In a NY Times interview with far-right Representative Bob Good — who hobnobs ideologically with the likes of Florida's Matt Gaetz, South Carolina's Ralph Norman, North Carolina's Dan Bishop, Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene, Colorado's Lauren Boebert and Arizona's Andy Biggs — the House member from Virginia offers that "Most of what we do as a Congress is totally unjustified."
Good's perception of an unjustifiable Congress amounts to about 515 elected pols who keep the government running; Good himself being among what the Times' Carl Hulse calls "20 or so emboldened conservatives in the House." They, in Good's opinion, are justified. All others are the nation's real villains, for the very reason that they do keep the government running.
Remarks George Washington University's political historian Matt Dallek: "We have seen for the past decade this kind of rump faction of far-right Republicans who obviously don’t believe in government." Obviously. But it's worse than that. These far-right Republicans don't believe in American democracy.
They occupy less than 4% of all congressional seats, yet it's their perverted conviction that their "governing" ideals should rule. Less than 4% of a 535-member body rises not even to the level of a faction. These "20 or so emboldened conservatives" are more of a clique of misfits, malcontents and ideologues on goof weed.
And yet, they do rule — in part because the House speaker is uninterested in allowing the majority to rule, which would be all 212 Democrats aligned with the majority of the majority, or 201 Republicans; in part because the self-interested House speaker is unwilling to risk his job; and in part because Trump is spearheading from the wings this vile experiment in antidemocratic government — his ideal.
As Mr. Hulse puts it: "The right-wing rebels have styled themselves in the mold of former President Donald J. Trump, who made norm-shattering behavior a virtue among the Republican base and an asset for many lawmakers, who now fear primary elections much more than general ones." There's no true democracy in their gerrymandered districts, so why should there be in Washington, D.C.?
"They have [also] styled themselves as a wrecking crew aimed at the nation’s institutions on a variety of fronts," adds Hulse. They "see themselves as courageously doing the people’s work." But "the people" they have in mind are only the primary-voting extremists back home — a local minority within a national minority beyond whom U.S. representatives should give some consideration.
On the left, or what Republicans mistakenly call the "far left," even A.O.C., Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have come to realize they're part of a larger system to which they must make concessions. Such is the pluralism of a functioning representative democracy. The Bob Goods of the GOP believe in neither.
What we're witnessing in Congress today — a lilliputian cohort of nihilistic, authoritarian jackassery — is but a preview of what we'll get from the White House in 2025, should we invite a Trumpian catastrophe. What we're witnessing, in short, is a powerful warning in miniature.