December 23, 2024 - 8:00pm
Ex-Florida House Representative Matt Gaetz seemed to be tailor-made for the MAGA era, and could have had a stellar future as a potential successor to Donald Trump. That is, had he not been felled by revelations of his private escapades, the lurid details of which are about to be made public by the release of the House’s ethics report.
A leaked draft offers an unsettling preview of the extent of Gaetz’s wrongdoing, which includes allegedly engaging in “prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favours or privileges [to the tune of $90,000 in suspected sex payments to women—including minors], and obstruction of Congress”.
Yet even accepting the premise that Gaetz is up to his neck in muck, there is still an element of tragedy in his downfall. That is because he displayed solidly populist instincts during his short congressional career and could have played a constructive — rather than a purely disruptive — role in charting the future of MAGA. Sadly, that possibility is now dead. There are at least two scenarios for the former congressman: permanent exile or eventual rehabilitation.
For now, Gaetz has a gig at OAN to look forward to, even as he will have to battle the legal and reputational consequences of the fallout. But even if he succeeds with his lawsuit to contain the damage, the fact is he has been purged from the institutions of power and now must consign himself to the realm of cable and podcasts, where outcasts such as Steve Bannon and Sarah Palin are put out to pasture.
But could Gaetz launch a comeback from his OAN perch? It’s possible. The Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio may be out of the question, but there are two other possibilities: a play at the governor’s mansion when Ron DeSantis’s term is up in 2026 or another executive appointment from Trump once the heat from the present controversy dies down.
But in order for such a comeback to be successful and sustainable, he must not only have the backing of the president but also secure the loyalty of his MAGA base as well. The trouble is that the base’s devotion to Trump has not yet proven to be transferable to anyone else besides himself; so far, even his most MAGA-fied lieutenants — like Kari Lake in Arizona or even members of the Trump family — have failed to generate momentum independent of the President-elect.
In other words, to be viable in the long run, Gaetz will need a constituency and a political raison d’etre of his own. In tying his brand so closely to Trump’s, he has fallen short in cultivating these essential assets. Once the light from Trump’s star begins to fade, as it inevitably will one day, why should anyone care about what Gaetz had to say?
As Gaetz settles into a sinecure in the conservative media universe, he could end up somewhere between sharing the status of Bannon, a still active but mostly sidelined individual in MAGA world, and that of Madison Cawthorn, another once promising young gun-turned-ethically challenged outcast whose name is now nothing more than a footnote and a punchline. One thing is clear for now: Matt Gaetz’s Washington career is over.
1TrueCuencoism
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SubscribeAnd since when was a “House Ethics” Report reliable?
Exactly. The House Ethics Committee breached its ethical responsibilities (in my opinion) by releasing this report. No investigative body should release charges like this where the person being charged with criminal activity has no chance to defend themselves. The justice system should never be used for political purposes.
He failed to engage with the Cmtee properly as the Report mentions. He had his chance, but knew he was ‘bang to rights’.
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It’s over. It was weeks ago. His enemies, and he’d generated a good number, probably couldn’t quite believe the stupidity of Don J crackers idea to make this ‘wrong un’ the AG. ‘Anyone for a bit of a background check on this guy given the importance of the role we intend to give him? Nah, who cares about that’. Thus gifting the chance for a spectacular takedown. Not a serious Administration is it.
Now for the next magical bit of judgment.
Everyone hates Matt Gaetz – Democrats, Republicans, Floridians, etc. If this was not the case, they couldn’t have gotten the votes to release this information. It’s not just a couple of women – it’s many young girls. Not sure if he looks more like Beavis or Butthead, but either way, he’s history – and not in a good way.
Matt Gaetz just won an election 66% to 33%. He had previously beaten a primary challenger 70% to 29%. The people in his congressional district seem not to hate him. You might even say they like him.
Myself, I think the House Ethics Committee ought to be ashamed of themselves. They had no business releasing that report. It was sleazy and political. They should leave criminal justice up to the criminal justice system.
The sleaze is not the Report CD, it’s the actions and behaviour of Gaetz. And exactly the sort of thing an electorate should know before deciding whether to vote for them.
It can amaze what behaviour some will contort themselves to defend.
Who’s defending Matt Gaetz? Certainly not me. If you look back at my comments here, I condemned his nomination the day it was announced, and said his nomination even made me regret having voted for Donald Trump. I “guaranteed” that Matt Gaetz would never be attorney general, and I was right. He should never have been nominated.
But the House Committee can be sleazy too. The government should not conduct an investigation and release the results of it unless it brings charges. Everyone on that committee knows that, and the chairman of the committee made it clear that’s why he voted NOT to release the report. After Matt Gaetz resigned from the House, no charges could be brought, so the report should have been tossed. That’s how justice works.
Instead, Matt Gaetz’s political enemies took the law into their own hands and out of the hands of prosecutors in the federal system and the state of Florida. They made the results of their investigation public as though mere allegations were true. That process did not give Matt Gaetz the rights he should have had under the criminal justice system. That “everybody hates Matt Gaetz” doesn’t change that.
I never expected Democrat or Republican politicians to be moral leaders, because we all know they never were and never will be. And any carefully cultivated savior-worship images/words published in Vogue or the Washington Post that suggest otherwise should be immediately questioned for accuracy.
That said, I do expect better from those who pretend to be journalists. They burned their journalism credibility to ash over the past decade by omitting or cherrypicking facts and half-truths to bolster their highly partisan side … until the public completely lost trust in them.