Our friends in the legacy media—and that increasingly seems to include Fox News—not to mention the Democrats and some Republicans as well, endlessly bemoan the “chaos” on the Republican side as Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California has failed in four ballots now in his bid to become House speaker.
The most powerful position in the House, according to these people, should be chosen in a “seemly” manner behind closed doors in order not to wound the image of a political party, in this case, the GOP.
Transparency, like democracy, we hardly knew you.
And above all things, avoid the perception of “chaos.”
But is chaos such a bad thing? You don’t have to be a Nietzschean to see truth in the philosopher’s “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
The founding of our country, which took 11 years to get from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, was pretty chaotic.
Ideas need testing just as people, potential House speakers, need testing.
McCarthy, should he end up with the job after all, may actually be better for this unruly process.
Much is made of the fact that this is the first time in roughly 100 years we have had multiple ballots for speaker, as if that’s supposed to be something bad. In the old days, before those roughly 100 years, multiple votes for speaker occurred all of 14 times, once reaching 133 ballots.
But we are being force-fed the working-out of a democratic process in public view is a negative thing, when it is arguably a positive thing. Who is responsible for this propaganda?
Are we being undermined by the recently invented but noxious term “optics”? Are we prisoners of an image-obsessed zeitgeist that’s in reality the enemy of good representative government and the covert friend of authoritarianism?
The big enemy of creative thought of any sort is conformity. What is being put forth by the media, Democrats, and many Republicans is more conformity and, to be clear, less interest in democracy or in the will of the people.
As I write this, the fourth ballot has failed. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas made an eloquent speech nominating Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, clearly a good possibility. There are others, such as New York Rep. Lee Zeldin.
I’m not enthusiastic about waiting for 133 ballots, but I’m willing to stand by for more. At this point in American history, we need the best person possible to serve as speaker.
We should look for someone committed to transparency, freedom of speech, and, above all, the return of justice in America.
Unfortunately, most politicians are far too conventional to think out of the box, but there are many out there in society.
Personally, I nominate Elon Musk.
