Rachel Maddow Instagram – Maddow: ‘This Congress is pitiful.’; Historically weak output from a vital institution – Rachel Maddow looks at the historically poor performance by the current U.S. congress and notes that while some of its figures may seem clownish and the overall disorder may seem laughable, Congress as an institution is vitally necessary to American democracy, and its degradation by the Republican majority feeds the autocratic slide that would leave decision-making to a single strongman.