Your parent’s Republican Party is dead. The center-right politicians that used to be the leaders of the Republican Party are now called RINOs by the forces that staged a hostile takeover of the party. And like many hostile takeovers, what is left is simply a brand name that is a shell of what it used to be. If the Republican Party was a business, consumers would simply gradually realize that its product and services had declined and would eventually switch to competitors. While the workers and customers of that company would suffer during the death spiral, it would have limited impact on the rest of us.
Unfortunately, a political party is not a company, and the death spiral of a political party can have significant impact on everyone. And we are seeing that play out in real time in Washington.
Once again, we are facing the inability of the Republican Party to be able to unite behind a leader. In a functioning party, the choice of a leader is an internal party decision, and, when the time arrives for the whole House to confirm the majority party’s leader, the members of that party support its chosen leader. Because the modern Republican Party is not really a political party and is instead a disjointed collection of individual attention seekers vying to be the most outrageous, it is almost impossible to get 218 Republicans on the same page.
(Of course, some Republicans are absolutely shocked that Democrats did not help keep Speaker McCarthy in office when faced with the rebellion of a handful of nut jobs. But the job of the minority party is to oppose the majority party. If the majority party wants bipartisanship, it has to make the effort. But during his nine months in power, Speaker McCarthy repeatedly showed a willingness to break agreements with the Democrats and would only seek Democratic support as an afterthought when he was unable to get 218 Republicans on the same page.)
As a result, we have a reset of where we were in January. On the one hand, you have an ultra-conservative member of the leadership (now Steve Scalise of Louisiana instead of Kevin McCarthy of California). On the other hand, you have Jim Jordan of Ohio representing the nutwing caucus. In any rational political party, Jim Jordan would have been kicked out of the party for his role in looking the other way as a coach while a team physician molested his players. He certainly would not be somebody who anybody in the party would want to be the face of the party. Whether we are looking at nothing happening on the floor while the Republican Party tries to reach an internal consensus or another multi-ballot speaker election, the odds of having a new speaker by the end of the week are slim.
If we were in a different electoral system, the Republican Party would actually be multiple parties (as would the Democratic Party) and these various parties would actually have to work out an agreement with each other to form a majority and elect a speaker. There would be a significant chance that rather than forming a coalition with extremist factions like the Freedom Caucus, the more centrist Republicans would be willing to reach a deal with centrist Democrats to form a majority. Under current conditions, the likelihood of Republicans and Democrats uniting behind a moderate candidate for speaker are slim.
If this was January, that would be one thing. But October is crunch time of the legislative session. While appropriations bills are supposed to be done by September 30, Congress has shown an inability to get the appropriations process done on time. (Maybe, Congress will again move back the start of the fiscal year, this time to coincide with the calendar year rather than continue with the current charade.)
And this time, the debate also calls into question aid to Ukraine. Many on the right, repeating the errors of their grandparents, do not see how aiding Ukraine is in the interest of the U.S. Almost ninety years ago, a young John F. Kennedy spent time in Europe while his father was the ambassador to the United Kingdom. As a result of what he observed, he wrote his first book — “While England Slept” — about the failure to timely prepare for and respond to the expansionist tendencies of Nazi Germany. While not fully equivalent, we are faced with the options of financially aiding Ukraine in its fight against an authoritarian and expansionist Russia or, eventually, being in a position where it will be U.S. troops fighting against Russa. And for those who ask, how much will this cost, the financial cost of aiding Ukraine is less than the financial cost of the U.S. sending its own troops. As for how long will it take, as Russia is learning, the idea of the short, victorious war is a myth. Maybe, Russia collapses internally due to its failure to quickly win in Ukraine. If not, Russia is big and powerful, and it will take time to force Russia to accept its defeat. This is especially true as a loss could lead to Putin losing power, and it is unlikely that he will just give up. Investing in the defense of Ukraine might be expensive, but it is a smart and necessary investment. America First does not mean America Only. While that reality may not make sense to the Freedom Caucus and its supporters, it is a lesson that we have learned repeatedly over history.
It would be nice to have a functioning House in which bipartisanship prevailed and things could get done. I am not holding my breath. I think things are going to get worse before they get better. Maybe the display of the Republican’s inability to govern will lead to the Democrats retaking the House in 2024. But for now, things are going to be ugly.
