“I came here to make sure our Republic doesn’t die by unanimous consent in an empty chamber, and I request a recorded vote!” the bespectacled rebel said in his quickly-stifled stunt.
“Shut the f— up,” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) replied from the gallery, an ABC News journalist heard.
Massie has it backward. Unanimous consent doesn’t kill the Republic. Unanimity, or at least consensus, is what we need in Washington, and what we have lost. Massie and scores like him in the congressional GOP exist to break up consensus, to throw sand in the gears, to hobble government. Maybe Massie’s antics in this moment of national crisis will help Republicans remember that the government they’ve been demonizing is the only thing they have to save a collapsing national economy and stop a deadly disease.
Massie, a believer in the “deep state” conspiracy, is a product of the tea party, a protege of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and a collaborator with outgoing Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who is becoming Trump’s chief of staff, when they tried to oust then-Speaker John Boehner.
