Washington D.C.—
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan recently announced that he would not seek reelection this November, and would resign his Speakership rather than suffer the embarrassment of quite possibly losing his reelection campaign in the blue wave expected to crash upon the Republican Party with the force of millions of angry, energized liberal voters furious at the GOP’s spineless complicity in President Donald Trump’s ceaseless assault on our democracy, public government and culture.
Mr. Ryan was objectively bad at his job, giving up all morals and ethics while pretending President Trump was a normal president, and only barely cajoling his Republican House caucus to do run-of-the-mill House things like pay for the government. Though his job has been objectively impossible, critics and supporters have agreed that Mr. Ryan’s outright refusal to comment on any terrible thing Mr. Trump has done or said is a clear sign he is a weak, frightened boy of a Speaker of the House.
However, now that Mr. Ryan is retiring, the race to replace him is underway. Several candidates have expressed interest in gaining the power of the House gavel, and the nation has been wondering aloud why anyone would want the awful job of leading the most self-destructive, mentally incapacitated Congressional majority since the days when half of Congress insisted that slavery was a Biblically-endorsed economic practice of cultural Southern superiority.
“I love abuse,” explained House Freedom Caucus member Daniel Traybar of Wisconsin, who threw his hat in the ring for the Speakership yesterday. “I want this job so bad because the thought of factions in the Republican House caucus constantly warring with each other over questions as simply answerable as ‘should we let America default on it debts?’ and ‘should we let Trump rip up the Constitution and become a fascist dictator?’ and ‘should we make it illegal to have a vagina?’ is a really big turn on. Nothing is sexier to me than the idea of Republican House members accusing me of being a secret Democrat and a communist for realizing that Social Security payments to feeble old people is probably something we should not take away in exchange for more tax cuts on already filthy rich billionaires. I can’t wait till half the Republican Party absolutely loathes me the first time I make a deal with Democrats to avoid going over a fiscal cliff and to prevent the downgrade of America’s credit rating. Ommpfh! I may have to bring an extra pair of underpants on the day we vote on that.”
Other Republicans were enthusiastic about running for the Speakership as well.
“I really enjoy being a rhetorical punching bag for totally erratic men,” said Republican House member Joan Saccard of Oklahoma, “And nothing excites me more than having to work with President Donald Trump. I don’t know why, but the idea of being constantly blamed for legislative failures whose real responsibility will stem solely from Donald Trump being a hands-off, reading-hating ignoramus is a very attractive job description to me. I love puzzles, and there is no more difficult puzzle in the entire universe than crafting legislation that Donald Trump won’t somehow ruin or torpedo with unhinged Twitter rants and uninformed, bipolar policy paradoxes. I can’t wait to craft some giant piece of legislation meticulously designed in the model of Trump’s public comments, only to have him entirely sabotage the whole thing the first time he talks to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, and then to rewrite the legislation to fit in all the compromises he struck with the Democrats before Trump torpedoes THAT legislation as well after he talks to Stephen Miller and learns that the Alt-Right neo-nazis that make up his most passionate base don’t like Congress, effectively making months of painstaking work and compromising worthless and fruitless. Sign me up, baby!”
(Picture courtesy of DonkeyHotey.)
The Halfway Post 