Remember the midterm election campaign last year? Remember what Republicans ran on? Apparently they're counting on everyone just conveniently forgetting, and pulling their usual "bait and switch" trick by loudly proclaiming they have a sweeping "mandate" on all sorts of stuff they barely (if ever) mentioned while running for office while largely ignoring the things they did actually run on. With the House of Representatives in Republican hands now, we will all get to see their real agenda, as opposed to the agenda they sold to the voters last year. The open question is what the public will think of it all.

Republicans, for the past decade (at the very least) have gotten elected with one overarching top priority: politically weaken all Democrats and the Democratic Party as much as they possibly can, in the hopes of improving their chances in the next election. To those unfamiliar with this concept, just think: "Benghazi!" -- Republicans rode that political hobbyhorse about as hard as they could, just to tarnish Hillary Clinton's political prospects.

That was then and this is now, however. The key phrase nowadays isn't: "...but her emails!" anymore, but rather: "Hunter Biden's laptop!" You can expect to hear lots and lots about it in the coming months, ad nauseam.

But let's get back to the bigger picture. Heading into the midterm election season, Republicans thought they had three big themes to run on: COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the southern border, and crime (they did admittedly have other themes which were comparatively more minor: attacking teachers, school administrators, "woke" corporations, elections officials, abortion rights, and of course L.G.B.T.Q. rights -- especially the "T" in that). But as time passed, all the pandemic restrictions were lifted and nobody really cared about them any more (for the most part) -- the public wanted to put the entire experience in the rear-view mirror. Then Republicans were given a new issue to run on, as inflation hit multi-decade highs. The price of gasoline and everything else became a political bludgeon to hit President Joe Biden and his Democrats with. This may have only had limited effect though, because by the time the election rolled around the price of gas was way down and even the inflation rate had started to dramatically fall. Things looked like they were getting better, not worse, which certainly served to dampen the effectiveness of it as a political weapon. In any case, that's what Republicans settled on for the end of the campaign season: high crime rates, high inflation, high gas prices, and the southern border/immigration.

Now that they've taken control of the House, what have they voted on or teed up for upcoming votes? Absolutely nothing on crime and/or law enforcement. Absolutely nothing on inflation. The only bill they've passed on gas prices would actually make prices go up further during a crisis, because it would tie the hands of any president to improve the situation by releasing gas from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And, finally: absolutely nothing on the border (at least "yet," that they can all agree upon -- they are at least working on this one).

Let's take a look at these, one by one. Many major crime rates actually decreased last year, contrary to the Republican fearmongering:

Despite being hyped endlessly on right-wing media and featured in innumerable mainstream reports, crime rates fell, according to the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice. Its figures show "the number of homicides in 2022 was 4% lower than counts recorded in 2021, representing 242 fewer murders in the 27 cities that publicly report monthly homicide data." Although the homicide rate was higher than pre-pandemic levels, homicides are nevertheless at "about half the historical nationwide peaks in 1980 and 1991."

Other good news: Aggravated assaults are down, as are drug crimes. However, "Robberies (+5.5%), nonresidential burglaries (+11%), larcenies (+8%), and motor vehicle thefts (+21%) all increased from 2021 to 2022. Residential burglaries fell by 2%."

Quite plainly, the GOP (and media) hysteria surrounding crime does not correspond to reality. The real-world picture is at worst mixed, with violent crimes against people declining and property thefts rising -- perhaps a sign of return to more normal work patterns and the end of shutdowns.

The picture's not perfect, in other words (it rarely if ever is), but it's certainly not the apocalyptic lawless hellscape Republicans had hyped. And as for law-and-order in general, one of the first bills out of the gate would have been to defund some cops -- I.R.S. enforcement agents in particular, who look for tax fraud. There simply are no measures being seriously discussed in the Republican caucus to do anything to reform policing or "fight crime" or any of the rest of it -- they just have no plan for doing so. And they're certainly never going to pass any new gun-safety legislation, that much is a given.

On inflation, the Republicans have proposed nothing to directly bring inflation down because of a fact they conveniently glossed over while campaigning on the issue -- they don't really have this power to begin with. They are not the Federal Reserve or the Treasury. They cannot interfere with the Fed at all, thankfully, since it was set up to be independent of all politics (whether coming from the White House or from the Capitol). The Fed has dramatically hiked interest rates but now seems on the verge of at least slowing these efforts down in a big way in their next announcement, for the simple reason that inflation is indeed coming down and has been for months. This has (so far) happened without a huge impact on unemployment or economic growth in general. The fabled "soft landing" seems eminently possible, in other words. Inflation could return to normal levels without sparking a recession, and the Fed could continue to monitor the situation and perhaps even begin to drop interest rates back down a bit if necessary.

But again, Congress will have nothing to do with any of that. Instead, their "bait and switch" on inflation is to read their election as a mandate to slash federal spending. Even though they've already passed a bill (that I.R.S. measure) that would increase the deficit and the national debt substantially. Not a great start, in other words. But they're teeing up some major drama over raising the debt ceiling, which will no doubt end in catastrophe for them in one way or another. They'll wind up with little to show for their efforts other than enraging much of the public over their hostage-taking tactics. Which they (once again) simply don't seem to realize. Slashing the federal budget wouldn't have much tangible effect on inflation, but it might just create a recession out of thin air. Again, not a great start for the inflation-fighters.

Gas prices had dramatically fallen by the time of the election and they continued to fall through the rest of the calendar year as well, but they are now on the rise once again. However, Republicans' only answer to high gas prices is "Drill, drill, drill!" which may make their oil company benefactors happy but won't reduce the price of gasoline for years to come -- if at all (there are thousands upon thousands of drilling leases which have already been awarded to corporations who are not drilling them currently, so adding more might not make any appreciable difference whatsoever). And the bill they did come up with to tie the hands of presidents (and the S.P.R.) would have added at least 40 cents to the price-per-gallon at its peak under Biden (the national average would have been $5.40 or more instead of the $5.00 it did hit last summer, to put this another way). So don't look for any magic solution on gas prices to appear out of the Republican House any time soon.

On the subject of immigration and the border, the Republicans actually are trying to move a rather Draconian plan, but some GOP House members are balking at how extreme (and, likely, how ineffective) it would be. But they'll at least be holding as many hearings as possible on the issue, to browbeat all the Biden appointees who are responsible for the southern border and immigration.

Which, really, is about all we can expect from the GOP House. Investigations. Lots of investigations. With zero interest in actually producing any legislative solutions to anything, but with lots and lots of interest in just tarring Biden and all Democrats with as many political smears as they possibly can think up. It's what Republicans excel at, after all.

The House's real agenda consists of investigating, first and foremost:

Hunter Biden's laptop and any other Biden family members they feel like, in some "Biden Derangement Syndrome" way of proving their conspiracy theory that ol' Joe is the capo-di-tutti-capi of the "Biden crime family."

Next in their sights will be Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is guilty of trying to save millions of Americans' lives by giving expert advice to the American people that contradicted the delusional ravings of Donald Trump. This crime is unforgiveable to today's Republicans, and they aim to get to the bottom of it!

On the subject of the border, the GOP's answer is to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Knowing full well that: (1) he hasn't done anything remotely impeachable; and (2) he'll never be removed from office by the Democratic Senate -- but impeaching him will make all the Republicans feel really good, so that's good enough for them. It won't solve any problem on immigration or any border problems at all, but again the Republicans don't really care as long as they do some political damage. Or at the very least have some fun among their caucus by impeaching a Biden cabinet member.

And then there's the center ring of the circus, the newly-created Tinfoil Hat Committee (or, as some call it, the "QAnon Committee"), run by moonbat extraordinaire Jim Jordan. This committee will look at "weaponization of the federal government," which (to them) means: "any federal agency which reacts to the possible criminal behavior of any Republican by investigating and/or charging the Republican in question." What Republicans intend to institute instead could be stated as: "Complete and utter amnesty and immunity from all investigation and/or prosecution for any Republican for any crime whatsoever, while Democrats (of course) remain fair game." In other words, the complete political weaponization of the federal government against Democrats. The Orwellian irony is strong here, obviously.

Jordan's committee will try to prove every conspiracy theory that has oozed up out of the slime on the far right, while it will also completely ignore the fact that the Department of Justice was actually weaponized by people like Bill Barr and Donald Trump. Jordan will also go after the House Select Committee on January 6th, for successfully exposing so much Republican dirty laundry. Now Jordan's on the case -- he'll be investigating the investigators with fervor!

If all of this wears thin, perhaps the Republicans will cycle back around to investigating Hillary Clinton all over again? It wouldn't surprise me a bit. Hey, the crowd always wants to hear a band's big classic hits rather than the new stuff, right?

What we'll all find out, as all of this unfolds, is how the public reacts to it all. Do Republicans have a mandate from the voters to spend endless hours chasing rightwing conspiracy theories? Do they have a mandate to threaten to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States of America in order to force wildly unpopular and drastic cuts in the federal budget upon Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer? Does the public actually care about Hunter Biden's laptop -- or anything else he ever did (especially considering the wanton and shameless cashing-in behavior exhibited by Trump's offspring)?

Or, conversely, will the voters become increasingly frustrated at the complete bait-and-switch from the Republicans -- their lack of any legislative action on crime, inflation, gas prices, and the border (you know -- the things Republicans actually ran on...)? Will moderate and independent voters become disgusted with watching Jim Jordan's antics on television, and baffled at the GOP's insistence on holding hearings on conspiracies which only exist in the heads of lunatics, madmen, and Republican politicians (please excuse any inherent redundancies in that list)?

It's an open question. The 2024 congressional elections may hinge on it, though, so it's worth keeping track of, while the three-ring circus in the Republican House really gets up to speed. Somebody cue the clown car, the show's about to begin....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant