The loyal opposition!

January 9, 2023

          After the painful spectacle of Kevin McCarthy’s election as Speaker late Friday, I opened the Comments section to all readers to allow them to express their feelings about the confluence of the January 6th anniversary and McCarthy’s corrupt bargain to become Speaker. Several hundred readers took the opportunity to express themselves. Understandably, feelings of upset, anger, disappointment, and dejection were more common than usual from readers of this newsletter. While there is much to discuss regarding what McCarthy’s election as Speaker portends for America, those details will unfold over time (and may shift in the coming days). I want to start my discussion with the emotional reaction to McCarthy’s pathetic victory and our mission as “the loyal opposition” over the next two years.

          It is reasonable for people to feel upset and angry over McCarthy’s victory. He is unfit to serve in Congress, let alone serve as its leader. Indeed, he is peculiarly unfit to be Speaker because he participated in the assault on Congress on January 6th by spreading the Big Lie and voting in favor of baseless objections to electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania. (McCarthy has since lied about his votes to overturn the election. See Talking Points Memo, McCarthy Falsely Denies Voting To Overturn Election Results.) And, of course, he was the first major politician to make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to begin the rehabilitation of Trump only a week after those killed in Trump’s insurrection were buried.

          But all of this we already knew. McCarthy’s late-night victory felt like a slap in the face, even though it was based on humiliating groveling before the bottom feeders in Congress and a betrayal of the American people. After fifteen rounds of votes, McCarthy should have slithered out of the House. Instead, he acted like a conquering hero as GOP members chanted “USA, USA!” only moments after saying he could not be trusted to be Speaker. That moment of celebration by a grotesque caricature of a corrupt politician harkens back to the accidental election of singularly unfit Donald Trump to be president.

          For some, McCarthy’s election was a replay of election night 2016. One reader (CC), wrote the following in the Comments section:

Now many of us have PTSD from the first act of Kevin's Circus, The Clown Show, that just ended in the House of Representatives. It is reminiscent of The Trump Show. But we've been through this situation before, and we know how to handle it. We need to stop inundating our nervous systems by listening to constant reporting about the same problems from different sources every day.

I'm not minimizing what we are facing. We're all sick of having to fight the ugly underbelly of our country. But we don't need to tackle the next few years all at once. And we really have no idea what tremendous things we will be able to achieve to counter this current set of dangers. We need to take it one day at a time.

We also need to protect our nervous systems from the overwhelming barrage of dung that will be flung from the monkeys in Kevin's Circus. They will lie constantly. They always do. Expect it.

We fought back against them once. I would have felt a lot better during the four years of the “Trump administration” if I’d known how successfully Americans would fight back against these unimaginable horrors to “right the ship of state.” We have no guarantee, but we need to believe we can do it again instead of sinking into despair, which is easy to do.

          I agree with CC on all counts. We have every reason to be concerned about what McCarthy and the GOP will attempt to do over the next two years—but we are in a position of strength and should act accordingly. (More on that in a moment.) Even so, I acknowledge that it is almost as painful to watch McCarthy thumping his chest after a historic humiliation as it is to listen to Trump bloviate and lie with apparent immunity from Mar-a-Lago.

          I am confident we will contain, outmaneuver, and defeat McCarthy over the next two years. But we can’t control the toxic mixture of gratuitous meanness, pomposity, and ignorance that passes for “politics” in the GOP. In the last forty-eight hours, McCarthy has failed to condemn any of the following: (a) George Santos’s use of a “white supremacist” hand gesture from the House floor, (b) a crude and offensive tweet by a freshman GOP member from Florida who tried to connect the Speaker’s gavel to the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, (c) Trump’s claim over the weekend that Ashli Babbitt is a “true patriot”, and (d) the attack on the Brazilian Senate and presidential palace by supporters of defeated former President Bolsonaro.

          As reader CC said, we must “expect it” from McCarthy and his gang, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept it. Indeed, our task as members of the loyal opposition is to make McCarthy et al. own every debased, depraved, selfish, corrupt, and ignorant statement made by the reprobates to whom McCarthy has surrendered his manhood. And they are about to start an endless stream of such statements without a moment of reflection on the fact that Americans rejected MAGA extremism in 2022.

          With all of that as background, let’s take a moment to put Friday’s events in perspective.

They have McCarthy. We have Jeffries. We win—every time.

          The Speaker’s election defined two men: Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries. McCarthy is exposed as weak, corrupt, and desperate. He was humiliated on the House floor, begging for votes from Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert. It simply doesn’t get more pathetic than that. Conversely, the Democratic caucus unanimously supported Hakeem Jeffries through fifteen rounds of votes. And then the two men spoke—and the differences could not be more pronounced. McCarthy read his speech like the uncomfortable politician whose skill is in the back room, not the podium. Hakeem Jeffries gave an inspiring, lyrical, passionate speech that worth is watching in its entirety: Watch House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ historic first speech (Start at 4:15 mark).

          When it comes time to communicate competing visions of our future to anxious Americans, Hakeem Jeffries will win every time. We should feel great about that fact.

The investigations? Bring them on!

          I wrote about the proposed GOP House rules package last week (see Today’s Edition, Republican Rules of Disorder by Robert B. Hubbell). The rules package has been updated since my discussion last week and is the subject of much commentary. I recommend Joyce Vance’s excellent discussion Civil Discourse, How Does the First Day of a New Congress Work?

As noted by Vance, one of the most significant updates since last week is the inclusion of a provision that allows for a single member to make a motion to “vacate the chair”—i.e., call for a vote of no confidence on McCarthy. Vance provides links to the proposed rules (here) and to a side-by-side comparison to show what is being changed (here).

          We will all undoubtedly become experts in House rules in the coming months (whether we like it or not), but the changes that will affect us immediately are committee assignments and “investigations” in the “weaponization of government,” the origins of SARS-CoV-2, “ongoing criminal investigations,” and the January 6th insurrection. Many readers (and commentators) are rightly worried about the potential damage from such investigations.

          While we should always be worried about abuses of Congressional investigations, we should be careful not to equate the GOP sham investigations with the impactful January 6th Committee public hearings. For example, many of these same GOP hatchet men ran ten investigations into the attack on an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. How many of those investigations did you watch? Who testified? What findings did the committees make? If you are like most Americans, you haven’t the foggiest idea and never watched a minute of those investigations.

          Here is the Wikipedia summary of the Benghazi investigations:

Despite persistent accusations against President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice, ten investigations—six by Republican-controlled Congressional Committees—did not find that they or any other high-ranking Obama administration officials had acted improperly.

          In contrast, 18 million people watched the final hearing of the J6 Committee and tens of millions more followed online and on social media. Of course, we should not dismiss the impact of Fox News reporting on the sham investigations—as it did relentlessly for four years with the Benghazi hearings, to little effect.

          More to the point--unlike Republicans in the J6 hearings—Democrats have nothing to hide. On Sunday evening, Rep. Paul Gosar tweeted that Republicans would

conduct a real investigation into J6. The effort to attempt a coup between traitor Gen. Mark Milley and Pelosi will be reviewed and exposed.

          Oh, please, please call Nancy Pelosi and Mark Milley to testify before your sham committees! You will regret that foolish decision for the remainder of your political careers. Have you seen them testify? Have you heard them speak? You best check it out before you give them a platform to expose your ignorance and depravity!

          Moreover, congressional investigations into “ongoing criminal investigations” will get nowhere and do nothing to interfere with those investigations. (Caveat: Congressional committees can grant “use immunity” to witnesses, but that is a complicated subject for another day.) But I suspect that to the extent that Jack Smith, Chris Wray, and Merrick Garland agree to testify, the GOP committees will not like what they have to say. For example, FBI Director Chris Wray said that the January 6th attack was “domestic terrorism.” If Jim Jordan wants him to repeat that statement again and again, Wray will be happy to accommodate the request.

          Finally, Dr. Fauci has proven that he is more than capable of outwitting the dimwitted conspiracy theorists who want to promote hydroxychloroquine, bleach, and herd immunity. Indeed, a public hearing into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 might be a welcome reminder to the public that Covid remains a serious threat.

          So, while we should be concerned and outraged about the waste of congressional resources, we should not be fearful. The best part of a public hearing is that it is public. If Jim Jordan uses his bullying tactics to attempt to intimidate witnesses, he will impress only that slice of American voters who value bullying and intimidation. They are beyond redemption, and we shouldn’t waste our energy worrying about them. Otherwise, expect the GOP hearings to be a bust.

The threat to use the debt ceiling to force cuts in Medicare and Social Security.

          If Democrats in Congress cannot turn this issue into a victory for Democrats, they all need to be replaced, post haste. While we should not underestimate the damage that the threat of default can inflict on our economy (and that of the world), let’s recognize that the threat to cut Medicare and Social Security will be monumentally unpopular when Americans realize what is at stake.

         For example, according to a poll taken in June 2022,

82% of voters want Congress to raise Social Security benefits across the board.

83% of Democrats, 73% of independents, and 73% of Republicans want to strengthen Social Security and pay for it by making the wealthy contribute their fair share.

          And according to a recent AARP poll,

          96 percent of those polled regardless of affiliation said Social Security was either the most important government program or an important one compared with other government programs. And 2 in 5 of those surveyed said they will rely on Social Security as a substantial source of income in retirement. More than 69 million people — and almost 9 out of 10 of those 65 and older — get Social Security benefits.

          Against the overwhelming popularity of Social Security, the GOP is hell-bent on reducing benefits and raising the retirement age. (The same widespread support applies to Medicare.) Because they are in the majority, Republicans in the House must draft legislation that makes the cuts necessary to avoid raising the debt limit; they can no longer simply say, “No.” Which GOP members of the House will sponsor that legislation? Support it? Expect to be re-elected?

          You get the point. Every day between now and when the debt ceiling is reached in 2023, the first thing every Democrat should say is “Republicans want to cut your Medicare and Social Security. Tell them NO!”

          Republicans have miscalculated on this issue. When Senator Rick Scott made the same proposals in his 2022 GOP platform, no Republicans would touch it with a ten-foot pole. Why they believe it will be a winning issue in 2023 is a mystery that only their reptilian brain stems can answer.

Concluding Thoughts.

          Whew! There is a lot more to discuss, but I have blathered on too long. If there is one point I hope you will take away from today’s newsletter it is this: During Trump’s tenure, the media treated every “proposal” from Trump as if it were a fait accompli when it was often nothing more than a press release. Many Democrats fell for the hype, assuming that Trump had special powers to get things done that did not involve Congress or the Courts. Trump’s announcements were mere puffery that evaporated under casual scrutiny from Congress and the courts.

          The same applies to the upcoming session of Congress. The House Republicans won’t—can’t—pass any legislation unless Democrats in the Senate agree. That is a major constraint on the wild talk in the Republican rules proposal. Moreover, Republicans are in the majority in the House and can no longer rely on “No” as a mode of governing. They will have to make proposals to implement their cruel agenda—and will expose themselves to the American people in a way that should ensure a debacle for House Republicans in 2024.

          As the loyal opposition, we are in a position of strength. We should act accordingly!

          Talk to you tomorrow!