Andrew Harnik / AP
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reacts during the 12th round of voting for speaker in the House chamber as the House meets for the fourth day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023.
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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In 1948, President Harry Truman famously complained about the Republicans’ “do-nothing” Congress. Truman’s constant refrain has been credited, in part, with his defeat of the odds-on favorite, Thomas Dewey, for president that year.
The lesson has been clear for the past 74 years. American voters — known for their long fuses and short memories — actually want their elected leaders to do something to make ordinary American life better.
In 2023, it is not a presidential candidate — President Joe Biden has not disclosed yet whether he will run for reelection in 2024 and has been relatively silent about the GOP-led Congress’ inability to act — who is blaming the Republicans for doing nothing.
It is, incredibly, the GOP itself, which has been proving daily its inability to lead. After years of lying to the public about what they can, will and must do to right the American ship of state — including the big lie about the 2020 election — Republicans convinced the voters to hand them the speaker of the House’s gavel in the 118th Congress.
So far — and this is being written after the 11th shameful, embarrassing and humiliating loss by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in his life-long quest to be speaker — the only thing the GOP-led Congress has shown America and the world is incompetence when it comes to governing.
In a new take on “Groundhog Day,” the world has witnessed vote after vote with the same result. It is far worse than do-nothing. It is more like “can’t do anything.”
In the meantime, there is vital work to be done on behalf of the American people that gets put off until the Republicans — remember, they are the folks who were elected to lead the House and show us the way — can get their act together.
Nevadans, unlike many voters in sister states far to the east and more to the south of us, turned away the extreme, election-denying MAGA Republicans (well, most of them) in the 2022 elections. These are the folks who are just saying “no” to McCarthy’s journey toward speaker heaven.
By the way, at some very basic level, it is hard to blame anybody for not wanting a two-faced, spineless congressman to be third in line to the presidency of the United States. But this is not the “just say no” crowd’s motivation.
Whatever the reasons, the entire country is sick and tired of having to watch the dramatic and disappointing reality television from Congress that has been playing on our TV sets all week. Maybe by the time this is published, there will be a resolution.
A boy can hope, can’t he?
But if this insanity continues and the entirety of the U.S. government grinds to a halt because the GOP can’t make a decision, we have to ask ourselves who really is at fault.
I can’t blame a bunch of know-nothing and do-nothing Americans who decided to run for office. That is their right and part of the privilege of being an American citizen. But it is our responsibility as voters to turn them away.
I differ with many of my colleagues who claim the voters don’t deserve this political malfeasance and deliberate attempt to destroy this fragile democracy of ours.
I believe we deserve exactly what we are getting right now. There have been no surprises. The entire country has known exactly who these people are and exactly what they want to do. This newspaper and others have not been quiet on the matter.
Voters, on the other hand, have mentally twisted themselves into pretzels on the way to ballot boxes across the country to justify voting for incompetence. They gladly cast their votes for candidates who tell Americans what they want to hear and not what they need to know.
The House of Representatives will sort this out eventually but at what cost to our democracy?
America must remain the beacon of light to the world, the example of what can be wrought from self-determination. We cannot become a flickering shadow of what we used to be as we slowly kill what the Founding Fathers created centuries ago. The world needs us to be great!
So, if there is a lesson to be learned, it has to be that the voters need to wake up, do their homework and not blindly follow the big, little and very white lies that they are fed at election time. We owe it to ourselves and our progeny to do our homework before we vote.
Otherwise we get exactly what we deserve, even if we don’t deserve it.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
