The Republican Party is not fit for purpose
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is floating the possibility that the House could open an impeachment inquiry into Attorney General Merrick Garland over Internal Revenue Service whistleblower allegations that Justice Department leadership improperly interfered in the Hunter Biden probe, which Garland has denied.
“If it comes true what the IRS whistleblower is saying, we’re going to start impeachment inquiries on the attorney general,” McCarthy said Monday on Fox News.
Yes. This will win back independent voters concerned with inflation and the world's seemingly chaotic nature.
It's difficult for me to even find the words about how asinine and unserious this is. The GOP ran on a platform related to pocketbook issues. And in that time it has done not much of anything, save almost tank the world's economy with its ludicrous debt ceiling shenanigans. Right now, various impeachment investigations are wending their way through the House. How does this help consumers facing inflation? Or the GOP's hopes of holding the House next year? Exactly.
Republicans have been seeking revenge on Democrats ever since Richard Nixon. The Bill Clinton impeachment was specifically done as payback for the vote taken in 1974 to begin impeachment due to Watergate. However, make no mistake: It's been only the GOP which has weaponized impeachment. When Democrats held the House in President George W. Bush's second term, they did not initiate impeachment. When Democrats held the House during President Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, they also didn't impeach him. Democrats in power have impeached only one president: Donald Trump. And the fact that they impeached him twice—once for using the power of his office to get dirt on his likely opponent in 2020, now-president Joe Biden, and then for insurrection on January 6, 2021—shows that when Democrats impeach a president, it's for the most serious malfeasance.
But Republicans don't see that. The GOP is convinced that it is the only legitimate party of power, and any effort to hold that power accountable is unacceptable. It is an intrusion into the natural order of things. That, my friends, is not how a normal political party operates in a democracy. The Republican Party is an authoritarian party, and seeks to cement its hold on power with only a minority of votes.
However, that may quickly be an unattainable goal.
This week we will see an opinion out of the Supreme Court on Harper v. Moore. The crux of the case is this:
The Moore case hinges on a legal proposition known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The theory asserts that, when it comes to making state laws that apply to federal elections — from drawing congressional district lines, to determining the who-what-when-where of casting a ballot — only the state legislature itself has the power to set the rules. The theory claims that the state legislatures’ power is so exclusive that they can ignore the requirements of their own state constitution, including the fair districting requirements that the North Carolina Supreme Court has enforced under its own state constitutional power of judicial review.
Sounds awful, right? Well, yes and no.
If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the legislatures of states like California, with huge Democratic majorities, could and would gerrymander districts to destroy GOP representation. California has a nonpartisan redistricting commission, which is a constitutional body. But a ruling in favor of the "independent state legislature theory" would mean that Democrats in the California Legislature would be able to ignore the commission's maps, and gerrymander the map in such a way that Republicans would have few if any seats. The same would apply to a few other blue states, like Illinois and New Jersey. The upshot of this? The GOP would be at a permanent disadvantage in House elections.
Republican legislators brought this case, and may be about to cut their own necks. If California, New York, and Illinois draw maps to destroy GOP districts, then there's no way that Texas and Florida—still under Civil Rights Act supervision, however diminished—would stand no chance at making up the deficit.
One would think House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would be more cognizant of this Sword of Damocles hanging over his party. But he's trapped by the radicals to whom he made promises to gain his position. If Republicans had joined Democratic efforts to draw fair congressional maps, they wouldn't be facing this possible catastrophe. But, of course, they can't see beyond their own noses. This is not a serious governing party. It is a party seeking to game the system for its own power, and not being able to do that with any effectiveness. It wins some minor victories, but in the end all of its plots blow up to their detriment.
A party which doesn't know how to wield power effectively when it has it is merely a cult. That is where we are with the GOP. May it vanish into the ether soon. That's up to us.
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