Republicans may win back the House majority, but they don’t deserve it

The GOP leadership continues to endorse its most disgraceful members as they disgrace Congress, writes Eric Garcia

Rep Lauren Boebert and Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled the president, Joe Biden, during his State of the Union address (Getty)

In 1776, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, quoting the play Cato by Joseph Addison, writing: “The Events of War are uncertain: We cannot insure Success, but We can deserve it.” Surely, the future president had not met the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and House Republicans, otherwise he would have learned that the opposite is true. Most political prognosticators, myself included, believe that the Democrats will lose their majorities in the House and the Senate this November.

The slew of retirements show they neither want to lose their seats or go back to being in the minority. Similarly, the generic ballot shows that voters slightly favour Republican control of Congress as opposed to Democratic control, given Joe Biden’s dismal ratings. But all of this is more of an indictment of Democratic malfeasance than a vote of confidence in the GOP.

The latest example of Republican behaviour came during the State of the Union address this week, when the right-wing extremist Rep Lauren Boebertheckled the president when he was talking about burn pits and how his late son Beau’s fatal cancer might have been caused by them. Similarly, Boebert’s right-wing-woman Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene joined her in heckling “Build the wall!” when Biden mentioned fixing the nation’s immigration system. It was a spectacle that was more fitting for parents yelling on the sidelines during their six-year-old’s soccer game than it was during an address to Congress.