This was dumb and everyone involved came out of it looking like a childish moron
Maybe, but going the "high road" hasn't really helped the Democrats. MTG definitely deserves to be called out for her BS. Unfortunately the times so far have a changed and Republicans have no desire to actually return to having good faith discussions over issues as it should be and as you should expect from lawmakers (who should actually act as role models).
It’s not about the high road, it’s about messaging. Congress devolving into argument about whether Crockett has false eyelashes or MTG bleaches her hair (which btw, who cares if either of those are true? What are they, 12? Get a thicker skin people ) while Comer uselessly flails around in a pathetically incompetent effort to restore order just made everyone look like obnoxious bickering children. A big part of Democrats’ pitch is supposed to be “we’re the grown ups, you can trust us not to burn the House down even if you don’t love everything about us, whereas the other option is a rabid, lawless, deranged mob.”
This, too. Democrats are supposed to be the mature ones, and too bad if it involves biting our tongues sometimes. You can already see the both-siders making this a both sides thing. Mind you, there are enough low-info voters who actually think that simplistically, and if Crockett hadn't retaliated, there would be simply no way of both-siding. It would serve as another classic example of the GOP being classless and being unable to rein in its members. Now we're hearing the traditional both sides bullsh**t that "they both are wrong," and unfortunately, it's all a wash.
Both parties should be censured. If they can be fined, they should be fined as well. And the leadership of both parties should relegate them to less politicized committees.
That, of course will not solve the problem. Nor is this the first time we have been here. There were fist fights and a vicious caning in the Halls of Congress leading up to the Civil War, and this is part of the process that led up to secession and the Civil War. (Many Congressmen were living in dumpy rooming houses and heavily drinking, as DC wasn't the swinging town it is now.)
I do think that the people of North Georgia could elect a more effective advocate for their causes than MTG. I would certainly support a primary challenger.
It's funny you should mention this. I read The Field of Blood by Joanne Freeman a few years back and recently began perusing it again (will probably reread it when I have more time over the summer) - it details numerous instances of such antebellum bedlam. The parallels between the southern Democrats of the 1850s and the GOP of today, between the northerners of the 1850s and the Democrats of today, is quite striking.
I don't consider the GOP today as being the Fire Eaters of the 1800s. The Fire Eaters were a minority then, and the "Progressive" caucuses (the "Squad", other "Democratic Socialists", etc.) are a minority within the Democratic Party today, but they are a Tail That Wags The Dog much as the Fire Eaters were in 1860.
Had the Fire Eaters not controlled the 1860 Democratic National Convention (held, of all places, in Charleston, SC), the Democrats would have likely nominated Stephen A. Douglas in a unified convention without a need for the Fire Eaters to put on a show for the Home Folks if the convention was held in a different city. Whatever the virtues and vices of Stephen A. Douglas were, had there been no Breckenridge and no Bell running, he'd have likely been elected President and there would likely have been no Civil War. That, of course, begs the question of slavery; Lincoln's election cost us the Civil War (a truly awful war that was described as "The First Modern War), but gained the Emancipation, which many say would have come about eventually without the war, but don't really present compelling facts as to how that would have come about other than the kind of war we had that was, in fact, over that issue.
The big difference here is that we now have ideologically based parties. This is a new development; the GOP had a significant number of liberals through the 1970s, and the Democrats had a significant number of conservatives through the 1970s as well. What happened was an end to the seniority system and the election of committee chairs by the Democratic Caucus. Suddenly, you could no longer be a Rep. F. Edward Hebert (D-LA) or a Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-MS); you had to moderate your record. Hebert would not and was ousted from his chair at Armed Services. Whiten turned into a reliable Democratic vote and became chair of the Appropriations Committee. That ideological realignment has now become complete; there is more ideological conformity in both parties now than at any time before in our history. I expect the loggerheads to continue, to be honest.