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Ungovernable

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 4, 2023

Unwilling to govern

This morning’s headline Christian Science Monitor.

“Kevin McCarthy just found out in the hardest way possible that Nancy Pelosi only made it look easy,” Charlotte Clymer posted at Bluesky.

“Backwards, and in high heels,” replied Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel).

If House Republicans ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday was too abstruse a sign that they cannot govern like adults, bowtied Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, now speaker pro tempore, made sure cameras picked it up as he recessed the House until Tuesday.

The Republican House caucus is at war with itself. Eight Republicans led by Matt Gaetz of Florida voted to oust McCarthy on Wednesday. All eight are “traitors,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News. “All eight of them should in fact be primaried.” Ninety-six percent of Republicans voted to keep McCarthy, he insisted.

McCarthy, “who practiced a management style of doing and saying pretty much whatever it would take to get through the day,” did not make it through yesterday.

House Democrats cut a deal with McCarthy over the weekend to help him prevent his own MAGA caucus from shutting down the government only to see McCarthy go before cameras to blame them. In a fit of pique over McCarthy averting the shutdown, Gaetz and his reactionary allies voted to vacate the office under rules Gaetz and others forced McCarthy agree to in the January deal that made him speaker.

Democrats washed their hands of the GOP’s mess and would not come to McCarthy’s aid. All voted against him.

Clymer writes:

It’s hard to understate the history at play here. It’s not just that McCarthy is the first Speaker to be removed, but that he was ousted less than nine months into his tenure, the shortest of any Speaker who didn’t die in office. It is certainly not an overstatement to point out that this is a massive political failure.

It’s not just a failure for McCarthy but the entire Republican Party, who have been made to look disorganized, fractured, and clownish by a small number of GOP extremists. The GOP will undoubtedly suffer from this in the short-term, particularly with elections next month in Virginia and New Jersey.

Ungovernable

McCarthy said Tuesday he would not run again. Axios quotes several Republicans perplexed about what comes next.

“Frankly, one has to wonder whether the House is governable at all,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.).

“I’m at a loss … I don’t know who would want to operate under this set of rules,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas).

We have a lot of talented individuals in the conference,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) told Axios. But who would the MAGAs support? “Who are they going to accept? Are they going to attack him or her?”

Christian Science Monitor:

“Can you create a durable partisan majority? Maybe the answer is no,” says Matt Glassman, a senior fellow at Georgetown University. “There is a faction of Republicans now in the House who are willing to use all the tools available to block the agenda and undermine the policy process. When you combine that with the narrow majority, this is what you get.”

[…]

“With the slim majority that we’ve had so far, Kevin McCarthy has been a miracle worker,” GOP Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri said on CNN ahead of today’s votes. “We need a marriage counselor, basically, in our conference.”

Who’s next?

Which Republican would want to run this circus?

“President Trump is THE LEADER of the Republican Party,” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-MAGA). “President Trump should be our Speaker!” Greene posted, ignoring House Republican Conference requiring “elected party leaders who are indicted on felony charges carrying a potential sentence of two or more years imprisonment to step aside.” Greene is lobbying to be Trump’s 2024 running mate.

Politico reports that Ohio’s Rep. Jim Jordan is considering running for the job. So is Rep. Kevin Hearn (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Study Committee. Jordan would certainly be loud enough.

And then there is Stave Scalise, another frontrunner with Jordan. Scalise was diagnosed with multiple myeloma over the summer and has been in chemotherapy (The Guardian):

Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican whom some in his party reportedly want to elect as speaker of the US House of Representatives after the stunning and historic removal of Kevin McCarthy, was once reported to have called himself “David Duke without the baggage”.

Focus on revenge

The Republicans’ lunatic fringe remains in control in the House. Naturally, under McHenry Republicans are taking revenge on Democrats over Republicans’ own dysfunction. McHenry ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi out of her Capitol office by today. Pelosi is in California attending memorial services for Sen. Dianne Feinstein and thus was not in town for the vote to remove McCarthy.

Democrat former House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, 84, also got summarily booted from his Capitol office, per press reports.

Expect more of that. Republicans are both unwilling to govern and ungovernable.

Their skill at controlling narratives could allow them to blame Democrats for their own nihilism. In mere weeks, stopgap funding will run out again and they’ll have another opportunity to prove themselves neither able to govern nor to rule. At least, for those willing to see.

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