Terry Bracy: The dumbest soap opera I've ever seen

In January of 1965, a courageous congressman from Tucson became the first member of the House in the 20th century to run against a sitting Speaker, in this case John McCormack of Massachusetts. When Mo Udall staged his challenge, it was largely a symbolic effort aimed at gaining power for young liberals, many of whom were veterans and had commanded troops on the battlefields of World War II and were now instructed to stand aside and always obey their elders. Udall lost the vote but opened the House to an era of liberal reform and power-sharing. Always a humorist, the Westerner said in his concession, “I want to thank the 90 members who promised to vote for me and especially the 58 who did.”

I thought of this story as the 118th Congress assembled on Jan. 3, as I turned on my new smart TV to what I believe was the dumbest soap opera I’ve seen in 50 years of political life.

The slow-burning, three-day farrago which saw the looniest elements of the GOP hold feckless Kevin McCarthy’s speakership hostage, had the carnival atmosphere of comedy, but the deeper implications of something profoundly worrying. How, we wonder, did things get so crazy?

There are many forces at play but two stand out, and both date to the 1990s. First is the rise of partisan media and the vast power acquired by Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News network became an arm of the extreme right beginning with its launch in 1996. Since that time, Fox and its down-market imitators Newsmax and One America News Network have emphasized division and paranoia as a ratings ploy and done untold harm in the process. The fringe group of Republican House members who refer to themselves as the Freedom Caucus are steeped in the most nefarious conspiracy theories allowed to marinate on those airwaves, including Donald Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election. The feedback loop between the Freedom Caucus and its ilk and these ill-motivated media properties is insidious. The crazier the rhetoric, the more likely they are to be given airtime, which results in a fundraising bonanza. Short of patriotism, which the Freedom Caucus keeps in demonstrably short supply, there is literally no incentive for them to limit their invective and engage in the kind of compromise which keeps our system healthy and functioning.

These are the resonant echoes of another entity which defined our politics down around that same period. In the Udall era of the House, civility was expected and members crossed party lines to socialize and travel abroad together. All of that went out the door with the rise of Newt Gingrich, who became Speaker in 1994. Gingrich was a clever strategist who gave nightly speeches to an otherwise vacant House of Representatives, with his real audience being those watching on C-SPAN. He understood the power of media and its unique capacity to carry his proudly malevolent philosophy to the masses. To Gingrich, politics was interchangeable with war, a transparently insane assertion which became his mantra. On a cultural level, Gingrich’s blatant affairs while married were widely known and lowered the moral expectations of many members. His comportment was a forerunner to Trump and his tactics were to never stop attacking and never apologize. Ultimately, Gingrich’s term as Speaker ended in public disgrace when he was forced to resign amidst an inferno of scandal, but his legacy was everywhere to be seen during the Republicans’ intramural meltdown earlier this month.

It was possible, if you squinted, to feel sympathy for McCarthy as he was publicly humiliated on ballot after ballot by the rabble dedicated to undermining his Speakership before it even began. But my own esteem for McCarthy, never sky-high, reached an all-time low as his inestimable ego allowed a handful of nuts to neuter the powers of the Speaker, just so he could limply hold the gavel. With his breathtaking concessions he positioned a rogue cabal of election deniers and delusional fantasists ever closer to the locus of American power.

Here’s what hangs in the balance: Social Security, Medicare and the future of the NATO alliance, all of which the GOP’s newly emboldened crazy wing are eager to immolate. Already conversations have begun about the GOP-led House holding up raising America’s debt limit, a fiscally suicidal gambit essentially akin to refusing to pay your credit card bill after racking up massive charges. McCarthy is smart enough to know this is political plutonium, capable of sending global markets into free-fall and destroying the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Whether he has the courage to stop this insanity before it gets out of hand is less clear.

Nearly 60 years after Mo Udall’s challenge, a new and more nihilistic attack on the status quo is upon us, fueled by the menacing strains of conservative media and the misguided vainglory of men like Gingrich. The stakes for this junket into Crazy Town could scarcely be higher. The GOP floor show in January was undoubtedly a mesmerizing spectacle. The afterparty won’t be anywhere near as much fun.