What, exactly, is the game plan of Matt Gaetz and his merry band of 2-year-olds, er, we mean House Republicans?
Their successful putsch against former Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), has put the House GOP into utter chaos.
The palace squabbles led to the failure of Louisiana’s Steve Scalise’s speakership bid last week, opening a still-bumpy path for Ohio’s Jim Jordan — a member of Gaetz’s own Freedom Caucus.
With hard-liners having offed McCarthy and blocked Scalise, moderates are now returning the favor by refusing to line up for Jordan.
The petulance and infighting have gotten so bad Dems are offering Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry of North Carolina a deal under which he would temporarily get full powers.
Is this a first step on the road to the ultimate political absurdity: i.e. Gaetz accidentally delivering not a hardline conservative but Hakeem Jeffries as speaker?
After all, Gaetz instigated the McCarthy ouster, leaving the House frozen and his alleged across-the-aisle opponents in a position improving by the day.
Where’s the win here?
So far, it’s only for Democrats.
Worse still is the timing of Gaetz & Co’s chaos gambit.
Israel stands on the brink of full war with Hamas; Ukraine continues to battle against Putin’s aggression.
Thanks to Gaetz, the House is useless in the face of this global crisis.
At $33 trillion, our national debt is now the highest it’s ever been outside an emergency, thanks to the drunken-sailor spending of Democrats. And the GOP can do nothing, even as the timer ticks down to the Nov. 17 expiry of the spending bill passed in September.
And, in case you forgot amid all the other grave news, there’s supposed to be an impeachment inquiry into the president. That’s also on hold.
In other words, on all the crucial political issues of the moment, Gaetz and his comrades have endangered America and her allies while handing massive wins to the other team into the bargain.
If this is what the Trumpist right in Congress sees as victory, we’d hate to see a defeat.
The sanity wing of the party needs to get it together — before the wheels completely fall off.