2023 Sucked
If you thought 2022 was bad, 2023 kicked you in the groin while pouring sugar into your gas tank. The only way it could have gone worse is if Joe Biden suddenly because coherent.
I realize that’s unlikely to happen, dementia doesn’t reverse itself, but even the reality of his decline and the failures of his policies have only driven his 2024 prospects down to the low end of the margin of error. While there will be plenty of time to look forward to the election, this is a look back at what got us to the end of the year about to be consigned to voiding checks (for those remaining few who still write them), because 2023 sucked.
On a personal note, 2023 sucked because I lose my father and brother-in-law, but those aren’t the only reasons I welcome the year fading into a distant, bad memory. If you really think about it honestly, we haven’t had a solidly good political year for a long time. 2016 was good, at the end anyway, because it saw the crushing defeat of Hillary Clinton. The highlight reel of leftist media-types coming to terms with the fact that the parade they’d scheduled will have to be canceled ranks up there with the video of my children taking their first steps as a go-to for spirit-raising.
But 2016 is over, having given way to a string of losses against all odds. The same polls that were wildly wrong then have been wildly wrong since, only in the other direction. The “red wave” conservative cable networks and posturing radio pontificators swore was coming did not happen. Republicans took back the House of Representatives with the slimmest of majorities at the start of this year.
Still, a majority is a majority, and Republicans have the majority. Who would have suspected at the start of this year that they’d spend a huge chunk of the year doing everything possible to give that majority away?
There are few things at which Republican do exceedingly well; unfortunately, two of those things are forming circular firing squads and shooting down their own trench. Democrats don’t really have to actively pursue the destruction of Republicans,they simply have to wait. Democrats suck at waiting, which causes them to make moves that end up hurting them, so we do have that going for us. But what we don’t have is any ability to pull our heads out of our collective rectums to do anything that actually helps us.
Republicans occasionally fall into wins the same way a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut. That squirrel has gone hungry since 2016.
You’d think that wouldn’t be the case, having retaken the House, but it is.
Since the start of 2023, Republicans have seemingly done everything possible to give away their majority.
They booted the Speaker of the House, which was stupid. Kevin McCarthy wasn’t perfect, but then none of them are. Yet, on the whims of a few narcissists and the help of every Democrat, they chucked him for…what?
While looking – scrambling, really – for a replacement, they managed to elevate and toss aside pretty much every Member of the House GOP Caucus people had heard of. Someone would come forward from the cable news green room, throw their hat in the ring, then get chucked into the pit. It was amazing to watch a party tell its voters that everyone they’ve seen speaking “on behalf of the party” wasn’t good enough to lead them.
They ended up settling on a Member who still has that “new Member Smell,” he was so fresh. Honestly, I have to look up what his name is – Mike Johnson. If you named a character that in a fiction book your editor would tell you change it – it’s melba toast.
One of the first things of consequence they did after finally finding a new Speakers was boot out one of their own. A razor thin majority and you toss a Speaker, which everyone knew would lead to his resignation from the House, and then you expel a Member?
George Santos was no prize, don’t get me wrong, but if being full of it and lying were disqualifying for public office, literally no one in office would be able to hold public office. He’s been accused of crimes and convicted of none, at least not yet. You want to boot him if he’s convicted, that’s the right move. Executing someone before their guilt is determined is stupid, especially when that moves that much closer to losing your majority.
Right now, the GOP holds the House at the whim of the health of a bunch of aging Members who you won’t pick to be on your physical fitness team. Plus, even in shape people have health issues. You don’t tempt fate like that, if you’re at all serious.
Booting Santos gave Republicans the high road, and in politics all the high road gives you is an unobstructed view of your defeat. Will a couple of Republicans have a personal or family issue that causes them to resign? A health issue? History shows it happens pretty often.
I do not say all this not out of anger or even straight-up cynicism, but in the hope that people will read it and prevent the party from running blindly into a field of rakes. That might be too much to hope for, but then again it might not be. There’s nowhere to go but up, so let’s hope that’s what happens with 2024. Lord knows the country desperately needs it.
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