Republicans tear themselves apart
Hugo Gurdon
Video Embed
The most important result of Republicans’ civil war over the House speaker job was clear before they even started voting. That’s because the main outcome is a deep self-inflicted wound for the GOP. Democrats were gleeful as they watched.
The GOP appeared to be shooting off a different toe with each vote. How do they think this looked to the public? Republicans have plenty of work to do on Capitol Hill, such as holding the Biden administration to account for its manifest failures, but their main task up to the 2024 elections is to show voters that they are a reasonable and capable alternative government.
They are coming up very short. Instead, they spat venom at each other and tried to pretend that this is what democracy is about. If they cannot govern themselves, how do they think they will persuade voters they are ready to govern the country? Some of them seem not to care.
The rebels against Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is the choice of 90% of Republican House members, looked worse and worse as time passed. At first, it seemed possible that they would accept concessions, claim victory, and move on. That option was open to them. But as McCarthy gave ground, the rebels raised their demands. The inescapable conclusion was that some of them were negotiating in bad faith — they wanted first to humiliate McCarthy and then to take his scalp.
They thus made it plain that they do not intend to be managed or governable for the next two years. The only possible interpretation of their demand that any single member be able to trigger a vote for a new speaker is that they want to make that position as precarious and weak as possible, beholden to whichever politician wakes up in a grumpy mood.
BRIAN KILMEADE CALLS REPUBLICANS WHO REFUSE TO BACK MCCARTHY FOR SPEAKER ‘INSURRECTIONISTS’
A central and revealing irony of the whole episode is that the rebels’ most notable early demand was that no legislation should be pressed forward for a floor vote without support for it from a majority of the majority. That is, the party leaders shouldn’t cut a deal with Democrats against the wishes of a majority of their own members. That was reasonable.
But if the rebels believe in respecting the majority of the majority, why do they not apply the same principle to choosing their leader? Most Republicans wanted McCarthy as their speaker. But suddenly it’s OK for a rump of 20 malcontents to thwart the preponderant will.
Republicans have time to turn around public impressions. A week is a long time in politics; the past week has seemed to drag on forever. So they have nearly two years to get over this debacle and show that despite a very poor start they are the party in which voters should put their trust.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But both the mood and the structural changes that the rebels have extracted in this fight bode ill for the GOP. Its divisions have boiled over in the most public way. And, to mix metaphors, they have made it easier for repaired rips to tear open again and again.
No wonder Democrats broke out the popcorn.