The D.C. showdown over who could care less
And you wonder why men (and some women) obsesses about the Roman empire.
As I write this, a shutdown of the government seems inevitable. We’ve had them before. They almost never “work,” at least in the sense of the kidnappers getting the ransom they ask for. They’re more expensive than keeping the government running. They have been known to impose heavy political penalties on the people who caused them.
The “people who caused them,” by the way, would be the people who shut down the government. That seems pretty intuitive, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his allies have repeatedly tried to blame President Joe Biden — who is trying to keep the government open — for the incipient closure of the government.
This is like dognappers trying to blame the owners of a bichon frise they stole.
“Are you going to kill that little dog?”
“We don’t know. Ask Mr. and Mrs. Doctorow. They’re the ones not paying us a million dollars.”
Shutdowns happen, but there’s feverish nihilism sweating in the dark corners of this one.
There are roughly 10 far-right House Republicans — a type of human malware — spurring the shutdown. They have no leadership structure. It’s more of an anarchosyndicalist commune where the person getting the most media coverage becomes the leader for an instant.
They do not sing as one chorus when it comes to demands. For example, Marjorie Taylor Greene is more hardline about zeroing-out Ukraine support than others in the cabal. So it’s as if the bichon frise dognappers all wanted a slightly different ransom.
“Marco wants a getaway helicopter that he is allowed to keep. Sven wants 200 cats. Doogie wants 500 Powerball tickets.”
When people talk about the Fall of Rome, they always mean the fall of the empire, circa 500
A.D. They should spend more time on the fall of the Republic, circa 27 B.C.
The Roman Republic worked pretty well for about 400 years and then not so well for the final 100 or so.
Those bad 100 years were marked by the legitimization of political violence — “Why can’t every day be ianuarii VI?” — and the gradual mutation of civic institutions from expressions of popular will to sinecures for the already-powerful.
Here is how one Roman historian described those bitter times: “Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide (us) in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep (us) safe.”
My mistake. That was Joe Biden recently describing the playbook, should Trumpus Superbus regain the throne.
During a cycle of deterioration like this one, there’s a power imbalance, well expressed by the Ben Folds song, “The Battle of Who Could Care Less.” Democrats like government. They see the need for it. If you really want the lights to stay on, the person with his hand on the switch, the person who doesn’t give a crap how dark it gets, has a lot of power.
A persistent theme running though our current problems is a whole series of decisions running counter to popular will. The public doesn’t want a shutdown, any more than it wants a
Biden-Trump rematch in 2024.
There is, in both parties, a consolidation of power that creates bizarre political scenarios. Heading toward 2024, a party that succeeded in getting rid of its frontrunner would probably be rewarded with a sudden advantage. Think about that. Each party will most likely nominate a candidate poised to lose the election. (This also happened in 2016, but it was a tiny bit less obvious.)
Meanwhile, the person feeling most acutely the tension between a shutdown nobody wants and the inevitability of causing one is Kevin McCarthy.
You may recall that McCarthy’s ascension was less than smooth last January, and to achieve it McCarthy essentially sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. He gave away the store, including a shelf item labeled “Anything Resembling Job Security.”
The rules were changed so that a single representative could trigger “a motion to vacate,” which could end the speakership of Kevius Minimus with a simple majority vote.
I give you Lord Byron: “Thou sold’st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess;
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less;”
If I may switch metaphors, centuries and nations, that motion to vacate compromise has turned into a “Chekhov’s gun.” Chekhov said a writer should never introduce an element he doesn’t intend to set in motion. If there’s a rifle in act one, it better go off in act three.
Enter Emmer.
As of Friday morning, there were reports of a plot to take out McCarthy and replace him with one of his own deputies, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota.
Emmer is openly supportive of McCarthy, but the Washington Post talked — mostly off the record — with lawmakers exploring the Emmer option, sometimes in the presence of Emmer. One of them spoke of allowing McCarthy to leave with “some grace,” presumably as opposed to bleeding out in the Hall of Statuary.
If this happens, pundits will be tempted to trot out “eh tu, Brute,” which Julius Caesar did not actually say. More importantly, it sells Brutus a little bit short. He actually stood for something. That is not the case here.
The biggest casualty in the battle of who could care less is enthusiasm. Repeatedly offered people and policies that nobody wants, repeatedly confronted with leaders who treat serious matters as farce and farce as serious business, citizens see public life as less worthy of their time and consideration.
And then the state itself is easy pickings.
Colin McEnroe’s column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Tuesday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5 or podcast any time at ctpublic.org/colin. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his free newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe.