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My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

The Republican Party has devolved into chaos under Trump.

Since 2016, Republicans who have the guts to stand up for rule of law like Liz Cheney have almost all been purged. Cheney’s replacement, Harriet Hageman, trotted through the Capitol last week with a lasso like she was practicing for a rodeo act. That was tame compared to Lauren Boebert’s lewd behavior with a male companion at a public theater production, but it’s all part of the same breakdown in the Republican House.

Republicans’ dysfunctional leadership in the U.S. House has splintered into backbiting and gimmicks geared for FOX appearances. Matt Gaetz detonated Kevin McCarthy’s flimsy hold on the speakership two weeks ago at a time when critical budget deals need to be hammered out to avoid another looming government shutdown. The 45-day budget bill that temporarily prevented a shutdown at the beginning of October will run out in mid-November. The short-term measure did not include funding for Ukraine, which needs sustained U.S. support to continue defending itself against Russia’s savage incursion into its territory.

Thanks to Gaetz, the House was speakerless when Hamas launched a barbaric attack on people outside of Gaza in Israel, setting off a renewed crisis in the Middle East. The Republican majority couldn’t pull themselves together behind Steve Scalise as the crisis deepened, and Scalise dropped his bid for speaker.

That leaves Jim Jordan, who stands accused of both looking the other way when wrestlers at OSU accused a team doctor of sexually abusing them and also being a key player in Trump’s attempt to orchestrate an insurrection to remain in office after losing the 2020 election.

It’s repugnant that Jim Jordan is anywhere near the speakership. It’s also a betrayal that our representative, Brad Finstad, is backing him.

Republicans should have “nothing to do with” Jim Jordan, but it’s all about power. Principles are just phony lip service in Trump’s Republican Party.

Republicans’ last speaker who didn’t resign (John Boehner) or decide not to run for Congress again (Paul Ryan) was Dennis Hastert, who later pled guilty to paying off a man whom he had sexually abused as a high school student when he was a wrestling coach in Illinois in the 1970s.

Hastert had taken over the gavel in the late 1990s after Newt Gingrich resigned. Initially Bob Livingston, a key proponent of impeaching President Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, was going to replace Gingrich, but several women came forward to say that Livingston had had extramarital affairs with them. Livingston dropped out before the vote.

Quite the record. Only an inveterate optimist could still think there’s a pony somewhere under that pile.

Functioning civil society requires good governance, and Republicans are haplessly flailing about without a leader. Think what you want about Nancy Pelosi, but she kept the House in order when Democrats had a small majority. She made the position look deceptively easy, and now it should be clear, especially in sharp relief to Republican breakdown, that she was just really good at what she did. Functioning government doesn’t happen by accident, isn’t easy and isn’t a given.

As the current minority, it’s not Democrats’ job to rescue Republicans from their self-inflicted quagmire. Could you imagine a single Republican helping Pelosi had she been in a similar predicament? No. Democrats are solidly behind Hakeem Jeffries, and a handful of Republicans could join them in a bipartisan coalition. The poles would likely melt before that happened, but it’s possible.

Trump himself continues to say bizarre things, last weekend calling Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah “really smart” and praising Xi Jinping for controlling China with an “iron fist” (i.e. ruling as an authoritarian).

Nobody else could get away with saying these things, and Trump should not get a pass either, yet he is still leading all other Republican presidential candidates by at least 40 points in the latest polls.

The Republican Party is disintegrating without core principles. Meanwhile, the Israel-Gaza conflict has already taken nearly 4,000 lives in just over a week and is threatening to grow worse. Record numbers of people are crossing the southern border without visas, tens of thousands after traversing the dangerous Darien Gap between Columbia and Panama out of desperation. Fossil-fuel driven global warming is making all of these human catastrophes worse.

In a final note, Sen. Bob Menendez should resign after being indicted on corruption charges. Our senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, have both called on their Democratic colleague to step down.

The Democratic Party is the party that still believes in striving for clean, effective government.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.