“It’s exactly the wrong people who are wanting to leave,” [Brendan] Boyle told me. “The performance artists love the circus, it’s what they crave.” Boyle’s message to those considering the exits: “If you all leave now, you’ll only make it worse here.”
Representative Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who knows something about the value of institutional memory, was even more direct: “Don’t let the bad guys win.” It’s not just Democrats who are angst-ridden about what more turnover could mean to Congress.
Representative Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) was impassioned, mixing patriotism with shame in her entreaty. “It’s a function of duty — to our country, our democratic republic, our communities and our families,” Wagner, the mother of a West Point graduate, told me. “If rational, common sense, get-it-done, consensus-building conservatives give up, the do-nothing, click-bait, self-serving, chaos caucus wins. And America and the world loses.”
