You Can’t Negotiate With People Who Don’t Want Anything But To Watch Democracy Burn

Above: WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 04: Rep.-elect Matt Gaetz (R-FL) talks to fellow members-elect during the second day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 04, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images).

Mona Charen at The Bulwark gets it exactly right, It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy:

Here’s a funny thing about the Freedom Caucus’s insurrection against Kevin McCarthy, which [this week] denied him election as Speaker of the House on [eleven] consecutive ballots for the first time in a century. On the surface, it looks like the firebrands and zealots are in revolt against the GOP “establishment.” But the reality is that the Republican establishment is deader than dead. It’s hard to date its demise with precision, but January 6, 2021 is a good marker. That was a second date that should live in infamy; a date when, following a violent assault on the Capitol, two-thirds of the Republican caucus voted with the mob. The battle unfolding over the speakership is not between the extremists and the establishment. It’s between two camps of extremists.

McCarthy, like all of the members of the Freedom Caucus who are attempting to thwart him, refused to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. Like the Freedom Caucus, McCarthy has faithfully repeated the lie about the 2020 election being stolen. Like them, he has fanned the flames of conspiracism, pushed for an end to the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, helped Harriet Hageman defeat Liz Cheney in the Wyoming primary, and enfolded Marjorie Taylor Greene in a great bear hug. He’s game for impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas, investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop, and removing the magnetometers at the entrance to the House floor. McCarthy has been indistinguishable from House Freedom Caucus members when it comes to matters of civic virtue too. He failed to condemn the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, contenting himself with a private note to Speaker Pelosi, and was silent after Trump dined with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. He has threatened to remove Eric Swalwell, Ilhan Omar, and Adam Schiff from their committees as revenge for Greene’s treatment by Democrats. He has expressed skepticism about aid to Ukraine, vowing that there would be no “blank check.” What more could the Freedom Caucus demand?

In fact, as the clock ticked down to the vote for speaker, McCarthy was willing to give in to every demand of the Freedom Caucus, even including the “motion to vacate the chair” which would permit five members [he eventually agreed to one member] of Congress to call a vote for the speaker’s removal whenever they chose.

If there were an establishment GOP remaining, it would recoil from the positions staked out by the leadership of the Freedom Caucus. Andy Biggs, who led the caucus from 2019 to 2022, refused to wear a mask even at the height of the pandemic. He sought a presidential pardon for his role in the fake elector scheme. He voted against giving medals to the Capitol police who behaved heroically on January 6. He opposed aid to Ukraine on the grounds that the border with Mexico remains unsecured. And he voted against admitting Sweden and Finland to NATO.

Bigg’s successor as Freedom Caucus chair is Scott Perry, who voted against a House resolution condemning the QAnon conspiracy, endorsed the “great replacement” garbage, and played a major role in the attempted coup of January 6. His texts to Mark Meadows reveal not a conservative but a borderline nut. He forwarded links to YouTube videos suggesting that votes had been manipulated by Italian satellites and recommended that Jeffrey Clark, a fellow refugee from reality, be installed as Attorney General. Like Biggs, he requested a presidential pardon.

These views do not place the Freedom Caucus on the right. They simply place them outside the realm of reason. And yet McCarthy, the supposed avatar of the Republican establishment, has been willing to surrender to their demands. His flexibility has not been rewarded only because they don’t really have demands. They don’t care about policy. If they did, they would seek something in exchange for their support. They haven’t. There is no price McCarthy would not stoop to pay—but they don’t have concrete goals other than posturing as anti-establishment. There is no way for McCarthy to negotiate with people whose only aim is to be seen as opposing him.

It’s the logical end point of a party that has descended into mindless demonization—of Democrats, of immigrants, of the “deep state,” of the FBI, of the medical profession, of the “woke” military—and now of one another. It’s hard to see how they can be trusted with power.

Joe Perticone adds at The Bulwark, House Is Paralyzed Without a Speaker—Creating National Security Risks and a Shadow Shutdown:

As Kevin McCarthy repeatedly fails to secure enough votes to become speaker and the House of Representatives sits in limbo, Democrats say they are increasingly concerned about the risks to national security involved in a prolonged period without any active members or ability to conduct legislative business.

Currently, every elected member of the House has yet to be sworn in to office, leaving committee structures up in the air and creating a backlog of onboarding for freshmen and their staffs.

Lawmakers’ families who came to Washington for the pomp and circumstance of the first day, including the swearing-in of members, have grown exhausted waiting. House staffers have lamented they have no work to start until there’s a successful vote. Meanwhile, freshmen members have been prevented from accessing official House emails; some prematurely sent out press releases announcing their swearing-in, even though it has yet to happen.

A more serious matter is the committee work. Although most committees under a GOP majority are expected to shift the focus of their work, there is some committee work that should have continued over from the previous Congress and already been underway. Right now, however, members of Congress are unable even to view classified documents.This has some Democrats uneasy about the next few days—and if the speakership impasse drags out, potentially much longer.

“We can’t even do basic things,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Cal.) told The Bulwark. “We can’t conduct any oversight. You can’t have an entire branch of government simply not function. And we don’t have a House right now because no one’s even sworn in.”

“And the chaos on the Republican side is having real consequences for the country and it’s going to get very serious very fast,” he added. “Imagine if there’s some unexpected crisis either domestically or somewhere in the world and you needed Congress to act. We couldn’t right now because we don’t have a speaker.”

Lieu also painted a picture of a future speakership fight with even more disturbing consequences—if a dispute like this were to occur during a year in which Congress is charged with certifying a presidential election.

“With January 6th coming up, we should be reminded not only of their horrendous attack on our Capitol, but why the former president picked that day. It was to stop the certification of the Electoral College results. And so thank goodness we don’t have to certify any Electoral College results this week because we wouldn’t be able to,” Lieu said. “The American people should be asking themselves, two years from now, would you actually want a Republican House majority again.”

Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, joined Lieu in suggesting that Republicans are neglecting their duties and putting the country in a dangerous position.

“If God forbid there was a crisis we couldn’t respond to it in any way,” Nadler said. “Either [Republicans] do and they don’t care or they don’t understand it.”

The delays have already held up official national security business. Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chosen to lead the new Select Committee on China, said Wednesday that he was unable to conduct a scheduled meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Capitol’s secure briefing room.

[So] far, Republicans have failed to move a single vote in the speakership selection process, leaving not just McCarthy’s fate up in the air, but Congress’s essential responsibilities.