Seems to me that true conservatives are never really happy until they can draw lines around things, create parameters, keep out the riff-raff. True conservatives are all about rules, about setting them and policing them, and making sure the rest of us do too. He said it about puritanism, but let me paraphrase that long-gone crank H. L. Mencken, who said something to this effect: conservatism is the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere is having a good time.
Let's be candid. Lord knows the ship of state needs its conservatives. After all, age-old values are worth holding on to. If we'd simply give the world over to the libs, they'd be dangerous to us all. Sometimes we need people to push the accelerator; then again, breakneck speed isn't the best way to travel. Sometimes we need people who will hit the brakes.
But we're talking about conservatives here, two of them, Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (CA), who faced off right there on Main Street, when McCarthy was running to fulfil his life-long ambition to be the Speaker of the House, only the nation's Vice-President standing between him of her and the job.
Some people like Matt Gaetz; but then, maybe some people like poison oak. To me, he's a MAGA blowhard, a Trump lieutenant in service of the the Orange Patton. Some months ago, Gaetz and McCarthy faced off in an insane epic, when it took how many?--15 votes of the Republican caucus to elect a Speaker. After all that nut case toil, they gave the job to McCarthy. In the wink of an eye, they took it back, and McCarthy threw in the towel. He's back in CA.
Gaetz didn't get the job; he was smart enough not to ask for it. But Gaetz did more than anyone else to stoke the fires of chaos. Here they are spilling testosterone on the floor of the House like a couple of WWW grapplers a minute before the match.
Here's my theory: conservatives never quite get there, so they're never-ever truly happy. If they win a race or two, look for them to self-destruct because they're calling is to be critical, to draw lines and draw blood, to make sure people aren't having fun. They can't help it. They wired that way. It's their default position. So, once they achieve power, they turn on each other, just like they did here in the photograph.
Look what's happening to the Michigan Republican party--all-out civil war; look what's happening across the lake in Wisconsin, where Republicans are ready to commit harikari on Robin Vos, who's been their main man. They can't help themselves really; Look at Trump. His Christmas greeting wished me and others like me to rot in hell. It's in their nature to snarl.
And look what just happened today. Some splinter group from a red hot conservative Islamic sect took credit for a bombing that killed 84 mourners celebrating the death of some other terrorist, another bunch just trying to out-radical the radicals.
As they did in 2023, clearly documented in this NY Times photograph.
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