In America the Republican Party are in a bigger mess than their British cousins.
The Democrats control the White House and the Senate. The Republicans only control the lower house, and by a small margin, after a disappointing showing in the mid terms. That poor showing was largely due to selecting pro-Trump candidates who repelled voters.
The party who controls the lower house elects the Speaker of the House, which allows them to decide which bills get voted on. It is a procedural role, but also gets to set the agenda. With a hostile speaker and lower House Biden is limited in what he can achieve
The Republicans huge problem is that they are fundamentally divided. The majority are old fashioned Conservatives, but among them are a hard core of pro-Trump MAGA representatives. They reject mainstream Republican politics. .
But more fundamentally they reject the idea of compromise. The Founding Fathers designed the US political system so that one faction or party couldn’t rule omnipotently – the system required compromise. Without that Congress can’t operate. American voters embrace that tradition, which is why they regularly elect different parties to run different parts of Government.
Over the last few decades the Republican Party has increasingly rejected the idea of compromise in order to stop Government working. Devoid of any ideas of their own their only plan is to stop the Democrats from governing, and filibusters are used more and more regularly to stop progressive legislation. In an extreme recent case Senator Tommy Tuberville used his position on a key committee to stop the US Military appointing new senior officers in protest against something he was grumpy about.
In January, having taken narrow control of the lower House the Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy put himself forward for the role of Speaker. It took McCarthy 4 days and dozens of votes to be appointed as the authoritarian wing of the Republicans demanded more and more concessions. It became the most drawn out election for a speaker in 150 years
One of the key concessions was to allow a member to propose a vote to dismiss the speaker. Sure enough last month a group of hard right members forced McCarthy out in order to replace him with someone more unpleasant. One of the other roles of the speaker is the ratify the election of a President, so the pro-Trump MAGA faction wanted one of their own in the role. Some even proposed Donald Trump for the job.
Sure enough far right election denier Jim Jordan was nominated. And equally sure enough the Republican Party was too divided to agree on him, and he failed to win enough votes after 3 attempts. Mainstream Republicans are caught in a trap -if they move to embrace the MAGA loons they run the risk of losing their seat in next years elections. But if they don’t move far enough they will face a Primary challenge from some Trumpalike headbanger. Those who didn’t back Jordan received repeated death threats.
The balance of power in the House now rests with a coalition of remaining moderate Republicans and Democrats, who can block any MAGA candidate. This allows Democrats, and Biden, an opportunity to shape the agenda in the lower House to his advantage. Biden is an old man in a hurry, trying to push through as much legislation as he can before he stands down next year, and this helps him hugely. Biden is an expert in bi-partisan politics and there are enough Republicans in Democrat leaning states facing re-election who can be leant on to give him leverage.
The pompous posturing of the Trump far right has destroyed whatever advantage they had in the lower House, and has handed a massive opportunity to Biden.
This however isn’t totally good news. The world is in crisis, with conflict in Ukraine, the Middle East, and potentially Taiwan. With the lower house unable to act American foreign policy is unable to progress it’s objectives. This is great news for China and Russia who want to replace American influence and values with their own. I am not a huge fan of American foreign policy, but I would much rather have American values shape the world than Russian or Chinese. The MAGA hardliners would prefer a world run by Putin – a world where minority rights are held in contempt and a rules based international order is replaced by military force.
The chief idiots are in safe seats where they face little chance of challenge: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs. They behave like petulant children and yet they face no penalty for it, in fact the opposite – they get rewarded with TV appearances, likes on social media and campaign donations. The far right has an economy all of it’s own where dysfunctional posturing is lucrative. The Republican leadership have been cowardly in the face of these angry children like a parent giving in to repeated tantrums.
As more boundaries are jerrymandered it gets harder for voters to get rid of Representatives who have the backing of the increasingly extreme Republican base.
None the less voters are likely to punish the Republicans in next years election, and Trump himself may well be running for President from a prison cell. But this extreme authoritarian faction are here to stay.
And will continue to giggle and smirk as they trash American democracy.