The House Republican caucus — like the universe — tends toward chaos

[homersapien 11,377]

Could 2024 be the election year that finally makes the Republican party irrelevant?  Will a large majority of Americans realize that even a flawed government is better than no government?

One can hope.

Why a Jordan speakership seems more likely than a bipartisan one

Analysis by Philip Bump,  October 13, 2023

 

At some point — at one of any number of points, really — the view of government held by many Republicans went from encumbrance to enemy. Ronald Reagan’s “nine most terrifying words” line had become Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” by 2016. It wasn’t just that government and taxes were annoying; it was that government was often viewed as dangerous or harmful, or working against the country.

This is an oversimplification, certainly, and one that doesn’t encompass the entirety of the Republican Party or even all of its most right-wing members. But the idea that the government had joined politicians and celebrities and the wealthy as elements of the hated globalist elite gained traction. Trump pledged, however sincerely, to pull these anti-American agents of change up by the roots, and he was the leader of the party and remains so.

The Republican Party’s recent history of presidential nominations is a useful guide for what’s unfolding on Capitol Hill. So is Trump’s rhetoric: The idea that disrupting the gears of governance is valuable, an aim in itself, increases the willingness of people in positions of power to do so. Particularly when coupled with the encouragement of a right-wing media ecosystem unburdened by having to leverage political power, there is an incentive for people such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to simply lean into chaos. So he did, and here it is.

It’s important to recognize that this impulse seems to become more acute the further one moves along the ideological spectrum to the right. During the last Congress, while Democrats still held a majority, there was a clutch of House members that routinely joined to form a tiny minority of opposition against popular votes. This group was almost entirely made up of the most ideologically extreme members of the Republican conference.

When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was seeking election as speaker in January, the opposition he saw was mostly from the fringe right, often the same people. Entreaties to simply unify around a leader so that the conference could get to work were not compelling to people focused on disrupting the business of government, just as the threat of a government shutdown isn’t compelling. The desired upside wasn’t that the House could start legislating; it was that making noise and generating friction was good for Fox News clips and fundraising emails.

McCarthy won after he allowed a mechanism by which he could easily be removed from his position. Gaetz triggered that mechanism. Now, the House is speakerless, with the Republican majority trying to figure out who might serve as McCarthy’s replacement. It seemed most likely that he’d be followed by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is next in line on the power ladder. But this is a 2016 moment, not a 2012 one, so that transition quickly got gummed up from the right. On Thursday, Scalise removed his name from contention.

The challenge is simple: Neither he nor Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — his further-right challenger for the position — has the support of a majority of the Republican conference. A trial vote intended to unify Republican members around one candidate was functionally useless; far-right legislators (and others) refused to agree to back Scalise’s bid once it got to the floor. Since the caucus has only a narrow majority in the chamber, even a few holdouts threw a wrench into the whole thing. But although Scalise had only a bit over half of the caucus supporting his bid, Jordan had even less. Opposition to his candidacy comes more forcefully from the more-moderate arm of the caucus; many of them find his politics and approach unpalatable.

So there has been speculation that perhaps those more-moderate legislators, often ones from districts that supported Joe Biden in 2020, might simply reach a deal with the slightly smaller Democratic caucus to select a replacement to McCarthy. Stranger things have certainly happened. But there is another possibility, one that wouldn’t risk those legislators becoming immediate pariahs in conservative media and with Republican voters.

That possibility? The moderates simply concede in the interest of getting the House, getting the government back on the rails. That, like Republicans hoping to avoid a difficult internal fight in March or April of 2016, they simply agree to back Jordan or some other more-extreme candidate for the role. There would be grumbling or perhaps concessions of some kind, sure. But it seems more likely that a group more receptive to the idea of institutional preservation will give in on this fight than the group more indifferent to that preservation.

Over the short term, this can be rationalized fairly easily: It resolves the problem, and the House gets back to some semblance of normal with various deadlines and crises looming. But the result is that the more-fringe, more-chaos-comfortable wing of the conference chalks another win, pulls the collective body closer to its position. The universe tends toward chaos not because it’s choosing to but because it’s easier for things to fall apart than it is for them to organize.

On Thursday, CNN released new polling considering the melodrama on Capitol Hill. It found that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were split on McCarthy’s ouster. There was a nine-point gap in approval-disapproval between Republicans and independents, though, with the latter more skeptical. The split was even wider between those who said they supported Trump’s bid for the 2024 nomination and those who didn’t: Among the former group, approval was more popular by 13 percentage points. Those looking at non-Trump candidates opposed McCarthy’s ouster by 2 to 1. But, well, the pro-ouster, pro-Trump side already saw McCarthy ousted and probably will see its candidate win the nomination.

The same poll asked Americans how they felt about various elected officials, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Gaetz. Views of Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, were pretty mixed, with 3 in 10 respondents saying they’d never heard of him. Views of Gaetz were much more negative, driven mostly by Democrats. But the Florida congressman, who holds no position of power in his conference, was known by slightly more Americans than was Jeffries.

People pay attention to chaos more than they do to order.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/13/house-republican-caucus-like-universe-tends-toward-chaos/

Edited October 18, 2023 by homersapien

[autigeremt 6,633]

Blah blah blah blah 

[homersapien 11,377]

12 hours ago, autigeremt said:

Blah blah blah blah 

I excuse you from reading it. (Or anything else for that matter.)

[jj3jordan 2,053]

How does the universe trend toward chaos except for evolution of animals? You know the ones that become MORE organized over time allowing for more and more complicated organisms? The opposite of entropy. Is this one of those laws of science atheists tend to ignore because they can’t explain it? 

 

[AURex 1,999]

Scientifically, I understand the theory of entropy on a cosmic scale. I also know that human endeavors (such as organizations, intentional creation like art and literature and invention), as well as technology and science, work to counter entropy on local, human scale.

As for politics as some sort of inevitable devolution into chaotic crazoidness -- that is not -- in any way -- related to the theory of entropy at the scientific universal level. Political idiocy might be derived from genetic DNA rooted in pre-historic, pre-communal strains of ancestry. But it surely has nothing to do with the concept of entropy.

That said, since I do believe that sub-human crackpots mostly inhabit the political sphere, I can agree that political discourse tends to devolve into idiotic brainless blustering that has zero coherent intellectual explanation or resolution.

 

[auburnatl1 4,929]

Self destructive and hurting the country 

[homersapien 11,377]

13 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

How does the universe trend toward chaos except for evolution of animals? You know the ones that become MORE organized over time allowing for more and more complicated organisms? The opposite of entropy. Is this one of those laws of science atheists tend to ignore because they can’t explain it?

This has been explained many times when people claimed evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics, but since you asked:

The earth is not a "closed" system.  It has had a constant energy input from our star, the sun.

So organization progresses and recedes throughout the universe as long as there are sources of energy to drive it. And even stars can be created when enough mass - which you can think of as organized matter - accretes and compresses due to gravity.

But eventually those sources of energy will be all depleted and the universe end in complete entropy, aka "chaos". 

Thus, the universe - as a whole -  "trends toward chaos" even though there are countless planetary systems - and stars - that continue to organize and evolve along the way there.

Understand?

 

(Some advice: Don't make snarky comments about other peoples presumed ignorance or neglect of knowledge.  You obviously have very little standing to do so.)

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,377]

12 hours ago, AURex said:

Scientifically, I understand the theory of entropy on a cosmic scale. I also know that human endeavors (such as organizations, intentional creation like art and literature and invention), as well as technology and science, work to counter entropy on local, human scale.

As for politics as some sort of inevitable devolution into chaotic crazoidness -- that is not -- in any way -- related to the theory of entropy at the scientific universal level. Political idiocy might be derived from genetic DNA rooted in pre-historic, pre-communal strains of ancestry. But it surely has nothing to do with the concept of entropy.

That said, since I do believe that sub-human crackpots mostly inhabit the political sphere, I can agree that political discourse tends to devolve into idiotic brainless blustering that has zero coherent intellectual explanation or resolution.

 

I don't think it was meant to be taken as a literal analogy, more like a whimsical, humorous allegory.

Edited October 20, 2023 by homersapien

[icanthearyou 4,463]

I hope this does not affect the impeachment inquiry. 

[jj3jordan 2,053]

8 hours ago, homersapien said:

This has been explained many times when people claimed evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics, but since you asked:

The earth is not a "closed" system.  It has had a constant energy input from our star, the sun.

So organization progresses and recedes throughout the universe as long as there are sources of energy to drive it. And even stars can be created when enough mass - which you can think of as organized matter - accretes and compresses due to gravity.

But eventually those sources of energy will be all depleted and the universe end in complete entropy, aka "chaos". 

Thus, the universe - as a whole -  "trends toward chaos" even though there are countless planetary systems - and stars - that continue to organize and evolve along the way there.

Understand?

 

(Some advice: Don't make snarky comments about other peoples presumed ignorance or neglect of knowledge.  You obviously have very little standing to do so.)

 

Well you are the champion of snark so I would never challenge you.  As long as I understand your explanation that entropy occurs until it doesn’t. Then it starts back. Can’t be explained or predicted and measured. Handy for explaining nothing really. 

[Leftfield 2,601]

7 minutes ago, jj3jordan said:

As long as I understand your explanation that entropy occurs until it doesn’t. Then it starts back. Can’t be explained or predicted and measured. Handy for explaining nothing really. 

But you don't understand, or you wouldn't have typed that. As homer said, Earth is not a closed system. You can't think of it as such because what you wrote about organization obviously wouldn't make sense. 

Eventually, of course, the Sun will cease to release energy, at which point, for all intents and purposes, you could consider the Earth a closed system because it will be receiving basically zero energy from outside sources. I think you'll find at that point that the trend toward "more and more complicated organisms" will no longer hold.

[AUDub 11,149]

1 hour ago, jj3jordan said:

Well you are the champion of snark so I would never challenge you.  As long as I understand your explanation that entropy occurs until it doesn’t. Then it starts back. Can’t be explained or predicted and measured. Handy for explaining nothing really. 

The comparison of entropy to disorder or chaos is generally a bad one. Everyone does it though.

[SaltyTiger 7,809]

9 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

I hope this does not affect the impeachment inquiry. 

Nor the tailgate and game tomorrow.

[AUDub 11,149]

23 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

How does the universe trend toward chaos except for evolution of animals?

The universe as a whole will eventually reach a point where there is no more energy that can be converted into work. It’ll hit the point where entropy is no longer increasing. This is the so-called heat death of the universe, where the temperature is perfectly uniform throughout the entire universe.

It is a perfectly isolated system. The only known one that exists anywhere but for the others on paper. 

On a macro level it’s actually hard to view that as disorder lol. Everything will be perfectly uniform throughout eventually.

23 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

You know the ones that become MORE organized over time allowing for more and more complicated organisms? The opposite of entropy. Is this one of those laws of science atheists tend to ignore because they can’t explain it? 

The universe has systems within systems. That ice water you’re drinking is a system. Your house is a system. You’re a system. etc. etc. ad nauseam. 

Earth is one such system, most often framed as a closed one where matter does not enter or leave but energy can (in the form of sunlight).

It’s a little more complicated than that as earth is only conceptually a closed system but it works well for practical reasons.

As others have said, energy is constantly entering earth, therefore entropy can actually decrease. The 2nd law is maintained.

[AUDub 11,149]

13 minutes ago, AUDub said:

It’ll hit the point where entropy is no longer increasing.

I know this sentence sounds wrong on its face because the 2nd law is so often phrased “in an isolated system, entropy can only increase.”

The 2nd law is actually better phrased “in an isolated system, entropy can never decrease.” You can hit a point, perfect thermal equilibrium, where entropy never increases. 

[auburnatl1 4,929]

Actually the universe won’t run out of energy directly, it’ll run out fusion able matter. Hydrogen fuses (creates energy) to create ->helium, fuses to -> follow the periodic table left to right as it generates new elements. When you hit iron , you’re done. Takes more energy to fuse it then it generates (ps heavier elements such as lead or gold comes from super novas). But yes when the lighter elements are all used up by stars - party’s over.

As for the universe chaos metaphor. It’s a stretch. But I don’t have a better one to describe the Republican meltdown.

[AUDub 11,149]

Just now, auburnatl1 said:

Actually the universe won’t run out of energy directly, it’ll run out fusion able matter. Hydrogen fuses (creates energy) to create ->helium, fuses to -> follow the periodic table left to right as it generates new elements. When you hit iron , you’re done. Takes more energy to fuse it then it generates (ps heavier elements such as lead or gold comes from super novas). But yes when the lighter elements are all used up by stars - party’s over.

That’s part of it but only one part. Nuclear fusion isn’t the only form of work. The heat death is a higher level concept on an absolutely massive timescale.

Take supermassive black holes for example. They’ll be around long after the stars but are still an example of energy moving from a higher state to a lower one. They’ll eventually evaporate due to Hawking radiation. 

On the quantum level plenty will still be going on after the stars and black holes, but even that will eventually cease. 

[AUDub 11,149]

What your describing is what’s known as the beginning of the Degenerate era. 

[auburnatl1 4,929]

Just now, AUDub said:

What you’re describing is what’s known as the beginning of the Degenerate era. 

Yes. Trying  to avoid an astro/quantum physics YouTube primer in a political forum. But you’re right about the more abstract energy sources. And with the J Webb telescope - more interesting findings to come.

[AUDub 11,149]

19 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

Yes. Trying  to avoid an astro/quantum physics YouTube primer in a political forum. But you’re right about the more abstract energy sources. And with the J Webb telescope - more interesting findings to come.

It’ll be the particle accelerators a lot of people think are a waste of time and energy that covers the more abstract stuff. 

[AUDub 11,149]

The degenerate era is a good name for this R caucus though. 

[autigeremt 6,633]

On 10/19/2023 at 11:00 AM, homersapien said:

I excuse you from reading it. (Or anything else for that matter.)

You have no excuses. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by autigeremt

[homersapien 11,377]

20 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Well you are the champion of snark so I would never challenge you.  As long as I understand your explanation that entropy occurs until it doesn’t. Then it starts back. Can’t be explained or predicted and measured. Handy for explaining nothing really. 

Just trying to help you to understand physics. Futile maybe, but I'm a generous guy. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,377]

2 hours ago, autigeremt said:

You have no excuses. 

I just gave one to you. 

[autigeremt 6,633]

7 hours ago, homersapien said:

I just gave one to you. 

Yes YOU