A Monkey Flinging Poo

House Republicans have forty-three days to get on the same page regarding funding government. That’s when the continuing resolution lapses. In the meantime, Matt Gaetz has filed a motion to vacate the chair and the House must deal with that first.

Many of my readers and listeners criticized me for opposing McCarthy in January. He’s an opportunist without principle who sticks his finger in the wind. He is utterly transactional. But Trump world, etc. supported McCarthy back then and many a friend expressed their “hurt” that I would not.

Now, as Gaetz ensured the GOP gets no spending cuts or border security funding, some of those who backed McCarthy originally are happily lining up with Gaetz now, with the clock ticking on a continuing resolution. Every day closer to the next continuing resolution makes it likelier the House GOP moderates cut a deal with Democrats.

Before you say that is inevitable, I would remind you those moderates originally allied with the House Freedom Caucus.

House Republicans put forward a Freedom Caucus proposal with 8% in non-defense cuts that funded the border and did not fund Ukraine. Gaetz led a small band of populists to kill it. Multiple other proposals were put forward that funded the border, but not Ukraine. Gaetz and his band of populists killed those too.

There have been more than one attempt at excusing Gaetz. He supposedly exposed something or stopped something. What he stopped was a deal that funded the border, did not fund Ukraine, and cut the government by 8%. Absolutely, the House GOP would not have gotten all of everything they wanted. But it was a strong opening negotiation position with the Democrats.

I have, at the point, realized that every politician gets a cult of personality and will have his defenders, no matter how indefensible. That’s where we are at as a country.

But, instead, of going with the Freedom Caucus plan, Gaetz ensured the GOP and Democrats together advanced a continuing resolution that kept the status quo, plus $16 billion in new disaster relief funding. Now, the Senate will send over a package that ties border security to Ukraine funding that will get the Democrats and a majority of Republicans on board. Both are now going to get funded. Government is going to grow.

What Gaetz has done is engage in performance to ensure McCarthy must rely now on Democrats to stay in power. That may delegitimize McCarthy for people on the right, but, as I mentioned, McCarthy is an unprincipled weather vane. He’ll stay and the Democrats’ hand will be strengthened. McCarthy had, in fact, aided conservatives. With Democrats propping him up now, he will have no need to ever placate the conservatives.

The seal clappers will clap for Matt Gaetz exposing McCarthy as the rest of us know McCarthy is, but McCarthy will stay in place. They’ll say it was all inevitable anyway, but McCarthy had thus far been willing to add conservatives to key committees, advance their plan for cuts, etc. Conservatives were getting something. If McCarthy gets Democrats to support him, conservatives will go from getting something to getting nothing at all.

So what’s the point? It’s all messaging with no substance — Gaetz gets to say McCarthy is the Democrats’ Speaker, when McCarthy (the most transactional man in the House) will rightly be able to declare himself a bipartisan Speaker betrayed by the right.

McCarthy could, of course, call b.s. on Gaetz. The kernel of truth that Gaetz has is that Congress should stop funding government through continuing resolutions. McCarthy could pledge to advance the individual appropriations bills. That undermines Gaetz’s position and strengthens McCarthy’s hand on the right without relying on Democrats. If McCarthy goes in that direction, he’ll be signaling he wants Republican support and won’t rely on Democrats. But that won’t placate Gaetz at this point.

It is notable that the ringleader of the McCarthy opposition in January, Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, is opposed to ousting McCarthy right now, comparing it to tossing the quarterback in the middle of the third quarter. He points out the clock is ticking on the CR. If the GOP cannot get on the same page, the majority of the Republican Conference in the House will grow government with Democrats. They will keep the government running. There is, right now, time to for the GOP to get on the same page. They showed a willingness to do that with the eight percent cut that Gaetz sabotaged.

So the question is how should the government stay open: cut or growing? Gaetz is ensuring government grows and has no guarantee he can do anything to McCarthy except strengthen the Democrats’ hand.

Meanwhile, the clock ticks on the next government shutdown and Gaetz has become a monkey flinging poo, holding the House and country hostage to a personal grievance against the Speaker masked as some sort of principle.