Republican urges Chaos Caucus: “All of them need to grow up”
Crisp fall air on the first Monday in October is perhaps a reminder to take a moment
Yes, the ethics-challenged U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term, God help us. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern do some teeth-grinding over having to write the obligatory journalistic “curtain-raiser” as the new term opens. The question “is not if we should be worried, but exactly how worried we should be.” What will the Roberts court do next with “the most dangerous and radical ideas to emerge from the conservative legal movement” courtesy of Donald Trump and Leonard Leo?
Yes, despite all the oddsmakers’ bets on which elected Black woman California Gov. Gavin Newsom, would appoint to fill out the term of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, he chose instead Emily’s List president Laphonza Butler. The Washington Post reports, “She will become the second Black woman after Harris to represent California in the Senate and the first Black lesbian to openly serve in Congress, a statement from Newsom’s office said. In picking Butler, Newsom kept his 2021 promise to appoint a Black woman to the chamber.” Newsom had suggested his appointee would serve an interim role so as not to shake up the primary field of Democrats already vying for the seat. At this late date, it would be difficult for Butler to launch and staff a Senate campaign even with her Emily’s List fundraising base.
Yes, Donald Trump’s civil trial begins today in New York City. The very unstable former and would-be president faces the judge who has already given his family business the corporate death penalty. He faces prosecution by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who accuses Trump, “his adult sons and their family business of inflating the value of Mr. Trump’s assets to secure favorable loan terms from banks.”
And yes, with Halloween still weeks away, MAGA maniacs inside the House still mean to slash the throats of key government programs, Ukraine funding, and Kevin McCarthy’s speakership.
But take a breath. There remain islands of sanity even among Republicans, former Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina reminds us in the New York Times.
Inglis, who lost his Fourth District seat to T-party Trey Gowdy in the 2010 GOP primary, has had plenty of time to reflect on his years in Congress. He has regrets. Both for the small-mindedness of positions he took in office and for what has become of the Republican Party to which he still belongs. He still holds many conservative positions, but with a softer edge now. MAGA extremists who demonize their opponents and threaten to blow up the government if they don’t get their way? Inglis sees them making the same mistakes he made.
“All of them need to grow up,” Inglis writes:
When politicians grow up, they search their careers for substantive accomplishments. The temporary affections of the political crowd, the petty disagreements, the party rivalries are lost in a quest for greater significance. “Am I/was I about something big enough to be about?” the grown-up politician wonders. “Am I/was I about leading or following — the wandering crowd, the party leader presenting a clear danger to the Republic, the aging colleague needing to leave the stage?” “Was I an agent of chaos in a house divided, or did I work to bring America together, healing rifts and bridging divides?”
Former members like me need to be careful not to write revisionist histories. Our times involved plenty of small-mindedness. In the retelling, we often sanitize our stories, removing some of the smallness. Even the irksomeness of the other side is omitted. The vitriol subsides. Former members of Congress even speak of the “others” with newfound fondness.
When I was in Congress, I butted heads with Representative Pat Schroeder, a Democrat from Colorado who served from 1973 to 1997. She was pro-choice; I’m pro-life. She supported nearly every progressive cause; I opposed nearly every progressive cause. The record of our exchanges in the Judiciary Committee will show real acrimony, but when I read the news of her passing in March, I was truly saddened. Someone with whom I had served was no more. A milepost was gone. I had seen Ms. Schroeder several years after we had both left Congress. We were in an elevator at the Capitol. The struggle was gone. The harsh, competitive looks had vanished. I might have even joked with her about using a line I’d heard her say before: “Don’t tell my mother I’m a member of Congress; she thinks I’m a prostitute!” I wish I had asked her if we could be friends.
Take a moment. Read the rest.