No Path Forward For Republicans

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

We've talked before about the Speaker's race, and if I'm being honest-I assumed we'd have a "wrap it up" article on the blog by now.  Patrick McHenry has served as the Speaker Pro Tempore for 11 days (and counting), since Kevin McCarthy was booted from the position by his own caucus, and it doesn't appear that there's a clear path forward for the Republicans.  I talked in my initial article about some scenarios, and how they might play out for the GOP, but we're still in a standstill.  However, my main point from that article (that the Republican Party is broken, possibly indefinitely) stands truer than ever.

Let's take a look at what's happened in the past week.  The initial round of voting after McCarthy both lost and then dropped out of the race indicated that two men would emerge as threats to take over as Speaker: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (LA) and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (OH).  Initially, Scalise seemed like the safer option-he was next-in-line for the position and was considered the more palatable of the two given Jordan's involvement with the January 6th insurrection & his association with the Ohio State University sex abuse scandals.  Scalise won the conference vote against Jordan 113-99.  But Scalise couldn't get the magic number of 217 members of his caucus to back him, as members of the House like Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, & Barry Moore all refused to back Scalise on the House floor, insisting that they'd vote for Jordan on the House floor, denying Scalise the required majority.  This resulted in him pulling his name from consideration.  After that, another vote came up between Jordan and Georgia Republican Austin Scott, which Jordan won 124-81 on Friday.  

But Jordan didn't bring the vote to the House floor, and that's likely because he, too, doesn't have the votes in his conference.  Though not as quickly as they did for Scalise, several members of the GOP caucus (Ann Wagner, Vern Buchanan, Ken Buck, & Mike Rogers) have indicated there is no circumstance where they will back Jordan on the House floor.  Republicans have, assuming all of the Democrats are in town, room for only five defections-with four publicly stating this, and 19 Biden-district Republicans who should be skeptical (bold prediction-if Jordan becomes Speaker, I think they all end up losing next November, even the ones like Young Kim & Nick LaLota who would normally be safe).  If these four stand firm, it's hard to see Jordan scraping by without at least a couple more defections.

This isn't how this is supposed to happen.  Conference votes like the ones that we've seen here are not uncommon, not honoring what happens those conference votes is the change to the norm.  In 2018, Nancy Pelosi had a conference vote whether she should stay on as Democratic Leader, with 203 Democrats backing her and 32 Democrats rejecting her, more than enough to stop her from becoming Speaker even though the overwhelming majority of her caucus backed her.  But in the end, 220 members (more than enough to get her elected) stood behind Pelosi, with 17 members changing from their initial rejection to back the choice of the conference, enough to get Pelosi elected.  The same thing happened with Paul Ryan in 2015-the choice of the conference eventually coalesced around the Republican Speaker nominee even though the initial contest didn't get him a majority.  The idea that you can hold up the entire House because you didn't like Paul Ryan or Nancy Pelosi was insanity.  You voiced your opinion, you didn't win, and you get inline.  That's how party politics works.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) & Nancy Mace (R-SC)

That this is still very much the case for Democrats (Pelosi managed to get a much smaller majority in 2020 similar to McCarthy's in 2022, but still won, even getting the votes of members like Cori Bush who initially were reluctant to back her) but not Republicans presents a logistical nightmare for the party, especially if they don't win the White House in 2024.  Because this my-way-or-the-highway look is what the Republicans have been dreading since Trump came to power.  Trump was the first major political player on either side in at least a century to clearly not care about party politics.  There have been candidates who might have had a grudge within their party (John McCain had maverick tendencies, Bill Clinton clearly disliked certain members of his party on Capitol Hill), but this was all inside baseball.  Publicly, they backed the nominees of their parties, period.  Candidates for lesser offices might not endorse when they lost a primary, but the presidential candidates...they got inline.  But Trump-Trump has made it clear through his time in office that he is the most important candidate, and now his acolytes like Matt Gaetz & Nancy Mace are doing the same thing.  Either they are going to win "my way" or no way at all.

This is not sustainable as a political strategy.  If, say, Lauren Boebert loses the Republican primary in Colorado, and says "it was fixed, don't vote for anyone" (I could totally see her doing this), it's clear now that Republicans might listen to her, and cost themselves a seat.  This is maybe the primary reason the establishment hasn't worked harder to beat Trump-they know it literally is "him or no one" in fighting Biden, and they'd prefer to win with him rather than no one.  But Trump is unique-in 2028, there won't be a unifying figure like him in the GOP and this turns the party into two parties.  It either forces the Trump wing (the dominant wing) to always win primaries, even though that wing is anathema in general elections in blue/purple states (just look at the Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, & Georgia last year for examples), or it means that moderates could have their right flank drop out.  It is very, very easy to see some of the figures in the Speaker battle running for president in 2028 if Trump loses next year (Matt Gaetz, in particular, feels a given, and Marjorie Taylor Greene or even Nancy Mace seem likely as well)-a 2028 where Gaetz or Greene are threatening to walk if their supporters don't get them on the ticket is a race that makes gets Democrats a third term.

The media has no clue how to handle this, because it's breaking the conventional "first do no harm" ethos that Ronald Reagan established for the GOP in the 1980's.  The Republicans have power, they are abusing it & misusing it, and the Democrats don't have a mechanism to stop them.  The media seems intent on blaming the Democrats for not finding a solution that's palatable to the Republicans rather than just focusing on the ineptitude of the GOP (David Gregory embarrassed himself saying as such to the point where he had to go private mode on Twitter he was so intensely ridiculed), but this isn't the Democrats' fault.  No Speaker in modern history has relied upon the other party to take the House.  Kevin McCarthy is blaming Democrats for essentially running against him (and doing it successfully not because of Democrats, but because of people like Gaetz & Mace not backing him from the right), and it's possible that the bizarreness of this makes that something he can sell to the American people (the media's "both sides" narrative is so strong that it's easy to see the average American voter saying "they're all bad-throw them all out!" rather than trying to understand the nuances of the situation).  But this is entirely the Republicans' fault, and it's possible that the only way they eventually get past this is by repeatedly, continually, losing elections until the Gaetz & Boebert wing get so tired of losing they're willing to compromise.  Because this...this absolute madness where every man gets to be a king...that's not going to win them an election.  And despite what the media says-the Democrats aren't in the same position, and are unified headed into 2024.  That could very well win them both the White House & the House, even with Joe Biden's low approval ratings, if the Republicans are not careful.