Lesson of Johnson’s election: The squishes always cave in the end

One of the widely held beliefs of politics is that the squishes always cave. ‘Squishes’ is the pejorative term given to those in the minority of some political group who oppose some policy or action of the majority but are not strong-willed and can usually be bullied into acquiescing. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher used the term ‘wets’ to describe those in the Conservative party who were not sufficiently gung-ho about her policies.

In British slang, “wet” meant weak, “inept, ineffectual, effete”. Within the political context, the term was used by Thatcher’s supporters as both as a noun and as an adjective to characterise people or policies which Thatcher would have considered weak or “wet”.

In the GOP, squishes are those who opposed the various appalling candidates like Jim Jordan who were being put forward to be the speaker. But when they held firm in opposition despite intensive bullying and tanked Jordan’s bid, it seemed like the squishes had suddenly developed some backbone and there was even an article describing their behavior as “the revenge of the squishes”.

But that did not last long. When Mike Johnson was proposed as the Speaker nominee, the squishes returned to form and all fell in line, although Johnson held all the attitudes that they said they objected to in Jordan. They all caved, every one of them.
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Jokes that depend on iconic film scenes

(Mother Goose and Grimm)

To get the joke, you need to be familiar with the famous scene from the film TheTreasure of the Sierra Madre starring Humphrey Bogart.

To the groans of my family and friends, I never hesitate to use the line “We don’t need no steenkin’ badges” whenever the word ‘badges’ comes up in any conversation. Alas, many people have never seen the film and hence I usually just get baffled looks, similar to the reaction I get to the ‘I am Spartacus’ line.

With my immediate family, I have used the badges gag so often that even though they haven’t seen the film, they recognize the allusion. I particularly enjoy using it when the word ‘badgers’ comes up, because the pun and the absurdity of the reference is what makes it funny, to me at least.

I have the sense of humor of a six-year old.

How do you fix a broken political party?

There is widespread acceptance outside the MAGA cult that the Republican party has ceased to be a political party in any accepted sense. Even within the MAGA movement, there are those who have contempt for the Republican party, seeing it as part of the establishment that is not fully accepting of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT). The rot did not begin with SSAT’s takeover of the party, though. The rot started earlier, and John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin has his running mate in 2008, and the way she was embraced by so many, was the first serious sign that it had ceased to be a serious party. But the surest indication that a political party has gone seriously off the rails is when a demagogue with no serious policy agenda but instead spouts a series of grievances is seen as a savior and becomes its unquestioned leader, leaving it as just a hollow shell. The brutal ouster on Kevin McCarthy as speaker, someone who tried to have it both ways as a establishment figure as well as a MAGA cult member, was seen as the stripping away of final veneer of any political credibility.

Politico had an interesting roundup of opinions from academics and journalists about how it went so horribly wrong for the Republican party and what needs to be done to make it into a party again. I picked out just a few of the many contributions and the gist of the things they said.
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Cartoons that explain McCarthy’s downfall

Choices have consequences.

Incidentally, it appears that it was McCarthy who ordered the immediate eviction of Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer from their courtesy offices on the very day of his ouster. This kind of pettiness is not going to help the GOP when the time comes from them to seek help from Democrats to get them out of messes of their own making, as McCarthy found out, when after repeatedly going along with the Trumpian demonization of Democrats, he expected them to throw him a life-preserver when his own job was on the line.

McCarthy has only himself to blame for his woes

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Kevin McCarthy loyalists are seething with anger over his ouster from the position of speaker. It would be understandable that they would be angry with Matt Gaetz and the seven other Republican congresspeople who voted for him to go. But they seem to be even more angry with Democrats for not voting to keep him in his position, acting as if it were an unprecedented betrayal, even though it has always been the case that it was up to the majority party to vote in and keep the speaker and that the minority party always voted against.

At his press conference, McCarthy blamed the Democrats for what happened but Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez was having none of it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) railed against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calf.) for blaming Democrats for being ousted from his leadership role in a historic vote. 

“Does anyone believe for one minute that McCarthy would help elect a Dem speaker ‘for the institution’?” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “McCarthy’s hubris is a theme. He loudly stated he wouldn’t negotiate [with] Dems, called virtually none, trashed those who helped w/ [a continuing resolution], and then expected Dem votes for free?”

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“I am Spartacus!”

(WuMo)

If you get the joke in this cartoon, then you likely have seen the 1960 film Spartacus starring Kirk Douglas in the title role and Tony Curtis as his loyal friend and ally, that was directed by Stanley Kubrick with the screenplay by Dalton Trumbo.

Here is the scene.

Trumbo had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era because he had refused to provide names to the congressional committees seeking to identify Communists working in Hollywood and it is assumed that this scene was designed to praise those who refused to betray their friends and colleagues.

The scene has become iconic and I assumed that it had seeped into the popular culture by now so that at least people of my generation would know of it. But it is not the case. I once told a story to a couple my age of a person who would give his name as Spartacus to the baristas at coffee shops so that when they called out his name, he could stand and say, “I am Spartacus!”

My friends had blank looks which told me that they had no idea what the point of my story was so I had to explain it to them, which of course ruins any humor.

Camping

In the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, Rat is the most unpleasant character, someone who is rude, self-centered, and cynical. So it is disturbing how often I find myself agreeing with him.

(Pearls Before Swine)

Actually, I did go camping once. Just after we completed college, a group of a dozen friends spent a week on a beautiful, isolated stretch of beach in Sri Lanka. I had a lot of fun but part of the enjoyment for me was the novelty. Now it is a case of ‘been there, done that’ with no desire to repeat that experience, though some of my friends on that trip continued to enjoy going camping all their lives.