate ballots and there is no speaker. This is the first time this has happened since 1923 when it took nine ballots to elect a new speaker.

Watching the modern Republican party is a real life lesson in governing philosophy. Traditional conservatives decried what became known as moral relativism. As best explained, that would be the concept that no one person’s moral compass would be superior to someone else’s. However, that is still far different than nihilism.McCarthy’s behavior over the last few years is a perfect example. He decried the January 6th attacks until he didn’t. He opposed extremism in his own party until he didn’t. He has tried to be all things for all people and is discovering that you really can’t. Someone that will stand for nothing will fall for everything. I’m quite certain that I read that somewhere.

Ultimately there is a difference between believing there is one objective truth and believing there is one objective truth for you. There is a difference between allowing new information and life experience to change your moral compass and never having one in the first place. There is a difference between engaging other people with a different moral compass than your own and engaging someone that believes nothing.I have said this before and I’ll say it again. This is why the Republican party is dying. Conservatism isn’t dying. Major philosophical planks can’t really die. Parties die when they have nothing at their core. Power is not a core belief. Attention is not a central tenet of any governing philosophy. Politics cannot be transactional for very long. If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything. Grab the remote and pop some popcorn. The death of a major political party is something to behold.

If we could spare a moment for Kevin McCarthy. In many respects, he is like the manager at the fast food place on the night shift. The teenagers have gotten out of school and have taken over the shift. He’s not incredibly talented, have any real natural authority, but he’s the adult in the room.

Some men are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them. Still others ride the magic coattails of mediocrity and are the last ones left standing. McCarthy was never distinguishable at any point in his Congressional tenure. Yet, when Paul Ryan decided that he had had enough and the kooks decided Liz Cheney was unworthy, he was the only one left. Congratulations.

Madison Cawthorn is not a remarkable character in this tale. He’s young. The fact that he sits in a wheelchair is the only thing that distinguishes him from a frat boy looking for his former glory. Cawthorn was on a video/podcast telling a captive host that the GOP is full of orgies and cocaine parties.

We’ve all had leaders like McCarthy before. Their leadership style can best be described as hands off and hoping for the best. I suppose that works when you are surrounded by other adults. That isn’t McCarthy. He finds himself surrounded by idiots making idiotic comments and embarrassing the caucus left and right. Of course, when you do nothing to inspire discipline you aren’t going to get it.

The rest of us get to imagine who Cawthorn may be talking about. Some in the GOP want him to name names. As satisfying as that might be, I think most of us could be spared the mental images involved. Consenting adults can do what they want in their own time. Most of us don’t want to know anything about it.

Yet, McCarthy is playing the politics of reaction. He talks to Cawthorn and tells him if he does something like this again then he will be compelled to warn him again. He’s done the same with Greene and Boebert. Maybe he could round all of them up along with Matt Gaetz (honestly, we know he’s the one Cawthorn is talking about) and put them in time out. On second thought, maybe that’s how this all got started in the first place.