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Hortense's avatar

And yet there is still no idea of what the Freedom Caucus wants. Rinse, repeat.

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

The Freedom Caucus wants Trump to be reelected to the presidency in 2024. They are willing to sacrifice everything else to help Trump. Unfortunately, about half of GOP voters agree with this priority.

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Hortense's avatar

I can see this. I would want them to formally state that they want Trump back as President and that they approve of and encourage political violence and cronyism, since this is all Trump wants. Unfortunately, MAGA peasants will not survive this unless they use their torches and pitchforks against the MAGA elites.

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Josh's avatar

Airtime. We've known that all along.

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R Mercer's avatar

Gaetz is in it for the fame, glory, and grift.... and to maybe be governor of FLA and then President.

As JVL said, it is about wanting to feel relevant and powerful. Pure ego.

All of this is a good advertisement for doing away with ELECTED representatives for a better system of representation.... not that it matters.

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Josh's avatar

Yeah, the new school that Trump demonstrated, where persona and braggadocio are worth more than anything resembling a track record.

Which is a logical outgrowth of the long-running Republican platform that all government is evil, and therefore competence in governance is considered proof of corruption.

And now as the House caucus tries to figure out how to not autocannibalize while a tail of self-aggrandizing gloryhounds wag the dog, they're painfully rediscovering why administrative competence actually counts for something.

The problem Gaetz has is that the exact trend JVL was talking about with youth sports is in play here- the first one in is the one who profits, everyone else just has to play along to keep up, and things equalize again. Gaetz has no stronger constituency at present than MTG, or Kari Lake, or the constituency pretty pretty Madison Cawthorn had for half a term or so.

Hell, MTG is another example- six months, a year ago? It was all MTG all the time. But since she got expelled from the FC and tried to put on a veneer of respectability, she's been left in the dust. DeSantis went from MAGA darling to staring at career death in mere months. And he pathetically tried to recapture some relevance by piling onto the Bud Light story a full month after everyone else had already weighed in.

That's the life for the MAGA fringe now- desperately chasing those moments and hoping that they catch just the right one to go somewhere.

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Hortense's avatar

Gaetz did scurry out to talk to reporters.

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Eric B's avatar

Joe did tell us before that Gaetz is always in full TV make up.

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Hortense's avatar

Yes, let's then hope that he runs for governor and loses, then finds space at some very small media market.

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David Court's avatar

In a word, Chaos. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, McHenry can accomplish.

Query: Do the Rules allowing one crazy person to move to vacate continue to apply?

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Eva Seifert's avatar

Oddly the father of Chaos in the 80s, Gingrich, is against Gaetz.

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

Gingrich used power - and chaos - to achieve policy objectives. Gaetz doesn't care about policy.

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Geoff Anderson's avatar

Gonna admit that OpEd by Newt was pretty ballsy.

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steve robertshaw's avatar

That's the first thought I had too when I read that.

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David Court's avatar

Jealous that he did not think of it first?

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Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

More likely jealous of the cash donations of Gaetz and MTG.

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Hortense's avatar

We are going to find out all kinds of things. It's going to be a ride.

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