Mike Johnson survived a speaker vote today, but it won’t be the end of “the chaos conference.” The House GOP majority is just getting started. 

You might expect me to laugh. 

The Republicans can win, but they can’t govern. 

They’re a mess. 

They’re clowns. 

They’re “the dog that caught the car.” 

You might expect me to argue that the chaos will get so bad that people who don’t normally pay attention will start paying attention, and that in time public opinion will turn against the Republicans. You might expect me to say that’s when the House Democrats mount a comeback.

I’m not going to do that. 

Why?

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Because I don’t want to give you the impression that laughing at the Republicans is a substitute for democratic politics, and I don’t want to give you that impression, because there’s plenty of that in circulation.

Whatever the Democrats do, it won’t be due to GOP malfeasance. It will be due to the Democrats’ willingness to fight. Laughing isn’t fighting. Indeed, it can be a cop out. It can be a way to feel morally superior.

I think liberals have a problem. They still believe in the virtue of “the American people” as if the American people were a discrete entity that can figure out on its own what’s true and what’s false – as if it can determine for itself which policies are in everyone’s best interest.

The last election should have disabused us of that belief. The new House is going to be chaos incarnate. It’s going to scam Americans like they have never been scammed before. Trump said immigrants were eating cats. Do you trust the public to figure out what’s going on?

The only way for people to know what’s going on is for the Democrats to tell them. They cannot presume that facts and truth will speak for themselves. They cannot presume that the criminal intent of the Republicans will be so obvious it goes without saying. We live in a time of profound fear, ignorance and superstition. Nothing can go without saying. It must be said. The Democrats must have the guts to say it.

But this would require liberals to reconsider their values. Specifically, it would require reassessing what liberalism means. If it means finding ways to advance a liberal agenda – to flatten social hierarchies in the name of individual liberty, prosperity and justice for all – so be it. 

If it means fighting fair, forget it. 

This is politics. This is not middle school. There is no teacherly authority to appeal to after getting punched in the face by the bully. In the past, liberals could hide behind the skirt of public opinion. They can’t anymore. They must choose. They can hit back and explain why – or they can “turn the other cheek” and rationalize cowardice later.

Which brings me back to laughing at the Republicans.

It obscures the clarity of the choice. Indeed, it gives the impression that no choice has to be made – that no risk has to be taken. After all, if a bunch of clowns invite a bunch of public ridicule with a bunch of stupid infighting, why fight them at all? They’re fighting themselves.

But the Republicans have been fighting themselves since at least 2010. That’s when maga took root. (It was called the Tea Party back then.) Infighting didn’t prevent the Republicans from winning in 2016 and 2024. It didn’t prevent them from sweeping the Democrats out of power by winning the popular vote for the first time since 2004.  

Republican infighting does not determine success in governing, because the Republicans don’t care about governing. They care about creating conditions by which to scam voters into empowering them long enough to scam them a second time before the clock runs out.

Liberals err in believing that governing is consequential to the Republicans. They also err in believing it’s consequential to a large chunk of the electorate. Fact is, they like the clown show. Clowns are entertaining. Liberals tend to believe laughing at the GOP exposes some truth about them. In reality, it probably normalizes their scam.

While laughing at the Republicans reveals little about them, it reveals a lot about liberals, which is to say, what liberals truly care about. I don’t like saying this, but I think it’s true. A lot of liberals, especially white liberals, don’t really want to fight. What they want is to feel better. 

In this sense, politics is not about conflict. It’s not about taking risks. It’s certainly not about sacrifice in the service of an inclusive democratic vision. It’s about social standing. It’s about saying to yourself and your peers, yeah, we lost, but just look at these clowns!

Politics as status prevents liberals from fighting, because to fight is to be like the Republicans, and that just can’t be. Moreover, it encourages liberals to rationalize surrender in advance – to dress up appeasement in the garments of moral principle. It encourages us to believe we don’t have to fight, because, as superior beings, we’ve already won!

It also prevents liberals from admitting to themselves that the institutions of democracy have been captured and corrupted, and that continuing to defend them only deepens and expands the capture and corruption. But many liberals, including those in the Congress, can’t quit institutions, because siding with them puts them above politics. 

Which brings me back to politics as status.

Feeling better should feel bad. It makes the problem worse.

Mike Johnson survived today’s vote. That, however, won’t mean the end of the chaos. As I said, the House GOP majority is just getting started. 

Unfortunately, it won’t mean the end of the laughter, either.

It’s easy to laugh. It’s harder to fight.

So many of us choose to laugh.