HOUSE SPEAKER VOTE LAUGH TRACK

December 6, 2023 -Durt Fibo

The obsolete idyllic-dream days of conservative America largely depended on canned laughter to guide comatose citizens through poor plotting. Throughout this week’s hijinks in the conservative sitcom about electing a speaker for the now-majority-Republican US House of Representatives, that same old trick was pulled by another unseen group of noisemakers: the Conservative Action Project.

Founded in 2008, CAP (as they acronymize themselves) consists of, in their own “About Us” website section, “the CEOs of over 100 organizations representing all major elements of the conservative movement – Economic, Social and National Security – as well as representatives of the Tea Party movement.” In this week’s uproarious episodes of Spank The Speaker, CAP has graciously stepped in for an audience overcome by nausea, to act as a claque for the small group of Republicans repeatedly denying Kevin McCarthy enough votes to become Speaker of the House. That small group of roughly 20 dissenters is made of of nominally MAGA loyalists known as the Freedom Caucus, which itself is comprised of the usual suspects -in their case, some literally suspects. In ongoing investigations. Which might have some influence on the Freedom Caucus’ demands beginning this summer to “defund the F.B.I.” See their merchandise for this exact phrase. (MJT was still selling it on her website on ballcaps as of this morning. She is a Freedom Caucus member, but supporting McCarthy for undisclosed benefits)

On the same CAP website cited above, the real world discovered that CAP has run a front-page “Call for New House Leadership,” endorsing the Freedom Caucus and howling that they “are united in our support of the 20 courageous members of Congress seeking to change the status quo in Washington.” As the ‘unity’ is prefaced by their assertion that it “represents” “millions” of “grassroots conservatives” and organizations, this is quantitatively amazing; In fact, CAP represents, or claims to, encompass “100 organizations.” although IBISWorld and Satista put the 2022/2023 numbers of US professional organizations and -ahem- Nonprofits [Tax Code Designation: 501(c)(3)] such as CAP (tax-exempt since Dec. 1997) at 11,112 and 1.54 million respectively.

Although CAP was established by the scandal-peppered and ethically derided former Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese (a vocal opponent of Miranda Warning rights), it is other names signed to this week’s statement endorsing the little Freedom Caucus rascals which caught our attention -most glaringly that of Ginnie Thomas. Others protrude embarrassingly, such as Trump unelection lawyers John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell, and Women for America First chairwoman Amy Kremer, who organized the Jan. 6th Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. that became the violent attack on the US Capitol building.

Humor capable of causing laughter has been analyzed for millennia, and has often been reduced to the formula of something mechanical imposed on something human. The thesis presupposes that ‘mechanical’ reduces the ‘human’ to misfortune, or a resultant stupidity. By adding their own laugh track to the House Speaker show, CAP has given us an utterly confused but excellently pure model to test this ancient premise. See for yourselves; I leave the link to their statement here. And try not to choke.

https://conservativeactionproject.com/conservatives-call-for-new-house-leadership/