Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melbourne. The top story in Washington tonight draws on a classic political reality, a phrase you may have heard. This is what democracy looks like. That can be an appeal, an argument, or a kind of protest, and lament to how democracy is going, which is how many view what is going on tonight as we keep track of some of the very first hearings of this new Republican Congress and some of the floor speeches defining the new agenda.

Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.

In Western Colorado, we call that a fun weekend.

Bottom line, socialism bad. Capitalism, good.

Sounds like you're prepared to go over the cliff if you have to.

Over the cliff.

Shut it down.

Drag Queen Storytime, where men dress up as women and read confusing books to children.

First, I thought you said dry clean.

Confusing, indeed.

Now, in all fairness, selected rhetoric or a few sound bites need not to find an entire party.

You could take other areas in history, find a couple sound bites, and that wouldn't be the whole story.

But the spats that we're seeing at the hearings, the often bizarre and sometimes quite downright hateful speeches, the talk of hijacking the nation's debt, these are, according to nonpartisan reports, the main things that Republicans have been doing so far in what is becoming their first month on the job.

Reports that the House under this Republican leadership is actually off to a spectacularly slow start,

if you measure by bills past, some dubbing it a Seinfeld Congress about nothing.

Some of the party's most vocal winners in that speaker clash are using their new powers to do

basically nothing, dredging up culture debates that actually date back decades, like demanding

extra resuscitations of the Pledge of Allegiance. You don't need to change the party rules

to ask to say the Pledge of Allegiance again, and I'm not sure who exactly

it helps, although here on the beat we love the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, it ain't serious,

and it ain't supposed to be. And let me be clear again, there are serious and legitimate debates

to be had, including within divided government, take immigration.

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