It’s time to elect more Republicans in primaries who will vote against Mitch McConnell’s and Kevin McCarthy’s leadership.
Having been in the D.C. area for over 20 years now, I’ve come to live by the maxim, “Always bank on the GOP snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” I was proved right again this last week when 13 Republicans in the House helped pass the $1.2 trillion “Gateway to the Green New Deal” otherwise masquerading as an infrastructure bill.
As I wrote back in August, only 23 percent of this bill is really for infrastructure. The other 77 percent is for things like the $213 billion “allocated for retrofitting two million homes and buildings to make them more “sustainable,” whatever that means. Or the $20 billion for racial equity and environmental justice. Or the mileage tax, as in yes, they want to explore taxing you for every mile you drive in your car.
In the wake of an absolutely stunning clean sweep for Republicans in Virginia from governor to House of Delegates—in a state Republicans hadn’t won statewide in a dozen years and where they’ve lost the last four presidentials—Republicans in D.C. just couldn’t find the nerve to simply say “No.” They couldn’t “Just say no,” kids. It is one of the most beautiful and underused words in the English language, but Republicans appear simply incapable of using it.
Of those 13 Republicans, two are retiring (the impeachment Twinkies of Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger and Ohio’s Anthony Gonzalez), two are from blue districts (New York’s John Katko and New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew). But the other nine? From Republican districts like NY-11, an R plus 7 district, represented by the apparently very dull Nicole Malliotakis, who was crowing on Twitter that New York would reap more than $100 billion of that infrastructure cash. Apparently, adjusting for inflation, that’s the new 30 pieces of silver. Or take David McKinley of West Virginia’s first Congressional District, which the Cook Report gives a political voting index of R plus 22. Every last one of those nine from R plus districts needs a primary opponent in 2022.
What makes matters worse is that some of those Republicans aren’t backbenchers. They’re in the actual leadership, like the aforementioned and incredibly dull Malliotakis. She’s the Assistant Minority Whip for the Republican Conference, as in one of Kevin McCarthy’s pet minions who voted to strip Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments. Which leads me to this (and I feel like I’m stating the obvious): the Republican Caucus in the House lacks leadership.