IT IS WHAT IT IS

I cringe when people say that to me. It signals resignation, surrender, defeatism. And yet, after the deplorable Republican display at the House of Representatives last week, the inescapable conclusion I arrive at when it comes to the immediate future of the American political scene is: It is what it is. As if this isn’t bad enough, the even more scary part is that it portends to be getting much worse before we get a shot at repairing the damage and safeguarding a functioning democracy. The next election is not until November of 2024 and until then, ‘We The People’ are powerless to hold our politicians accountable.

Thanks to C-SPAN and the absence of rules governing the live TV reporting of the proceedings in the House of Representatives (these rules renew with each Congress and cannot be established until a speaker of the House has been chosen) we got a good view of the ugliness of the power struggle within the Republican caucus, the deep and prolonged humiliation Kevin McCarthy was willing to accept in order to ultimately attain the coveted speakership, but also the disciplined and dignified behavior of the House Chaplain, the Clerk of the House, and a very unified Democratic caucus. What was hidden from view was the detail of the concessions Kevin McCarthy had to make to get a hold of the gavel. What is clear though is that, whatever conservative agenda McCarthy was already planning to bring forward under his speakership will now be pushed further to the extreme right, where it will be confronted with resistance from the Democratic controlled Senate and the Presidential veto power. This means that in terms of legislative work, the main job of a legislature, the 118^th Congress will not accomplish anything.

In the battle for the speakership, Kevin McCarthy had a choice to either seek the support of the 20 MAGA fanatics who would not accept his leadership without holding it hostage to their extremist demands, in effect gutting the speakership of any authority, or seek the support of moderates on either side of the aisle who remain committed to good public governance and the tenets of democracy. Knowing that he would be ostracized by his party if he would resist the challenge from his right flank, he fatally made the wrong choice. He put party before country and that is what we will have to live with for the next two years, until we get back to the voting booth. Until then, It is what it is.

The outcome of the speakership contest has made clear what we can expect to come out of the House of Representatives during the 118^th Congress: A slate of messaging bills to assuage the MAGA constituency (which will not go anywhere in the Democratic controlled Senate), and a tidal wave of investigations into perceived misdeeds of the Biden administration, the FBI, the IRS, the CDC, Dr. Fauci and, of course and with renewed fervor, Hunter Biden. We can fully expect several impeachments, of President Biden and/or members of his administration, to result from these investigations, if for nothing else, as a tit for tat counter of the two Trump impeachments coming out of the Pelosi led 117^th Congress. All annoying and a distraction from the job of addressing the ills that plague the nation, inequality, immigration chaos, inflation, deficits, cyber insecurity, and threats to our national security from a number of foreign sources. But the real menace of the devilish alliance between Kevin McCarthy and his 20 opponents comes from the need, sometime in 2023, for Congress to raise the debt-ceiling as necessary for the US government to meet its financial obligations. Without it, the USA will default on its debt with unimaginable consequences for the credit rating of the country, the value of the dollar, the financial markets, and the national and global economy. Yet, apparently, the speaker of the House has pledged to his opponents in the GOP caucus that he will not introduce a bill to raise the debt-ceiling without extracting large spending cuts in the already approved budget for 2023, possibly including cuts in entitlement programs, military spending, and aid to Ukraine. This will set up a clash between the House Republicans and the White House and the question is who will blink first? Will Kevin McCarthy get all of his caucus to follow him to the rim of the fiscal cliff or over it, or will President Biden cave in to the demands of the speaker for the sake of sparing the country the ultimate test of creditworthiness? Will Kevin McCarthy still be speaker at decision time and will the composition of the Congress still be the same as it is today? The margins of control are so narrow that a number of deaths, resignations, or expulsions of members of Congress could quickly change the balance of power.

Bottomline is, ‘We The People’ are bystanders to what will unfold in the Beltway over the next two years. It is out of our hands, because, other than for an odd special election or primaries for the 2024 national election, we will not have a chance to turn to the voting booth to let our elected representatives know where we want them to lead us. It is what it is.

The date to focus on is Tuesday, November 5, 2024. The next national election day. Regardless of who will be the contenders in that election, it is shaping up as a contest between 1) those of us who believe that a democratically constituted government should play an active role in shaping the future of the nation and in creating a fair playing field for all of its constituents, 2) those who believe that government is the problem standing in the way of free people to express themselves and determine their own destiny and the destiny of the nation, and 3) those who believe that democracy has outlived its usefulness and should be substituted by an authoritarian rule.

I am squarely in the first camp, and I quietly hope that for the sake of the nation the House Republicans will go overboard in their zeal to undo the Biden/Pelosi agenda and punish the Democrats for their audacity to craft bipartisan support for their major legislative achievements in the 117^th Congress. The crew that delivered the gavel to Kevin McCarthy, only after extracting a steep price in concessions he initially pledged he would never make, is more than likely to comply. If the Republican focus in the 118^th Congress is retribution rather than problem solving, we will be given a clear compass for where to place our votes in 2024. In the meantime, whether we like it or not, it is what it is.