Speaker Kevin McCarthy listening just after becoming Speaker of the House on January 7, 2023 | Photo C-Span via Wikimedia Commons
Journalist Al Weaver of The Hill wrote what could be the result of a bruising 15-round election — spread over four days — for the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives immediately after it ended almost midnight last Friday.
Mr. Weaver wrote: “The House Freedom Caucus has power for the first time since Democrats won the House in 2018, and the far-right group wasted no time in asserting itself, providing a glimpse of the issues Kevin McCarthy will confront as he takes over as the weakest Speaker in recent memory.”
To use an oft-quoted old phrase, Speaker McCarthy’s “trials and tribulations” have just started. As the ancient writers put it, “In Christian eschatology, the Great Tribulation is a period mentioned by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse as a sign that would occur in the time of the end. At Revelation 7:14, ‘the Great Tribulation’ indicates the period spoken of by Jesus.”
But some pundits say Speaker McCarthy and his fellow House of Representatives top leaders may suffer the political equivalent of crucifixion before the 2024 Lenten Season. Or even before Good Friday of 2023.
American policy-and-decision makers must get their acts together with the spirit of bipartisanship. The world is facing a doomsday scenario due to the Kremlin invasion of Ukraine and economic turmoil, environmental crises, and pandemics, among other big-time social cancers and problems. As pundits have put it, “if the American economy catches a cold (pun intended), almost all countries develop fever.” If not capitalism’s equivalent of influenza, this columnist may add to it.
The Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives should work hand-in-hand with their Democratic colleagues because a plurality of about a dozen (or fewer) seats does not mean that GOP legislators can railroad their political agenda. They must not convert their Freedom Caucus into the “Chaos Caucus,” as some journalists have used the moniker.
Speaker McCarthy stressed in his acceptance speech that the House of Representatives is neither a home of the Republicans nor the Democrats. It is the house of the American people. Amen.
