When Politicians Lose Track of Who Is the Adversary

by Pete Hoekstra • October 8, 2023 at 5:00 am

As a former House Republican Congressman, I would describe it as treacherous....
These eight Republicans [who voted to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy] forgot that politics is a team sport, and voters across the country had come together in November 2022 to entrust Republicans to govern and control the House of Representatives.
Now, after only nine months in office, these eight Republican members of the House made the choice to align themselves with the Democrats.
Did they bring their grievances to other Republicans in the Conference and demand an internal vote on whether the Conference still supported the Speaker? No....
Some call the eight brave and heroic. They are anything but.
[Then Speaker Newt] Gingrich's leadership and focus was always on us being a team. We succeeded or failed as a team — not individually. The eight who acted and voted to take down McCarthy established a new precedent for the House Republican Conference that any single or personal grievance is enough to turn your back on the Conference and go solo or rogue.
Heaven help this Republican Conference electing a new Speaker if this self-centered mentality takes hold.
We all have to be concerned about where the Republican Conference is at this point. Collectively they have demonstrated an inability to govern the House of Representatives. They have focused on the deficiencies as they see it among their Republican colleagues rather than the multitude of challenges facing the nation under Biden's leadership, including the southern border, crime, the budget deficit and national debt, and the threat from adversaries such as China, Russia North Korea and Iran, among many other pressing issues.
The GOP will meet this week to select a new candidate for Speaker, though at this point, it is not clear who can get the magic number of 218 votes to take the gavel. Even more unclear is how that person succeeds in the top spot given that only a handful of Republicans working in concert with Democrats — who are the primary beneficiaries of all the GOP chaos — can take them out over minor disagreements.

The eight Republicans who voted to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy forgot that politics is a team sport, and voters across the country had come together in November 2022 to entrust Republicans to govern and control the House of Representatives. Pictured: McCarthy walks from the House Chamber after he was ousted as Speaker, on October 3, 2023. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

There are many terms that can be used to describe the results of the October 3 motion to vacate the chair by the U.S. House of Representatives that removed then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. It is undoubtedly unprecedented, in fact, it is historic! It is the first time in history that the House Speaker has been removed in this manner. Comments called into C-Span from viewers described the move as foolish, grandstanding and a clown show.

As a former House Republican Congressman, I would describe it as treacherous — akin to "impeachment light." It is more than ironic that for all of the Republicans' impeachment talk, it was not President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, or Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas who got impeached; it was eight Republicans who chose to move implacably forward with the short-sighted own goal of throwing their own leader out.

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Immigration: Europe's New Wedge Issue

by Amir Taheri • October 8, 2023 at 4:00 am

Immigration is one of those wedge issues designed to split the electorate into conflictual constituencies while diverting attention from the here-and-now problems for which an increasingly clueless ruling elite seems to have no solutions.
The deficit in actual public support is compensated by the enthusiasm of those who fight for wedge issues with something like religious zeal.
The final outcome [of wedge issues] is often an ersatz solution or a set of bogus promises like the Paris Agreement, which everyone accepted and, with the exception of Gambia, no nation has implemented.
While talking about "curbing immigration" is fashionable, the European Union has just established a new record in attracting immigrants.
Playing cheap political games with the issue could reproduce the experience we have had with other wedge issues which, in this case, could mean more immigrants than needed and more of the wrong kind, while fomenting an air of suspicion, hatred, and chauvinism amid immense suffering for those who risk their lives to reach Europe to offer it what it needs: more working hands.

Pictured: Hundreds of illegal migrants wait to receive registration papers from the Red Cross on the Italian island of Lampedusa, on September 17, 2023. (Photo by Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP via Getty Images)

"This could lead to the dissolution of the European Union!" The "this" in Josep Borrell's jeremiad is the issue of immigration, which the man in charge of the EU's foreign policy identifies as an existential threat. Immigration is one of those wedge issues designed to split the electorate into conflictual constituencies while diverting attention from the here-and-now problems for which an increasingly clueless ruling elite seems to have no solutions.

Wedge issues work well in most Western democracies, of which many have adopted the proportional representation system that allows political parties and pressure groups to gain a toehold in parliaments with five percent of the votes cast. Since turnout in most elections is around 50 percent, in practice a wedge issue program could win a hearing with as little as two or three percent of the votes.

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