Gaza, House Speakership, & Alternatives
[Trivia: Which wars were ended by the following treaties?
Versailles
Ghent
Guadalupe-Hidalgo
Frankfurt
Utrecht]
The word “criticism” can mean many things. It comes from the Greek word meaning to “judge,” and can apply to the interpretation of art that is a kind of artform in itself. It’s this that is explored and lauded by Oscar Wilde in his “The Critic as Artist.” On the other hand, there is the criticism that is done by bystanders, tearing down and unhelpfully pointing out shortcomings. This was typified by some legendary words of Teddy Roosevelt’s,
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause . . .
With that paradigm in mind—our political “leaders” need to listen to Teddy Roosevelt.
In the context of the recent turmoil over the speakership of the House of Representatives, commentator Nate Silver explained the clout that empowers the speakership.
The Speaker of the House wields a lot of power. The House Rules empower the Speaker with all sorts of authority, from the ability to set certain parts of the agenda on the House floor to unilateral control over the physical office space in the House wing of the Capitol building . . .
But most of the Speaker’s political power is not derived from these formal authorities. Instead, he relies on the implicit and ongoing backing of a majority of the Members of the House to maintain his control over the chamber. Absent that durable coalition, the Speaker’s power to control the chamber agenda and influence the policy outcomes withers. And that’s because the House is fundamentally controlled by the majority. Any 218 Members who are hellbent on doing something–or not doing something–will eventually win in the House. And no one, not even the Speaker, has any hope of stopping them . . .
One problem with vacating the Office of Speaker in this manner is that it doesn’t immediately provide you with a new Speaker who commands a procedural majority. The idea behind the rule allowing for the Office to be vacated is that the existing majority in the House might be displaced by a new majority, and that new majority needs a mechanism to take control of the chamber. But the strategy of Gaetz and the reliance on the minority to provide the votes short-circuits the procedure. So we’re left with no Speaker, but also no new procedural majority coalition ready to take over. And that’s still where we are, two weeks later.
The problem with the speaker-vacating move was that it united Democrats and the Matt Gaetz sideshow in one very specific common cause: make the Republican Party look like a nutbin with no serious constitution or character. Matt Gaetz and company had nothing to lose by posing that way, while the Democrats were happy to get aboard. But, as Silver illuminates, that doesn’t leave that legislative body with an ongoing procedural coalition that can plow forward with bills and an agenda. Hence, their feeble headlessness.
Silver went on to note:
A useful reform to the vacating procedures might be to require the resolution vacating the Office of Speaker to itself name the new Speaker. This would likely require a new procedural coalition to form—the minority could easily vote against selecting a new majority Speaker, especially if it was a more radical Member—and it would also prevent the Office from ever actually being vacant.
I agree: this is exactly the sort of situation where tearing down the status quo must be paired with the replacement. If the replacement doesn’t have the votes, then you’re just asking for stymied inability. And if the status quo is truly intolerable, then a replacement will present itself as commanding the necessary votes.
If you trade out one Speaker, you’re going to get another one. There is no reason to invite chaos by distancing that decision from the one to eject the current Speaker.
This also applies to politicians who say mindless things about Gaza. Take for example US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who said the following on October 30:
Hamas, the terrorist organization (so designated by the governments of the US, UK, Canada, etc) that was elected to leadership in Gaza in 2006 and has never since relinquished control, has a long history of stealing billions of dollars of aid. Were they supposed to be more reluctant to do so in the immediate aftermath of terrorism that slaughtered 1,400 innocent people and targeted children? Or can they be expected to promptly steal it? For that matter, Hamas, there in Gaza, by all accounts have stockpiled the essentials that Warren is calling to be shipped in. Warren thundered about Israel’s obligation; what obligation does Gaza’s leadership have to provide for their own people?
Would “humanitarian pauses” and funneling aid into a lawless zone do anything but help the terrorists?
In which case, where is Senator Warren’s better idea?
When running for President herself, Warren said that her “dream running mate” would be Teddy Roosevelt. Perhaps she would do better to listen to him, and be less of a critic.
~
Answer:
Versailles: WWI
Ghent: War of 1812
Guadalupe-Hidalgo: Mexican-American War
Frankfurt: Franco-Prussian War (1870-71)
Utrecht: The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14)
I couldn’t ask about the Treaty of Paris because there were such treaties for the French and Indian War, American Revolution, WWII, Vietnam, the Crimean War, etc.