The ultimate irony of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) orchestrating a vote against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) that led to the unprecedented ouster of a speaker this week is that he actually makes a valid point about how broken Washington is and how to fix it, argued liberal columnist Hayes Brown for MSNBC on Friday.
"I realized he was right," Brown said.
Though he added that Gaetz was outlining problems his own faction had caused in the first place.
"Gaetz’s central argument against McCarthy was a condemnation of the way the House and Congress more broadly have functioned for decades," wrote Brown. "It made sense — or at least it would have if it were anyone but Gaetz saying it. Because reading back through the Congressional Record really highlighted several things for me that made clear how cynical he was being.
"In his attacks on McCarthy, he was really criticizing the Washington that Republicans built and revealing how little he actually cares about the legislative work he claimed to be championing."
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Among the reforms that Gaetz proposes to stop the political parties constantly pushing to the brink of government shutdowns, Brown notes, is requiring "single-subject" bills to make compromise more necessary, as well as an open amendment process to let all members have their say.
"But many of the problems Gaetz described are the result of Republicans’ priming their voters to see compromise as a dirty word," wrote Brown. "Many Republicans, including Gaetz, hold extremely gerrymandered seats, incentivizing them to cater only to the most extreme primary voters." And this is reflected among voter attitudes, with a February poll by Monmouth University showing more than half of GOP voters believe that not standing for principles is a bigger problem than refusing to compromise.
Moreover, he continued, Gaetz highlights that D.C. is divided into "workhorses and show horses," and yet he is intentionally choosing performative politics himself.
The reforms Gaetz says he supports, "are real, viable goals that would return the Congress to more effectively doing its most basic job: levying taxes and appropriating funding," concluded Brown. "But they run in opposition to the toxic political ecosystem that has allowed the Gaetzes of the world to evolve and thrive."
