The national Republican Party is currently in the midst of a slow-motion train wreck. Their presidential primary has amply demonstrated their Base’s profound disaffection. You can call it anger, you can call it delusion – you can call it a tuna fish sandwich. But when 70+% of your voters don’t like anyone having anything to do with anything you’ve been doing – you absolutely call it a problem.
And when it’s this big, it’s a problem for the Party – not their voters. There’s an old banking joke: If someone owes the bank $10,000 – that someone has a problem. But if someone owes the bank $10 million – the bank has a problem. 70+% is the bank having a problem.
The Party remains somewhere in Egypt – along the banks of Denial. It likes to dismiss these people with incredibly flattering terms like “Crazies.” And elected officials these people actually like with terms of endearment like “Jackass.” Because you always go far when insulting the majority of your voters.
Speaker John Boehner is turning in his gavel and leaving Congress – apparently because everyone thinks he’s done a phenomenal job. And on his way out the door he is denouncing his voters for having “unrealistic expectations.” He would know – they have them in large part because his Party and their campaign minions set them every election cycle when they’re lying to get votes.
They last October ran thousands of ads promising to defund ObamaCare and President Barack Obama’s unConstitutional fiat amnesty. People then ridiculously expected them to defund ObamaCare and Obama’s amnesty. Talk about “unrealistic expectations.” Immediately after the election, the GOP funded both. And are now saying to their voters what Otter said to Flounder in Animal House: “You f***ed up – you trusted us.”
All of this is part of a larger problem. The GOP appears to be at best utterly indifferent to – at worst complacently complicit with – this President’s all-encompassing, omni-directional unConstitutional overreaches. He and his many, many political bureaucrats are every second of every day dramatically exceeding their legal bounds to exponentially grow government. And the GOP has done just about nothing to stop any of it.
We the People gave the GOP the Congress – and thus the power of the purse. Yet every time a potential political scrap looms anywhere way out on the distant horizon – the GOP Leadership goes into a preemptive cringe. And screeches from their crouch that they pinky-swear-promise they absolutely will not use their power of the purse. One would think that if you from a deep sleep shook awake Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, he would reflexively yell “No shutdown!”
What HAS the GOP done? Well, they sued ObamaCare. Which is at best extra-Constitutional – I don’t recall any of our Founders mentioning calling the trial bar as a remedy to tyranny. But there is a non-shutdown, Constitutional remedy at their disposal – they can impeach bureaucrats.
A government shutdown (which is really only ever like a 13%-of-the-government shutdown) is inarguably high profile – and thus the merest mention thereof causes Republicans to run for a corner in which to collectively cower. A Presidential impeachment is also very visible.
But the American people’s initial response to impeaching a bureaucrat would most likely be “What? Who?” The repeal of these faceless cogs in Obama’s Machine would allow the GOP to not just pretend to oppose this President’s agenda – but ACTUALLY oppose this President’s agenda. In a way that has little prospective political cost – and thus shouldn’t cause their fragile constitutions any discomfort. And it affords them opportunities to message on the concepts and advantages of legal and less government.
Arguably no bureaucrat deserves impeachment more than Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Gina McCarthy. Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar rightly thinks it’s time.
For far too long, Congress has allowed unelected bureaucrats and executive branch officials to slowly bend and break the laws of this country in order to further their own partisan political agendas. We have reached a breaking point where the American people have no faith in the fundamental checks and balances put in place by our founders to protect our liberties and freedoms.
On numerous occasions, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy broke the law by lying to Congress in order to force misguided and overreaching regulations, which have no scientific basis, down our throats. Perjury before Congress is perjury to the American people and an affront to the core principles of our Republic and the rule of law….
Lying to Congress is not an unserious thing. This Administration’s first Attorney General, Eric Holder, was found in Contempt of Congress for withholding information therefrom. A problem with a Contempt of Congress charge for the Attorney General is – the Attorney General is the one who is supposed to mete out punishment. When the Executive Branch is supposed to discipline itself,….
Impeachment bypasses this self-dealing. Congress impeaches – the bureaucrat goes. Miss McCarthy repeatedly lied about policies that are incredibly damaging to just about every sector of the private economy. She repeatedly lied so as to protect and advance their anti-capitalism agenda – at the expense of the rule of law and Congressional oversight. She needs to go.
The GOP should remove her – and use the process as an opportunity to detail the very obvious case for why. And when they see the sky doesn’t come crashing down upon them – they should feel liberated to lather, rinse and repeat with all manner of McCarthy’s out-of-control colleagues.
And as an added bonus – their Base will love it. It is the very good policy – that is also very good politics. If the GOP wants to save themselves from a fate worse than Trump – they should get busy doing it.
This first appeared in Human Events and Red State.