Debt Limit - Brinkmanship vs Chicken https://flip.it/aXCMa1

#uspolitics
#Politics
#magaidiocy
#gopidiots
#GOPbrinksmanshiporplayingchicken

Ah, the party of “fiscal responsibility”…

They do such a good job managing their own money, clearly we should listen to their arguments about gutting #SocialSecurity and #Medicare.

#GOPFail #MAGAIdiocy

"Government is not the point, it’s the enemy. In 2021, that was on display in what we could all recognize as violence and threats of bodily harm. In 2023, it’s being done with speeches and backroom negotiations and the stand-up-sit-down whack-a-mole energy of a Monty Python sketch. Those chairs they are seeking? It’s not to do anything with them, beyond further themselves. None of it will lead to a better, healthier, more functional or stable government, even if the week doesn’t end with feces smeared on the walls."

House Speaker vote: The Republican incoherence is scary, not funny. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/mccarthy-speaker-vote-jan-sixth-again.html?sid=60e0daf17b09fa3e4a3564f6&email=5a4a51c3d805d81dda43205f98f158cb914b89a73970f512a741b56150dd8b5f

#GOPDysfunction
#MAGAIdiocy
#GOPFascism
#MAGAFascism

"It’s tempting to want to sit back and enjoy watching the chaos muppetry cave in on itself for the second straight day, as a political party that can no longer make claims to be serious, or to have serious leadership, is left flopping on the beaches for the delectation of us all.

Except, of course, the events of Jan. 6, 2021 and Jan. 3–? of 2023 are not at all unrelated. Nor are they sequential points along a continuum that is leading us to a better place. Instead, they represent the locomotive and the caboose of the same train: Each is a point along a terrifying line of governmental failure; each is a subversion of the principles of lawful transition of power. But certainly they are moving in the same direction, and there should be no joy found in watching the present and past pancaking back on itself. In many ways, the events of this week should be as frightening to us as the events of two years past, if not more so. This, too, is an insurrection. That it’s coming—quite literally—from inside the House in 2023 should no more be grounds for popcorn and selfies from Democrats than the Capitol insurrection was in 2021. This is a profoundly serious systems failure, Trumpism without the relative coherence of Trump, and a triumph of nihilist anti-government fan fiction. And this go-round, those forces have a vote that is big enough to gum up the entire operation.

Jan. 6, 2021, was scary but inherently cartoonish, with the face paint and the faux fur and the weapons and the body armor. January 2023 comes in shiny tasseled loafers and constituent messaging. Instead of leaking floor plans to insurrectionists in advance, members of the radical wing of the GOP are demanding committee chairs.

Perhaps one difference is that this time, the ask—what they are fighting for—is actually less clear. On Jan. 6, amid the chilling cries of “Hang Mike Pence” and “Stop the Steal,” the ask was at least coherent: reinstate Donald Trump as president. The foggy MAGA ask of 2023? I have no idea. Power, sure. Fame and celebrity, definitely. Mumble mumble debt ceiling. OK. As John Boehner wrote in his 2021 memoir, the endgame now is chaos itself:

What they’re really interested in is chaos … They want to throw sand in the gears of the hated federal government until it fails and they’ve finally proved that it is beyond saving. Every time they vote down a bill, they get another invitation to go on Fox News or talk radio. It’s a narcissistic – and dangerous – feedback loop.

Governance is not the point, it’s the enemy. Government is not the point, it’s the enemy. In 2021, that was on display in what we could all recognize as violence and threats of bodily harm. In 2023, it’s being done with speeches and backroom negotiations and the stand-up-sit-down whack-a-mole energy of a Monty Python sketch. Those chairs they are seeking? It’s not to do anything with them, beyond further themselves. None of it will lead to a better, healthier, more functional or stable government, even if the week doesn’t end with feces smeared on the walls."