Last Wednesday, Republicans secured enough seats to confirm they will hold a narrow majority in the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress. Although the final margin awaits the final count in a handful of districts, it will be a single-digit total in the 435-member chamber, not the red wave result they had been banking on.
On Thursday, its incoming leadership team held a press conference to outline its priorities. You might imagine it had heeded the concerns of voters, after election liars and extremist candidates were repudiated across the country. And you could be forgiven for expecting it to unveil proposals to tackle inflation, petrol prices, crime, drugs, the border and immigration dysfunction — key parts of its campaign.
You would be wrong. Republicans don’t do policy. Americans are still waiting on their healthcare alternatives to Obamacare a dozen years later. Any day now.
Instead Republican lawmakers announced plans to launch a slew of investigations into Hunter Biden, the alleged persecution of the January 6 insurrectionists (but definitely not their violent attack on the US Capitol), support for Ukraine in its war to repel Russia’s invasion, Nancy Pelosi, China and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
That last one should be a doozy, given it was Donald Trump’s administration that signed the peace deal with the Taliban in 2020, released thousands of Taliban prisoners, and withdrew all but 3500 US troops from the country before leaving office.
Republicans have also vowed to impeach President Joe Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney-General Merrick Garland, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
On Friday, they sent letters to 42 White House and administration officials demanding testimony on border security, school board threats, and claims of bias within the FBI and the Department of Justice. “We expect your unfettered cooperation in arranging for the committee to receive testimony,” wrote incoming House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan.
After doing all they could to undermine House oversight activities during the past four years, their chutzpah is matched only by their arrogance.
This is Benghazi on steroids. For those in the bleachers, “Benghazi” refers to a terrorist attack on the US diplomatic mission in that Libyan town on September 11 2012. Four US personnel died, including ambassador J Christopher Stevens. In the years that followed, House Republicans conducted six separate committee investigations that found no evidence of wrongdoing by any Obama administration officials.
Despite this, they kept hammering their blame game. Then House majority leader Kevin McCarthy let the cat out of the bag when he confessed to Sean Hannity on Fox News: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
McCarthy’s on-air admission cost him the speakership in the subsequent Congress, which fell to Paul Ryan. Seven years later McCarthy stands on the brink of fulfilling his lifelong ambition. And he hasn’t changed one iota. If anything, he will be even more prone to political games due to the GOP’s wafer-thin majority. He will be captive to the fringe fanatics’ bidding, and will do as they demand to retain their support.
John Boehner, his predecessor from 2011 to 2015, found himself hostage to the extremists of the far right Freedom Caucus when he wielded the gavel, and that was despite commanding majorities exceeding 30 seats throughout his tenure. Boehner called them anarchists: “They can’t tell you what they’re for. They can tell you everything they’re against … They want total chaos. Tear it all down and start over. That’s what their mindset is.”
Now they’re back and ready for battle. Far from toning down their antics, bombastic blowhards like Jordan and QAnon conspiracist Marjorie Taylor Greene have been ramping up their rhetoric. Greene and her colleague Paul Gosar were stripped of their House committee memberships for promoting violence against Democrats.
Rather than denouncing their conduct, McCarthy pledged to retaliate when Republicans regained power. Now he has followed through on his threat, declaring he will deny committee assignments to Representatives Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar in the next Congress. This is naked political retribution, an opening salvo of the next two years of nonstop negativity.
What will this mean for the Biden administration and the United States? The short answer is more conflict and political gridlock. The longer answer is that it will hurt the Republicans more than the Democrats. Voters signalled in the midterms that they are tired of the culture wars and conflict. They want government to offer practical solutions that will help improve their lives. Republicans refuse to accept this. Instead they have decided belatedly that Donald Trump is their problem and all they have to do to win again is jettison him. As if he’s about to let that happen. After lashing themselves to him for the past six years, their fates are intertwined.
Meanwhile, with their control of the Senate intact, Democrats will continue confirming federal judges at a record rate. They will conduct orderly oversight and pass legislation supported by the mainstream American majority. These bills will be dead on arrival in the House, but that will only highlight the distinctions between the parties in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. Democrats will present as the party of governance. Republicans will strut as the party of grievance.
As supply chains unravel and interest rate rises bite, inflation will subside. Corporations have already grabbed their price gains amid the confusion, limiting additional profiteering ahead.
While Congress stalls, the massive infrastructure, technology and climate investments legislated during the past two years will begin to roll out. These projects will offer plenty of ribbon-cutting opportunities for Democrats.
Everything now is about the 2024 contest. Biden looks all but certain to run again and Trump has said he will run too. For all the talk of potential rivals for the GOP nomination, none has put their hand up. Republicans are lining up a rerun of their 2016 playbook. The sequel is unlikely to match the original.
Republicans have surrendered any right to be regarded as a legitimate political party. The GOP, particularly in the House, is just a ragtag bunch of extremists out for revenge. Kevin McCarthy and Co will pursue their ridiculous agenda of impeachments, investigations, subpoenas etc while the Mar-a-Lago megalomaniac breathes down their necks. The next two years will be hell on wheels while a variety of egos on steroids tear each other apart in an orgy of self-promotion.
If you doubt that, just imagine Marjorie Taylor Greene shrieking at Kevin McCarthy about Jewish space lasers and the Gazpacho Police while the latter curls up in the foetal position in the corner of his office. McCarthy has all the depth of a puddle. Donald Trump, growing ever more unhinged as he tries desperately to stay out of jail, will take gutless little Kevin out of his pocket every now and then, rip off another shred of whatever remains of his dignity, and prop him up in front of a camera to issue another Trumpist diktat.
The midterm election results have exposed the stupidity and lack of integrity at the heart of a party that has placed fealty to a discredited, completely incompetent former president before renewal, before policy development, and before responsibility to the nation.
They’ve made themselves the Trump Party, which, for the Democrats, is a gift that keeps on giving.
“Republicans have surrendered any right to be regarded as a legitimate political party” … and the LNP are following their playbook
When you say that the GOP have lost any right to be regarded as a political party what can you mean. Plainly a large number of voters disagree.
Legitimate political parties actually have policies. Read the article again…“Republicans don’t do policy.” Those voters you’re talking about aren’t interested in a political party, they want a Trump-led vendetta.
“Those voters” can vote for any candidate they want for any reason they want. This is the nature of liberty in a democratic republic. This is something that you British do not understand.
Your claim, and that of the article, that Republicans don’t do policy is not true. I regard it as no more than anti American British propaganda.
So where are the Republican policies “to tackle inflation, petrol prices, crime, drugs, the border and immigration dysfunction”? All we’re hearing is “Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden!”
Oh, and by the way, I’m not British. Although I’m puzzled by your apparent belief that the Brits don’t understand the concept of voting in a democracy. It suggests that you’re extremely ignorant about Britain.
Inflation is a problem for Democratic voters, not Republicans. The GOP policy on inflation is to continue as it is.
The GOP policy on “petrol”, i.e. gasoline, prices is to open up more leases both onshore and offshore.
The GOP policy on crime is to support the Second Amendment.
The GOP policy on drugs is to support the Second Amendment.
The GOP policy on the border is to build a wall.
You Brits may only hear “Hunter Biden”. I suspect that’s a problem for your media to address. In the US there is going to be an investigation of President Biden’s possible corrupt dealings. This is right and proper.
With media support eg. not holding the GOP to account, but focusing upon Democrats real &/or imagined faults, can only work for so long, eg. the ‘red tsunami’ myth promoted as polling fact did not eventuate.
if you ask an American that doesn’t watch Fox news, none of the planned investigations make any sense and the obsession with Hunter Biden seems bizarre given the positions given to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kutchner and Trump’s habit of sending events to his hotels. Even when GOP say they want to impeach Biden, none of them can actually answer the simple question, for what? it’s just a vague assertion of wrong doing.
Now, they cannot even tone down their rhetoric for a few days following the Colorado Springs attack on a LGBTQIA+ night club.
This is not just a GOP thing. Contemporary conservatism in the UK and Australia (and I assume Canada?) is also pretty much entirely defined by “pwn the libs” (adjust for local colloquialism). There is no other vision, and barely any policy that isn’t directly related to that ideal, or the further empowerment and enrichment of corporations and the super wealthy.
I suspect that to a large degree this is simply a product of the steady rightwards march of the historical left-wing “workers parties” which have left little room for conservative differentiation on economic policy, leaving nothing but culture wars to campaign on. Though it has also, obviously, left a gaping hole in the spectrum for progressive economic policy.
Yes, very good point. We need to remember that neoliberalism was institutionalised by the Hawke/Keating government here and it has been adopted as orthodoxy by all state and federal governments since. Moreover, it is paradoxical that the “working classes” are trending to vote for the extreme right, those who predecessors contributed to the decline of real wages and work conditions, and will do so again.
Rationality has gone out of the window in some quarters and it is difficult to find the path for its return.
Disagree with blaming Hawke/Keating, they did start reform a generation ago, but we have had mostly LNP governments federally since then with the emergence of US linked think tank policies and US like (consolidated) media methods inc. dog whistling immigrants, ‘greenies’, Labor etc. from Howard on…. including attempts to hobble unions, super, education & training, universities, women’s rights etc.
Keating is ground zero for neoliberalism in Australia. Howard might have banged the nails into the coffin of Australian workers, but Keating put them in there.
Disagree, too simplistic.
It was hardly simple.
One of many pieces: https://www.solidarity.net.au/mag/back/2012/50/labors-accord-how-hawke-and-keating-began-a-neo-liberal-revolution/
New Labor has been disastrous for normal people here, just as it has in the UK. That the Libs/Tories have been _worse_ in no way excuses that.
Does not pass the CRAAP test, 2012? Labor began something, but then you ignore decades of LNP rule from the late ’90s? You’d prefer a return to the 20th century of nativist conservative rule?
Agree, concise description that gets lost in the nativist libertarian PR mist of local media, still, promoting 19th century sociocultural tropes, often US GOP specific, as policy.
Happy to ‘own the libs’ but ultimately owned by MTG.
Best of luck Repulsives.
The late John McCain described the Freedom Caucus as ‘lemmings in suicide vests’, suggesting that they were no so smart but absolutely driven to stopping anything they did not like.
Why are they tolerated by the GOP? Because they are supported by fossil fueled Koch Network and are a channel of policy import &/or influence in the ‘owned’ GOP.
Similar links are seen in UK Tories’ pro-Brexit ERG European Research Group and the LNP locally, the ‘Wolverines’ who seem to promote similar being linked to the IPA.