MAD HOUSE

A fly-on-the-wall view of the 118th Congress, “a dysfunctional legislative body populated by a bunch of clowns.”

New York Times politics reporters Karni and Broadwater, who cover Congress, paint a detailed picture of what one veteran Republican representative called a “shitshow.” Few political leaders of any experience or maturity were much more complimentary: Liz Cheney remarked that “what we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots,” while legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, asked how Congress broke so irreparably, quoted Ernest Hemingway on how bankruptcy happens: “gradually, then suddenly.” The gradual bit came about with the slow but immutable hardening of the right wing. All that was left then, when people such as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert came rolling in, was for the “traditional” wing of the Republican Party to make concessions in the hope that it could retain power. Thus Kevin McCarthy’s devil’s bargain allowed a tiny fringe of the party—just 20 members—to dictate how the other 90 percent had to vote to please both themselves and Donald Trump. Gaetz, later much in the news for disgraceful reasons, “fed on conflict and, more quickly than any other Republican in office, took to Trump’s brand of scorched-earth politics.” He also edged McCarthy—by any measure one of the least capable persons to hold the job—out of his position as Speaker of the House, though none on the hard right were particularly pleased with the accommodationist who followed. Nancy Mace, George Santos, Jim Jordan, and many others come in for a drubbing, though Karni and Broadwater take time to review the endless series of Democratic Party mistakes that led to Joe Biden’s running against Trump in 2024 for as long as he did before dropping out.

Much more fun than the Mueller Report, but just as damning.