The sad truth is that some people in our party are stupid. Statistically, that is inevitable since the parties are about evenly split. When you have 50% of the population, you’re going to have a certain percentage of the idiots. Well, the Republican Party is undoubtedly statistically within the band of normal, because we sure have our share of nitwits. And I’m tired of them.
Look at the House of Representatives. However, some people aren’t willing to accept the reality. For a number of reasons, including stupid choices by our voters and dumb actions by party leaders and politicians, we have a mere five-seat majority in the House. We should’ve had a huge majority in the House, considering the historical trends and the political climate in 2022. Still, being the Stupid Party, the Republicans were stupid and only got five seats above even. It is what it is.
But some people in our party are too dumb to understand that it is what it is. They think it is what it isn’t. They think that because they believe really, really hard in their version of conservatism, their version of conservatism should prevail, even though their version of conservatism is not what the majority of the House believes. Keep in mind I share their beliefs. Their version of conservatism is my version of conservatism. I would love our version of conservatism to be ascendant. I’ve worked for that for nearly 40 years. But right now, it’s not going to be, in large part, because of our own party’s failures. But some in our party don’t seem to understand that. They’re very mad that a minority of the House – Democrats plus RINOs – outvote conservatives. As a result, we conservatives cannot simply impose our will. Apparently, they didn’t watch Schoolhouse Rock. Apparently, they didn’t learn how to count. Apparently, they think that because they’re really, really, really upset, their upsetness matters more than reality.
The reality is that we somehow managed to get a Speaker last January and that Speaker was imperfect. Kevin McCarthy was not the guy I wanted for the job in the abstract. He was not doing everything I wanted him to do. But you know what he wasn’t doing? He wasn’t being a Democrat. He was being an obstacle to Biden’s unilateral control over two branches of the government. And when you fail to win elections – I can’t even deal with people who are going to insist that we really won even though we didn’t, which I know because of who’s in office and who isn’t – you don’t get everything you want.
This is why I prefer to win elections. Of course, winning elections requires that you do things that are consistent with winning elections. One of those is to not look like a bunch of clowns wrestling in Jell-O. The GOP can’t elect a Speaker because of a tiny minority of backbench tools, for a variety of stupid reasons, is working with the Democrats to ensure we can’t elect a new imperfect but adequate Speaker. How did this happen? Because a tiny minority led by Florida Beavis worked with the Democrats and tossed out our imperfect but adequate, Trump-endorsed Speaker. Why did they do that? Because of reasons and shut up and neocon and RINO and Blah Blah Blah blah blah. Oh yeah, and “uniparty,” too.
You can tell dumb people by their promiscuous use of terms like “neocon,” “uniparty,” and “RINO.” Words actually have meaning. They’re more than an avatar that represents something that you dislike. “Neocon” has a specific meaning. It’s not just somebody who thinks we have enemies overseas that must be confronted and defeated. Now it seems to be anyone who doesn’t want to withdraw the American armed forces within Kansas's borders. If you find yourself calling somebody who supports Israel over the seventh-century savages a “neocon,” you are choosing to be dumb.
How about “Uniparty”? That’s a cool, edgy term that stupid people use because they stole it from smart people who recognized the commonalities between Republicans and Democrats and how that conglomeration of creeps in Washington tended to work together across party lines to frustrate what the people actually wanted. It does not mean someone who wants a Republican body actually to function. It does not mean that you think that the Republican majority should have a Speaker, nor does it mean someone who thinks that the Republican Party probably shouldn’t throw out a Speaker unless it has another viable Speaker waiting in the wings who can get 218 votes. I know you don’t like Kevin McCarthy. I don’t like Kevin McCarthy. But I like having a Speaker because, among other things, it demonstrates to the voters that maybe they should trust Republicans with control of the House. And having a Republican Speaker who can control things in the House is the closest thing that we have at the moment to an obstacle to the actual uniparty.
“BUT THEY CHANGED THINGS!”
Yes, for the worse. Getting rid of Kevin McCarthy is going to inevitably – assuming no miracle happens between the time I screamed/typed this and the time you read it, and the GOP gets its Schiff together – we’re going to have a bunch of soft Republicans from Biden districts hooking up with Hakeem Jeffries and installing a Democrat or Democrat-friendly Republican as Speaker, and that’s going to be a giant, pointy suppository for conservatism. Do you want to fight the uniparty? Maybe don’t help the Democrats and the RINOs work together to screw conservatives.
And that’s another abused noun, “RINO.” “RINO” has a specific meaning too. That meaning is not any Republican you just dislike this week. A RINO is a Republican in name only, a person with a Republican label who often runs in a purple district and would be a Democrat if not for the necessity of being a Republican to get elected. They tend to be liberal Republicans. But they are Republicans, and yes, they frustrate the hell out of me. But you know what? Our caucus includes about 15-20% RINOs. It just does. It does because the voters in their districts elected them. I’ve got no problem primarying them with candidates who can beat them – not lunatics who will lose big in a GOP-winnable district because they are convinced that the Kraken broke into the Dominion machines using psychic mind-control lasers.
Maybe I’m expecting a little too much because I’ve been a Republican for about 40 years, and I kinda know what I’m talking about. You don’t have to agree with me or me with you. Still, we should expect a certain baseline of experience and understanding of how things are supposed to work, how things actually do work, what the Constitution says, how a bill becomes a law, and so forth, from somebody weighing in. I just can’t stand the nitwits who never thought about politics until last week, when they suddenly got excited and jumped in and then glommed onto all these terms that actually mean something and started spewing them out in a spray of hack clichés.
These newcomers tend to be emotion-driven. Those who actually want to win rather than express their innermost feelings, like a bunch of teenage girls at a slumber party, tend to be objective. We look at the situation, evaluate how it really is, and take the course of action most likely to benefit us. Sometimes, that’s not much benefit at all because, as adults understand, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. I prefer winning. You know, actual winning is where my guy takes office and is able to exercise power. I reject moral victories, where you lose gloriously and then whine about how the uniparty neocon RINOs are getting in the way of your faction exercising unrestrained power.
Grow the hell up.
