Messy Democracy

The Republicans all try to justify the four day debacle this week as just “messy democracy.” They cite that this is an example of open debate on the issues.  They claim this is the way the founders wanted it to be. I’m not at all sure they have any idea what the founders wanted, but that’s beside the point. The real issue is that what we saw in the first four days of McCarthy’s attempt to be Speaker of the House is a farce. There are several reasons why I believe this.

First, the debate was hardly open. All the agreements took place behind closed doors and in non-public arenas. The C-Span cameras didn’t catch real debate. No one except eavesdroppers heard a word of the discussions, concessions, and arguments of the GOP as they wrangled the objectors to McCarthy’s rule from twenty to six to zero. Yes, we did see a disturbing instance of one Representative having to be restrained because he wanted to attack one of the hold-outs. And later, as we usually do, we learned that his outrage was because McCarthy was contemplating making a secret deal with the person holding the party for ransom.

Second, what we saw was not good government in action. It was a tiny group of people blackmailing someone to make agreements that benefited the small minority at the expense of the larger group. It is not even clear if the larger group knows what agreements were even made. And it is clearly true that the public has no idea what these concessions were.

Third, all of this took place in real time, involving 434 members of Congress plus an untold number of public servants who have to provide administrative support to this process plus an unspecified number of family and friends who wanted to see their loved ones sworn in as Congressional representatives. All of this fighting actually only benefited one half of the Congress, the Republicans. Yet they used four days of other people’s time to hash out their differences. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been taught that it’s neither polite nor considerate to waste someone else’s time. That kind of arrogance is not good politics or good government. It is proof that one side sore is lacking in good values.

This was not an example of democracy in action. It was an example of incompetence and poor management. Messy democracy is not what we should be striving for. Unfortunately, it looks like that’s what we’re going to get for the next two years.