The Members of the GOP who Sympathized with the Insurrection and Helped Spread Trump’s Election Lies are now in Control of the House of Representatives
In a nutshell, what happened this week in the House was that Kevin McCarthy had difficulty securing enough votes to become Speaker of the House because a small group of Republicans held out until he gave in to their demands. Because the Republicans hold such a slim majority in Congress, any 5 can hold up everything by refusing to vote for whatever is on the agenda. In this case, they demanded (among other things) control over House rules and other vital committees and the ability for any member of the majority, at any time, to call for a vote ousting the speaker. The group that wielded such power are the same Representatives who sympathized with the insurrectionists and helped push Trump’s election lies.
This happened because they got reelected despite their support for the insurrection, or, in some cases, because they supported the insurrection. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, (one of the few extremists who supported the insurrection and supported Kevin McCarthy from the beginning) successfully defended herself in court against a bid to keep her off the ballot due to her support for the insurrection and, despite being stripped of committee assignments, she raised more than $3 million in small donations in the first quarter of 2021, a staggering haul for a new member of Congress.
This group is driven by outrage and anger and a desire for the federal government to fail. They envision a sort of libertarian free-for-all, no-rules society with each person out for himself or herself. We can thus expect Trump’s style of governing, creating a constant string of crises and spectacles, to continue in the House for the next two years.
An Example of What We Can Expect
In other words, the Republicans who supported the insurrection demanded the ability to interfere with the DOJ’s ongoing investigation. The executive branch is a separate branch of government so Congress can’t actually interfere, but the House can assume oversight of the executive branch. I expect we will have the House insisting on answers and the DOJ refusing to give them because grand jury proceedings are (by law) secret and because doing so will hinder the ongoing investigation. Given what we’ve seen happening in court the past few years, I expect the courts will support the DOJ.
When I posted these ideas on Mastodon, a few people made comments like these:
- Democrats should ignore their subpoenas the way the Republicans did
- No wonder all of this is happening. The people who planned and carried out the insurrection have gotten away with it, proving that anyone can break laws.
- The clown show in the House is all the fault of the Democrats because they failed to do anything at all about the lawbreaking
If you are tempted to leave comments like those, please see my FAQ page first. It’s here.
Extreme Laissez-Faire v. A Well-Regulated Government
A reader on Mastodon asked me a question, and the answer helps explain what the Republicans in the House want:
Why do our anti-trust laws allow corporations to get so big and swallow up smaller corporations, which makes it easier for large corporations to wield too much power?
First, to clarify: Anti-trust laws prevent unfair competition and price fixing. A company doesn’t violate anti-trust laws because it has grown large.
Underlying the question “why do we allow corporations to get so large,” is the question of how far the economy should be regulated. A bit of history for perspective:
Before 1913, there was no federal income tax. Before the 1930s, capitalism was basically unregulated. There were no labor protection laws and no minimum wage. Workers often couldn’t break out of the poverty cycle. Price fixing, market manipulation, and money laundering were legal. People (well, white men) could, without restraint, cheat. Many got rich that way.
Then as now, those who support an extreme laissez-faire economy believe that if you remove all regulations, those who are most capable will take control of our industries and commerce, everything will run more smoothly, there will be jobs for everyone because the competent will create jobs by expanding possibilities, and we will move toward a brighter tomorrow.
Those who want a regulated economy, in contrast, believe that an unregulated economy permits cheating and injustice. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first elected president in 1932, believed that capitalism needs to be regulated to curb its worst impulses. He brought us the New Deal, which was basically a series of legislation giving us worker protections, minimum wage, social security, and regulations outlawing things like fixing prices and manipulating markets. The idea was to make it harder to get rich by cheating and to help people out of poverty. These regulations and the new regulatory agencies expanded the size (and complexity) of the federal government.
There was immediate pushback from laissez-faire conservatives, who wanted to undo the New Deal and take us back to the 1920s.
As a result of the Civil Rights and women’s rights movements, the federal government grew even larger with regulations to create racial and gender fairness. We now have a massively large and complicated government. In fact, its current complexity is beyond many people’s capacity to tolerate it.
In the 1980s Reagan ran on a platform that included deregulating business. He won both elections in massive landslides and, as he promised he would, began deregulating business. (Reagan also appealed to the people who resented the laws creating racial equality by means of what we now call dog whistles, which formed the current Republican coalition.)
A word of warning to people who want regulations for fairness: You will never get perfect fairness. There will always be pushback. Moreover, perfect fairness (or any perfection) isn’t possible. All we can do is try to keep moving the needle toward fairness. The legislation passed during Biden’s first two years will push the needle toward fairness in ways that are not always immediately visible. For example, the FCC proposed a regulation eliminating non-compete clauses in labor contracts, which will have an enormous impact on the ability of workers to earn a living. (I could write an entire blog post on how good this regulation would be for workers, including those who work in high tech.)
One reader said:
Those of us who don’t view fairness for its own sake as a particularly important goal, but view a well-regulated system as a) safer, b) more predictable, and c) better at producing good outcomes for the majority. Fairness is a plus, and helps contribute to some of those ends, but is not the main end of regulation.
What we see as good government (a well-regulated government) the opposition sees as tyranny (all those regulations getting in the way of their “freedom.”)
Nullification Purists
Libertarians—an influential portion of the Republican Party—want to abolish all federal regulatory agencies. The Texas Libertarians want to abolish the IRS. In 1980, when David Koch was the Libertarian Party’s candidate for vice president, he wanted to abolish public schools and welfare payments, Social Security, and rent control. He hoped to do away with the I.R.S, the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Border Patrol, and the regulatory agencies.
Imagine our country without public schools and social security. That’s what they want.
Today there is a group called the 10th Amendment Nullification Purists. To avoid sending you to their website, I will take screenshots.
The Nullification Libertarians want to revive the 1798 principles that allow states to nullify laws that overreach federal powers. That wasn’t a typo. 1798.
Their argument is that the 10th Amendment is perfectly clear: Any power not specifically given to the federal government is reserved for the states. Because there is nothing in the Constitution about the FBI, EPA, FCC, etc, they insist that all regulatory agencies are illegitimate and unconstitutional.
The website urges everyone to “Reject. . . all unconstitutional ACTS!” This explains GOP tolerance of lawbreaking. They are cool with violating regulations that they don’t believe should exist. They don’t care if Trump cheated on his taxes because they think the IRS is an illegal institution and that nobody should have to pay taxes.
Their rationale and arguments were the same as those given by the Confederacy. Remember the Confederacy insisted it wasn’t fighting for slavery. The Confederacy insisted it was fighting because the federal government was overreaching. The Confederacy, like the 10th Amendment Purists, liked how things were in 1798.
Returning the country to the federal government as it existed in 1798 is another way to be an insurrectionist. If you want to dismantle the government, you can bring in a wrecking ball, or you can send in an army, or you can dismantle it piece by piece, or you can elect representatives to Congress who promise to render the federal government so dysfunctional that it completely fails.
No surprise, the nullification libertarians reject the concept of compromise and bipartisanship, which would allow the federal government to function. From their website:
The theory that bipartisanship in Washington is a bad thing is the theory that will govern the House of Representatives over the next two years. Brace yourself.
Fortunately, the majority in the House is razor thin, the Democrats control the Senate which means the House Republicans will not be able to pass actual legislation, and Biden is in the White House. Between 2016 and 2018 they had a trifecta. We will get through the next two years, but expect a clown show and constant spectacle.
A reader on Mastodon said this:
As I see it – the worst the insurrection caucus can do is completely paralyze the House for the next couple of years – that’s certainly not the worst-case scenario. Failing to raise the debt ceiling or not responding to critical issues will not look good for the GOP. Plunging the US and RoW into recession will not please those who fund the GOP. I do worry about what they can do to shut down, defund ongoing J6 investigations – but that’s going against public opinion and probably won’t end well for the GOP. Fingers crossed.
I agree, and as far as averting a calamity, the Democrats only have to peel off 5 Republicans from districts Biden won who would like to be reelected in 2024. I’m sure that Democrats who were rolling their eyes at the Republican shenanigans also believed that they will show the voters who they are and thereby lose in 2024.
On the lighter side, how about a travel story about a Pucon yarn shop, a shopkeeper, a pigeon, and his friend?
What happened was this. One day a pigeon came into a yarn shop. The pigeon had an injured leg, so the shopkeeper fed him.
Evidently the word went around because the next thing the shopkeeper knew, she had 45 pigeons coming around asking for food. None of them are injured so she keeps chasing them away. The injured pigeon is allowed into her store so he can eat, but he keeps inviting his friends.
One of my readers on Mastodon said, “It’s the same old story: you let one in, he brings in all his relatives and friends, the next thing you know they’re laying pigeon “anchor eggs”, and there goes the neighborhood.”