House Democrats: Total Failures

It is clear that the decision by the Democrats in the House of Representatives to allow a small band of narcissistic and anarchistic Republicans, led by the odious Matt Gaetz of Florida, to throw the Congress (as well as the country and the world) into chaos when they sided with Gaetz’s small band of fellow GOP anarchists to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has completely backfired.

It is axiomatic in politics that you always should have a plan (with a desired end result) before embarking on a course of action. But with the unanimous election last week by the Republicans of little-known Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson to the speakership after three weeks of dysfunction, it is obvious that House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his team had no plan or strategy of any kind.

Sure, they were able to gloat for a few weeks while the Republicans stumbled and fumbled, but in the final analysis, the Democrats ended up with the worst of all possible outcomes: The Republicans now are completely united and Congress has a Speaker (a position that is second in line to become president) who is so far right-wing, that he is somewhere out in the proverbial left field on just about every issue imaginable. In addition, Johnson was a staunch supporter of Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the election and has gone on record as opposing further military aid to Ukraine.

Sometimes — SOMETIMES — politicians have to put the good of the country above their party’s perceived short-term political gain. Yes, Kevin McCarthy was a sniveling snake, but he did do the right thing in June to craft a compromise with Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling and then again in September to pass a short term budget deal that averted a government shutdown.

Democrats complained that McCarthy could not be trusted and that he’s a liar (all of which is true) — but really? All politicians are less-than-truthful to some extent, from Joe Biden on down — do they think the people don’t know that?

In short, the Democrats “strategy” of just standing by and allowing McCarthy to fall has turned out to be a total disaster, with the immediate beneficiaries of their inaction and their miscalculations being Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The Democrats forgot a cardinal rule of politics:  The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as well as a cardinal rule of life: The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.