House Republicans haven’t been terribly successful at many things this year. They struggled to keep the government open and to keep the United States from defaulting on its debt. They’ve even struggled at times on basic votes to keep the chamber functioning. But they have been very good at one thing: regicide.
On Friday, Republicans dethroned Jim Jordan as their designated Speaker, making him the third party leader to be ousted this month. First, there was Kevin McCarthy, who required 15 different ballots to even be elected Speaker and was removed from office by a right-wing rebellion at the beginning of October. Then, after a majority of Republicans voted to make McCarthy’s No. 2, Steve Scalise, his successor, a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would torpedo his candidacy and back Jordan instead. Finally, once Republicans finally turned to Jordan as their candidate, the largest rebellion yet blocked him from becoming Speaker. After losing three successive votes on the floor, the firebrand lost an internal vote to keep his position as Speaker designate on Friday.
The current system is irredeemably evil though, isn’t it? It is destroying us in an ever tightening death march of greed instead of saving the planet. It is starving and imprisoning, as a means to provide slave labor, instead of using surplus labor to actually feed, clothe, and shelter us all.
Right, humans are historically shitty. The point is that we have mitigated a significant amount of historic evil in the past 200 years, and have a framework for continued progress.
Utopia is a journey, not a destination. But we have objectively never witnessed a greater rate of progress in recorded human history.
But progress is not due to capitalism. (that would be a post hoc fallacy) And global warming is an issue that is coming to a head this decade and the next few to come. This isn’t some distant future utopian problem. This is pragmatic, and essential to continued human survival on this planet.