Lord, grant us all the confidence of congressional con artists

Given the accelerating deterioration of our world, I find myself almost pining for the days of mere mediocrity.

You know, that now-quaint era when we were faced more with incompetence than insurgency, entitlement than enmity, the middling than the moronic — where privilege may have allowed people to fail up, but not while they were trying to drag down our whole democracy.

Unabashed moral bankruptcy is now the quickest path to success — starting with many of the key GOP figures in Congress, all of whom, in their own ways, have succeeded through far-reaching failure.

We’ll start at the top.

Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) failed to live up to his role as a leader in his party by backing down and not holding Donald Trump accountable after the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.

Two years later, he became House speaker after doubling down in his dereliction of duty by selling his soul — and in the process, I fear, the soul of our country — to a bunch of election-denying extremists who not only won reelection in November but improved their standing in Congress. (And who did McCarthy shout-out after his victory? Former President Cheeto.)

After progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) was seen in floor conversations during the tense speaker vote with two of her most hard-right colleagues, Reps. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) and Paul Gosar (R., Ariz.), Ocasio-Cortez said this:

“In chaos, anything is possible.”

But given what’s come from the turmoil sowed since Trump entered politics, that’s a level of sufferance that seems not only delusional but dangerous. (This is the same Paul Gosar who in 2021 was censured for tweeting an anime-style video of violence that referenced Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden.)

And the GOP drama may soon continue. Fresh off their House speaker spectacle, MAGA supporters this week could also very well start flipping tables again when the Republican National Committee meets to select its new leadership.

At this very moment, we have a flagrant fraudster — let’s call him George Santos-ish because even the accuracy of the freshman legislator’s name is up for debate — who failed at the most basic test of responsible leadership: honesty.

Santos was not just elected but promoted to two House committees, including the Committee on Small Business, where he would, theoretically, anyway, be responsible for rooting out fraud.

This, despite his growing list of lies about nearly every aspect of his life — including grandparents who fled the Holocaust. Lie. Employees who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida. Lie. And a mother who died as a result of 9/11. Another lie.

At least he acknowledges 9/11.

In addition to Santos, there is his fellow GOP colleague, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a 9/11 denier, who lost her committee assignments in 2021 largely because she promoted conspiracy theories.

Now — without irony or shame — Greene, of Georgia, will sit on numerous committees including the House Oversight Committee, with some of her party’s most extreme members — including Rep. Lauren Boebert, of Colorado, and the panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, of Kentucky. Comer has said investigating Biden and his family is a top priority for the new Congress.

“Joe Biden, be prepared,” Greene said in a statement. “We are going to uncover every corrupt business dealing, every foreign entanglement, every abuse of power.”

Boebert said she was looking forward to joining the panel as it launches several investigations, including a probe of “the Biden family’s shady business schemes.”

McCarthy justified his decision to seat Santos, even as more of his lies are uncovered, and seating Gosar and Greene on consequential committees, by claiming that Democrats haven’t policed their own members and defending even the most indefensible members of his party.

“If you’re going to be in a fight, you want Marjorie in your foxhole,” McCarthy told the New York Times.

Mean — and the meaner the better — is the new meh.

It all brings me back to something writer Sarah Hagi tweeted in 2015: “God give me the confidence of a mediocre white dude.” It was an amusingly accurate assessment of not just the rise of the meh male, but also the systems that remain steadfastly set on protecting and promoting inadequacy.

Except these days it’s more like, God shield us all from the callous confidence that has bred a whole new generation of congressional con artists.