Republicans in Congress want to complain, not govern

The right-leaning editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has written an op-ed saying that Republicans are too dimwitted to wield power. And I have to tell you, I think that they’re probably right. Now let’s take a step back and talk about a few different things here.

First and foremost, Wall Street Journal is part of News Corp. News Corp owns Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, a right-leaning Republican. We know about all of that. The editorial board put together this op-ed indicating, look at how silly it is, look at how concerning it is for Republicans, that they are on the precipice of being sworn in to take control of the House of Representatives. They will have control of that house for two years, and they are too dimwitted to wield power. They don’t seem to understand that when you have such a small majority, you actually have to be skillful, and intelligent. And instead they’re fighting about Speaker of the House. They want Kevin McCarthy to do this, that the other thing. 

This is a direct result of the way that the Republican Party has operated over the last, certainly two, absolutely four and six, maybe more like eight and 10 years, really since the start of the Obama era, quite frankly. So even longer than that. The Republican Party has been about rage, and has been about anger. They’re not about policy. They’re not about plans and putting in place solutions to problems like, how can we in an affordable way, get people off of fossil fuels for home heating, as an example. Or, let’s figure out how to include dental insurance in normal health insurance. It doesn’t have to be separate. Why is it separate? Let’s make it all one thing so people would have dental coverage. 

They don’t want to solve problems like that. They want to use fear and rage and hyperbole and rhetoric, and when you do that, maybe it’ll win you some elections. But it won’t set you up to have a policy platform. And I’ve seen it firsthand. I visited lots of conservative parts of the country. And when people essentially spend their time going to church, going to shooting ranges, etc., going to Walmart, you end up with that view. You’re afraid of immigrants who are going to come and take our jobs. You’re afraid of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. You’re afraid. It’s fear and rage, fear and rage, fear and fear and rage. 

Who should I be afraid of? And who should I be mad at? And often it’s the same groups. 

You should be afraid of and mad at immigrants both for coming here and raping our women and taking our jobs. Those lazy immigrants are taking our jobs and working. That doesn’t sound so lazy. Doesn’t matter. Okay? Fear and anger, fear and anger. Black Lives Matter, we should be afraid of them because they’re rioting, even though they’re not. And we should also be angry at them because they want to level the playing field for historical injustices that have plagued the United States. 

The other aspect to this is that, even though the right loves to say that it’s the left that’s all about grievances, grievance politics…it’s really the right that is about grievance politics. And they claim to be aggrieved and that their free speech is taken away by platforms by private social media platforms. They claim to be aggrieved and that elections they claim they won aren’t being given to them. And of course, it’s all lies. But it’s important to remember that the more loudly they insist it’s the left that wants to talk about grievance, it is really they who have become the party of grievance. 

So where does this end up? This ends up with Republicans coming in to control the House with little more than slogans, meaningless slogans. Slogans like, defend the Constitution, except when they don’t. Like when they say, “Hey, even though we last put our guy in the White House.” Protect free speech, unless it’s the free speech of corporations to police content on their platforms, then force them to have to publish everything, even if it’s COVID disinformation. 

They have a few slogans and they have, “We want to go after Hunter Biden. We want to go after Joe Biden.” That’s what they have. And at the end of the day, the Wall Street Journal editorial board is right. They are, many of them, too dimwitted to govern. But also, it’s less about being dimwitted for some than about just wanting to…fill the right role that they are expected to fill in order to stay in the good graces of their orange leader, Donald Trump. 

Now, if Trump continues to fall out of favor, which he seems to be doing with Republicans, you will see that change. But as of right now, he’s still the head of the Republican Party. They want to suck up to him and expect as – these aren’t my words, it’s the Wall Street Journal – a dim witted Republican party controlling the House of Representatives.