I had planned for today to be my first column back from vacation, but while I was envisioning something full of political notes and analysis, my body seems to have had other ideas. I’ve been hit by a non-covid virus, so it will be a few more days before I can churn out the sort of meaty, in-depth column that I want to fill this space.
In the interim, however, a few short items.
A tiny substantive note — with much more to follow later in the week — the drama in the House of Representatives this week is a logical outgrowth of decades of conservative politics. The Republican Party has grown increasingly right wing with each wave of insurgents (every decade or so), and less and less interested in governance.
I’m not entirely sure you can pick one particular starting point — the Goldwater insurgency, the early 80s “Cam Scam” that rocked the House, Newt Gingrich leading a revolt against George H.W. Bush’s budget deal in 1990, Rush Limbaugh ushering in modern conservative media on August 1, 1988 — there are lots of contenders. But over now six decades the fundamental character of the GOP has changed in a way that makes functional governance really damn hard…
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