The pro wrestling aspect is salient here because the 20 Republicans voting against McCarthy each have false, manufactured personalities which need to have a weekly storyline and conflict or else they die. This was true (is true) of Trump as well, but it wasn't his main problem.

It's better if politicians don't lie to voters and don't hurl gratuitous insults at each other in front of voters, but government has functioned here for 200 years with lies and insults. The problem with Trump and perhaps also these 20 Republicans is, you can give them what they asked for and they'll still reject the deal, whether out of spite or their own lack of understanding of what the argument is actually about. It's not just an instinctual drive to conflict. Their personality also has an instinctual rejection of consensus, even a consensus around their own ideas.

It's why the only thing Trump ever changed in the law was the tax cut. It's why it took almost his entire term to get even one dollar put towards his border wall. Negotiations with such a person never go anywhere. McCarthy is finding that out.

---

(01-05-2023, 12:44 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(01-05-2023, 12:23 PM)mikesez Wrote: Fair, but Ventura centered all of his ire on other politicians. He did not make the media or intellectuals out to be enemies.  So his impolite style didn't disrupt anyone's sense of or attachment to reality.

Lol, clearly you never read his book or heard any of his speeches.

The man became a Harvard fellow.  He obviously stayed in the good graces of the pundits and intellectuals.

---