Sixes and Sevens — An Act of Courage to Save the Country

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 24^th, 2023

I haven’t been writing political pieces for the past few weeks for the simple reason that the political scene in the United States has gone utterly mad. I don’t need to spell it out for you. You already know that a small group of febrile zealots and fascists have leveraged the slim margin the GOP have in the House to turn the place into an utter clown show, aided by the weakest and most ineffectual Speaker in the history of the Republic. You know how bad the situation is; they want a shutdown for all sorts of crackpot reasons; ban abortion, impeach Biden, and, oh, I don’t know—maybe make NASA come clean about the great UFO conspiracy, or hang General Milley, or something.

There IS a way around this, though, and I’ll bet at least some House Republicans are already contemplating the very same answer.

All it would take would be for a relative handful of the sane Republicans in the House to leave the party. Oh, they wouldn’t have to defect and become Democrats; there’s enough conservatives in the Democratic Party as it is. They could just declare themselves independents, and leave the Republican caucus.

For it to work, it would take just six out of the 160 or so Republicans who aren’t really part of the insane clown posse that calls itself MAGA. The math is simple: presently, there’s 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats. Two seats are vacant. If just six Republicans became independent, you would have 212 Democrats, 215 Republicans, and 6 independents. If the six voted with the Dems on the budget plans that already passed the Senate by huge margins (70% of Republican Senators voted for them), the shutdown crisis would be averted.

It would be an act of considerable courage. Quite aside from the inevitable threats against themselves and their families from the violent lunatics that Trump formed into a cult, it would probably be the end of the GOP as we know it. Oh, a new right-of-center party would eventually arise from the ashes, and the sooner the better because no democracy should be a single party, even if it’s ‘the good guys.’ The defectors would be vilified and harassed for years. Obviously, there is some safety in numbers—ask any minnow—and if 12, or 20—defected then that would diffuse the threats.

Now, some of you have probably realized that what I’m suggesting is that we nullify one splinter group that has undue influence in the House and replace it with another splinter group that has undue influence in the House. Those six, or twenty or however many ex-Republicans will effectively control all legislation, even determine not only who the next Speaker is, but which party he is from.

But here’s the main thing that makes this different: this group will self-select based on such criteria as common sense, sanity, desire to un-paralyze the House, and patriotism. Oh, I know most politicians regard patriotism much the same way as most priests regard faith; something to wave in front of the plebs to keep them glassy-eyed. But at the very least they realize that destroying the government in the name of America is bad for business and will probably get a lot of people killed. And they understand that the amorphous and diffuse concept of “America” is a very poor replacement for “The United States of America.” The US as a constitutional democratic republic is far better than the vague, cloying and usually idiotic notions the morons get when they get glassy-eyed over “America” which combines the worst of patriotism and faith.

It could work. It would work. Just six at a minimum. More is better. Yes, it’s a temporary fix, one that will allow the country to stagger forward to the next election when, hopefully, the voters will cast off the madness of the zealots and ideologues that have made “America” something very toxic.

I’m not going to soft-peddle this: it would be an act of remarkable courage by those who defect. They would make many enemies for what at best would be a transitory gain, and some, if not all, might get voted out in the next election, if only because if one party or the other gets a majority, their leverage is gone. I’m not asking them to return an overdue library book; I’m asking them to throw themselves on the grenade. History will view them kindly, for whatever that’s worth.

Are there a half dozen Republicans who have the integrity and guts to do the right thing? If just 2% of Republicans do that right thing, they will be remembered as saving the country from the madness of Trump and the malice of Putin.