Congressional Republicans’ vengeance agenda as the new Congress gets underway well could prove seriously damaging to any hope of the GOP maintaining control of the legislative branch of the U.S. government.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who will be remembered forever as the man who needed 15 ballots to eke out a victory for the speakership — takes office as the weakest and most feckless speaker in recent House history.
So … what does he do? He vows to kick Democrats off of key committees merely because of their vocal opposition to Donald J. Trump during his two impeachments and subsequent Senate trials.
Then he says he might consider “expunging” the record of Trump’s impeachment.
Then the House has announced a plan to form a committee that will investigate Congress’s earlier investigations of conservatives who ran afoul of the rules and possibly broke the law.
Oh, and now GOP members want to investigate whether the classified documents found at a D.C. think tank and at President Biden’s home violated the same rules that Donald Trump has all but admitted breaking when he spirited highly classified documents from the White House to his Florida mansion.
Then the House will consider whether to impeach President Biden, the homeland security secretary, the attorney general … along with finding dirt to fling at Dr. Anthony Fauci.
If there was a compelling message that voters delivered in the 2022 midterm election, it is that they want Congress to govern. They want positive results coming from Capitol Hill.
If Congress doesn’t deliver what voters want and instead gets hung up on ways to stick it to Democrats and to Joe Biden, well … the 2024 election could mean the GOP kisses its newfound power goodbye.
That damn karma is a real bitch … you know?