What the heck is Matt Gaetz up to? And this Ukraine thing – do the people who want us to give a lot of stuff to Ukraine understand how their behavior is making us not want to give anything to Ukraine?
Answers: I don’t know, and no.
WHAT IS UP WITH MATT GAETZ AND I DON’T MEAN HIS HAIR
I don’t know much about Matt Gaetz, except that Vivek Ramaswamy apparently stole his hair for use at the recent debate and that he seems to have a personal problem with Kevin McCarthy. That’s OK with me. I don’t particularly like Kevin McCarthy. If somebody else better came along, I wouldn’t hesitate to dump him. He means nothing to me and I mean nothing to him. Like all politicians, he is a tool – in every sense of the word. He is an object to be used for a specific purpose. It’s nothing personal. I just don’t care about him. I care about winning.
But I do not know what Matt Gaetz cares about. Matt Gaetz is in the process of trying to make a motion to vacate the chair, that is, to fire Kevin McCarthy. I don’t understand why he wants to. I don’t see that Kevin McCarthy has done a worse job than anyone else would. The Republican Party collectively botched the midterms and got itself a four-seat majority in the House. This does not provide a lot of flexibility. If Matt Gaetz is expecting to govern like we have 60-seat majority, then Matt Gaetz is stupid. And I don’t believe Matt Gaetz is stupid. But I do believe he’s opportunistic. I’m just trying to figure out what opportunity he is trying to maximize here.
I probably agree with Matt Gaetz more than I disagree with him about the budget and about Ukraine aid, but he hasn’t convinced me that whatever play he’s making is the smart play. I don’t know what he really wants. It seems he just wants McCarthy out. He talks about McCarthy lying to him and making side deals, but I’m not sure that saying he will bring Ukraine aid up for a vote is a bad thing. Isn’t this exactly the kind of issue we want our legislators to legislate on? We get everybody on the record, with no place to hide because aid to Ukraine is not buried in some other bill, and people make their best case and take responsibility for their vote. That’s kind of regular order. I like that.
I get Gaetz’s frustration with the budgeting process. I think McCarthy was probably shortsighted for not working through August to get it done. But I also think that his continuing resolution avoided the shutdown which the Democrats were hoping and praying for. Hopefully he can pull another rabbit out of the hat – if Matt Gaetz does not use the Democrats to kneecap him
But as frustrated as you are with Kevin McCarthy, if you want to get rid of him then it’s incumbent upon you to answer the most important question: Who is the guy who can take over for McCarthy? Who can get every single Republican to vote for him, and once he does, who can get these cats herded? I haven’t seen Matt Gaetz give that answer. I haven’t seen anybody give that answer. Sadly, I think it is because there is no answer. Nobody else wants this job. And again, I’m not a fan, but McCarthy has done OK so far. Not great, but you don’t get to do great when you have a four-seat majority. You just get to do OK.
I AM SO SICK OF UKRAINE
I really get tired of talking about Ukraine aid because I’m tired of this whole Ukraine thing. It goes on and on and on and nobody seems to have a plan to end it in a way that does not involve a mushroom cloud. Look, I don’t like the Russians. I’m not against helping people fight the Russians when the Russians invade them in principle, but my priority is the United States. This war just goes on and on and on, and kills a whole bunch of people, and puts us at risk as well as impoverishing us. And then you get these idiot Republicans out there, who demand that we prioritize Ukraine’s borders when we can’t even secure our own borders, and they are shocked that the American people are not behind them.
Actually, the fact they are shocked is pretty scary in and of itself.
Yes, I know that logically our border problem and Ukraine problem are very different things that impact different interests and are not directly connected. But you know what? People aren’t necessarily rational. And I’m not convinced this objection is totally irrational. After all, politics is about choices of where you put your emphasis and where you try to win. Our guys are trying to win on the border. Their guys are trying to win on Ukraine, and I have to tell you, the problems of Ukraine are not as big a deal to me as the problem of 10 million people wandering into our country and demanding free stuff.
Nor are the people supporting Ukraine aid helping their own cause. When we point out that the border is more important to us than Ukraine is, we don’t get a rational discussion about why Ukraine really is more important. We get told “You love Putin!” – inevitably by some sissy who wasn’t there facing the Russians in the Cold War, like many of us were.
Arrogance is often a cover for an inability to actually address the issue, and they never address the issue. All they do is tell us that we’re bad people or stupid people or that we love Putin or whatever and, you know, that’s not convincing. It’s not just that it is annoying to be treated this way. It’s that this tactic makes us expect that they are doing it because they don’t have any affirmative case to make. If you think giving 100 billion dollars to not only pay for a bunch of bombs for Ukraine but to pay their DMV clerks’ pensions is a good idea, make that case. But you don’t make that case telling us that we love Vlad. And if you try to, you’re going to make an enemy. Hell, I think they’ve already made a lot of enemies.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get his non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America, as well as Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce. Novel number eight, Overlord, is out now!
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