House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is a man who stays in motion — enthusiastically greeting tourists at the Capitol, dashing overseas last week to the G7 summit of industrial world leaders, raising funds back home to elect fellow Republicans to the House majority.
But beneath the whirlwind of activity is a stubborn standstill, an imbalance of power between the far-right Republicans who hoisted McCarthy to the speaker’s role yet threaten his own ability to lead the House.
It’s a political standoff that will be tested anew as the House returns this week from a long summer recess and McCarthy faces a collision course of difficult challenges — seeking to avoid a government shutdown, support Ukraine in the war and launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
“They’ve got some really heavy lifting ahead,” said the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune, of South Dakota.
McConnell plays the long/subtle game. McCarthy can’t see past his nose.
Also, McConnell is in the Senate. To win a Senate seat, you need to appeal to your entire state. This has a moderating effect on politicians. You can’t win in most states by saying “Trump really won in 2020. We should hang all Democrats and seize the Jewish Space Laser!”
Meanwhile, in the House, you just need to win a small section of the state. This section is likely heavily gerrymandered so that you’re safe no matter what. In some of these areas, “Impeach Biden on the first day for the crime of pushing Trump out of office” actually works and can get those people into the House.
McCarthy needs to juggle these crazies along with more rational Republicans (that being a relative term). He could work across the aisle - teaming Democrats up with more moderate Republicans to get things done, but he doesn’t want to do this. Instead, he wants to only have Republicans involved which means he needs the votes of the crazies. This gives them more power than they should have.
The issue is that the crazies are so crazy that they would have no problem paralyzing the House if they don’t get their way. They pushed the Speaker election to eleventy billion votes just to prove to Kevin that he can’t govern without them. And in exchange for their (eventual) support, they got Kevin to agree to rules that say they can call a snap election for a new Speaker, whenever.
Republicans have spent decades telling people that government is the problem with everything. Then they got a bunch of people elected who don’t really believe government should be effective, because it only gets the way. These people really don’t care of they end up burning the place down ot not.
Insightful comment