There’s usually one person in Congress — in both parties — that folks in the opposition can look at and find it very easy to ridicule.
This year’s Republican Party provides a plethora of candidates, any one of three who would be high in the pantheon.
Sometimes the ridiculous ones make it to the Senate. Forty-some years ago, a Republican from Virginia was voted by Congressional aides as the stupidest man in the Senate. My friend Gary Oleson was in a young adult Sunday school class taught by this senator. I remember asking him if it were true and he said the class members couldn’t even comprehend how the senator had made it through law school.
The three vying for the top spot this year aren’t there just because of stupidity.
The leader in the clubhouse is probably Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, about as much of a Trumpanzee as it’s possible to be and not be named Don or Eric. Although her speaking partner Matt Gaetz comes close.
Greene and Gaetz aren’t really considered serious legislators, but Gym Jordan of Ohio is a serious obstructionist.
Jordan chose a unique way to make himself stand out. The former Ohio State wrestler rarely wears a suit jacket. He’s almost always photographed in just a shirt and tie (and pants, of course). He has thrived politically despite being part of a massive scandal from his days as an assistant wrestling coach at his alma mater.
The team doctor was found to have sexually molested dozens of wrestlers. Jordan swore he knew nothing of it, but numerous wrestlers say he’s lying. Aside from dress and molestation, there’s very little memorable about Jordan, whose actual first name is of course Jim. He pretty much has just two beliefs — cut taxes and oppose everything Democrats want.
Greene is far more interesting in a disgusting way. She has compared Democrats to Nazi Germany, downplaying the Holocaust in the process, and she said the wildfires in the West were caused by Jewish space lasers. She has gone so far beyond the pale that her party took away her committee assignments in Congress.
Like Jordan and Gaetz as well, one of Greene’s big issues is supporting Donald Trump in the Big Lie that Biden and the Democrats stole the 1920 presidential election.
And like her two male buddies, she is in complete denial about the January 6th attack on the Capitol by enraged Trumpanzees.
Gaetz is the one most likely to wind up on the outside. He’s one of the subjects of a sex-trafficking scandal in his home state of Florida, and the main subject — his “wingman” Joel Greenberg — apparently has made a deal for a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony against Gaetz.
It probably doesn’t matter. Even if Gym, Margie and Matt disappeared from the Earth forever (are you listening, Elon Musk?), all that would happen is that three more batshit crazy Republicans we haven’t yet heard of would step forward.
The only thing we know for sure is that they wouldn’t be Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.
Jordan, Greene and Gaetz are so far out there they almost make Newt Gingrich look like a statesman.
Almost.