-by Nigel Best
Perceived from on high, the downfall of Matt Gaetz was an absolute inevitability.
Much like the bible’s sinful Adam, Gaetz has had a lot of time to contemplate the sins of his own actions.
If what has been revealed in the last few days by a damning U.S. House Ethics report against Gaetz are indeed founded in truth, the former Florida politician cannot inside his mind deny that it is his own arrogance and his own ego regarding his denial of the alleged offenses that have brought about his own destruction.
The pleasures he is alleged to have sought out and enjoyed, the illegal drugs, the sex with underage girls, the paying for sexual favours, as outlined in the report, are the undoing of the man. He of the coiffed hairdo, the all-American jawline, and that perpetual sarcastic grin didn’t just fly too close to the sun, he obviously believed he was the sun.
(That arrogant grin will be the least sardonic way he will be forever mocked about in the hallways of the U.S. Congress regarding his tenure in Washington politics)
Whether his dalliances result in an arrest yet remains to be seen— although it defies reason that Gaetz isn’t right now shaking in his boots at that possibility. No, it wasn’t those unethical pleasures that brought Gaetz to the political gallows as it was his 2023 seemingly one-man ousting of Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, that has underpinned Gaetz’s fall from grace.
Whatever the politics of that ousting were (Enough has been written about that time that it necessitates no recapping here) the reality is that there was always going to be retribution. It doesn’t take reading Shakespeare’s Richard III to know how the internal power politics play out in the courts of any royal castle of old, or any parliament of today.
From the moment Gaetz made his move in 2023, he was damned. If he thought for a moment that he would escape his party’s ire, or the knives brought out in the back rooms of those he angered who would seek retribution, Gaetz, the man with the crooked smile, was destined for an ignominious end.
Gaetz’s alleged dalliances and fleeting love with and of young girls, and his alleged enjoyment of illegal substances, was never going to be allowed to be swept under the rug. Did Gaetz really believe his past would not be scrutinized and eventually revealed? Did he believe his political opponents would just wither away like flowers in winter and not await a moment to bring him to his knees?
No! Gaetz was without doubt never going to hide the alleged crimes from the desk of McCarthy whom Gaetz had almost single-handily starved out of an illustrious and powerful position inside the U.S.’s capital. It must have dawned on Gaetz that his career was, from that 2003 vote, going to slip away.
Then again, blinded by his own narcissism, perhaps he just never entertained the notion that he could be brought down from his lofty ambitions.
For example, if he thought for a moment that his ‘friend’ Donald Trump would be his saviour, Gaetz fell for a ruse. It is well documented that Trump is fair weather with allegiances to ‘friends.’
It is also well known in D.C. circles that Trump’s announcement just a few weeks back of Gaetz being a nominee for Attorney General in Trump’s incoming administration was only ever intended to flush Gaetz out of government completely.
Gaetz let his ego get the better of him, taking the lure hook, line and sinker, announcing his departure from his seat in the House to prepare for his potential new role. He just didn’t realize, according to certain sources, that the in-house Ethics Committee report on Gaetz’s alleged behaviours would be made public, forever sinking whatever political currency he had left.
The truth is, there was little political currency in hand for Gaetz. Definitely not enough for any legitimate return to D.C.
So, what’s left? I doubt the former House member, outmanoeuvred and in disgrace, will now even be palatable to the right-wing One America News Network where Gaetz had been touted to take a seat as a tv news announcer.
Instead, with a shadow cast over him, he stands instead at the, if I may, Gaetz of a hell of his own making. Outcast and in disgrace.
“Lasciate ogne speranza, vai ch’intrate.”
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