Thoughts regarding the Speaker of the House

Technically speaking, the Speaker of the House was not set up as a partisan position. The way the job has been set up, it's not all that surprising that the role has become far too partisan. That said, the process for electing a Speaker of the House has become a total joke.

Ahead of these votes, the two parties meet to decide who they want to elect. There are consequences to defying the party, so representatives overwhelmingly vote however they are told. For those of us who disapprove of blind partisan loyalty, this form of obedience to party leaders is downright disturbing.

I am a big believer in mental diversity. I also believe that even politicians should think for themselves. The kind of consensus we have seen over the years for these votes is impossible in a mentally active and diverse society.

In the recent voting for the Speaker of the House, there were some undeniable problems within the Republican party. I'm not going to go into that side of the votes. The media already fixated on the Republicans. Meanwhile, they overlooked something even worse. The disturbing unity of the Democrats.

Too much partisan unity is a horrible thing. If you have diverse party members representing the diverse population, there will be disagreements. It's bad enough that all Democrats voted the same way in the first vote. They also touted being able to repeatedly elect Nancy Pelosi, the choice demanded by their party, for years on the first ballot prior to this mess. This alone indicates that the Democrats share a brain and have nothing of their own to contribute.

If a party is tolerant of mental diversity, and if they are open to party members forming their own thoughts, bickering is inevitable. An honorable political party needs to be able to work together despite disagreements. The Democrats' embrace of over-the-top partisan conformity means necessary disagreements don't happen in the first place.

As the Republicans kept failing to elect a Speaker of the House, the Democrats didn't budge. If these elections aren't working, you would think the Democrats would be open to doing anything differently. For example, maybe they could have nominated a candidate they though Republicans would be more likely to support. The only deviation I found from the Democrats during this process was a Democrat who was absent for the 12th ballot. This means that Democrats dared to deviate from how they were dictated to vote a whopping 0 times out of a possible 3,179 votes. To me, this is easily the most concerning stat during the process.

The Democrats made one thing very clear. They were there to represent their party. That shouldn't be their job. Their job should be to represent diverse constituents. They frequently criticize the Republicans for putting the party above the people. This is actually more characteristic of the Democrats.

Let me make one thing clear. I'm not saying any of this to defend the Republicans. There were definitely negatives, some of them serious, that emerged during this process. My issue is that the problems with the Republican party should not distract from the anti-thought mindset and the demand for blind partisan loyalty coming from the Democrats. The Republicans are not a valid excuse for the Democrats' mental intolerance.