Chaos in politics in never a good thing. It leads nowhere, and it usually accomplishes nothing. But, we had a big dose of it recently watching, over several days, the 15 votes that it took to elect Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

You may find this hard to believe, but I don’t think such chaos even helps Democrats. They sat by as helpless as a flounder in the sand. There should be no “I told you so” coming from Democrats. That doesn’t help anyone.

I used to think that it was the Democratic Party which was the most disorganized of the two major political parties. I happened to be a delegate to the 1980 Democratic Convention where the Party engaged in a week-long battle between its then sitting President, Jimmy Carter, and forces supporting the insurgent candidacy of Ted Kennedy. That fracas, of course, ended up helping elect the next Republican President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps, that would argue that the chaos in the House surrounding the election of McCarthy might help Democrats. Yet, they shouldn’t count on it. Right now, I would say that the country has an attitude of “pox on both their houses.” People are just fed up, in general, with things going on in Washington.

What the “dust-up” in Washington illustrated to me is that the Republican Party is in great flux. Right now, the culture warriors in the Party have turned on each other. “Who is the true MAGA believer?” “Who really supports Donald Trump?” “Who has really drunk the Kool-Aid or only purports to?”

For what it’s worth, I see this culture-warrior wing of the Republican Party beginning its descent into irrelevance. The old Republican Party of pro-business, smaller government, private sector-leaning believers will be coming back. It is just a question of how and when.

Traditionally, our deepest commitment to our political leaders has always, ultimately, been grounded in the ideals of the country–Washington with independence, Lincoln with saving the union and ending slavery, or Franklin Roosevelt with lifting the country out of the Great Depression.

Our focus on political leadership has never before been “divide and conquer,” “stop the election,” “crush the immigrants.” The Trump era is in decline. It is just a matter of how long it takes. And, I, for one, can’t wait until it is over.

I have always thought that politics in America is like a giant pendulum. It swings back and forth. Just as you are thinking that the Democrats can never win the Presidency again…they come up with Franklin Roosevelt who wins four terms. Yet, after five terms of Roosevelt and Truman, the Republicans bounce back and Dwight Eisenhower is elected President for two terms.

The pendulum continues to swing. Maybe the chaos in the House, will help swing the balance of power in the Republican Party back towards the middle. If so, it will have accomplished something. Aside from that, the free-for-all, or free-fall, we experienced watching the recent, politically dysfunctional antics in the House will have served no useful purpose.

Rolland Kidder is a Stow resident and a former New York state Assembly member.