'Junior high reality TV program': Republicans rage against 'chaos' of their own creation

10 May 2024

Wednesday, May 8 became a very bad day for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) when lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, voted overwhelmingly against her proposal to oust Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) as speaker.

The vote was 359-43, and 163 Democrats voted in favor of keeping Johnson as speaker compared to only 32 Democrats who agreed with Greene's proposal. Meanwhile, only 11 House Republicans thought that ousting Johnson was a good idea.

When the speaker appeared on Fox News the following day, he didn't attack Greene — instead saying, "Let's move on, Marjorie. I'm OK with this. Let's move on. I think we'll have an opportunity to do that. We'll see."

Many lawmakers who voted against ousting Johnson have said that they are fed up with the "chaos" in the GOP-controlled House. And some of that frustration is expressed by Republicans interviewed for an article by the Washington Post's Marianna Sotomayor published on May 10.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin) told the Post, "I would ask you on what planet would it be an effective Republican way to legislate if you're voting with the most radical members of the Democratic Party? The answer is: This is not conservatism. Our constituents sent us up here to make very difficult decisions and to govern, not to do a junior high school reality television program."

Johnson, Sotomayor notes, has said that punishing House Republicans who wanted to oust him as speaker would do more harm than good.

But Rep. Marcus J. Molinaro (R-New York) told the Post, "I think the people that are causing chaos will have to be held accountable for that."

The fact that so many House Democrats voted in favor of keeping Johnson as speaker is not lost on Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska).

Bacon believes that far-right House Republicans who wanted to oust Johnson are putting Democrats in a better bargaining position.

Bacon told the Post, "What they're doing is they're actually forcing a majority of us to have to be more bipartisan because they've empowered the Democrats. We'll have to govern in a more bipartisan way because of this small handful who are trying to undermine the speaker, shut down the House — and therefore, you have to work across the aisle to get things done. That's the math."

Read the Washington Post's full article at this link (subscription required).

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