On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Illinois’ 12th Congressional District, Mike Bost, a man whose screaming, flailing, paper-punching meltdowns back when he was in the Illinois State Legislature made him a Youtube legend before he ever made it to Congress. The Chicago press, fascinated with his temper, did some digging, and as far back as an incident in 1986 where he got annoyed at a neighbor’s beagle for biting his daughter, and rather than wait for the proper authorities to handle it and decide if the animal should be euthanized, Bost instead supposedly opted to shoot and kill the dog with his handgun like he was Charles Bronson in a revenge movie. And during his 2014 campaign for Congress, he joked about putting a bullet in Ol’ Snoopy. Between that and the time he started yelling out lines from the Book of Exodus like “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” over worker pensions, or other incoherent rants… “Meltdown Mike” seemed to be a volatile commodity, even for a modern Republican.
With Mike Bost’s history of irrational outbursts, how has he held up against the pressure many Republicans have seen about hosting town halls? NOT WELL. Honestly, it might have been bad enough that he compared the opposition who might show up to Chinese Maoists… but to refer to them with the racist derogatory term “Orientals” while doing it?
“The amount of time that I have at home is minimal, I need to make sure that it’s productive. You know the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them? That’s not what we need. We need to have meetings with people that are productive.”
How quaint. Even without a town hall, Rep. Bost has been chased down by constituents when he’s been in public, like having to face down one resident from his district whose wife has a pre-existing condition, and Bost’s votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement including pre-existing condition coverage would have amounted to a death sentence for her. Bost’s response? “That’s just rhetoric.” (It isn’t.)
Bost regrettably won a third term in Congress with 52% of the vote in 2018, and has continued to vote almost completely along party lines in spite of being in a swing district:
“Meltdown Mike” is someone you would THINK would be a vocal part of the Republican caucus, but he’s self-aware enough to know his career now is dependent on flying under the radar. If he tries to storm classified impeachment hearings yelling his head off, he’s toast.
Hell, he might be in 2020, even if he just chooses to vote against impeachment. And Congress would be better for it.