America just experienced the inevitable outcome of what midterm election voters delivered: an inoperable Republican House majority rocked by burn-it-down hardliners, a weak speaker and chaos that makes strong governance impossible.
Dramatic brinkmanship that narrowly averted a government shutdown on Saturday only opened new and even more turbulent chapters in a divided Washington.
The showdown between Kevin McCarthy and hardline Republicans brought the speaker to a pivotal moment after a series of previous efforts to find sufficient GOP votes failed. McCarthy stared down extremists and was forced to use Democratic votes to advance a bill to keep the government open for 45 days, a move that will put the job he craved for years on the line this week.
The root cause of McCarthy’s problem is that he leads a conference that is not a coherent political force, which means he will never be able to guarantee the necessary 218 votes to pass bills. On one side is a group of 20 or so Republican flamethrowers, many of whom, like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, practice the stunt politics and chaos of ex-President Donald Trump, who was cheering on a shutdown from the sidelines. The other flank of the most conservative House GOP conference includes more moderate Republicans. Their victories in last year’s midterms in districts President Joe Biden won two years earlier handed McCarthy the gavel and their fate will decide whether the GOP keeps it after 2024.
McCarthy’s tortuous efforts to wield power are also hampered by spending hawks and ultra conservatives from heavily pro-Trump districts whose power is only endangered by even more extreme primary opponents and whose voters sent them to Washington to cause as much trouble as possible.
These irreconcilable political realities are exacerbated by the tricky balance of power that…
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