Another day, another spin in the clown car for the Republicans' Red Trickle Majority™ in the House of Representatives.
Congressional ineptitude in the Grand Old Party is nothing new, but the current group in the House is really trying to become infamous. It often seems as if their backroom meetings are solely focused on new ways to screw things up. If that is the case, then they are achieving their goals.
If they're hoping to govern or make a point that their constituents can get behind, they are not doing well at all.
On Tuesday, the Ringling Brothers Caucus managed to shoot itself in the foot twice, which my friend and colleague Ed Morrissey covered in-depth at our sister site HotAir. I encourage everyone to read all of Ed's post, but here's the part that is most relevant to this column:
The flop on the Mayorkas impeachment was the worst managed of the two. The effort to impeach Mayorkas has been a proxy fight for Republicans against Joe Biden and his border catastrophe, which Mayorkas has "managed" into utter disaster for national security. It's mainly performative anyway, since the Senate will never cast 67 votes to remove Mayorkas while Democrats control 51 seats in the upper chamber. Arguably, an impeachment at least puts something on the record with more bite than a "sense of the House" resolution, but it's still mainly a PR move to show angry voters that Republicans want to do something about the border.
It has long been fashionable for Republican voters and elected officials to blame various nefarious forces in the universe for the party's failures. Introspection is difficult, and it is much easier to blame the monster under the bed for having just metaphorically befouled that bed.
Related: Forget Leftist Voter Fraud — Republicans Are Great at Losing Elections All by Themselves
An ongoing problem for the Republicans dating back to the days of black and white television is that the power players in the party have never had a grasp on the importance of messaging and optics. As Ed mentioned, the Mayorkas vote wasn't really about impeachment, it was about sending a message to the voters.
Reps. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.), and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) are all too stupid to understand that. (Utah Rep. Blake Moore voted no as a procedural move that would allow House Republicans to bring the resolution back to the floor.)
All three "Blah, blah, blahed" all over themselves to explain why they voted no. None of their excuses are valid because there was no reason whatsoever for a Republican to vote against impeaching Mayorkas. None. Zero. Nada. Not a thing.
Former House GOP ne'er-do-well George Santos couldn't wait to troll the failure of his one-time colleagues:
Miss me yet? pic.twitter.com/sw4j7VcjJk
— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) February 6, 2024
Why yes, George, I do miss you.
While the Democrats are focused squarely on assaulting our freedoms and shredding the Constitution, I don't really care whether any of the Republicans in Congress are good people or not, just as long as they're consistently voting against tyranny. Something I've often said about presidential candidates applies in this case as well: I don't need a prom date, I need a fighter.
Democrats in Congress are harboring raging anti-Semites, terrorist sympathizers, and commies; George Santos is practically an archangel compared to them.
This isn't really about George Santos, though. It's about the fact that when things count the most, Republicans reflexively begin forming a circular firing squad and using "principles" as a justification for it.
This group will fritter away its majority in November. Then we can see how everyone's principles fare when House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries has the gavel.
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