Column: Has the Republican Party proved to be so anti-government that it cannot govern at all?
Nothing I could write here about House Republicans and the cannibalism that has paralyzed Congress, amid international crises and the threat of a government shutdown, could be worse than what the Republicans are saying about themselves, and to one another, as they head into a third week divided over who should be the House speaker.
Worst of all are the profanity-filled death threats streaming in from the Republicans’ radicalized voters, whipped up by right-wing media figures and groups including the gun lobby. At least one Republican’s wife now sleeps with a loaded gun. Another had a sheriff assigned to his daughter’s school.
This broken party has given frightening new meaning to the old saw about forming a circular firing squad.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
All because a minority of House Republicans finally showed some spine and on Friday blocked Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio — a party-busting vandal, Jan. 6 seditionist, alleged enabler of sexual abuse, would-be impeacher of President Biden and all-around, far-right “legislative terrorist” (a fellow Republican’s words, not mine) — from getting the most powerful job in Congress.
But rejecting Jordan, as welcome as that is, still leaves a vacant speakership. And as any Republican will tell you, no one in their House majority can win the gavel as things stand.
This saga — from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster earlier this month, through Republicans’ failure to rally around House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, to Jordan’s humiliation after a third failed vote Friday — has exposed for the world just how bad things have gotten for the Republican Party: It has grown so anti-government that it can’t even govern its own caucus in the House, the one institution where it holds power.
And that’s because so many in the party — elected officials and voters — won’t be led. Republicans have the majority in the House, but it’s a majority in name only. In reality, the House Republicans are an amalgam of competing factions, from right to far-right to extremist, and party members genuinely loathe one another more than they dislike Democrats.
Jordan-the-bomb-thrower might ultimately win the speakership of the House. But you have to believe Republicans know better than to buy his revamp.
Conservative media and social media stardom have turned even the most junior and otherwise inconsequential figures — say, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, the architect of this speaker-less anarchy — into power brokers who insist on having their sway. Like-minded conservative voters — small-dollar donors steeped in Fox News — bankroll the chaos agents; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, that Georgia peach of a provocateur, is among Congress’ most successful fundraisers.
Here’s how insurgent and “Beetlejuice” fan Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado explained why House Republicans have failed to agree on a speaker: “There are 224 alpha males and alpha females who are here in the Republican Party. We are here because we convinced hundreds of thousands of people that we are leaders.”
No matter how this speaker mess ends — and it must somehow end — that perverse reward system will remain. And the House under Republican “leadership” will be all but ungovernable through the 2024 election.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a similarly thin Democratic majority yet managed to keep her party factions united and to shepherd into law major legislation, some of it bipartisan. But here’s the difference: Democrats believe in governance. Too many Republicans do not; their credo has shifted over the last quarter century from small government to anti-government. We’re watching the result.
Squabbling with critics, blaming the media, stacking the courts — it’s no way to run a country, whether in Israel or the U.S. And it’s a distraction from real threats.
Again, take it from a Republican: “Frankly, it doesn’t matter who the speaker is,” Rep. Mike Lawler of New York said, “because if we [Republicans] can’t govern as a group, as a conference, it doesn’t matter.”
Jordan, true to his brand as a belligerent, on Friday insisted on a third House vote for speaker. As widely predicted, he lost by even more votes than on the earlier ballots. He and his allies talked of pressing his candidacy through the weekend; after all, McCarthy was elected in January on the 15th ballot. But in a closed-door caucus and with secret ballots, Republicans voted to yank Jordan’s nomination as speaker.
His refusal to accept that he was not going to be speaker until the reality was forced on him was hardly a surprise. Jordan still won’t concede that Donald Trump lost reelection. He declined to do so yet again at a news conference Friday morning. His stubborn opposition to democracy — that’s what it is — only underscored why Jordan should never be the speaker.
The sad fact, however, is that Jordan’s reprehensible role as Trump’s chief congressional lieutenant in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection wasn’t even much of a factor in opponents’ thinking. Nor was the fact that as speaker, this unrepentant election denier could have sabotaged the certification of the 2024 presidential vote if the Republican lost.
If Republicans choose Ohio Rep. Jordan to be speaker of the House, the person second in line for the White House would be a guy who actively sought to overturn a free and fair election.
Instead, the reasons Jordan’s foes gave were personal, political or both. Some blamed him for stoking the death threats against them and their families. One, Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia, said Republicans don’t “need a bully as the speaker.”
But they need someone — the country needs someone — so Congress can function. Government funding runs out Nov. 17. Biden is sending a request for aid to Ukraine and Israel. Other essential legislation, including agriculture and defense bills, are pending.
Many Republicans are trying to shift the blame for the fiasco onto Democrats because they all opposed McCarthy and then Jordan — as if Republicans would’ve voted to retain Pelosi had an insurgent Democrat ever moved, like Gaetz did against McCarthy, to unseat her.
But they know the blame actually lies with themselves — thus the name-calling and near-fisticuffs.
They need to come together, if only temporarily. And then voters should fire them in 2024.
Get the latest from Jackie Calmes
Commentary on politics and more from award-winning opinion columnist.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
