By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, October 03, 2023
The Matt Gaetz moment is upon us, and unless
you enjoy politics as absurdist theater, you might want to skip it.
The bomb-throwing Republican congressman from Florida,
who has hitherto distinguished himself with sundry attention-getting antics, is
making his biggest play yet by trying to remove Kevin McCarthy from the
speakership by offering a so-called motion to vacate.
McCarthy’s alleged offense is relying on Democratic votes
to pass a last-minute spending measure over the weekend to avert a government
shutdown that would have been blamed on Republicans.
Would it have been better if McCarthy hadn’t had to do
this, or hadn’t done it without first putting on the table a Republican version
of a stopgap bill? Sure. But Gaetz and some of his GOP confederates refused to
get behind any remotely plausible Republican alternative.
So, Gaetz is the arsonist and the fireman, forcing
McCarthy into the expedient for which he maintains McCarthy should be fired.
Joseph Heller would understand.
Since Gaetz’s motion to vacate requires a majority to
succeed and presumably has the support of only a small fraction of Republicans,
Gaetz himself has to look to Democrats to help him take the speaker’s gavel
from McCarthy. Who’s the apostate now?
Giving Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries ultimate say over
the composition of the Republican leadership of the House is a funny way to
show ideological or partisan purity. Indeed, Gaetz reportedly made his initial
outreach on behalf of his motion to the Congressional Progressive Caucus —
because, of course, the most left-wing members of the House are very discerning
judges of the quality of Republican speakers.
In other words, Gaetz wants to use a majority of House
Democrats to counteract the will of a majority of House Republicans on the
question of McCarthy’s fate.
If this works, it should long be studied as one of the
most witless acts of partisan self-sabotage in congressional history. Gaetz
makes Marjorie Taylor Greene look like Joseph Cannon by comparison.
The escapade, with its echo of past House Republican
internal contentions, requires an addition to the famous Karl Marx quote —
history repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce, finally as a
ginned-up event for some extra notoriety.
The likes of Matt Gaetz believe that Republicans have a
problem with the quality of their leadership when the quality of the
followership is more the issue.
Republican backbenchers used to be people such as Jack
Kemp and Paul Ryan, who became something by promoting ideas that they carefully
developed, sincerely believed, and persuaded their colleagues to embrace. Now,
the emphasis is on becoming a micro-celebrity via constant outrage.
There’s a reason that Gaetz conducts himself with the
thoughtfulness of an anonymous Twitter account — because attention, especially
on social media, is his ultimate metric of success.
Congress is merely a platform for the development and
enhancement of a personal brand, not an institution to be honored and served.
In this sense, Gaetz is a better dressed and much more right-wing version of
John Fetterman.
None of this is to say that Speaker McCarthy is above
reproach. Another flaw with the motion-to-vacate gambit, though, is that
there’s no good alternative. Even Gaetz, the ringmaster of his own circus,
isn’t touting anyone else — and for a reason. There’s no one who would
obviously do a better job. There’s no one who represents a different
philosophical disposition.
With a slender majority and Democrats in control of the
Senate and the White House, House Republicans inevitably have limited leverage,
and speaker of the House is inherently a thankless job in these circumstances.
It requires corralling a fractious caucus, some members of which will never be
satisfied, at a time when there’s a premium on being bombastic and
recalcitrant.
And then, there’s the fact that whoever is speaker has to
deal with Matt Gaetz. And who would want to do that?
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