I pulled this Carlson rant from Mediate (below), an admittedly left-wing site. The website can be disreputable but here is Carlson in the all-too-familiar raiment of the contrarian. That’s it, he’s crafted this persona of being a contrarian, an inveterate opponent of whatever any large group wants – or as he oftentimes prattles, a foe of “lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink”. It’s a simple-minded reflex to defend the smaller number against the many, even if the “underdog” happens to be a Al Capone. It’s ludicrous.
* Watch here: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-blasts-fox-news-contributor-ben-domenech-as-a-moron-and-a-buffoon-for-his-speakership-take/
He sprays vituperation and smug giggles at both the condemnable and reasonable, apparently showing no sign of being able to distinguish between the risible MSNBC nutcases and the sensible others. The only discernable metric being the number: the smaller good, the larger bad. In regard to the Republican leadership fight, he’s a bigot against the 200 and patron saint of the 20. By that standard, if the guy was around Petrograd in 1917, he’d be giddy over the little cluster of Bolsheviks around Lenin. No serious analysis of the demands and antics of the 20 is presented. It’s rabbit-hole logic.
The contrarian schtick has its limitations. Tucker, try leveling your gaze at the 20 as you do the 200. Surely, there’s something more to the imbroglio than the size of the two sides. Hannity, to his credit, has exposed the 20’s most outspoken rabble rousers to some cross examination. After all the chest thumping, the clique demands attention, chaos, and power over the wishes of the other 200. Tucker didn’t portray them for what they are: a conspiratorial rump of the likes frequently seen in history from the Jacobins to the Khmer Rouge.
McCarthy finally won the Speakership on the 15th vote, and that with 216 votes, not the 218 that was repeated ad nauseum because of the kinks of plurality voting in House rules. 6 of the kamikazes still preferred going down in flames.
In the end, McCarthy is, as Phil Klein of National Review said in this morning’s piece, “Speaker in name only”. A weakened Speaker will grant free range for these deadenders to rampage across the Republican caucus all the way to a drubbing in 2024. According to the surrender agreement with the clique, McCarthy must face a vote to fire him whenever a single Republican gets his or her panties in a bunch. The Freedom Caucus and its rump has greater weight than any other group on the omnipotent Rules Committee.
The fact is, the rump can’t, as they say, “deliver results for the American people”. The boast exhibits no understanding of the Constitution, even a rudimentary awareness of separation of powers. The Dems control half of Article I (the Senate) and the Article II branch (executive). The rump’s sparsely supported designs face a deep-sixing in the Senate and Biden’s veto pen. Oversight investigations will ensue in the House, but that would occur without these embarrassing histrionics. Looking down the road, 20 halfwits could very well spell doom for the GOP and increase the likelihood of untrammeled Democrat neo-socialism after 2024.
Thank you, the carnival barkers of FNC, for making it easier for Democrats to ram through their plans to gut what used to be the United States of America. My only hope is that the bulk of the American people will see through the nonsense, in spite of the 20 clowns in the House Republican Conference under the protective aura of the FNC commentariat.
I’m hoping for 20 well-funded primary challenges in 2024. And that includes you, Matt Rosendale (R, Montana 2nd congressional district).
RogerG
Read more here:
* “Kevin McCarthy Elected Speaker in Name Only”, Philip Klein, Narional Review Online, 1/7/23, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kevin-mccarthy-elected-speaker-in-name-only/