Chaos Is The New Cocaine

Matt Gaetz managed to oust his own party’s speaker, like an idiot, but to what end?

Matt Gaetz style politics

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – During the first season of AppleTV’s streaming series The Morning Show, Billy Crudup’s network executive character, Cory Ellison, muttered something that not only described what was happening in the series but also what’s happening with our politics in real life. “Chaos is the new cocaine,” he said with a devilish smile.

And he’s right, at least when it comes to certain factions of our politics, mostly the ones circulating around agents of chaos, nihilism, and disruption in the Trump Republican Party, including quite a large contingent of bro-libertarians. Political disruption, since it began to emerge around 10 years ago, is perhaps the most devastating toxin to infect the republic since secession fever in the years prior to the Civil War. There’s no purpose to it other than shaking up the ant farm to see what happens, with the possibility that one of the disruptors will end up on top.

Chaos is the drug of choice augmenting the insanity of the House rodeo clown caucus. This week, these self-defeating, self-satirical disruptors successfully ripped the speakership out from under Kevin McCarthy, making the California Republican the only speaker to ever be removed from the post – partly due to the fact that McCarthy himself implemented the rule to allow the speakership to be vacated.

My friend Mary Trump observed on Tuesday, “Kevin McCarthy served as speaker for approximately 27 Scaramuccis.” 

So, what now?

Matt Gaetz managed to oust his own party’s speaker, like an idiot, but to what end? Yes, McCarthy’s been sufficiently spanked for cutting a deal to fund the government. But what happens after the spanking – besides McCarthy having to sit on a hemorrhoid cushion for a few weeks? As near as I can tell, there isn’t a plan for what happens next. It’s very Joker-from-The-Dark-Knight of them: “Do I look like a guy with a plan?”

Gaetz and the other clown caucus members don’t have the votes to ascend one of their own. With only five votes of wiggle room on the floor, and plenty of Republicans in districts won by Joe Biden in 2020, I have no idea who will end up with arguably the worst gig in Washington – other than a Democrat or a member of Gaetz’s flying monkeys, who among the Republicans would want the job, knowing the sack full of eels and broken glass they’d be dumped into? It’s very likely there won’t be a speaker for weeks or longer. Another institution smeared in crap by Trump’s party.

One thing occurred to me in the course of watching this ungainly clubhouse of dinguses relentlessly pantsing each other: it’s a cautionary tale. This is how silly it looks when a political faction undermines itself, and the left should take notice as some of us get ready to vote for Robert Kennedy or a No Labels unity ticket. Whenever members go to war against their own party without a plan for actual victory, it looks like this. It looks like Matt Gaetz – out on a limb sawing away, but sawing the wrong side of the limb, guaranteeing he’ll fall and snap his coccyx. 

This is what it looks like when a faction engages in indiscriminate scolding without a plan for where it’ll go. Some progressives love the idea of a primary challenger against Joe Biden, no matter who it is, without any sense or interest in how that will impact the fate of the subsequently weakened nominee and, from there, the future stability of democracy.

Not to belabor this, but liberals who support primary challengers with no chance of winning the nomination and every chance of aiding the Republican assault against the incumbent are playing the same game as Gaetz and his caucus. Yes, they’ll score points among the Red Hat cult for scolding McCarthy, but will this course of action end up better or worse for them? Probably worse – perhaps someone they can’t control or intimidate will end up on top. There’s a greater chance of that happening than the idea of Speaker Jim Jordan. In fact, there’s a bigger shot of Speaker Hakeem Jeffries than Jordan or Gaetz or Mace or Stefanik.

Al Pacino in Glengarry Glen Ross warned, “You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is.” Gaetz made this exact mistake by calling for the vote. Sure, he won the first battle by supplanting McCarthy, but he’ll probably lose the war. How could he not?

The Republican Party should be far more embarrassed than it is. It ought to be taking a hard look at its tethering to these weirdos, including Trump. It should join the Democratic-led effort to eliminate gerrymandering, which gave rise to Gaetz and his ilk. But Republicans aren’t known for learning from their mistakes. Instead, they turn mistakes into traditions. They could walk away from Trump, but they won’t because they’re not wired to course-correct, not while Trump is alive. Trump calls the shots, and every shot is some form of berserk.

Now, disruption is being normalized on that side of the aisle, and the best news of the week is that it makes the Democrats – the only adults in the room – look a gazillion times more competent. So, yeah, thanks for that, Matt.

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The Great Republican Ratf**king Operation Has Backfired Spectacularly

Republicans believed RFK Jr. was the key to taking down Biden. Now he threatens to take down Trump.

Image via PBS News

by Justin Rosario

Let me tell you a story, my friends. It’s a story of political intrigue, unintended consequences, and that most delightful of German words: Schadenfreude. There are no heroes in this story. Just bad people, worse people, and the absolute scum of the earth, all of whom deserve everything coming their way.

Let me tell you of the (allegedly) impending 2024 presidential campaign of one Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and how the ratfuckers quite possibly ratfucked themselves.

Ratfuckers, Inc.

The Republican Party is not exactly bursting with original ideas. When your leading intellectuals are knuckledraggers like Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, and Ben Shapiro, your movement has lost its ability to look forward. 

Instead, the GOP spends its time looking back and recycling old ideas; voter suppression, gerrymandering, political violence, fascism.

So how does this work? Firstly, you find someone far to the left of the leading Democratic candidate and pour resources into backing them. These alleged progressives always run on the exact same platform: “I’m morally superior to that warmongering, racist, DNC corporate stooge ”. The point is to divide the left and make elections easier for Republicans. 

In 2016 the GOP did everything in their power to split the left. Bernie Sanders became a darling of the right during the primaries, even getting himself a live event staged by Fox News. Republicans then tried to force Hillary Clinton to disavow Bernie Sanders knowing that if she did she would lose progressive support, and if she didn’t the GOP would punish her embrace of socialism.

This playbook did not work in 2020 because Republicans had not spent decades smearing Joe Biden. Biden was well liked, even by Republicans and the press (they hate him now but they didn’t at the time). There was no FBI or DoJ interference (not for lack of trying) and Russia did not send their best this time…

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