Some members of the Republican Party have said that the party’s internal conflict has rendered the party’s House majority ineffective, calling it a “clown show” and a “dysfunction caucus” and giving the Chinese Communist Party political victories.
Extreme right-wingers, moderates, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and his nihilistic tormentors have been trading accusations for days, but on Tuesday, the bickering reached a new high on the south side of the US Capitol.
It is evident that the GOP’s ability to discharge the chamber’s most fundamental responsibility — creating a budget to govern the country — is at jeopardy, in addition to McCarthy’s potential loss of control over a position he has sought for years.
The Republican majority’s comical act of self-harm has the nation careening into a government shutdown with only a week until the next funding deadline. If the deadlock drags on, it could lead to furloughs for federal workers providing essential services, underpaid military personnel, and serious damage to an economy that can’t afford any more setbacks.
Voters may rethink their support for the Republicans if they see how a shutdown is caused by demands for large expenditure cutbacks by GOP hardliners that they have no chance of driving through the Senate or getting President Joe Biden to sign. More generally, it may cast new doubt on whether or not a deeply divided country, with an increasingly radicalised and performing Republican Party modelled after former president Donald Trump, can govern itself.
Additionally, the disorder could spread to other countries. The Senate failed again on Tuesday to pass a defence measure, raising concerns that current and future political disagreements could hinder US preparedness in the face of a challenge from a rising Chinese powerhouse. The House’s apparent reluctance or refusal to provide a new lifeline of weaponry and ammunition is threatening Ukraine’s fight for survival.
The root cause of the conflict
To keep the government running and buy more time to resolve a heated internal conflict over demands for major expenditure cutbacks by hardliners, McCarthy’s leadership team is still trying to approve a stop gap spending package known as a continuing resolution (CR). But the radicals may have the votes to prevent the bill from even reaching the House floor, and they will demand additional concessions if they do.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace remarked as she was exiting a conference meeting, “I don’t know how they will get to 218,” alluding to McCarthy’s magic number to pass a bill.
Chaos and animosity in Congress typically reach their peak right before the fever breaks and a novel solution emerges to postpone a problem by a few weeks. McCarthy has been holding off on giving up the CR in the hopes that this is the case. Given the current state of the Republican majority (the speaker can lose no more than four votes) and the deep divisions within the party, it is possible that past performance is an unreliable indicator of future events. The opportunity to shut down a government that many of them hate may win them points from base voters and the ex-president, and for a small but vocal faction of the pro-Trump conference, this could be the end goal.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), a seasoned lawmaker, lamented that uncooperative lawmakers may effectively hold the chamber hostage. His words were “frustrating that the place doesn’t work anymore.”
Simpson elaborated, saying, “We’re being dragged around by 20 people, but 200 of us are in agreement….” They insist on having it all their way. That’s not how our government operates, either.
Simpson’s remark summed both the realities of the GOP’s small majority and the radicals’ rejection of the whole idea of a divided government under the Constitution. Even though they have not garnered enough votes to take office, many members of the Republican Party in the Trump era are determined to use their position of power to undermine democracy.
What if moderate Republicans and Democrats joined forces?
However, several moderate Republicans in the House whose seats are up for reelection in 2024 are talking about forming an alliance with Democrats to extend government financing and perhaps even provide Ukraine with extra money, which could avert the crisis.
A spending plan that had support from a majority of senators in the Democrat-controlled Senate would need to pass the House through a complicated series of manoeuvres in order to gain passage in the upper chamber. It’s still a long shot, even with this esoteric explanation. First, there isn’t enough time until the shutdown ends to jump through the legislative hoops required by using the so-called discharge petition.
Therefore, it may be more feasible to terminate a shutdown through a deal between moderate Republicans and Democrats than to avoid one. In addition, the minority party’s Democrats would have to chose to align with the Republican lawmakers from states like New York that the Democrats will target in 2024. Giving the crucial Republicans on whom the GOP majority depends a victory could be a risky move. As an added bonus, working together might save McCarthy’s conference from looking weak and chaotic, which would be good news for Democrats.
Democrats, on the other hand, would embrace the publicity that comes with taking over the House chamber and making the speaker look even weaker. On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, from a New York swing seat, hinted he was open to negotiating with Democrats, raising speculation about a possible vengeance of the moderates.
Lawler has stated that he will “do everything we need to” to ensure that a CR is passed, even if “the clown show of colleagues that refuse to actually govern” does not want to do so.
In his own words, “the bottom line is we’re not shutting down the government.”
Hakeem Jeffries, the head of the Democrats, will meet with the nonpartisan Problem Solvers Caucus on Wednesday, suggesting that he is weighing his options. A temporary spending extension, financing for Ukraine, and some border security provisions are all part of the group’s bipartisan plan to keep the government running. However, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has called a conference to discuss their views on the budget negotiations, highlighting potential conflicts within the Democratic Party over any ultimate settlement.
In this period of hyper-partisan anger in Congress, the idea of a moderate uprising and cross-party bipartisan solutions from the political middle has long been discussed. Rarely have they paid off, such as when President Joe Biden was able to get his infrastructure plan through after his predecessors had failed. However, such attempts typically fail due to the incoherence of partisan logic. Members of the party will often use them as a bluff to get the attention of the more radical delegates at their conference. It would be a difficult personal and political choice for a small number of Republicans to break ranks with McCarthy, who helped them raise money and strategize during the midterm elections. They risk becoming an outcast on their own team benches as a result.
Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, the most vocal Republican critic of McCarthy, said, “If moderate Republicans sign a discharge petition with Democrats, they are signing their own political death warrant and they are handing it to their executioner.” To paraphrase, “it’ll be the very Democrats that they would be working with under that hypothesis.”
And the possibility that they might be responsible for the speaker’s ouster will weigh heavily on Republican moderates. A bill that received Democratic support in the House could be the final straw for McCarthy’s opponents and lead to a vote to remove him from office.
