It feels like it has been weeks, at least, since the last story of bitter House Republicans scheming to overthrow their insufficiently hardline(!) House Speaker Paul Ryan. Rest easy, though: our wait is over.
Several influential House conservatives are privately plotting ways to use the legislative calendar this fall to push their hard-line agenda — including quiet discussions about possibly mounting a leadership challenge to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
If influential House conservatives spent half the effort on improving their rudimentary math skills as they have toward various plots to overthrow their leaders we might make some progress again in America, but no. No, we're going to do this again instead.
All right, we'll bite. Who, oh pray tell us who, we say with anticipation, is on the short list for replacing the not-conservative-enough-for-these-particular-scenery-chewers Paul Ryan as the new leader of the grand and glorious House Republicans?
The group has gone so far as to float the idea of recruiting former House speaker Newt Gingrich or former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum as potential replacements for Ryan (R-Wis.) should there be a rebellion. The Constitution does not require that an elected member of the House serve as speaker.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA—Oh dear. And what masterminds are behind an effort whose would-be saviors include such luminaries as Newt Gingrich and pausing here to savor, Rick Santorum?
The closed-door conversations are being led by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, in consultation with his allies on the right, in particular Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist who recently returned to his perch as executive chairman of the Breitbart News website.
Outstanding. Glorious. Superb.
Here is a truism of the modern era, a golden rule that you can tell your children when they get to be that impressionable age, with a kind look on your face and a pair of sundaes to make the talk go smoother: There is no question facing the nation today that can be answered with "but what about Newt Gingrich?"
And there is no group, anywhere in America, whose current failures can be turned into grand success again by simply putting Rick Don't Look It Up Santorum in charge of it all.
There is not a one. Even if the animals at the local zoo are starving and we're drawing straws to see which of us will be sacrificed to the howler monkeys to keep them fed and happy another day, do not ever, ever pipe up with "but what about Newt Gingrich?" It is a non-starter. Any aspect of public or private life that you might think would benefit from the presence of Newt Gingrich would not—and you are a bad person for thinking so. Any strategy that revolves around making Rick Santorum, yes that Rick Santorum, the public face of your movement is a movement that should have no leader to begin with.
These are indisputable facts. They are binding, and eternal. In the ruins of our once-great civilization, future archeologists will find etchings and pictograms spelling out these immutable laws of nature and, at long last, understand our society and the true implications of our downfall.