There’s one fundamental difference between this generation’s
Republican
and
Democratic
parties.
While both sides find themselves in moments of ideological confusion and division, the Democrats never fail
to come together
and do whatever is needed to further their collective pursuit of power. Meanwhile, the Republicans have become experts in shooting themselves in the foot — or even blowing off both legs with a double-barreled shotgun.
THE RACE IS ON: WHO COULD REPLACE MCCARTHY AS SPEAKER?
This time, the person wielding the shotgun is Rep.
Matt Gaetz
(R-FL), who successfully removed former House Speaker
Kevin McCarthy
(R-CA) from his post.
Now, you don’t have to be a fan of McCarthy (or even believe he’s the best choice as House speaker) to understand what the entire Democratic Party knows: Politics is a team sport.
While it’s perfectly reasonable to have internal debates, arguments, and fractures over the direction of our movement, these become irrelevant when we are unable to pull together and take control of the levers of government in order to turn theory into reality. Instead, today’s Republican Party is pulling itself in a thousand different directions, essentially flushing the one lever of power we still hold down the toilet.
In recent years, we’ve lost governor’s mansions, state legislatures, the Senate, and the White House. Nationally, all we have left is the House of Representatives, and we’re clinging on to that by the skin of our teeth.
Rather than taking what they can get and making the best of a terrible situation — after all,
8% cuts
are better than no cuts at all — the priority of a handful of Republicans is to undermine the conservative movement.
Let’s not forget that McCarthy wasn’t thrown out into the street by a majority of his own party. Instead, he was disposed of by a handful of Republicans working hand-in-hand with their supposed ideological enemies.
Make no mistake: This is a dream scenario for Democrats, who crave this level of chaos to distract from their collective ineptitude in office. Rather than facing a cohesive and determined Republican Party in opposition to Biden’s countless failures, they’re sitting back and enjoying the GOP’s voluntary collapse.
And what makes matters immeasurably worse is the laughable notion that characters such as Gaetz are motivated by conservative principles. Nothing says principled like creating man-made political disasters in order to fundraise or leaving coworkers to strategize in the depth of chaos so you can revel in the spotlight of the same “fake news” media MAGA acolytes claim to despise.
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But ultimately, the conservative movement is getting what it deserves. By failing to deliver for voters for decades and by happily diving into the pool of reality-television-infused celebrity politics, Republicans have primed the environment for someone such as Gaetz: a media-hungry narcissist who will happily derail any conservative hopes for electoral victory by using his false promise to pursue principled conservatism in order to further his own career.
As the conservative movement finds itself on life support for another generation, we only have ourselves to blame.
Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker, and host of
Off Limits
. You can follow him on X at
@ighaworth
. You can also find him on
Substack
.
