Matt Gaetz just picked the kind of fight with a fellow House Republican that could finally finish him off

| 8:31 pm EDT October 26, 2023
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Now that House Republicans have finally elected a new Speaker of the House, does this mean that Matt Gaetz – who instigated the entire crisis against the will of most of his colleagues – now thinks he’s invincible? Or, with a motion to expel George Santos now underway, is Gaetz worried that House Republicans could also conclude that Gaetz is expendable?

It’s difficult to parse what might be going on in Matt Gaetz’s broken mind. But now he sure is acting like someone who either thinks he’s invincible and can get away with anything, or someone who thinks it’s all over for him anyway and wants to cause as much trouble on his way down as he can.

House Republican Jason Smith isn’t a household name but he’s the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, which means he’s influential. There’s a new recording of Smith calling Gaetz a liar and slamming Gaetz for the entire Speaker debacle. In response, Gaetz now appears to be accusing Smith of being a closeted gay man:

Gaetz seemed to think he was being clever by choosing his words just carefully enough that everyone would conclude he’s saying Smith is gay, without using those exact words. But what Gaetz doesn’t get is that he just crossed the line even without using exact words. This isn’t a court of law. This is a matter of his colleagues simply deciding, based upon their own discretion, that he needs to be expelled.

Either Jason Smith is gay and Gaetz just outed him – which is a highly unacceptable thing to do to anyone – or Smith is not gay and Gaetz is falsely outing him in order to make his life difficult, which is also a horrible thing to do. It’s not just abusive toward Smith, it’s also abusive toward the LGBT community.

Does Matt Gaetz really think that the Republican Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, and his allies, are going to sit there and take this? Keep in mind that because Gaetz is in a far right district, House Republicans can expel him and are automatically assured that the seat will remain in Republican hands after a special election.

Again, it’s tricky to figure out if Matt Gaetz is making these kinds of self destructive moves because he thinks he’s invincible, or because he thinks it’s all over for him anyway. But this is a new level of unhinged. Gaetz is marching himself straight to expulsion. If House Republicans are now willing to cut their losses by expelling Santos, who’s in a district they could lose in a special election, then they’re certainly willing to expel Gaetz given that they’d keep his seat anyway.