On Oct. 3, Rep. Kevin McCarthy was voted out of his position as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. And after three weeks of Republican infighting, the House finally elected a representative for arguably one of the most important positions in Congress, Louisiana Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, on Oct. 25.
With the chaos that we have seen surrounding the decision of who will be next speaker of the House, it has become evidently clear that the Republican Party can no longer be trusted with leading any chambers of Congress. It should get just as much respect and appreciation as its members are giving the American people — the tiniest amount possible.
Why should we put our trust in a party that can hardly even pick a leader to head one of the most crucial parts of our government? The Republican Party is as disjointed and confused as it could possibly get.
Before electing Rep. Johnson to the speaker role, the GOP tried to elect several members to fill the position, including fellow Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and more recently Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. For reference, in 2002, Scalise gave a speech to a white supremacist group, per POLITICO, and since being elected in 2006, Rep. Jordan has never had a bill signed into law, according to The Washington Post.
Yes, a major political party in our country just tried to nominate one of its representatives to one of the most important positions in Congress, but that person hasn’t really been doing their job.
It’s embarrassing enough that it took McCarthy a historic 15 ballots to become speaker. But when the GOP took the majority during the 2022 election, his same party tried to replace him with people who are definitely much less qualified for the position.
This is what happens when a political party that is so divided is tasked with running a chamber of Congress: absolute political chaos with currently no end in sight. Not even a war involving U.S. ally Israel, seemed to spur any quickness into filling the speaker role. At this point it is hard to tell what will actually unify the Republican Party, how that will happen and if it will even be able to make any progress on laws as the majority party in one of our chambers of Congress.
When Jordan dropped out of the speaker race, the GOP attempted to nominate a third candidate, Rep. Tom Emmer, but hours after receiving that nomination, he dropped out. One of the main reasons he did so was because former President Donald Trump called him a “Globalist RINO” on Truth Social and some other pushback from hardline conservatives, per CNN.
Johnson, who was finally elected by the GOP representatives in the House, is not at all better than any of the other options that the party chose before him.
Johnson is a very prominent supporter of Trump and defended him during his impeachment hearing, according to Axios. So, the representative just elected as speaker of the House is one who backs a former president whose own supporters caused an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
GOP House members have stalled anything from happening in their own chamber since Oct. 3, when McCarthy was removed from the speaker role, and since then, no formal work has been done. This is an extremely major setback for Congress and absolutely should not go ignored.
While the Democratic Party may not be operating at its best either right now, at least it can fully unify behind its leaders in both chambers of Congress and actually attempt to do good for the American people.
In order for the U.S. to have a fully functioning system of governance, the Republican Party must gather together and find out how to operate again as one, as it is abundantly clear that their party is a complete and total mess.
It is time that the GOP move past conservative extremism and actually make attempts to pass laws and do good for our country. With only one truly functioning political party, it will be almost impossible to get anything done and a government that is not able to do anything for its constituents hurts those constituents the most.
