Zoe Gast, Senior
This past Wednesday was president Biden’s second State of the Union speech and his first since the midterms, where control of the house was awarded to the Republican majority. Although this historical speech was listened to intently by families around the country, the atmosphere on the floor differed. Over Biden’s 73-minute speech, multiple interjections were made by members of the Republican party, with people like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene screaming “Liar” at Biden while speaking. These “attention-grabbing” antics by the Republican party show how former president Donald Trump has influenced their ways. These heckles are not only childish but also in direct defiance of House decorum rules that require a certain level of respect on the floor. According to these official rules, one must wait to be recognized before speaking, and when speaking, one must refrain from any personal criticisms. Author Demirjian points out that these rules are “only as strict as the speaker charged with enforcing them,” noting that this was not a particularly strong suit for Speaker Representative McCarthy. After 15 rounds of voting, each forcing him to submit farther and farther to the fringes of his party, he already has dwindling support. Therefore, in order to stay in the good graces of his party, he stood silent while his members blatantly disrespected the fabric of our democracy.
The general situation of disrespect on the floor of our highest order of democracy was disgusted me. The outbursts from fringe members of the Republican party signaled a deep-seated disrespect to their co-workers when they should be working together. This exhibits the divide of partisanship not only within each branch of government but between them as well. However, I could not help but wonder about the role my own political bias has in my reaction. When former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi showed disrespect to President Trump during his state of the union speech, I was shocked, but not necessarily to the same degree. Her show of disagreement was not at the same level that was shown this week, but I wonder if many of the same people condemning this break in decorum were condemning Pelosi in years past. The way the Republican party blatantly breaks decorum rules and disrespects the process of our government has significantly changed after the age of Trump’s presidency. One of his many claims of fame, one that gained him a majority of his followers, was his belief in always speaking what he thought. His followers deemed his seamlessly thoughtless outbursts, similar to proceedings discussed in this article, as the truth. As detective Benoit Blanc says in the 2022 film Glass Onion, “It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth.” This notion has exploded into prominence after the 2016 election with Trump’s nomination, and these quick heckling remarks prove that although no longer in power, his position continues to affect the fabric of the current Republican party in this new era of “Trumpian” politics.