A tragic week for America
There is a contradiction inherent in this moment. It is the “best of times,” and it is the “worst of times.”
Without question, there is no period of human history that has ever existed that is preferable to our own. There is no epoch that has been more just or peaceful. There is no time where there has been greater justice and opportunity. There is no era of utopia from which we have fallen back that is now unattainable.
We live in an age of “miracle and wonder.” We live in an age of war and famine. We live in a time of great change, challenge, and opportunity. We live simultaneously in an era of hope and fear.
We live in an era where corruption, indecency, cruelty, ignorance and intellectual mediocrity have become the currency that fuels the ambitions of America’s lowest men and women. These people, like droplets of rain that fall upon a river and flow to the sea, have been carried to the Congress in the current of our contaminated and polluted culture.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, George Santos, and their fellow travellers are avatars of extremism, fraudulence, and unfitness. Together, they constitute the Republican majority of the US House of Representatives, which has organized itself around extremism and demagoguery as its Polaris. The extremist faction is led, as always, by Donald Trump and his most important lieutenants, who guide and harness his irredeemable malice into political currency and fuel.
Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, Tucker Carlson and the mandarins of Fox News are the lifeblood of Kevin McCarthy’s ambitions. He owes them his gavel, and they owe him nothing. He serves at their pleasure. They own him. He is their leashed pet, toothless, small and simple.
What has been exposed over these last days — thanks to the exquisite placement of C- SPAN cameras — is how ill-served the American people will be by the McCarthy Congress. Make no mistake, though its majority is small, its danger is great.
Four terrible things will happen in the months ahead that will be devastating — not just to the American people — but to the cause of liberty all over the world.
Firstly, the McCarthy Congress will almost certainly default on America’s debt payments. This will instigate an economic crisis that will destabilize the country and directly affect the economy.
Secondly, the McCarthy Congress will almost certainly attempt to eviscerate the budget of the US military at the exact moment the Chinese military has achieved “strategic breakthrough.”
Thirdly, the McCarthy Congress will fight like hell to cut off funding for Ukraine in its righteous war against Russia’s criminal aggression.
Fourthly, the McCarthy Congress will abuse its power and seek to cruelly destroy the president’s surviving son and wreck his fragile recovery for blood sport. There is nothing new to be learned, and nothing in the national interest to be discovered in the witch hunts to come — with the possible exception of demonstrating the lowness of the witch hunters and their appalling cruelty. The hearings will be a clinic on gracelessness.
Kevin McCarthy is a Speaker in Name Only (SINO). He is just one more Trump tenant. He occupies the Speaker’s office at Trump’s whim and, incredibly, seems immune to being cognizant of his humiliation and debasements. He is the leader of nothing. He is the rotting neck of a Trump-headed fish that reeks from its decay, and is swarmed by flies.
The corruption of the MAGA House is incandescent. It will serve the American people terribly over the next two years of growing crisis, but it will preface the reform movement to come. There will be American renewal because we have crossed a glorious line of generational change that must occur for America to endure. A new leader has risen, and we have heard his thunderous and righteous roar as a nation for the first time.
The news media often misses the forest from the trees. I imagine that will be the case with regard to sorting out what it is that occurred after the SINO was secured on the 15th ballot — one ballot after the extremists, once again, committed an act of violence on the floor of the US House of Representatives.
The rise of Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is what mattered last night. He will be the first black Speaker of the House in two short years. He will be the balm over the next two years that inspires, leads and settles the apprehensions of a skittish country who will pay the price for creating the MAGA majority by their own free will. That is how democracy works. It is why Benjamin Franklin said, “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
After watching a week of insanity play out, an incredible event transpired at a low hour as a rancid man achieved a hollow office in the middle of the night. In the early hours of an American morning, many hours before the sunrise broke over the east coast of Maine, a man rose and spoke. That man, Hakeem Jeffries, passed a test. In an instant, he measured up. He stood tall and looked out over the Congress and became a national leader.
John Quincy Adams was the only president of the United States to serve in the US House of Representatives. Here is what he said about leadership: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
How does MAGA Kevin measure up? What about Leader Jeffries?
Let’s watch them both:
We will come through the storm ahead and the next one after that.
America will celebrate its 250th year of independence in three short years. Kevin McCarthy will be a little-remembered canker sore on the American lip by then. Scoundrels come and go. America endures, and the fight rolls on.
May God Bless the United States of America and her people in the 247th year of our liberty and independence.
John Adams said, “You will never know, how much it cost the present generation, to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven, that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.” There will be no need for John Adams to repent in heaven. Why? Because the beautiful mosaic described by Leader Jeffries will not surrender the victory of the American Revolution to Donald Trump, MAGA Kevin and CPAC’s fascist degenerate Matt Schlapp, who joins the miles-long list of deviant MAGA’s who have been accused of sexual assault.
This has been a tragic week for America. It is not the first one. It won’t be the last. We will endure though because America is so much bigger than the bottom dwellers with the magic letter “R” next to their names and Member of Congress pins on their lapels.
OMG-- if it wasn't already clear to everyone, like an aikido adept, Steve has perfected the art of the political take-down. Among the many possible examples: "McCarthy... seems immune to being cognizant of his humiliation and debasements. He is the leader of nothing. He is the rotting neck of a Trump-headed fish that reeks from its decay, and swarmed by flies."
And thank you for acknowledging the rising greatness of House minority leader Hakim Jeffries-- yes, hopefully in 2 years' time he will be majority leader.
I am going search out and drink up every Jeffries speech. We are fortunate to have the next 2 years with this man as Dem Leader. And I love how he energizes the caucus. And the country (let's hope)!