A Letter from Quite Possibly the Next Speaker of the House
"Please shut down the government. Not just once but a bunch of times for reasons neither you nor we really comprehend"
by Rich Herschlag
Dear Republican Members of the House:
Question: what do they call it when crime is rising, inflation is soaring, gas costs more than milk, nuclear war is a routine dinner table conversation, the President’s approval rating is 42 percent on a good day, after decades of GOP gerrymandering to the point where if you stare closely at a congressional district map of Wisconsin you see something like a swastika, and the political party out of power enters a midterm race that is historically a blowout even in the best of times and comes up with a majority of only a handful of seats in the House? Answer: a mandate.
That’s right, my fellow U.S. representatives and representative-elects. The American people have spoken and spoken loudly, but fortunately we have our heads so far up Ron DeSantis’s ass we can’t actually hear them. However, what we could just barely make out goes a little something like this.
Please, Republicans, continue to pass legislation ensuring all critical reproductive decisions are made by a woman, her doctor, local politicians, Chamber of Commerce members, Amazon delivery drivers, televangelists, telemarketers, CrossFit trainers, and that dude on TikTok who makes his anus talk like a mouth. Please ensure 10-year-old rape victims in the United States are treated worse than women in Iran who remove their hijab. Please keep nominating pro-life candidates who maintain a $3,000 line of credit at Planned Parenthood.
Please investigate Paul Pelosi and his hammer-crazed ex-lover. Secrets of their illicit affair can be found on Hunter Biden’s laptop and in Hillary Clinton’s emails. Apparently Pelosi and his little friend were introduced by Alexander Vindman and married in a secret ceremony by Marie Yovanovitch. Peter Strzok—a man with one arm—was seen running from the scene wearing an N95 mask and a condom. James Comey was upstairs preparing a warm bubble bath.
Please keep burning fossil fuel in record amounts. And not even because you need it to power factories, homes, and cars. Just burn it for the sake of burning it. It looks good, smells good, and keeps your friends in business. When you run out of oil, drill for more or cut some kind of deal with our good friends in Russia. When you run out of that, inject high-pressured water into deep crevasses causing local earthquakes and blow the tops off of mountains. And when you run out of all that, start burning all the extra IKEA furniture we ordered during the pandemic.
Please shut down the government. Not just once but a bunch of times for reasons neither you nor we really comprehend but that probably have something to do with mindless, unprincipled grandstanding in lieu of a real issue. Please make sure seniors miss their Social Security checks and can’t pay their heating bills during an expanded polar vortex. Please bring our nation’s credit rating to the brink and jeopardize the dollar’s standing as the world’s dominant reserve currency. And please, please, whatever you do, couple some version of this stunt with a massive tax cut for the superrich.
Arm our children. The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a six-year-old with an AR-15. Down with school lunches, up with lunchtime shooting range practice. Yes on ammo, no on masks. Thumbs up on bump stocks, thumbs down on times tables.
Impeach Joe Biden now. For what? I dunno. Find something. Anything. For starters, cutting the current fiscal year federal budget deficit in half. For U.S. unemployment rates near post-WWII lows. For vaccinating the country out of the pandemic. For a steady hand reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in helping to spare the planet from a nuclear holocaust. But most of all for reacquainting the United States of America with the concept of calm, sober, rational, benevolent governance. Biden’s sheer competence, especially at his age, has proved to be an endless source of embarrassment for his predecessor and is, simply put, unforgivable.
Please keep denying the results of the 2020 election, making sure as well to include every last statewide and local election not won by Republicans in 2022. Please wait a little longer to see who won or lost before finalizing your list of grievances and crying like a spoiled Little Leaguer who dropped an easy pop fly in the bottom of the ninth with a tie score and the bases loaded. Muster the forbearance necessary to poll watch the Boebert-Frisch recount in Colorado District 3 before possibly filing a lawsuit and turning the Proud Boys loose on Denver. Most importantly, do not under any circumstances stop threatening the lives of loyal, patriotic Republicans, Democrats, and independents being paid $8.25 an hour to count and recount ballots in a middle school gymnasium well into the wee hours of the morning.
Please do everything in your power to nominate Donald Trump for a third and once again successful run for the United States Presidency. Do your best to overcome the temptation in your weakest moments to throw President Trump under the bus as he has done to you easily a hundred times and will do yet again the very first chance he gets. Please see to it President Trump immediately pardons all Capitol rioters—past, present, and future—and wastes no time in fomenting a new and never ending wave of class- and race-based rage, civic and ethical ignorance, self-pity, tribalism, xenophobia all in the name of an endless stream of PAC donations to pay his legal bills and assist Herschel Walker with his love life.
This is our county and we have taken it back. Sort of. Maybe. Lemme check the CNN crawl. Not yet but any minute now. As Winston Churchill once said, democracy is the worst possible form of government with the exception of all the others. Churchill, of course, was right except for the part about the exceptions.
Yours very truly,
Kevin McCarthy
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