There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

‘It’s embarrassing’: Republicans worry they have no achievements to run on in 2024

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, has openly questioned whether the GOP deserves to keep the House majority, lamenting the lack of accomplishments this Congress. He’s not alone.

When Congress began the new year, Rep. Andy Biggs gave a television interview and made a startling confession: House Republicans have done nothing they can run on.

“We have nothing. In my opinion, we have nothing to go out there and campaign on,” the Arizona Republican said on the conservative network Newsmax. “It’s embarrassing.”

Anchor Chris Salcedo responded with a bemused chuckle. “I know,” he said. “The Republican Party in the Congress majority has zero accomplishments.”

The exchange captured a dynamic that looms over Republican lawmakers heading into the 2024 election: They’ve passed little substantive legislation since winning the majority in 2022 and struggled to do the basics of governing with a Democratic-led Senate. Their first year was instead marked by fractiousness and chaos, complicating the party’s pitch to voters this fall. The challenge is accentuated by likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump making “retribution” against his enemies, rather than shared policy goals, the centerpiece of his comeback bid as he continues to spread fabricated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Xtallll ,
@Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Don’t feel bad champ, you held the second most votes for Speaker of the House, that’s almost a record, you took the most basic part of your job, something that has been done 129 times, and only taken more than 1 vote 16 times (once since the civil war) and turned it into an international embarrassment, twice, in January it took 15 rounds to select McCarthy, then 10 months into the 2 year term you did it again!

BigMacHole ,

That’s NOT true! They have MANY accomplishments!

They forced raped 10 year olds to give Birth! They forced poor people to pay back predatory student loans! They protected Rich CEOS who poisoned American Citizens! They ROLLED BACK Child Labor Laws! They banned the Bible and Dictionary! They made Healthcare ILLEGAL! They protected Cops who killed Kids or watched Kids DIE! They KILLED and TRAFFICKED people! They haven’t passed a Budget!

These are EXACTLY why Republicans keep voting for them! To do EXACTLY this!

reagansrottencorpse ,

“Keep hurting the people we want hurt, you’re doing great!”

anarchy79 ,
@anarchy79@lemmy.world avatar

They banned the Bible? I’m in favor of that. Enough bronze age superstitions running society already

IamSparticles ,

They banned the Bible?

Sort of. A few districts in states where they instituted “parental oversight” laws got challenges for the bible, so it was temporarily removed from school libraries until it could go through the review process. AFAIK in every case, it was rubber-stamped instead of facing a review consistent with other challenged books.

anarchy79 ,
@anarchy79@lemmy.world avatar

What.

I mean that’s fukn amazing.

This brings great joy to me, thank you for the update.

Hahahajajajajja

billiam0202 ,

Being the least-productive Congress in American history is a kind of accomplishment…

corsicanguppy ,

Don’t be upset, Republicans. You also have no positive achievements in the 40 years leading up to 2024 as well.

Sterile_Technique ,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

…wait, Republicans are capable of feeling embarrassment??

Poor fellers must be absolutely miserable.

donuts ,
@donuts@kbin.social avatar

Having no achievements never stopped them before.

Imgonnatrythis ,

The ignorant and impotent are the angriest , loudest, forked-tongued demons there are. Like burnt out junkie mothers screaming at their children.

PrincessLeiasCat ,

So what you’re saying is that you may have to face the consequences of your own actions?

Damn. The struggle is real.

asteriskeverything ,

Guess they can’t really brag about where they actually focus energy: stonewalling any and all progress and poisoning the public’s opinion and trust of “the Other”, whatever the target may be.

buzz86us ,

Anything that doesn’t benefit big oil.

anarchy79 ,
@anarchy79@lemmy.world avatar

There’s plenty other industries they support. Arms, drugs, finance, probably human trafficking but that’s just an educated guess.

NigelFrobisher ,

Would the electorate even notice I’d they said they didn’t?

the_q ,

Have they ever? I guess the could brag that they’re literally the anchor holding this country back. “Look at us! We’re cancer!” - Republicans

marx2k ,

What, cant run on grievances in perpetuity?

Kichae ,

It really seems like they can, which is why the headline is kind of bizarre.

Asafum ,

And for some reason the bit about Trump running on revenge is put as a negative… Newsmax/Fox brainwashed magas live for vengeance, they LOVE Trump because he’s a vehicle to attack people they don’t like.

The GOP is stuck in the “good” old ways of thinking about selling themselves to the population via the things they’ve done. Trump just says “elect me and help you kill liberals.”

frezik ,

They can’t go on indefinitely. It works because they attack each other in purity contests; the fight over speakers (twice) was one major front in this. Eventually, you run out of people to purify and need to invent a whole new issue. If you don’t, your support evaporates as people look for actual solutions to their problems.

There’s a strategy here that I don’t think has been fully utilized. If you can get the right to speedrun their purity contests against each other, you might be able to watch them eat each other quietly in a corner rather than dragging the whole country into fascism.

numan ,
@numan@lemmy.l0l.city avatar

Isn’t that what they wanted?

yarr ,
  • Managed to delay starting work for weeks due to Speaker votes impasse
  • Held numerous hearings investigating Biden’s son and the origins of COVID-19, resulting in no substantial findings
  • Ensured that an $858 billion defense spending bill passed, but it was mostly a continuation of previous policies
  • Brought forth a bill proposing cutting federal food stamp benefits by approximately $13 billion over ten years
  • Passed a resolution condemning Antifa and Critical Race Theory, without any legislative actions following through
  • Held multiple congressional meetings on the dangers of TikTok and Big Tech while doing little about them
  • Introduced and passed a bill prohibiting federal funding for gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which President Biden ultimately vetoed
  • Pushed for a national sales tax to replace income taxes but failed to gain support
  • Proposed a bill to ban earmarks but later reversed their decision after facing backlash from within the party
  • Made headlines with a proposal to cut off federal funds for schools teaching “divisive concepts,” but the bill died in committee.
scaredoftrumpwinning ,

On the talks with the social media companies didn’t they make sure government couldn’t interfere? They delayed the promotion of the military officers over abortion

Mnemnosyne ,

So there’s actually two things there that sound good to me, that I immediately doubt because if Republicans were in favor of it I have to assume there’s something horrible about it…

What’s bad about a national sales tax, and banning earmarks? Those kinda sound like good things to me.

jeremyparker , (edited )

Sales taxes disproportionately impact the poor.

First, any tax that’s a fixed percentage will be a higher percentage of a person’s income even that income is lower.

Secondly, there’s a point in “wealth generation” where you don’t spend everything you make. Money that you save isn’t taxed by a sales tax – so, again, the less money you make, the more it impacts you.

Regarding “earmarks” it really depends on what it’s for. As a blanket statement, “Earmarks Are Bad” is just a small government taking point – which itself can be understood as an anti-poor dog whistle, since conservatives call support for society’s most vulnerable “wasteful spending” – but you can often hear “earmarks” in reference to defense spending, which is typically a Democrat talking point.

I think that “earmarks” is actually a really interesting word, since, in a practical sense, it never means anything – or, more accurately, it always means nothing specific but I’m a vaguely specific way. The word doesn’t refer to a specific spend, but it refers to a specific kind of spend – so it sounds much more specific than it actually is.

If a politician refers to a specific earmark, they run the risk of alienating whoever benefits from it; by being exceptionally vague, they can associate their brand with fiscal responsibility without actually doing anything fiscally responsible.

CoffeeJunkie ,

I’m just curious what a world with sales taxes instead of income tax would look like. I’m sure that the poor, and the retired, would be disproportionately impacted. But income taxes are impacting most of us, right up the ass, all the time. And what a waste of time, energy all the tax filing nonsense is. That’s not fair, either, and I want to be freed from it.

yarr ,

I didn’t express good OR bad. I just listed some of the things that were done.

Varyk ,

At least they’re consistent.

GoofSchmoofer ,
@GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world avatar

Bragging about accomplishments and compromise is the old way to campaign.

The modern form of getting elected is not to actually do anything. Because if you solve a problem then you can’t scare your voters with that problem in the future.

An example of this is abortion. Conservatives could always count on the one issue, “pro-life” voter to give them their vote to ban abortion. Now that it’s become easier for states to restrict abortion there is less incentive for these one issue voters to come out to the polls.

I fear that the left is starting to see the effectiveness of the “scare the voter” strategy and will drag their feet on certain hot topic issues like abortion so they can get more votes.

tb_ ,
@tb_@lemmy.world avatar

What is this, Brexit?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •