The Republican Party’s war on itself has turned its inoperative House majority into a “clown show” and a “dysfunction caucus” and is handing wins to the Chinese Communist Party – and that’s just what some of its own members say about it.
Days of recriminations between far-right hardliners, moderates, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his nihilistic tormentors reached a new peak on Tuesday in extraordinary scenes of inter-party infighting on the south side of the US Capitol.
The legislative train wreck made clear that more is now at stake than McCarthy’s loosening grip on a job he craved for years and the capacity of the GOP to fulfill the chamber’s most basic function – setting a budget to run the country.
The Republican majority’s farcical self-harm now increasingly appears to be putting America on a path hurtling toward a government shutdown ahead of a deadline for new federal funding at the end of next week. This could mean furloughs for federal workers who provide basic services, that troops could go unpaid and the possibility of severe damage to an economy that can’t afford more knocks if the impasse is prolonged.
They view that as a win-win though. They get what they want: win. They shut down the government: win. As long as they can keep their base voting for them by blaming it on “the Democrats who are evil and didn’t compromise”, they’ll keep doing this.
And the more dysfunctional they look, the more it gives the general appearance that government itself is dysfunctional. They’re making the government as dysfunctional as they say it is.
Except the infighting is so bad they can’t even get to a place where they’re offering a deal to Democrats. That’s almost impossible to spin to the positive except to only the most extreme elements.
Let’s be honest here, they can come up with the most insane reason this is still the Democrat’s fault and their voter base will not think twice about it.
A reason isn’t even necessary, insane or otherwise. They’ll just say “they caused this. Look what they did,” and that will be good enough for a lot of people.
“The democrats stole the shutdown” or something like that.
My dad thinks when the stock markets goes up it’s because good, wholesome Republicans did it, and when the stock market goes down it’s because the evil malicious democrats are desperatly trying to destroy the country. So, the reasoning isn’t actually important with these people. “Democrats did it” is all they need to hear.
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It doesn’t matter. The goal is to just make things worse so they can blame the Democrats before the next election. That’s always the goal.
They don’t care whose fault it is. Perceived infighting now doesn’t matter. They know that they can spin the narrative any way they want for the benefit of their voters in the general election.
Things just need things to be shitty in time for the general election, so they can blame Democrats. Because making things shitty is much easier than fixing things. It’s a winning strategy.
I agree with you in sentiment, but historically, it has always gone poorly for Republicans when they cause a shutdown.