Nasty, Brutish and Short
Did the Dems Miscalculate by Helping to Oust McCarthy?
The US is in uncharted territory (again) because a handful of extreme Republicans and the entire Democratic delegation voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this week. Listening to the New York Times’ The Daily podcast, it seems part of the Democrats calculation was that ousting McCarthy would make the Republicans look completely dysfunctional as a party – and so persuade people that Democrats are the better option.
I think the Democrats are missing the bigger picture about this political moment, and there are potentially dangerous consequences to that. Having lived in Italy when neighboring Yugoslavia descended into civil war, I have seen how neighbors can murder each other and deploy rape as a weapon of war. In Brazil I have seen how armed, organized groups take over communities and challenge the power of the state. The murder of Rio de Janeiro city council member Marielle Franco is a powerful example of this. The 2018 trucker strike that paralyzed food and fuel supplies around the country while calling on the military to take over the government is another.
I certainly wasn’t in any of the rooms where House Democrats discussed their strategy, but, again, based on The Daily’s reporting, McCarthy promised nothing to Democrats in exchange for supporting him, and the Democrats proceeded to criticize him for every flaw, weakness and mistake he has made.
There is plenty to work with on that front. McCarthy’s visit to Mar-A-Lago after the January 6th storming of the Capitol may have single-handedly given Donald Trump a new political life. He also voted not to certify the results of the 2020 election – in spite of the attack that he also lived through.
Government gridlock helps generate support for authoritarianism, and right now, people are understandably fed up with Washington. Seeing every single Democrat vote to oust McCarthy, however, makes me wonder if they may have miscalculated the political moment – not because I think the Republicans will find someone more adept at herding cats than McCarthy but because the level of polarization and distrust of Washington makes the stakes much bigger than in ordinary party politics.
I’m not saying Kevin McCarthy is a good guy. He rejected a bi-partisan commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection, and has kowtowed to extremists in his own party. But, he also made deals that averted a federal government default and a shutdown.
In Leviathan, which discusses government and the social contract, Hobbes said that life without government is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Here in the US, we are already seeing these symptoms. Loneliness is a public health crisis and life expectancy has taken a nosedive as economic inequality and diseases of despair, like opioid addiction, have ravaged communities. And while we in the US complain about the government all the time, we also take so many of its benefits for granted.
For the most part, we assume that when we fly, we are actually safer than driving. However, as a number of close calls at airports around the United States suggest, the air traffic control system that orchestrates safe flight paths is severely strained.
The US Postal Service – along with the Park Service and NASA -- remains one of the most trusted government agencies. But 2020 saw the USPS in crisis, eroding confidence. At the same time, the man charged with running the ship has significant conflicts of interest.
We also generally expect our water to be drinkable, our food to be safe, and our banks not to fail. But challenges on all of these fronts may be suggesting that the administrative bulwark that has kept the country generally operational for a couple of centuries may be fraying, just as political polarization is keeping us from recognizing not only all we have in common, but all we stand to lose by getting a “national divorce.”
In Brazil, people would regularly ask me what I was doing there when I could have been living in what they considered paradise, the United States. Brazilians would regularly blame governing challenges on the newness of their democracy. The last dictatorship only ended in 1986. They would look askance at me as I explained that the US also faces democratic challenges, like voter suppression. The truth is, democracy – even in the United States -- requires constant work, like any relationship.
The dysfunction in Washington feeds people’s frustration with government as an institution, helping smooth the way for a strongman.
Did the Democrats miscalculate? They may have. But is anyone in Congress thinking about the picture beyond Kevin McCarthy and, frankly, beyond whether or not the Republicans look competent? Because I suspect that people who are voting for the MAGA extremists like Matt Gaetz don’t care about competence. They want to burn the house down, and they probably don’t realize how brutal the consequences could be.