In 1997, millions of Americans were introduced to an amazing holiday called Festivus by way of a Seinfeld episode called “The Strike.” As the fictional story went, the secular holiday was created by an annoyed Frank Costanza as an alternative to Christmas, and he came up with a series of odd Festivus traditions to help supplement the holiday.
The most memorable was a fairly straightforward exercise: Loved ones celebrating Festivus are supposed to gather for a dinner featuring the “airing of grievances.”
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, Republicans seemed a little too eager to celebrate Festivus in February, instead of December. NBC News reported:
The House’s new subcommittee dedicated to probing the so-called weaponization of the federal government held its first hearing Thursday. The hearing featured a litany of Republican criticisms of Democrats, government and Big Tech that have featured prominently in conservative media over the last several years, from alleged censorship of the right to cancel culture, and from a Department of Justice memo on threats against school boards to re-litigating which party fell prey to Russian disinformation in 2016.
It was, in other words, a multi-hour airing of grievances. The Costanza family would’ve been proud.
For the rest of us, however, it was a mind-numbing and ultimately pointless display, featuring baseless whimpering from far-right officials who apparently assume mainstream Americans are familiar with their weird claims.
A Politico report noted that the House panel’s Republican majority amplified “a long list of perceived slights,” but the hearing, spanning more than three hours, “contained little new information.” A New York Times report added, “There was sinister talk of destructive forces on the left that Republicans said held undue influence both in the United States and globally. Yet there were no fresh revelations.”
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank marveled at the “errant slugs that ricocheted…
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