Do you want to be a lockstep sheep marking to Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries and Steny Hoyer’s tune? Or, do you want to live in a messy and chaotic Republic with free will and tons of new ideas? No, I am not well-pleased with showing our family differences in public. By that I mean our arguments over Speaker of the House and the amount of support for Ukraine. I wish we would have those shouting matches behind the door and pretend like we are a happy family in public. We are not a happy family. The neighbors know it and they aim to exploit our squabbles.

The always risible Amanda Marcotte wrote in Salon:

Veering hard toward the radical right hasn’t made Republicans more cohesive or more disciplined. On the contrary, it’s this rightward shift that is fueling the ugliness. Contrary to popular belief, authoritarianism brings chaos, not order.

It took the authors over a Politico to write:

The House GOP has entered an angrier and more bewildered phase in its leadership crisis.

The fractious Republican conference has rejected a second speaker hopeful in eight days — this time, Kevin McCarthy’s longtime heir apparent, Steve Scalise. While Republicans appear to be turning next to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), some are already airing open doubts that Jordan can pull off what the majority leader couldn’t.

This is because we are individual with our own brains. We are not brainless sheep marching in lockstep. We always says that our Republican leadership is spineless and that is TRUE. But at least they are not sheep. The Nancy Pelosi days are over.

More from Marcotte in Salon:

The reasons for this are multi-layered. The top layer is about personality. To put it bluntly, authoritarian movements valorize assholes, mistaking cruelty for strength and showboating for passion. Republicans have created and embraced a system in which being as toxic and mean-spirited as possible is the fastest route to political power. It shouldn’t be surprising that when you throw a bunch of nasty people together, they start taking out their aggression on each other.

But the issue runs even deeper than “these people are the worst.” These incomprehensible power struggles are a direct outgrowth of the internal logic — if you can call it that — of authoritarianism. At the risk of oversimplifying things slightly, authoritarianism is at heart a movement that rejects and despises the ideals of rationality and democratic power-sharing. Its adherents embrace an absolutist view of power, one where “truth” is handed down on high from authority, power is its own justification and any form of reasoned debate is a sign of weakness.

Oh poor Amanda. Has she seen the toxic and meanspirited Adam Schiff? Give me Marjorie Taylor Greene any day of the week and twice on Sundays. MTG just gave a speaker update:

MTG actually sounds quite reasonable when compared with Adam Schiff. Like I said, I don’t like family squabbles in public, but I wouldn’t even let Adam Schiff in my family. Better public squabbles than stuffing feelings of anger down. I prefer a chaotic Republic to the fascist sheep.

Jim Jordan walked out of the meeting and gave his bullet points. You can read the full interview here. Notice anything missing? The January 6 tapes need to be released. It’s difficult to have faith in our Republican leadership without the tapes being released. That was part of Kevin McCarthy’s promise. I wasn’t surprised that eight Republicans started the move against McCarthy. He rolled over for the Dems but he also broke many promises. Especially the one about releasing the J6 tapes.

I would much rather have this fight now rather than next March or April and it was bound to come. We need the J6 tapes released in order to start healing.

Amanda just spews ugly because she has no good sense and her hate of Republicans is visceral. She wrote:

Republicans these days suck at the whole discussion-and-debate aspect of politics, because they’ve rebuilt their party around the idea that only soy-sucking wimps care about girly stuff like winning over actual humans with the strength of your arguments. Of course people who are hostile to democracy can’t handle a basic vote for a leader. In the authoritarian mindset, the legitimacy of power flows through conquest, not consent. Choosing a leader through negotiation and horse-trading and a majority vote isn’t satisfying. These folks would probably be happier if they could throw the contenders into a cage match and let them fight, with the gavel awarded to whoever is left standing.

Now she might be right about the cage match. We Republicans are hostile to “democracy” is that IT is chaotic and devolves down to fascism. Our way, may start chaotic but ends with agreements. Not gin soaked denture sucking.

Featured Image: B4bees/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons