Institutional anarchy prevails in the GOP House

The new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives had barely settled in when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen lobbed a hand grenade into the GOP caucus bunker. She announced that the U.S. could default on its debt this week unless the government takes “extraordinary” steps and Congress raises the national debt limit. This urgent need for action is a serious challenge to the new Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and his renegade band of institutional anarchists in the GOP-controlled House.

The big question now is whether the House Republicans are ready to rumble with the Democrat in the White House and the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. Members of the House majority need to decide whether they’re skilled legislators or simply agitators. The early returns indicate that the caucus is not ready for primetime.

If the battle over the federal debt limit is anything like McCarthy’s battle for the Speakership, the economy and the nation are in grave danger. His 15-ballot struggle to become Speaker set the stage for the imminent fight over the debt limit. To secure the position, he made concessions to the far-right Freedom Caucus that will limit the Speaker’s power and his ability to strike a deal with Democrats to keep the federal government up and running. His concessions made it easier for those who oppose him to remove him as Speaker as well as to install several far-right members on key committees. The prospect of a vote to remove McCarthy as Speaker during a government shutdown crisis should keep him awake nights.

House assignments to members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) demonstrate the newfound power of the far right in the GOP House caucus. She received coveted appointments to two key committees, Oversight and Homeland Security and secured the position on the latter committee despite her endorsement of outlandish and dangerous conspiracy theories. It’s worth a reminder that she was stripped of her previous committee assignments when Democrats controlled the House for offensive claims, including suggesting that the 9/11 attack was a hoax and that Jewish space lasers caused wildfires in the American West. She was, of course, one of the many GOP House members who voted to overturn the 2020 election results and voted against the impeachment of former President Donald Trump for his role in the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

A federal government shutdown would add to the bedlam that contributed to the lackluster Republican performance in the midterms that once held so much promise for the party. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said voters saw “too much chaos” in the GOP and that was before the contentious battle for Speaker. A government shutdown precipitated by a Republican demand for cuts that could impact Social Security and Medicare would seal the deal and firmly earmark the GOP House majority as the “chaos caucus” in Congress.

Every hero in a successful reelection narrative requires a villain as a foil. President Biden and the GOP House caucus fit the playbill.

The battle to raise the debt limit and keep the federal government open has clear implications for the 2024 presidential race. McCarthy’s decision to hand off the car keys to the GOP chaos caucus could pave a path for the president to position himself as the adult in the room and win his bid for reelection.

Democrats reversed the rising red tide in the midterms and won a clear majority of moderate voters worried about GOP extremism. And that was before the long and torturous fight for Speaker exposed the radical nature of his caucus. The new Speaker must find a way to control the Freedom Caucus and keep the federal government running or he will make it easier for the president to win a second term by positioning himself as the voice of stability in troubled and turbulent times. But the prominence of the hard right in the GOP House will make the Speaker’s job much more difficult.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is a likely 2024 GOP presidential contender, was one of the founders of Freedom Caucus when he served in the House, so he must answer for the damage the caucus brings down on the American people by weakening entitlement programs or closing down the government. His opponent for the GOP nod if he officially enters the race, Trump, is the presidential poster child for chaos and confusion.

The radical group in the GOP House majority seems willing to pillage and bring down the government of the United States, which would have a devastating impact on the economic recovery engineered by Biden. The Democratic fight to preserve these gains and the GOP campaign to reverse them would setup the president and his party well for the 2024 campaign.

The Republicans extremists don’t see the forest for the trees. Their holy grail appears to be shutting down the government and destroying the entitlement programs that Americans worked their entire lives to support. The Freedom Caucus might win those battles and lose the political war next year.

The House Republican majority will suffer the fate of former GOP Sen. Barry Goldwater, who led his party to a cruising defeat in the 1964 presidential and congressional elections and stated that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” It may not be, but it is a recipe for political disaster. Biden will likely play off Republican extremism and run as the centrist hope for moderation in America. He can even take strong progressive positions and maintain his moderate image because of the unbridled radical stands of his opposition. The Republican Party just continues to get in its own damn way.

Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. His podcast, “Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon,” airs on Periscope TV and the Progressive Voices Network. Follow him on Twitter @BradBannon.