Democrats have a history of not thinking things through when it comes to changing rules or establishing precedents. In 2013, Senate Democrats, led by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, nuked the filibuster for lower-court judicial nominees to stop the GOP from blocking Barack Obama’s nominees. Democrats were not above using the filibuster the same way and did so plenty of times when they had a majority in the Senate under George W. Bush.
“You will rue the day,” McConnell said to the Democrats when they nuked the filibuster. “You’ll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.”
McConnell was proven right, as the Republicans regained control of the Senate the following year, leaving Senate Democrats powerless to stop the GOP—which was particularly problematic for them during the Trump years. Trump and McConnell transformed the judiciary with a historic number of judicial confirmations.
But, as I said, Democrats never learn, and earlier this year, they stripped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments over past comments she made. Republicans argued at the time that Democrats were establishing a “dangerous” precedent whereby the “majority party can punish a member of the minority party by removing their committee assignments.”
Last month, Democrats also censured and removed Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from his committee assignments over a video he tweeted. Now Democrats are looking to do the same to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) because she joked about anti-Semitic Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“I was getting into an elevator with one of my staffers,” Boebert says in the now-viral video. “You know, we’re leaving the Capitol, and we’re going back to my office, and we get an elevator, and I see a Capitol police officer running hurriedly to the elevator. I see fret all over his face, and he’s reaching, and the door’s shutting, like I can’t open it, like what’s happening. I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar. And I said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’”
It was a joke, but Democrats think jokes are enough to remove people from committee assignments. Really? Is this really the low bar they want to set? Democrats will most certainly regret this, considering the current political climate, and they may regret this a lot sooner than they think.
RELATED: 9+ Democrats Who Should Be Ousted From Their Committees by the Marjorie Taylor Greene Standard
The list includes Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for her urging people to confront Trump officials in public; Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for her anti-Semitic statements; Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) for his apparent affair with a Chinese spy; and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) for his blatant lies about seeing intelligence proving Trump colluded with Russia.
Democrats still need to learn to live by the same rules they expect Republicans to follow. While it’s safe to say that even if the Democrats mentioned above are removed from their committee assignments by the next Republican majority, they won’t learn their lesson. But the GOP has played nice with the Democrats for too long, and it’s about time they start giving Democrats a taste of their own medicine.
