The Republican Party Is Unserious

House Republicans

How would you grade Mike Johnson’s speakership so far? Do you think Mike Johnson will last longer than a year?
Johnson just made a deal to keep the government open with a lot of Democratic votes, and only a slight majority of Republicans voted for it. This led to Steve Bannon calling him out as now being on borrowed time. Is Steve Bannon relevant? He owes 4 months in prison and a fine that he has delayed with several appeals. Will he have a “Mein Kampf” cultural moment while pretending to be a martyr?
The bipartisan deal kicks the can down the road and creates two new deadlines — in Jan. 19, and Feb. 2 — which will of course prompt further standoffs risking shutdowns again.
Who is an alternative if Republicans sour on Johnson?
Back to McCarthy? Jim Jordan? Another hail mary back bencher?
Is the Republican Speaker of the House an impossible job? Is the term “Republican speaker” now an oxymoron, because who can honestly be a speaker for this wild caucus tent cramming together roughly three groups: MAGA bomb-throwers, center-right normies who appreciate that the federal government exists, and 18 extra-moderate Republicans in districts that Biden won in 2020?
How will Johnson and the Freedom Caucus meaningfully legislate with a Democratic Senate and Democratic presidential veto to avoid those potential shutdowns early next year?

There is a lot of fighting in the GOP caucus

House Republicans are talking so much shit on each other, Democratic attack ads this cycle will be able to just use Republicans’ words against themselves. They are accusing each other of accomplishing nothing for the American people, breaking promises, obstructing government, etc.
Also, just a couple days ago, Representative Tium Burchette accused Kevin McCarthy of shoving him and punching him in some kidneys shots, calling him a “chicken” with “no guts.” Then Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullins challenged the head of the Teamsters Sean O’Brien to a fight during a committee hearing during his testimony. Violence is increasingly the acceptable manner of Republican conduct?

Is Congress getting more Parliamentarian now?

There are differing factions in the GOP House caucus that increasingly are not getting along: relative center-Right moderates/MAGA/18 Biden districts
There are increasingly bipolar, hyper-partisan Senate and House elections. For instance, 30 years ago, would Fetterman have won after having a stroke? Would Kari Lake have won refusing to acknowledge she and Trump lost? Would Herschel Walker have gotten so close? Roy Moore? Probably not…
Are voters more aware now that the party differences matter more than individual candidates, and essentially are voting in a parliamentarian system where you’re voting for party and the party chooses candidates
Does this mean voters are getting smarter or dumber? Is it good for US democracy, or bad for US democracy?

US-China Detente

Xi and Biden are meeting face-to-face this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is meeting with China’s Vice Premier
There are some cooperative initiatives, including a joint effort to crack down on the fentanyl trade and the reopening of military-to-military communications

Broader Foreign Policy

Do you have any thoughts on the growing isolationism of the Republican Party, and how soft they’re being on our geopolitical rivals, or how borderline treasonously enamored they are with dictators? The exception is China, and Republicans are extra hawkish on China, though how much of the Freedom Caucus would be willing to help Taiwan, or even want to continue contributing to their defense spending?
Some have described a new Axis between Russia, China, and Iran
Flash points are the US defending Ukraine against Russian aggression, defending Taiwan against Chinese aggression, and Israel against Iranian- influenced aggression. Is this America doing too much? Are the 3 situations each unique? At least with Ukraine and Taiwan we are standing up for our values that big nations ought not to invade and take over smaller nations. That’s noble. Israel and Palestine are not so clear cut.
GOP’s legislative chaos: the House punted on aid for Ukraine and even Israel until after Thanksgiving.
Republicans kind of want to cave and roll over on all 3. Will the US overextend and spread itself too thin?
Should we go to war in Taiwan? Does Israel need our money? Is the current Ukraine-Russia battle lines the new borders, like a demarcated Korea situation?
Trump also loves Putin and Kim Jong Un, and has literally called Kim a “lover.” Trump has such a wannabe mob boss attitude with no regard for America’s national security interests. Like he wants America to just leave NATO… the alliance that keeps America on the same team as the most industrialized, richest, most modern, militarily strong nations in the world. It’s only in China and Russia’s interest for us to willfully and belligerently tell these allies to “fuck off.”

Trump

Trump is vowing to overhaul the DOJ, prosecute Biden and his other political opponents, deport Muslims.
Steve Bannon, arguably to some degree Trump’s Rasputin, is calling for deporting 10 million people.
Trump has suggested we need some kind of concentration camps.
Trump spent Veterans Day saying America’s enemies are within, and are “vermin.” He, or someone around him like Stephen Miller obviously chose that word specifically. Hitler playbook? Are we moving closer to 1933?
Trump is doing the textbook domestic fascist playbook, and calling his liberal enemies “Communists,” which is rich considering he loves Xi and thinks Xi is so strong and tough. Last time I checked China and Xi were communist.

Other GOP Candidates

Are these GOP primary debate worth having at all?
What are the Republican candidates’ strategies? VP or other cabinet position? Hoping Trump gets imprisoned or dies? They aren’t being too tough on Trump, and their infighting isn’t helping decrease Trump’s huge margin.
Tim Scott is out after moving the national conversation imperceptibly if at all, and Nikki Haley is gaining.
Has Ron DeSantis helped or hurt his future presidential prospects?

Dumb Idea of the Week

Vivek Ramaswamy said he’ll lay off 75 percent of the federal workforce, then moderated and called for half of “federal bureaucrats” to be fired.
He says it would be legal if he randomized the mass layoffs were based on the last digit of federal employees’ Social Security numbers being odd or even. What could go wrong?
Matt Iglesias broke down that topic on his recent newsletter and showed that 70% of the jobs the government employs are involved in defense and security-related agencies with the top being Veterans Affairs — largely VA hospitals which are government run — at 18.8% of government-employed jobs, followed by the Army, Navy, Homeland Security, Air Force, Justice Department, and Defense Department. Obviously Republicans want to kill the Justice Department because the Attorney General and Special Counsel Jack Smith are being so mean to Donald Trump, but how is the rest gonna go? Vivek would just willy nilly fire half the Army and Navy? And the people who spend all day gathering intel on terrorists to protect our country? And he’s going to fuck over our veterans, whose governmental services would lose more jobs than any other department in the government?
Is Vivek an epic moron? Shouldn’t more Republicans be immediately calling this guy out for wantonly calling for wrecking the government and our country?
Will Republicans ever again be patriotic about our government? They just can’t accept that a more competent federal government will actually be less wasteful. If the government doesn’t employ people to do the jobs necessary to carry out its functions and responsibilities, it’s just going to have to contract out, which means less oversight and less ability to control costs over those privatized responsibilities… which actually often inflates and bloats the government more than just hiring government officials.

2024 General Election

Any early, wild predictions?
Trump vs Biden, it’s like a parliamentarian system where neither candidate is that popular or exciting
Possibilities that are definitely going to be wrong, but a year out from the election seem potentially plausible in my political day-dreaming:

1. There’s a non-zero chance that Democrats and Biden could win a landslide. Like what if the GOP removes Johnson, and there are more Speaker problems where another stretch of having no speaker stretches on pissing off voters? Or relative moderates and normie Republicans elect Hakeem Jeffries? Independent voters’ enthusiasm for supporting any Republicans could plummet.

2. What if Trump is convicted and imprisoned while humiliating himself with embarrassingly horrendous behavior, like he really goes wild lashing out on Truth Social threatening his judges and juries and cooperating witnesses? Or there are public revelations of extreme criminality with regards to the classified secrets he was hoarding throughout Mar-a-Lago and unprecedented national security leaks that finally opens Republican voters’ eyes that he’s a con man? What do we expect Trump was doing with all those boxes of classified documents? How many other countries’ spy networks bought several spies membership to all of Trump’s clubs? And he constantly needs money. Doesn’t it sound Trumpy to sell state secrets? He’s already shown he has no qualms about extorting other governments around the world like he did with Ukraine. And he doesn’t even need to sell them to be a national security threat. He was bragging about having the Iran attack plan in his hands to a random reporter. I’m sure he liked to brag to random Mar-a-Lago members in the dining hall about things he knew or had seen.

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