After 15 votes over the course of four days, Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy was finally elected Speaker of the House of Representatives marking the longest voting process for Speaker since 1859. His election was held up by a small group of GOP Congressmen who wanted certain concessions from McCarthy before supporting him. Many people called this band of Congressmen “crazy”, “kooks”, and the “cuckoo fringe” of the Republican party. GOP Representatives Dan Crenshaw and Don Bacon even called them “terrorists”. Resorting to name calling is usually a tacit admission that you don’t have a compelling argument against the people you are calling names.
Tensions grew so high last night that GOP Congressman Mike Rogers even tried to physically attack one of the holdouts, Representative Matt Gaetz, and had to be restrained. But in the end, McCarthy was elected Speaker, and even though it took a few days, not one person was harmed by this process, and considering that the Senate went on an immediate 3-week recess after swearing in their members and electing their leaders, it is good that our representatives actually had to work for something for once.
Why did these Congressmen hold-up the election of the new Speaker for four days? What extreme concessions were they asking for that they were labelled “crazy”, “kooks” and “terrorists”? Were they promoting Drag Queen story hour to 4-year-olds? Did they want to change the term “pedophilia” to “minor attracted person”? Were they advocating that boys be allowed to shower in girls’ locker rooms? Were they demanding that adults be allowed to mutilate children’s genitals? Were they advocating for cutting a healthy baby out of a woman’s uterus in order to kill the baby?
Did they advocate for teaching Critical Race Theory which tells children that all white people are racists and all black people are victims? Did they want to pay people a living wage only if they have the right skin color? Did they want people who never owned a slave to pay reparations for slavery to people who never were slaves?
Did they want to Defund the Police so violent crime increases by 50% in our cities? Did they want to give drugs and drug paraphernalia to addicts living on the street? Did they want to make their communities sanctuaries for criminal aliens? Did they want to allow homelessness to take over not only our city streets but also our public parks and even school playgrounds?
Did they want to open our southern border to allow millions of illegal immigrants into the country, as well as criminal aliens, violent gang members, and a record amount of dangerous drugs that kill over 100,000 Americans every year? Did they want to give blanket amnesty to all people who brazenly broke our immigration laws, so they can bankrupt our social services and vote in our elections? Did they want to give Ukraine a blank check to protect its border, but remove funding and resources which protect our border?
Did they want to mandate medication to people who don’t need it and could be seriously harmed by it because they are getting royalties from the pharmaceutical companies? Were they advocating locking people down in their homes or shutting down businesses, schools and churches while allowing strip clubs and liquor stores to remain open?
Did they want to shut down our domestic oil production which would double our energy prices and force us to run to brutal dictators to beg them to produce more oil? Did they advocate for using millions of acres of prime land in our country to build solar and wind farms whose panels and turbines will end up in landfills 20 years from now leaking dangerous chemicals?
Did they want to have the FBI spy on their political opponents? Were they supporting censorship of political speech by the intelligence agencies? Did they want parents who went to school board meetings concerned about what their children are learning in school labelled “domestic terrorists” and put on the FBI watch list?
Every single one of these positions, as recent as five years ago, was considered to be an extreme position held only by the fringe. Did any of these so-called “crazies”, “kooks” and “terrorists” that temporarily held up Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker advocate for any these positions? No. In fact these “crazies”, “kooks” and “terrorists” are against all of those positions. And that’s why the establishment tried to discredit or even destroy them through name calling and threats.
So, what in the world did these “crazy” people want? Did they want to tear up our Constitution? Did they want to sell-out to our number one geo-political enemy? Were they supporting child sacrifice? What was it that got them labelled “crazies”, “kooks” and “terrorists”?
First, they wanted the Speaker to bring a term limits bill to the floor so that career politicians like Nancy Pelosi can no longer spend 35 years of their lives bankrupting the United States so they can make millions of dollars. Is it that crazy to think that one person should not hold a powerful position in our government for over 35 years and become a multi-millionaire because of it?
These extremists also wanted a committee that holds the intelligence agencies – the FBI and the CIA – accountable so they can no longer inject themselves into domestic politics and influence the outcome of our elections. Are you such a kook if you believe that our intelligence agencies should not be able to spy on political campaigns and should not work with social media companies to censor political speech which sways elections? Are you a terrorist if you believe in freedom of speech and fair elections?
What else did these fringe crazies want? They wanted to balance our budget. They wanted “germaneness” in our legislative process, meaning that each spending bill deals with a single subject that is voted on based on its own merit so there will be no more $1.7 trillion omnibus bills filled with trade-offs, earmarks and political pay-offs. They wanted our elected officials to be held accountable for how they spend the tax payers’ money.
The crazies were not the ones who held up the vote for Speaker for a few days; the crazies are the ones who pass multi-trillion-dollar spending bills that no one who voted for read when we are already $31 trillion in debt. When you have that much debt, the sane people are the ones who want to rein in spending. But they are the ones who have to be labeled "crazy" and “kooks” and “fringe” because the gravy train tastes way too good for everyone else to give up. Maybe the holdouts were crazy. When the money is this free and this plentiful, when they can make themselves millionaires for doing nothing other than going along with trillion-dollar useless spending bills, they have to be crazy to want to turn off the spigot of free money.
The kooks are the ones who want to mutilate children’s genitals. The cuckoo fringe are the ones who view everything in the world through the lens of race. The terrorists are the ones who have opened are southern border allowing hundreds of terrorists into the country.
At the behest of the far-left which runs the Democratic party and the complicit legacy media, American politics have shifted so far to the extreme left that moderate positions now appear to be extreme. When the insane are running the asylum, the sane are labelled as crazy. But remember, it is always a complement to be called crazy by the insane, to be called extreme by the extremist, to be called a disseminator of disinformation by the propagandist, to be called dishonest by the liar.
The most dangerous Congressmen of them all are people like Dan Crenshaw, Don Bacon and Mike Rogers who go along to get along, and pressure others to do the same through name calling and physical threats. The quickest path to our destruction, both individually and for the country, is for everyone just to go along. That is what the devil relies on the most. That’s the road to hell - good people turning a blind eye to obvious wrongs for the sake of a contrived peace.
Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.
As usual another great column! Spot on Judd.