The election of the Speaker of the House for the 118th Congress was anything but boring. There was nothing standard about the procedure, in fact, it stood in stark contrast to the sanitized, orchestrated, and dishonest J6 committee hearing that the networks have forced the nation to watch, ad nauseam.
It wasn’t so much that the issue is really of no interest to anyone who was not there, who can’t squeeze some political juice out of it or provide rabid Trump haters with another stick to beat the nice man with. Everyone knew it was a show trial, a kangaroo court, an echo chamber of people with a set narrative that was designed to settle all things J6.
The real purpose of the show trial was not to get to the bottom of what happened that day, because they all know full well what happened. They were there after all. They were all told a breach had occurred by the radical MAGA, Trump supporting knuckle draggers because Trump himself had told them to attack the Capitol and stop the electoral vote from happening. Yeah, not so much.
The problem is, they claim the breach happened at 12:53 when Trump was still speaking for another 25 minutes … at the White House …. Which is about a 55-minute walk to the Capitol. The mainstream media wasn’t carrying his speech, which of course said nothing about attacking the Capitol, just the opposite. He said to be peaceful and patriotic, not that he had to tell his supporters that. This group had come to town the day before to do a prayer walk around the Capitol. Not exactly your typical insurrectionists.
But it was the way the hearings were conducted that seduced the American people into believing this is the fair way to get to the truth about what actually happened. You know … you only have witnesses that can reinforce your position. You only show evidence that proves your point. You only allow one hand-picked producer to have access to 14 hours of security tape to help make your fabricated case. Oddly, he only used about 2 minutes of it and it was clumsily crafted into peaces that would be destroyed, frame by frame on cross examination. But that never happened.
The mesmerizing aspect of the committee was the obsequious virtue signaling accented with very convincing stage craft tears that will live forever in digital form in the universe. Crying Adam will always be remembered as a class-A putz because he really thought he could out feel-the-pain of Bill Clinton. He was a pro at the bottom lip suck with a dash of tightness in the throat, shaky voice and halted speech. Well done, Adam. I’ll have my girl to call your guy next time we have a casting call.
The Queen of the House, Nancy Pelosi. couldn’t have been prouder of that committee if she had given birth to all of them. They were, after all, created in her image. They are the Borg, and she is the queen bee, the one who called all the shots and destroyed anyone who dared to cross her, challenge her, or disobey her.
Remember that first State of the Union when all the new freshmen squad members had just been elected? They sat there on the floor of the house in this tight, orchestrated formation, getting all the cues from their dear leader who ordered them to look like silly sorority sisters at rush, all dressed in white.
What a pitiful scene of robots programed to dutifully follow the actions, hand signals and glances from their dear leader. It was an embarrassment to all women who think for themselves and don’t mind mixing it up a little in a good old fashioned food fight.
Which brings me to the most recent food fight. Wow, what a week of disharmony, disarray, opinions, arguments, debates, a little name calling and entrenched positions on a very important issue: Who do the Republicans choose to be the next Speaker of the House?
It was refreshing on all counts because it was a pure reflection of what and who America is, was created to be and will cease being if we silence this type of raucous interplay by our elected officials. They were all doing what they knew they had been elected to do. They work for their constituents, not the Republican Party, not the Speaker of the House and certainly not the president.
The first couple of days of flying spit balls and rotten tomatoes caught America off balance because they only read about that kind of conflict in the history books. Like the time Preston Brooks stormed across the Capitol from the House side to the Senate side with his ire directed at Senator Charles Sumner, one of the founders of the Republican Party. He was also an outspoken abolitionist and spoke against slavery every chance he got. That ticked off little Preston who was a dutiful Democrat supporter of slavery.
He stormed into the Senate and began whacking Sumner over the head with his weighted cane that he used to hit people who opposed slavery. He almost killed Sumner while Democrats stood around applauding and fellow abolitionists saved his life.
So the actions on the floor of the House during the election of the Speaker for the 118th Congress is tame compared to the way life used to be on the hill.
After the Republicans formed their party in 1854, they selected Abraham Lincoln as their first president and the Democrats developed a hit card with the photos of key “radical Republicans” on the front, and their names on the back. Yes, they were targeted by the Democrats for extinction. Sound familiar?
After the Republicans won the war, liberated the slaves, passed Amendments giving them freedom, equal rights and voting rights, the newly elected black members of congress were now targets of the Democrats and they had to go armed to congress to defend themselves.
So, the latest little dust up over the speakership was a bit quaint and civilized. We are used to seeing the manicured and scrubbed tyranny of leaders who control with an iron fist, with absolute compliance and a healthy dose of fear for straying off the plantation.
It’s a lot like the Truman Show where the ideal little town looked so perfect and benign as they all lived a lie in order to keep the masses entertained. Where there is no conflict there is no liberty, but where there is liberty, there is great debate and discussion about everything all the time.
So, America, lulled by the mundane Truman January 6 show, where all things Republican and Trump were deemed evil and deplorable, was shocked when decorum took a powder. The first few days had everyone appalled at the idea that you could join a small group of 20 dissenters and hold up an entire election for five days and 15 rounds of voting.
But then, as the strategies were explained on national TV, surrounded by the usual know-nothing talking heads who oblige the powers that be by regurgitating the same talking points, things got crazy. People began to take sides suggesting that these silly, undisciplined 20 … plus the 5 Never-McCarthyites … were holding up a system that should be a slam dunk. But we all asked, “what are they seeing that we aren’t seeing?”
It was that moment where Truman starts questioning everything around him, asking what is real and what is manufactured for the entertainment of the masses. Every speech by every dissenter gave another layer of explanation to the reason they were not rubber stamping the heir apparent.
And gradually, the heir realized this side was playing for keeps and if he wanted power, he would have to play nice. It was democracy in action, a front row seat to the making of sausage, and from that point on, what we thought was the real paradigm of governance would be turned on its head.
Truman learned very quickly that to question the status quo, shake the foundation of the establishment and be that lone dissenting voice would bring nothing but grief from all those he had learned to trust and love his whole life. Members of the same political party were close to fisticuffs at one point because our Constitution guarantees free speech, expression, assembly and disagreement.
The side of compliance and dutiful unity mocked the radical ways of their loyal opposition. But not one broke ranks with their leadership.
They were shocked to see dissent at such a raw, passioned and principled level because for them it is always about personality, race, or immutable characteristics, and certainly always about compliance. It’s the age-old battle of freedom vs. oppression … rights vs privilege. And while they pretended to mock, you can be sure that they secretly wished they had that freedom to just question their self-appointed leaders and offer suggestions that could help their constituents, but no … they would not dare say it.
They would become Truman, controlled by the powers that be, that stirred up the waters of the deep to derail him from his search for reality, for something that he could believe in. And he was vindicated in his search when his boat hit the edge of the make-believe world created around him when he was finally free from that lie.
So the cordial, choreographed J6 committee hearings lulled the public to sleep suggesting all is right with the world, until the speaker election ripped that canvas of lies with the point of truth.
Those who were vilified by their own party for standing on principle, in the end, proved that spirited debate is healthy for the life of democracy. They will be remembered with the remnants of many other historic battles as the ones who didn’t blink, back down, cower or capitulate.
They were the ones who stood firm in the face of total annihilation and did what their conscience entreated them to do. They will be the ones remembered for this battle because they have distinguished themselves as the true, loyal, worthy opposition.
And who doesn’t like a good food fight every now and then? Certainly, more entertaining than the dishonest ramblings of a manufactured Star Chamber show trial.
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Nina May is the Founder and Chairman of the Renaissance Women which is an educational non-profit foundation with international and production training programs and opportunities for internships on media projects.
Nina produced, directed, wrote and edited the award-winning documentary Emancipation Revelation Revolution, about the history of the civil rights movement in America, and the role that both political parties played in it. It won the Noir Film Festival in San Diego and was featured at the Liberty Film Festival in Hollywood. She also produced and directed the sequel, “Reparations: Who Should Pay?
As Chairman of the Renaissance Foundation, Nina has testified on a number of occasions before the United Nations General Assembly and before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a variety of issues and has worked with several countries, establishing exchange programs for students and leaders.