Writes Roger Kimball, in "What hath Matt Gaetz wrought by tipping over the House apple cart?" (Spectator).
Here was Newt Gingrich 2 days ago, in The Washington Post: "Republicans must expel Matt Gaetz." Expel?!
I hadn't seen the old upset-the-apple-cart metaphor in a long time. According to the OED, its first appearance was in reference to American politics, in a letter written in 1788: "S. Adams had almost overset the apple-cart by intruding an amendment of his own fabrication on the morning of the day of ratification [of the Constitution]."
Searching for "plastic moment," I see it's more prominently a structural engineering term. But perhaps Marx used the term more evocatively. And yet, I couldn't find any Marx quotation with the phrase.
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Upsetting the apple cart by canning the guy who lied and said no more CR's?? Where are the J6 tapes?? How's that border crisis?? How much more can the GOPe bend over backwards to help Biden get what he wants every time?? The apple cart was knocked over years ago, and it is time to set it up right again.
The government ratchet only works in one direction. It works in one direction when democrats are in control. It works in one direction when republicans are in control. It works in one direction at the bureaucratic level.
If doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, then maybe shutting the whole thing down for 6 months might not be a bad idea.
Who knows, people may suddenly wake up and realize that they need 90% less government than they were getting. Maybe that's why they fear it. Maybe that's why shutdowns are always couched in apocalyptic language.
It opens up a lot of "what ifs". They don't like "what ifs", not one little bit.
Each of the major parties has known flaws and blind spots.
The Democrats: utopian dreams, excess spending/inflation, fighting old battles they've already won, a totalitarian streak, and routinely shooting each other.
The Republicans: fat, happy, lazy, line up politely and wait for leadership offers, "do nothings" who allow others to set the agenda, dislike of politics/DC jobs leaves them out of the loop.
With the Reps shifting toward a big tent, blue collar, and multicultural theme, they must change to be more active and take more risks. So, the McCarthy ouster was akin to the oil used to break free a rusty bolt. It's a tempest in a teapot.
Oh my god, the chaos, the chaos! And the sky is falling, too. Wait...am I the only one who has somehow missed the chaos?
The problem is the Representatives in the House of Representatives don’t represent. They don’t represent the voters. They represent the donors. Deficits and debt and war and illegal immigration are bad for the people, but good for the donors. Our government is organized crime.
It isn’t ANY more complicated than the previous speaker made promises to House members in his own party then broke those promises…and it isn’t like these were big asks, either. A return to regular order and no more multi-trillion dollar omnibus CRs. They weren’t even demanding you not put up all the dog shit spending either. Go ahead and vote for it. Instead no gotta have the spending like Treasury money us meth and you have no teeth left… or something :(….Fuck Newt and his ‘mindless cannibalism’ (look it up) and the long dead horse he rode in on…
Matt Gaetz’s assault will probably not be good for House Republicans. By challenging their complacency, Gaetz may also undermine their authority. That is why Newt Gingrich, among others, was so exercised.
They haven’t noticed they are the majority in the House yet they don’t run anything. Democrats run everything….yes, they do. Trading trillions in tax money for a promise the washington media won’t make you look bad is not a good trade…
I can't see a plastic moment having flying dust in it.
Plastic deformation is when a material is stressed beyond the point (young’s modulus) that elastic deformation would otherwise return the material to its original form. What McCarthy was challenged to do was restore Congress back to regular order, where 12 spending bills were considered allowing for targeted cuts in spending to bring our federal budget back to shape. Apparently, Congress lost its elasticity during Covid, and the majority of members think it cannot be returned to regular order. Gaetz disagrees.
I don’t care for Gaetz, McCarthy, or the Democrats. What I do find interesting is the Republicans complaining that Gaetz had to rely on Democrats to get McCathy ousted, only to learn that McCarthy is now pissed because he had negotiated with Democrats to allow the vote because he thought they would have his back. Ultimately, McCarthy has proven Gaetz’s point. McCarthy negotiated with Democrats rather than the Freedom Caucus because he trusted the Democrats more, and the Democrats held to their own agenda, which is vote in anyway that gained them power or made Republicans look foolish. What is the response, McCarthy is now being aggressive with Democrats and pushing them out of the offices that they should have been forced to vacate in January.
The establishment is for boring or the status quo.
Malleable moment or evocative event?
Over the last 25 years, politicians in both parties, but particularly the "respectable" non-walmart shopping, non-deplorable GOPe-ers have become accustomed to hiding their sellout of the republican base through the omnibus budgetary trickery, amongst other tactics.
Dem leadership is not in as widespread opposition to their base, so the lying and trickeration needn't be so aggressive on their side. Besides, the democratical base just about uniformly believes whatever they are told and do whatever they are told.
The budgetary trickeration and other tactics allow the GOPe-ers to position themselves as conservatives when in reality they are generally on board the dem/establishment (but I repeat myself) train.
And given the complete capture of the GOP leadership by these dem aligned GOPe-ers post-Reagan (some may argue long before Reagan and there is an argument for that), the party undermines/sabotages non-sellouts and pumps up the dem-aligned types in primaries and general elections.
The republican base, long slumbering, has been so transparently victimized over the last 15 years by their own leadership and with the destruction of the veneer of "enlightened"/"insider" "expertise" of our corrupted institutions, that the base has taken a strong conservative/populist turn.
The GOPe-ers in congress and the Senate are deathly afraid of having to take "up or down" votes on specific budget line items that would truly expose who they really are...and Gaetz called them out publicly.
Thats why these GOPe-ers are so livid.
And dont be surprised if McCarthy goes Full Paul Ryan 2018 Redux. Remember that? Ryan convinced senior republicans to leave congress, underfunded promising younger candidates and attacked only the republicans after covering up the russia collusion hoax for 2 years and working with the dems to sideline the only GOP rep actually making progress in finding out how the dems pulled off the collusion/dossier hoaxes: Nunes.
Ryan has been richly rewarded for betraying the republican base over and o er again. That's likely McCarthy's exit/retirement plan as well.
The strangest aspect of it all?
Just how many republicans long for a return to those days as the nation goes over the cliff in just about every single way.
Ann said...
"Searching for 'plastic moment,' I see it's more prominently a structural engineering term. But perhaps Marx used the term more evocatively. And yet, I couldn't find any Marx quotation with the phrase."
According to LinkedIn, Karl Marx is a structural engineer in Cleveland, OH. Maybe Roger was referring to him.
Perhaps planned propaganda.. Planned Politicianhood with forward-looking moments. Let them remain responsible.
I'm liking the alternative choices for speaker. Perhaps this will turn out better than expected.
Also - that the left are panicking - that's always fun for a few moments. until the media rush in - to re-calibrate the Crook Biden narrative.
Some googling led me to find a 2013 memorandum from Martin S. Indyk and Robert Kagan to President Obama encouraging him to take advantage of the current "plastic moment" in world affairs to spread liberalism and democracy to the world (interesting timing with the onset of the Maidan in Ukraine within the year, especially given Kagan's involvement). In it, they reference John Dewey's phrase "plastic juncture". Perhaps Kimball mixed up his progressives?
A term from Marx isn't the appropriate application. Rather, it is a term from Lenin: "Useful idiots."
THAT is exactly what Gaetz and his crew are having joined with Hakeem Jeffries and the entire Democrat regiment to crash the House and Republican Conference. They are useful idiots.
If the House is persistently unable to elect a speaker, what happens?
Parliamentary democracies elsewhere usually include some kind of mechanism for solving deadlocks—e.g. a mostly ceremonial president who still has the power to trigger new elections if parliament isn’t working.
But the American constitution is of course built very differently and doesn’t seem to have a reset button for the House, as far as I can tell. People in the 18th century had higher expectations of their politicians. They couldn’t imagine a group of congressmen like Gaetz who simply want chaos and literally try to block the government from operating.
Could the non-crazy members of the House elect a temporary speaker, some non-partisan outsider with enough patriotic clout (maybe a retired military leader)? And then take care of necessary business until the next election. Possibly one could ask Mitt Romney?
Democrats run everything….yes, they do.
When you have self-proclaimed "hardline," "conservative," "patriotic" Republicans consorting with the enemy Democrats to advance the political tactics of the Democrats, yes the Democrats do run everything.
Dem leadership is not in as widespread opposition to their base, so the lying and trickeration needn't be so aggressive on their side. Besides, the democratical base just about uniformly believes whatever they are told and do whatever they are told.
Only because their base is too stupid to recognize what is happening to them. The buses of immigrants seems to have alerted a few of them. But we still have retail business after business closing in blue enclaves as they cannot afford to remain open due to looting. If you are a gentrified liberal, the news of one of them getting robbed at gun point or stabbed to death is becoming more routine. And good luck with your child in a public school in a Democrat run area.
The GOP base is upset about higher inflation to cover runaway spending. The Dem base is facing food deserts, looting, beatings, and death.
McCarthy wasn't/isn't my guy, but he is/was far preferable compared to a handful of extortionists who would have everyone bend the knee to do their bidding. I didn't like it when it was John McCain, and I do not like it now. Particularly when these extortionists then consort and collude with enemy Democrats when they don't get their way, claiming they are doing it to defeat Democrats.
The fact is that Gaetz and the rest of his clown brigade want to be in the minority. From there all they have to do is shoot their mouths off and act like utter buffoons.
According to LinkedIn, Karl Marx is a structural engineer in Cleveland, OH. Maybe Roger was referring to him.
Awkward....
Apparently, at least as I have heard it, there was a guy in the US named Adolf Hitler round about the beginning of WWII. Urged by many to change his name, his response was, "Why doesn't he change his?"
I don't know how all this will eventually turn out, but this great work of art came immediately to mind when the deed was done.
Featuring D. Duck in the role of Representative Gaetz.
Which duck? Click and find out.
You Can Only Do This Once
They haven’t noticed they are the majority in the House yet they don’t run anything. Democrats run everything….yes, they do. Trading trillions in tax money for a promise the washington media won’t make you look bad is not a good trade…
This would have been avoided if Trump didn't fuck up so many Senate races by backing losers like Hershall Walker and Dr. Oz. The republicans could have actually done something. Can't accomplish much of anything having a narrow majority in the HOR.
The best argument against Trump is that one everyone is too chickenshit to make: Trump is a loser. His record is laughable and embarrassing. He won one race. That's it. And he's been losing ever since. Over and over and over. He is a loser and he just got lucky enough to face off against HRC. He lost to Joe Biden. So, enjoy your dose of Fetterman and keep telling yourself that this time Trump's candidacy will be different.
Narrator: "It won't."
In your heart, you know I'm right.
I think it's an opportunity! If the Republicans seize it.
Install Trump as Speaker.
They would have to unite. But it would be a cool move that would make the House the center of media attention. Just the way the Framers wanted it!
At this stage of the game we can't know if shaking up the uniparty favors MAGA (the concept, not the cult) or Gramscian Marxism.
I suspect it is too late for the former. Other than classic cars there are few signs of the greatness of the United States I grew up in.
In fairness to Gaetz, Congress (under both D and R majorities) routinely refuse to pass a budget in accordance with the Congressional Budget Act that they enacted in 1974. In the nearly five decades since, Congress has passed all its required appropriations measures on time only four times: fiscal 1977 (the first full fiscal year under the current system), 1989, 1995 and 1997.
At some point, someone needs to step in and be the adult in the room. If not now, when?
It would be kinda awesome if the House united under Trump. He's a highly divisive figure. Can Republicans in the House publicly vote for him? The media is saying it's impossible.
It would be glorious if Republicans were to support him so openly. It would be a fuck you to the media and the Democrat party. And aside from how much fun it would be trying to watch Trump bring order to the House (or chaos to the other branches!), I think strategically it's a wonderful move before the 2024 elections. We need to fight back against this demonization and Pravda attacks and lawfare on our last president. It's horrific what they are doing to him. It's appalling and outrageous.
The ominous chords behind the headline... the gloomy foreshadowing highlighted in the excerpts....
do not quite sum to the "I haven't a clue" conclusion Kimball leaves us with. Nor is his attitude so negative; the status quo was terrible and the nation keeps drifting toward that waterfall downstream.
Anyone honest knows this already. Better something new than the self-destructive old. This might be one little step in sanity returning to American governance and to the people who have to pay for it.
Fuck Newt Gingrich
Neuroplasticity.
I believe it's a reference to an understanding that a brain can be washed and that is what the capitalists had been doing as Marx saw it.
It has become the business model for the mainstream media.
And today I get five (5) emails from Gaetz about how he is being attacked and I should send him money. My visceral urge is to reply "Eff of a$$hole", but it would be pointless. I just dump them in the trash.
"Who knows, people may suddenly wake up and realize that they need 90% less government than they were getting."
What's the first thing the government does when there's a shutdown? Stop processing passports and close public parks- you know, to inconvenience as many people as possible, as quickly as possible to punish them for the government's "business as usual" gravy train being interfered with.
Was plastic even a word before 1875?
Its so pleasurable to see the Uniparty DC establishment crying out in pain. Why one of their "inner circle" might NOT replace McCarthy. It might be some CRAZY Republican who thinks like TRUMP. OMG!
I saw McCarthy's press conference and it was pretty pathetic. He slammed Pelosi and the D's for not rescuing him. He attacked Putin as Hitler, and was proud to have lost because "he kept the government open". He also claimed to not have broken any promises.
The leftwing press was throwing him softballs and getting out their hankies and shedding tears.
Btw, the real reason Pelosi was thrown out of her office is that its reserved for the FORMER Speaker. WHich is now McCarthy.
As a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, I can state unequivocally that I really don't care which plush offices are occupied by which politicians od which party. The news that McCarthy is undertaking to "punish" the Democrats for backstabbing him on their "deal" to keep him in place as speaker, by kicking them out of the nice offices, pisses me off more than anything Gaetz or the Democrats are claimed to have done.
You reps are supposed to be working for us. Clearly the pressing needs of the people who vote for you are at best secondary to your greed and hunger for power and perks.
The best part is that these republicans can't hide, like what Trump has exposed.
BTW, Jesse Watters has been reading off the "earmarks" from the bill. Lots of waste exposed. He's taken up the torch from Tucker!
Pelosi put in $5 million for a train station elevator. There's a fire burning in those earmarks.
$33 trillion is gonna look like a bargain soon.
If one is writing about a large pile suddenly collapsing, the term one wants is Angle of Repose. This describes when a slope can remain stable, and if any steeper becomes unstable and succumbs to gravity.
I think the House Republicans have piled themselves as high and deep as possible, thinking they could remain atop their manure heap, and seeing it all tumble down seems only natural.
“Searching for "plastic moment," I see it's more prominently a structural engineering term. But perhaps Marx used the term more evocatively. “
The word moment in engineering does not refer to an instant in time, but the bending forces caused by forces acting at a distance as in a lever. A steel beam anchored to a wall with increasing weight hung at the end would eventually have a high enough bending moment at the weakest cross section where permanent deformation would occur and remain even when the load is removed.
The moment created by a force is the force times the perpendicular distance to a fixed point and is measured in foot lbs, not hours.
Perhaps Marx was using the term poetically, say like the forces applied by the BLM riots reached the plastic moment level where society was permanently deformed.
McCarthy wasn't/isn't my guy, but he is/was far preferable compared to a handful of extortionists who would have everyone bend the knee to do their bidding.
So, expecting a person to adhere to the prior agreements he/she made is now extortion?
Try again.
202-309-1052. That’s Newt’s cell. One helluva fun chain to yank. Just sayin.
The Republican party has completely given up on being a party of government and has become a one man soap opera.
It is rare to see so much ink spilled on something so meaningless as McCarthy getting booted out of the Speakership. Nothing has really changed- the GOP still holds a majority in the House, and even if the GOP doesn't agree on a Speaker, what difference will it even make? Someone, anyone, please tell us how a bag of shit in the Speaker's chair would be different than McCarthy?
That Republicans want to blame Democrats for what they themselves did tells you they know they stepped in it.
OED the word "plastic."
Jamie said...
"Apparently, at least as I have heard it, there was a guy in the US named Adolf Hitler round about the beginning of WWII. Urged by many to change his name, his response was, 'Why doesn't he change his?'"
In 1799, a German immigrant family named Hitler came to Circleville, Ohio and quickly became prosperous pillars of the community: "Some Circleville residents wish they could change the names of their roads and parks, but the Hitlers stand firm on their stance. They aren’t going to let one man's infamy force them to change their name.
- From The Good Hitlers of Circleville"
Hitler's half-nephew, William Patrick Hitler, served in the US Navy in WWII. On reporting for duty, the induction officer asked his name. He replied, "Hitler." Thinking he was joking, the officer replied, "Glad to see you, Hitler. My name's Hess." Hitler also appeared at bond rallies, urging people to 'Lick his uncle.'
- See Wikipedia.
It looks like it upsets the usual suspects. Therefore it was the right move.
I'm always impressed, not in a good way, having read about Karl Marxs' life and his manifesto that anyone takes that drivel seriously.
Looking at human behavior and the the utter disaster of socialism where ever it has been tried, people still think, "Yeah. This time we'll get it right." Morons
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