Russell Berman’s column for The Atlantic yesterday, Speaker In Name Only, poses the question: what next? As you can probably guess, the answer isn’t pretty. Berman wrote that McCarthy gave the GOP’s fascist fringe enough seats on the Rules Committee to give the nihilists “an effective veto over most legislation that comes up for a vote. He’s committing the party to pursue steep— and, in all likelihood, politically unpopular— budget cuts while ensuring a partisan brawl over the debt ceiling that could damage the nation’s economy…McCarthy’s struggle to lock down the speakership illuminated just how much of a challenge any Republican would have in leading a narrow, deeply divided majority. But his capitulation to the far-right holdouts could make the House all but ungovernable. For many, if not most, of the renegades, that was precisely the point. They saw the modern speakership, whether in Republican or Democratic hands, as a vessel for corrupt deals that resulted in too much spending and a bloated federal government. If a by-product of decentralizing power in the House is dysfunction, they reasoned, so be it.”
Most Republicans seem perfectly fine with the outcome even gif a tiny handful of mainstream conservatives are a bit disgruntled. Berman names one: Tony Gonzalez, who represents swing district in south Texas and who says he’ll vote against the rules package. If you can round up 4 or 5 votes from his colleagues— say some combination of Don Bacon (NE), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), David Valadao (CA), Chris Smith (NJ), David Joyce (OH), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Young Kim (CA), Brian Mast (FL), Nancy Mace (SC), Dusty Johnson (SD), Nicole Malliotakis (NY), Mike Simpson (ID), Mike Garcia (CA), Maria Salazar (FL)— he could potentially undo all, or at least some of, the damage McCarthy did last week in his relentless quest for the gavel. The chances of that happening: zero, without a wink and a nod from McCarthy, who would never risk it.
With the speaker’s gavel in hand, McCarthy will soon find out whether it was all worth it. To end the crisis, he cut a deal that essentially traded away a sizable chunk of power from the position, placing the new speaker at the mercy of the very hard-liners who had thwarted him.
…Ask most House Republicans what they realistically hope to do over the next two years, and the answer is some variation of the phrase “hold Joe Biden accountable.” In the near term, that means issuing subpoenas and holding hearings focused on everything from the administration’s southern-border policy to Hunter Biden’s personal life and business dealings. Some members of the House GOP conference want to pursue the impeachment of Biden Cabinet officials such as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and potentially even the president himself, but it was already questionable whether Republicans could muster the votes for those moves with such a small number of votes to spare.
McCarthy must confront how to raise the debt ceiling and how to keep the government open when the current fiscal year ends on September 30. His opponents have extracted promises that he’ll seek deep spending cuts alongside each task, which will undoubtedly be opposed by Democrats, who hold an equal share of power in the Senate and in the White House. Even before reports of his concessions were confirmed, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, issued a statement warning that the GOP’s proposed budget cuts were “all but guaranteeing a shutdown.”
Democratic p.r. strategist Max Burns came right to the point: “McCarthy is the consummate example of the spineless Washington animal, a career climber who adopts principles more out of convenience and expediency than due to any deeply-felt sense of morality” and, in short, McCarthy has already lost. He finally grasped the speaker’s gavel on the 15th vote “but he lost the influence game that truly makes the Speaker of the House an effective legislative force” while being bullied “into adopting a hard line on federal debt ceiling negotiations. In language initially tweeted out by Washington Times National Political Correspondent Susan Ferrechio, McCarthy’s new line effectively slams the door on any debt ceiling agreement with House Democrats. If that’s the case, McCarthy would likely preside over the first-ever U.S. default on its government debt. That’s… really bad for a number of reasons, not least because a federal default would devastate the dollar and spread economic contagion across the world. Or as Republicans call it, ‘governing.’”
It was destined to play out like this, even before Matt Gaetz proved that he could hold together a legislative coalition on nothing more than unrestrained disgust for McCarthy’s Beltway sliminess. Once it became clear Republicans would win the House, one of McCarthy’s first decisions was to bring former MAGA darling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene into his inner circle. Like the ambitious Sejanus offering to lighten the leadership load of a weary Emperor Tiberius, Greene was only too happy to ingratiate herself into the halls of actual power.
…Greene hasn’t made a secret out of the fealty she expects from a Speaker McCarthy. In October, Greene said this to the New York Times:
“I think that to be the best speaker of the House and to please the base, he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway,” she predicted in a flat, unemotional voice. “And if he doesn’t, they’re going to be very unhappy about it. I think that’s the best way to read that. And that’s not in any way a threat at all. I just think that’s reality.”
In a fight between the Freedom Caucus and Marjorie Taylor Greene, McCarthy should be more concerned about Greene.
Given that McCarthy enters his speakership saddled with a historically divided party and lacking any enthusiasm from his House colleague, Greene is likely more confident than ever that she can call major shots— and kindly suggest major committee placements. Greene has the (correct) expectation that McCarthy wouldn’t dare deny her suggestions, for fear of sinking his speakership before it even gets moving. After all, now that any single Republican can trigger a no-confidence vote, Greene wouldn’t be above the kind of theater that sees her boldly declare McCarthy a traitor to Trumpism while painting herself as the loyal deputy forced to bring him down for the greater good of protecting MAGA ideology.
McCarthy lacks the ideological commitment or personal passion to credibly challenge Greene on his right or the Freedom Caucus on his far right. That will make for a lonely and ineffectual speakership, where his most consequential decisions are handed down to him by others. McCarthy is, effectively, a speaker without a voice.
For now, these are all compromises McCarthy was willing to make. That could be because he considers himself politically skilled enough to outmaneuver his influential enemies, or because he expects the MAGA movement to fall apart in the time between now and the 2024 election.
That’s all possible, but it’s a bigger political gamble than McCarthy has made in his entire tenure in Congress. In the meantime, the new Speaker of the House will find himself filling the unenviable role of a man destined to satisfy no one— least of all the loudest voices in his party. Kevin McCarthy could barely govern his own caucus during this interminable week of votes. Now he’ll face the much harder task of trying to govern the country.
