This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

To err is human, to repeat the error is Republican. Matt Gaetz, star of the stage, screen and clownovision Has been doing his little bully routine with Rodney Dangerfield impersonator Kevin McCarthy. Matt’s been threatening to take Kevin’s job away and vacate the chair. The same way a dad threatens to take away a kid’s video games. If Kevin doesn’t do as he’s told, by a small but vocal minority.

You see, Kevin’s job as speaker is to bring the Party together while Matt’s is to kick the Republican Party down. To seek attention through controversy. To play the Joker to Kevin’s Batman. Controversy brings attention – attention brings clownovision which equals name recognition, equals fundraising, and falsely thought to be an effective leader.

Matt makes his supper by muckraking and bringing a gun to a pie fight. An attack dog, who will only shut up when fed a steady diet of Scooby snacks. Like a child, he must be placated or will throw a hissy fit. If you don’t let him, open his gifts December 23^rd assuming there are any.

In this week’s episode: Matt Gaetz is playing goalie as Kevin McCarthy tries to cobble together legislation to prevent a government shutdown. Matt Gaetz stands guard against Kevin scoring that goal. Way back when we were all much younger, back in January. House Republicans drew up a laundry list of promises and expectations before they’d agree to give Kevin the job. Well, Matt’s decided to pull the red card on Kevin.

Forgetting that in all the House of Representin, there are no other Republicans either qualified or who could be trusted to be the speaker. None who could earn more than a handful of votes. Besides, nobody else even wanted the job. In those 15 ballots it took to elect Kevin McCarthy, Kevin ran largely unopposed.  If there had been any competition, they might still be voting today.

I mention this only to show Kevin’s place in the pecking order and the high esteem his colleagues hold him in. “Look, we gotta pick somebody! All those in favor of Kevin McCarthy raise your hand and moan with a tired and anguished apathetic resignation.

So now, all of a sudden just as the little roadster approaches dead man’s curve Matt wants to jerk the wheel and cover Kevin’s eyes. Now!  With ten days left to go until a shutdown Matt promises to pull the pin on a grenade. That will get us some TV coverage. “Look at me! Look at me! You better do it, Kevin or I’ll take your job away!”

The adults in the room understand that a government shutdown is bad juju for the country and bad medicine politically, for the Republican Party specifically. (To err is human, to repeat is…) After nine and a half months, Gaetz wants all those long ago promises fulfilled, immediately right now or else.

Funny, odd and curious, reports say Matt Gaetz now aspires to be Florida’s next governor. After Governor Ron DeSantis leaves office. Term-limited and headed for the trash heap of American political history. Odd, a Congressman should want to move down to a state level office. Even one so prestigious it comes with its own mansion. The path is supposed to lead ever upward, member, committee chairman. Maybe even speaker and then maybe, maybe even “Hail to the Chief” in the big house!

Matt must feel his path forward is somehow impeded by his burned bridges and so his eyes turn longingly homeward, towards the easy pickins of the bottle-fed poorly educated Florida Republicans. They like crazy there, they admire it and want it taught in their schools. But how will a rabble-rouser and dog kicker like Gaetz manage a complaint and agreeable majority Republican rubber stamp duma?

But then one day, Kevin McCarthy’s walking papers were found abandoned in the Men’s restroom on Capitol hill on the baby changing table. “From the Desk of Matt Gaetz.” Why would the men’s room  in the halls of Congress have a baby changing table?

What Congressman brings their baby to work with them? That must be a typo. Or cleverly disguised self-satire by a faceless bureaucracy placing a changing table to imply the Representatives should change each other’s diapers. More than likely, someone asked, “How many restrooms we got in this joint? Order that many baby changing tables.

Leaving Kevin’s walking papers behind on a table or on the floor is just too high school simplistic for belief. “An order to vacate the chair, by Matt Gaetz.” Either a crummy moronic plot by Gaetz to show Kevin, he really means it. Or a plot to make Gaetz look ridiculous.

Like Gaetz was nervously pacing the men’s room with the order burning a hole in his pocket. Morally torn and mentally anguished before finally chickening out. Leaving his incriminating paperwork behind. “Lucky for you Kevin McCarthy, I left the paperwork somewhere.”

Matt Gaetz isn’t stupid. Okay, maybe a little, but Gaetz knows what he’s doing. He has a task set before him by his task master and Matt is going about doing it. Who gains from this? Like they always say, follow the dummy!

Who does Matt Gaetz work for? The People of the Untied Snakes? Yeah, right, that’s who he works for. Who in this country profits politically from a government shutdown? Who goes around the country telling his worshippers all the time about how terrible everything is in America? Why is Matt Gaetz working against the leadership of his own Republican Party?

Why does Matt Gaetz suddenly want to be Governor of Florida? That’s an easy one, isn’t it? The smell of fresh fried and fricasseed smoldering bridges blocking his path towards a better and brighter Federal future.

It’s the Empire Strikes Back. Trump wants to sow as much confusion and anger as possible. A government shutdown is perfect, 100% pure Trump. The message from his Mir-a-Lego mausoleum and bunker complex is that Trump’s attackers are crazy deranged people who hate America. And now look at what they’ve done! There wouldn’t be any government shut downs, if I were still President!

It’s alright ma, It’s only the next insurrection. Trump through his proxies and protégées are trying to take over the Republican Party and crash it into the towers of Democracy to suit his personal needs. Kevin knows what’s going on and is powerless to stop it and required to say nothing. They all know what is going on, and Kevin also knows to who is behind it.

In the battle of the great Republican Civil War of 2023, this could be their Gettysburg. Donald Trump is trying to take the wheel of the Republican Party and crash it into oblivion in the hopes he might use the “The government doesn’t work without me” approach to pick up the pieces as the smoke clears. And explains perfectly why Matt Gaetz might be ready to leave for home.

What famous person lives in Florida who might offer to help Gaetz to get elected governor? What famous person in Florida has a reputation for getting others to do his dirty work for him?

Filling the empty headed with dreams of grandeur and the ambitions of a limitless horizon. But, I need you to do me a favor first.